[JohnTHaller]

The vast majority of people use ad blockers to block ads. That's why almost no ad blockers block GA, etc by default. Plus, from my other comment: "Many sites rely on Google Analytics to be able to do their own promotions and sponsorships, which is the only way they make money other than ads. By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor. So, you use the site resources, don't see ads and don't add to their user/page view numbers. Plus, there's the fact that lots of sites use GA to handle inter-page click tracking so they can see what paths users take to analyze UI/price sensitivity/promos/etc and blocking GA may break your ability to actually use the site at all (many travel sites, for instance)."

[glesica]

> By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor.

They can still use server analytics to see me as a visitor. I even show up on Cloudflare. I don't want them tracking what I do on their site, it should be enough to know I showed up and asked for a specific page. If their business model relies on knowing more, then they chose a lousy business model.

Why is there so much sympathy for ad-supported sites on HN but when other industries with obsolete business models are brought up (like record companies) it's all about "disrupting" them? Have we given up on finding better ways to support content online?

[jhead]

> If their business model relies on knowing more, then they chose a lousy business model.

I must disagree. I certainly understand a desire for privacy and it's definitely within your right to block GA if you feel so inclined, but to assume that sites using GA to track visitors is some sort of shady business model is simply not true.

I've used GA and Heap (Analytics) to obtain extremely granular information about how users traverse a website. This information can be invaluable to businesses in order to understand the thought process that people go through on a website. The underlying goal may be more conversions (sales), but simply using and analyzing data from GA or any other analytics platform isn't going to magically force you to purchase my product/service. These types of insights help identify critical issues with your website - issues such as pages with information that isn't as clear as it could be, or other possible barriers preventing users from signing up. This can be purely technical (i.e. a bug on a specific page), or it could be a lack of information/understanding about your product or service, or many other possibilities.

If you don't trust Google or other similar companies with your data, then you're welcome to block them from tracking you. But I personally don't believe that you should equate the use and analysis of such tracking data as evil in every instance, because it's not.

[glesica]

I agree that GA can be useful to site owners for things other than advertising and shady optimizations. The use cases you describe are all totally valid in my mind. However, and it seems that you agree with me here, those use cases don't require that 100%, or even 50% of visitors allow GA to run. All you need is a decent sample size.

Of course the sample won't be representative any more since people who block GA probably have attributes in common. But people who block GA probably aren't who you want your site optimized for anyway, I suppose.

I don't view GA (and similar) as intrinsically harmful. I just don't believe I'm materially hurting anyone doing something legitimate by blocking it.

[gpvos]

This is indeed perfectly fine, as long as nothing is communicated from my browser to a domain that does not belong to the site itself.

[justabystander]

> I personally don't believe that you should equate the use and analysis of such tracking data as evil in every instance, because it's not.

We know it's not evil - it's just business. However, plenty of businesses are built around anti-consumer practices.

I personally don't mind someone tracking me on their own domain. Javascript trackers are terrible for security and performance reasons, though I'd tolerate them. I don't like 3rd-party trackers, though, for many reasons:

1. Part of the selling point of using those third-party trackers is being able to quantify what type of user/consumer I am. That's why they track across multiple sites - to provide their customers the highest value. So that they can charge a higher per-unit price.

2. There's no guarantee that such data is only shared with the sites accessed. Even if it was made at the point of use, they can retroactively change that without contacting the user because its their customer who signs the agreement. Most will just click yes without thinking of their user's privacy.

3. If the business sells, merges, changes leadership or goes bankrupt that data policy is as worthless as your trust in it. Look at RadioShack's attempt to sell customer data despite promises not to. Or any company who changed their TOS after a buyout. They don't wipe data from people who don't agree because that data is part of the "company value".

I admit that GA makes a lot of site maintenance and analysis easy. However, I'm not particularly interested in making your job of selling to people easier at my own expense. Particularly when alternatives exist for people who know what they're doing. Yes, it's not malicious behavior, no, but it is extremely discourteous and occasionally sensitive to disclose interest to a third-party.

