[adrianmn]

As someone that has been involved in online publishing for over 10 years I have a strong opinion about ad blockers.

In my opinion using ad blockers is borderline piracy. Refusing the content creator his revenue by blocking his ads is little different than downloading music, books... without rewarding the creator. On top of that most of the quality content this days is on websites that have decent ads.

I am not trying to start a dispute if piracy is good or bad just wanted to express an opinion on ad blockers that many seem to miss.

[skue]

> In my opinion using ad blockers is borderline piracy.

Once upon a time I agreed with you... now I view all online ads as threats.

Unfortunately, marketing companies have gotten greedy and the degree to which they fingerprint and track us as we surf the web has gotten completely out of hand. This is an industry that cannot even follow their own watered-down initiatives like DoNotTrack.

And because ad networks use layers of affiliates, sites typically have no visibility nor control over what their visitors are being served. That's why you end up with a marketing company like Evidon buying Ghostery - just so they can help companies monitor the garbage on their own pages![3]

And to top it off, ads are now a common attack vector for viruses and malware that not even the big companies can control:

1. Just last week, Youtube was serving banking malware via its online ads. [1]

2. Last month Yahoo got a lot of attention serving Bitcoin malware via online ads on their site. [2]

I know that online publishing is important, and we need a strong press. But publishing desperately needs to find a new business model because online ads are a failed experiment and it's time to stick a fork in them.

[1]: http://labs.bromium.com/2014/02/21/the-wild-wild-web-youtube...

[2]: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/05/tech/yahoo-malware-attack/inde...

[3]: https://www.ghostery.com/faq#q15

[adrianb]

Also people shouldn't be allowed to change the channel on tv when the ad breaks begin or even leave to use the toilet! They should be forced to sit and watch everything or else the ratings of the ads will not match the ones for the show.

My point it: people mostly hated ads since they were invented. Be it by not looking at them on the street, changing channels on tv or installing AdBlock on your computer, they do their best to avoid them.

[adrianmn]

The TV ad example is a false analogy. If the page has ads that you don't want to see you can close it(no one forces you to watch it) or go for the toilet break.

I agree that people hate ads and people also hate paying for things that can get for free(piracy).

You guys are missing my point of ad blockers being borderline piracy and mainly try to justify your reason for using them.

[DanAndersen]

It's not a false analogy at all. Muting the TV, changing the channel, or leaving the room when ads are on all deprive the advertiser their desired eyeballs to target. I believe that if TVs had been invented nowadays the mute functionality wouldn't be allowed during commercials because it would be seen as interfering with a profit model.

In many ways, Web ads are worse than TV ads because they often aren't switching between ads and content -- they are experienced at the same time. Most Webpages with ads aren't a commercial and then the content, it's the content with the commercials at the periphery of your vision. This means that without adblocking, the user cannot make the choice to read the content undistracted by commercials as they can with TV.

A closer analogy would be if TV shows came with commercials playing (sometimes with sound or popups) along all the borders of a TV show, and it was considered piracy to put a piece of cardboard over that ad-filled border. Muting is no different.

[adrianmn]

TV and Web are different channels. I agree that the right analogy is blocking with a cardboard when ads are in show.

Is it piracy when crackers remove part of the software that secures it as that annoys people and they only want to use the functionality?

[DanAndersen]

To split hairs, I'd say that's not piracy. To me, piracy would be sharing that software (or receiving that software) to others who haven't paid for it. The security circumvention may be a necessary part of the piracy process, but I don't see that as the issue. Consider the scores of games in the past that have had draconian DRM schemes, which unnecessarily require always-on Internet connections or regular dialing home to some server -- maybe a server that no longer exists as the developers do not support the game. In these cases, modifying these impediments to the functionality without sharing the software wouldn't be piracy in my eyes.

[adrianmn]

Actually the correct analogy to ad blockers would be downloading a free trial/demo and cracking it for own use without paying for it - would you consider that piracy?

