[Quigglez]

Open ended question, is there a solution? Inherently people trying to make money from their website either have to charge people directly with money for access or indirectly by having them see/hear ads. Advertisers inherently want their ads to be seen/heard, which means there is pressure to make their ads more intrusive. Yet the more intrusive the ads become, the more annoyed the person accessing the content becomes (and thus perhaps becomes more likely to get an ad blocker). The more people that block ads, the more the website needs to make from each person who isn't blocking ads (likely meaning additional pressure to make ads more intrusive). What path are we headed down? What happens when so many people are blocking ads that the amount of value needed to be extracted from those who don't block ads is impossible to achieve? Does the internet consolidate more?

I personally use ad blockers. Right now I'm browsing with Ghostery and AdBlock. I'm surprised that only 27% of people use them currently. Makes me want to check out my parents computers when I visit next and make sure they have an ad blocker installed. But back to the questions, does this mean that the contract between websites their visitors is inherently broken? Is the current situation a race to the bottom? Is that tenable? What's the alternative?

[coldpie]

> Open ended question, is there a solution?

Well, let's find out. Ads suck all of the air out of the room. If you provide your content through another business model, someone else can just copy your content and slap ads on it and make a few bucks. And because search engines function on those same ads, they're incentivized to send you to the spam sites instead of the real source of the content. If we kill ads as a business model, then we can start to explore other business models and find out what actually works.

> Inherently people trying to make money from their website either have to charge people directly with money for access or indirectly by having them see/hear ads.

No. There are other options. One example is the Patreon model. I pay for several creators who do not gate their content to payment. They make their content available to everyone, for free. I could view their content for free, but I want to encourage them to continue creating, so I pay them for it. Is it a viable option for every situation? I don't know. But the mere existence of ad-based business models means it's very difficult to explore non-ad-based solutions. For this, and a whole host of other reasons, using an ad-blocker is more ethical than not.

[xyst]

yea - it's called offering a product that is actually useful. Not this clickbait bullshit we see now.

"Cops hate these 10 tips that save you money. #6 will surprise you"

"Take a quiz to find out which Taylor Swift boyfriend you are"

[xKuni]

> Open ended question, is there a solution?

Regulation. It's a harsh measure, but I doubt there is another one. The last 20 years people tried to find alternative solutions. We have pay-walls, we have crowdfounding, we have various subscription models, I fail to see a solution that hasn't been tried, but yet every single year we get exposed to more ads. It seems extremly unlikely that there is something that could replace ads.

But what is the logical solution when there is a damaging thing in society that can't be replaced by healthy alternatives? It's regulation.

Now I know that a ban on ads seems unlikely. But I honestly don't think we have a choice. Because the alternative is that the ad-industry keeps creeping into every single aspect of our lifes, like they have done ever since their emergence. And with the advance of AR, smart homes and AI assistants this seems like a bad idea.

[cartesius13]

If any regulation about ads ever comes into existence it will be against adblockers, making them illegal or something. Or do you happen to have billions and power and influence to lobby like crazy?

[foxfluff]

That could happen, but it is a nightmare scenario. It would essentially attack the agency you and your browser has; in effect, it would obligate your browser -- and your computer -- to do as a server tells. Having full control over your own computer would be illegal. It also raises questions about whether such restrictions would cover your network. For example, would it also become illegal to null-route ad servers' IP addresses on your local network?

Of course, I wouldn't put it past regulators. In fact, copyright in EU comes close to doing exactly what the above would require.

[Quigglez]

Yea I have to agree. Although it'd be interesting to see some sort of regulation against advertisers, it's hard to imagine a situation where that actually comes to fruition. In all honesty although I don't like ads, sites are well within their rights to try as hard as they can to show them to me, so long as that doesn't extend past their website.

[xfz]

> > Open ended question, is there a solution?

Spotify found a solution that works for music.

[Quigglez]

So the solution is having the choice of either paying not to have ads or having ads? I'm not saying that is right or wrong, I just want to clarify.

Food for thought, I wonder if that works specifically for them because it's harder to block their ads. I.e. it typically takes a different level of expertise to block their ads, as compared to a browser extension (have to block their ad traffic on a network level). Or is it really something else about their product?

As a counter example, I don't pay for youtube premium. Definitely part of the reason behind that is because it's easy to block them so long as I'm watching in a browser.