[franciscop]

90% of the whitelist is not paid, and that 10% helps develop the program. Not only that, you are asked upon installation whether or not to allow for acceptable ads (which is ticked on by default, but still not such a controversial point as you make it sound).

[dumb-saint]

> and that 10% helps develop the program

Develop in what sense? uBlock origin is at least 10% better than ABP just by not doing that.

The _only_ thing people want from such a program is to block all ads and trackers. That's it. That's the feature list. You decide to compromise the single goal to fund further "development"? How does that make any sense?

[scrollaway]

> uBlock origin is at least 10% better than ABP just by not doing that.

That's if 1. you stayed opted into the acceptable ads program when you used ABP and 2. you consider all ads equally bad and harmful.

I didn't and I don't, and I happen to agree with GP. I use ublock, but I found a constant stream of false positives and false negatives. The worst is with popups actually; a torrenting website I used to visit started doing "on page click" popups and ublock doesn't block those; ABP does.

[franciscop]

And yet it's not trivial. Those programs have to be created and evolved as the advertising networks evolve. Now they block youtube videos when before they didn't. They will probably get those new FB ads soon. "the _only_ thing" is not as trivial as you make it sound. The tech evolves on both sides, so AdBlock tech should evolve too.

[dumb-saint]

And yet uBlock Origin pull it off without betraying its users. Go figure.

[summarite]

I don't mind paying for a service by letting them show ads, as long as those ads don't feature malware or are otherwise annoying/resource-straining/...

I hate TV ads and never watch TV as i find the ads intrusive. But taking the minor rewards from content creators that my presence can bring - when I'm benefiting from their content and cost them server resources - seems pretty unfair to me.

Here's your reason for populism and the disappearance of good journalism: no one is willing to pay or be even in the slightest inconvenienced.

[bigbugbag]

It seems to me investigative journalism is disappearing because journals got bought by large transnational corporations with agendas.

[morgante]

You need to get out of your box. Stop assuming you speak for everyone with such ridiculous statements as "the only thing people want from such a program is to block all ads and trackers."

I don't give a single hoot about tracking and want quality ads. Do I not exist?

[dumb-saint]

> I don't give a single hoot about tracking and want quality ads. Do I not exist?

Sure, people have all sorts of weird fetishes.

[summarite]

Interestingly you accuse the other side of being unreasonable when you are the one confusing reason and ideology. Good ads are not bothersome or harming you in a significant way. I prefer to see some ads rather than see sites that i benefit from go bankrupt.

Id prefer a tiny payment option - €5- 10 a year would give any news publisher more gain from having me as a user than bombarding me with ads (just the same way it works for Wikipedia) - but that option in most cases doesn't seem to exist. Or the flattr option to directly reward qualitative reporting and recreate good incentives (quality over clickbait).

[dumb-saint]

> Interestingly you accuse the other side of being unreasonable when you are the one confusing reason and ideology.

Nope, I said zero things about ideology. All I said was this: an AdBlock program is a program that block ads. That's what is reasonable to expect: that it does what it says in the tin. If an AdBlock program starts charging money to allow certain ads to go through, then it is betraying its users.

Some people want a program that filters ads according to some criteria of quality? Sure, I don't care. But it's not an ad blocker anymore, it's an ad filter. Right?

The only ideology in this discussion is coming from people who argue that the public has some obligation to accept ads or tracking in exchange for free content. I made no moral judgements, I just have a strong personal preference against ads and tracking, a lot of other people in my "box" or whatever the fuck it is do too, and this is why ad blockers became popular.

And let's be honest: people who claim to like to be exposed to "high-quality ads" typically have some vested interest in the ad business.

[greglindahl]

90% by lines or sites or 90% by money? ABP charges medium-sized websites through the nose -- and most startups qualify as medium-sized. Great business model, especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

[bigbugbag]

>Great business model, especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

And the leverage by its users who do not get paid them. IIRC ABP gets paid around a third of the advertising revenue from whitelisting the advertiser if it reaches 10m impressions, so the more users seeing ads ABP has, the more money they make.

[kuschku]

> especially given that the filter lists are made by volunteers.

Except, the acceptable ads list for larger companies can only be modified by Eyeo, and they only do it after being paid. It’s a racket.

[bigbugbag]

Are you sure ? It was supposed to be handed over to an independent board in 2016[1].

[1]: https://gigaom.com/2015/09/30/adblock-plus-list-of-acceptabl...

[kuschku]

Have you checked their blog?

ABP still is "evaluating" that, and currently has a beta where acceptable ads are handled by an ad network as intermediate, which validates the quality of your ad, and handles payment to get it whitelisted.

[greglindahl]

Oh, I totally agree that it's a racket. My point about the filter lists is that the block lists are made by volunteers. Not the acceptable ad list. Sorry that I wasn't clear.