[J_Darnley]

If you, a site owner, wants to try and stop me from viewing your page when I block ads, don't run javascript, don't have flash, whatever it may be, you are free to do so.

Then you will be getting into the DRM war that many others are fighting and are losing.

[mindslight]

As someone who has used an ad blocker for over 10 years, I have a strong opinion about the ad industry.

Die out, go away, and let us get back to the point where the motivation to publish something on the 'net stems from the desire to share knowledge. To hell with the cacophonous status quo of doing the bare minimum to trick people into giving you their attention in order to fill their head with garbage for a fraction of a penny. And if hosting honest content using central servers costs too much to be sustainable, then let that dead-end approach leave us and make room for decentralized software to deliver information.

[netrus]

I dont get your comment. Not content delivery is expensive, but content creation Do you want a net without professional journalism?! Or do you prefer paywalls? Or donations?

I am in favor of a great coordinated blackout campaign by the large content providers. Dont want to see ads? Fine, pay a dollar via Paypal to see the site - or go away.

[mindslight]

The sheer majority of 'professional journalism' consists of:

1. Rewording press releases from industry/government. The actual writers of this content are being paid by industry/government, and the content itself is essentially an ad.

2. Soap opera designed to provoke fear or controversy, both "political" and not (see #1)

3. Emotional tourism fluff pieces to steal attention (see my original comment)

4. Pumping the latest startup fad (see #1)

5. Self-important circle jerks about the 'knowledge economy' and other superiority-assured deck chair distractions on the USSG (see #1)

6. Rewording of actual information that was not created by a journalist to be "more accessible", with the end result being a distorted oversimplification. This is essentially a subcase of #3 where the emotion is superficial "understanding".

7. Direct copying ("excerpts") of other 'professional journalism' with a link back, ad infinitum.

So no, I'm not terribly worried about losing something we don't actually have.

The occasional story that has genuine public interest (eg the hard facts about NSA) would be reported by concerned parties anyway. I doubt many of those ad views are paying the actual reporter, Snowden, who acted out of moral imperative. And while I'm happy the journalist middlemen are working to keep public attention on this subject, this is only necessary from being in a zero sum game with the above. These middlemen are actually delaying, redacting, and muddling specific technical facts on the current state of NSA's malevolence that would be quite nice for us to know.

[rcfox]

Personally, I find that people who directly depend on ad revenue contribute very little to my life. In the software industry, content creators who are paid to participate in the field tend to produce much better content than those who are paid to produce content.

[mschuster91]

The problem is that without adblockers the web is basically useless due to too many publishers becoming too greedy and torturing their users with sometimes dozens of layer,banner,popup,popunder and scareware ads on one(!) page.

[recursive]

I don't use ad blockers, and I disagree with your claim that the web is useless.

[adrianmn]

Do you see how that is in perfect connection with the reason people pirate stuff?

Anti-piracy main reasoning is that if it's too expensive(too many ads in your case) just don't buy it. The 2nd main reason is lack of availability(in ad blocker case - lack of sites with less ads that give you same content).

[username223]

So, just serve your "content" from a well-known ad server. That way, adblock will block it, and you get what you want.

[mason240]

I don't use adblockers and have never had any problems.

[mendelk]

ABP for Chrome has the "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" flag for precisely this reason: to reward creators who use ads deemed "acceptable".

This flag is checked by default.

More Info: https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads

[_pghu]

The problem is that "acceptable" in this context means "paid protection money to the ABP dev".

(see https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements)

[mendelk]

> Whitelisting is free for all small- and medium websites and blogs. However, managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers as it happens with common filter lists. That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve non-intrusive advertisements that want to participate in the Acceptable Ads initiative.

No room for abuse there. /s :)

[marcosdumay]

I'm more than happy to see your ads. I'll even click on it, and buy things from the target if I like what I see. I've done that several times in the past. In fact, when they are relevant, and in moderated amounts, I do like ads.

Now, I'm sure that you took care to guarantee that your ads won't track me, or try to invade my computer, right? Because if you didn't, it's blocked and you can whine and call me bad names the entire day, it won't change a thing.

By the way, I never saw adblockers blocking properly applied, safe to load ads. Maybe they do, I don't use them for quite a long time (I use other tech).

[DanAndersen]

I agree there are some parallels between ad-blocking and piracy (though they do tend to be in the realm of the "piracy = theft" idea rather than copyright-related parallels).

However, I think it's also important to recognize that by similarly-strong analogy, advertisements in general are inherently a sort of mental manipulation or brainwashing.

Now, I'm not saying that mental manipulation is inherently a bad or evil thing. When I'm writing this post, I hope that those reading it will become in some way more mentally accepting of my point of view. But I think we don't look enough at how susceptible we are to advertising, and how much advertising depends on exploiting cognitive biases or implying untruths that are not explicitly stated.

We (humans) are really bad at not being affected by advertising, even if we know we're being advertised to, and even if we know the ad is deceptive. When sites depend on ad revenue, they're saying "We're offering this content for free, but in exchange we want to be able to bias/prime your brain so that when you see Product X, even far in the future, you are more likely to desire it." That's a very powerful thing, and while it's certainly necessary for many business models today, I think we should think of this as a "necessary evil."

There are sites where I disable ad-blocking, often in response to a genuine plea on the part of the website. If it's a site I particularly care about and feel that I trust, then I allow ads as a way of helping them out. But if ad-blocking is piracy, then ads themselves are brainwashing -- exploiting failings in human cognition to unconsciously guide people into actions or purchases that may or may not be optimal for them -- and with the subject having limited defenses against it once infected.

[adrianmn]

Completely agree with you on the points about the risk of brainwashing and impulse buying and people not realising how powerful and dangerous ads can be.

I would not go that far and claim all ads are brainwashing and manipulative. Going this route it means all communication is manipulative as there is an intention behind every word.

[DanAndersen]

I agree with you there about the difficulty of finding the line between manipulative ads and non-manipulative (or less manipulative) communication in general. It's not like we're all pure spherically-modeled creatures of pure thought and reason who can derive the optimal things to do and buy from first principles.

I think one issue with many ads is the matter of power disparity. Those who are more trained in marketing and advertising skills know how to present material in a way that is pleasing to an audience. The average person doesn't have this knowledge or a good sense of all the techniques that are being used on them -- or even if they do they are still susceptible. This means that it's far easier for "attackers" to "attack" than for "defenders" to "defend" (using the words here with an acknowledgment that not all "attacks" are a bad thing; a lot is simply communication). With further advances in data mining and with large amounts of funds being put into advertising, those who are advertising are becoming more adept at knowing what mental buttons to press to get the desired response, while the general populace is not getting better at withstanding it.

It's also a question of scale, and being paid to advertise. For example, I enjoy traditional wet shaving, and there are a few blogs I follow that have reviews of shaving creams, DE razors, etc. I have learned to trust these reviews and while they act as ads for these products (they do manipulate me into being more likely to buy those products) I trust that these reviews are more "genuine" and reliable. When there are more sponsored reviews or payments from third-party ad companies, then the appearance of endorsement (and trusted recommendation) is there but without the same fine control by the content provider. Maybe it's a utopian naive vision, but "I recommend this product because I've used it and like it" seems different in substance from "I recommend this product because the makers of the product have paid me to say that I recommend it."

[__david__]

You act like there's some sort of contract that says I have to download and display everything in your html.

There is not.

[fauigerzigerk]

I also want the ad funding model to be viable. I'm happy to consider ads on my screen as a form of payment and I would not block them out of convenience alone.

But if the advertising industry starts to act like one huge criminal enterprise without any limits to the kind of deceptive practices they use I'm forced to defend myself.

I see no reason to be fair to those who deceive me whenever they can.

[mistercow]

As someone who has paid for advertising on websites, I'm happy that some of the users who are definitely not going to click on the ad aren't served them.

But beyond that, this is pretty irrelevant to the topic at hand. However you feel about ad blockers, tricking people into turning them off is still completely unacceptable.

[r0h1n]

What if users don't block ads but never click on one either?

[adrianmn]

That is a publisher and advertiser problem as they did not create an ad relevant and/or engaging enough.

With retargeting ads this days it becomes easier to show relevant and targeted ads.

Actually most HN-ers are leaving huge money on the table right now for not using the highest ROI ad channel - retargeting.

[Amezarak]

I am one hundred percent sure I have not ever intentionally clicked on or even looked at an ad, nor do I ever intend to, regardless of how relevant it is. I will never click on it.

That's why I use Adblock. It doesn't matter what you're showing me. I don't want it. Ever. This goes for offline, too. I don't watch TV except Netflix, partially because of ads. I don't listen to the radio, just my mp3 player.

What are you losing by me using Adblock?

[jsoffer]

"...I have not ever intentionally clicked on or even looked at an ad..." "I don't watch TV except Netflix..."

It may be a coincidence, or it may not... but I've done research on ads distribution, and Netflix, by itself, represented over 10% of all "ad impressions". All of them. For every ten eyeballs ogling an ad, at least one of them was that insufferable red rectangle (I'm sick of it by now).

So it may be, or it may be not, but you are a Netflix customer. Maybe you were dragged in by the onslaught of banners. Maybe someone you know was, and convinced you to buy. Hard to say.

[Amezarak]

Possibly. But I'm okay with recommendations by friends - sure they may have been influenced by advertising, but it was good enough for them to recommend it to me. I'm okay with them filtering all the noise out for me.

My argument is not that advertising is all around bad and nobody likes it - in fact I know plenty of people enjoy clever advertising, and probably many people are fine with using advertising as a deciding factor when making purchases.

But I don't. I'd rather no advertising influence me consciously or especially unconsciously. I regard most ads as an attempt by a marketing agent to subvert my rationality when I'm buying a product or service. Of course there's no way to get away from it altogether, and nobody is an entirely rational actor to start with. But I'd like to keep things as best as I can.

Additionally, I find even unobtrusive ads distracting. I've found that even seemingly small changes in day-to-day tasks can have an impact on my ability to sustain concentration, think clearly, and keep going to the end of the day. As another example of this, try going one week without listening to the radio on the way to work. That made a large noticeable difference in my workday. I've also found that watching TV, any TV, tends to disrupt my focus a little even hours after watching. So based on my personal experience, I've come to the conclusion that ads also have an effect on my concentration throughout the day, albeit a relatively smaller one.

Of course YMMV and they really might not influence you at all.

[adrianmn]

You say you never clicked an ad. If you are visiting sites relevant to your industry you should actually check out the advertisers to keep an eye with what is happening in your industry(new tools, new conferences, new competition...).

Most of the big sites have CPM deals so they get paid for every visitor no matter of clicks or not.

And yes I hate intrusive ads as well and I don't watch TV channels with ads(I mostly watch football and HBO about 1-3 times a week).

[nknighthb]

> new tools

If I see an ad for a tool relevant to me, the chance that it's just a repackaged version of an open-source tool I'm already familiar with is almost 100%

> new conferences

I would never go to a conference, especially one that needs to run ads.

> new competition

If they're a threat, I'll hear about them through news or word-of-mouth. Otherwise, just another waste of time.

Your industry only exists for purposes of brainwashing. All other purported uses are better and more honestly served through other means.

[devwebee]

I completely agree. You're not losing me because I would've never clicked. If I want something, I go look for it myself. I don't understand why people try to make this a morality issue. You shove ads in my face, I block them, simple as that.