Think about it like this. Let's say I go to a dealership to look at cars because I like looking at cars. I love engines and wheels and stuff. I only speak with the sales guy, who really seems like a pretty nice person. But the company contracts with some guy who is watching me the entire time for "analytics". After I leave, he tells my bank, the IRS, my wife, my boss and my cousin who asked me to loan him money (but I sensibly declined because he never pays anyone back) because they know him and this guy can't and won't keep his mouth shut. The next day, my bank preemptively reviews my credit history for a car loan, I'm being contacted for an audit out of suspicions of hiding money, my wife is asking me to buy her something because we've apparently got money, and my cousin is livid that I'm somehow filthy rich but I won't give him $10K to invest in a critical MLM deal. It's his big ticket and he'll have it back to me in 3 weeks. Well, 2 months, tops.

Your intentions don't matter at all with 3rd-party analytics because that 3rd party will never respect those intentions. It's not in their contract and thus not their concern what you intend or promise. Plus, their lawyers regularly update it when the company finds new business models to exploit. Not only that, you don't care enough about me to actively review your vendor contracts to make sure your "good intentions" are being followed by your contractors. You're only using the service because it makes your job easier. Why would you go out of your way to do extra work? You don't have any bad intentions, after all.

It doesn't have to be evil or malicious to be exploitative. It's not like third-world factories with terrible labor conditions exist because the owner likes to kick puppies. It's about money, at the end, and businesses will do as much as they can get away with for money.

[piyush_soni]

Yes, ads remain the major e-business model till date (and will probably remain for a long time to come). I guess one of the problems is, everyone needs money to maintain a website and to make a profit, but not everyone has content (or products) that could sell. It's a difficult problem to solve in theory. I think simple text based (or even small images based) ads should be fine .. it's the flashy ones or the ones that delay my workflow that I hate to the core.

[gpvos]

Micropayments should be a solution, but it's hard to get the cooperation needed for that going.

[rhaps0dy]

What about leasing visitors' processing power to run scientific computation? Maybe MapReduce jobs?

Would that be more intrusive or less intrusive than advertisement?

[gpvos]

If I could choose in advance which kind of computations would be done, maybe. And there definitely should be an enforceable limit on the amount of processing.

[rhaps0dy]

It should not alter the user experience. Maybe use at most 30% CPU, leaving priority to the other processes. Also avoid computing on devices with battery, or with low battery.

[piyush_soni]

Personally, if this processing infrastructure is managed by a big/trustworthy company (MS/Google/Amazon etc.) I should be OK with it, as long as its sandboxed. But if every individual website wants to implement its own way of using my processor power, I will prefer ads to it any day.

[quadrangle]

An attempt being developed for that, not ready yet: https://snowdrift.coop/

[Zarel]

"Disrupting" is about replacing an old business model with a _better_ business model. You don't disrupt the old one until _after_ you find a better one.

Ads are not a bad business model. They allow free access to websites, while still allowing websites to pay for hosting costs. They don't discriminate between rich users and poor users. You may be able to afford subscription costs, but children and people in third world countries often can't. Subscriptions _are_ the old business model we're disrupting, anyway. Elsevier wants you to pay $50 to read a paper; Google wants you to have free access to the world's information.

Micropayment systems are hated on mobile games, where they exploit addictive behavior and ruin the experience, and tend not to earn much money if they don't. Donations generate very little money.

Ads are also very easy to set up, which selects for website creators who are passionate about making good sites and other things. Higher-effort business models select for website creators who are passionate about making money.

I will admit that ads are not great. But so far, we've been unable to find anything better.

[glesica]

I realize that someone would have to come up with something better first, and my comment about "disruption" was meant partially as a joke. I do, however, struggle to understand the deference many people on HN seem to have for the ad-based business model. It is to the point that I've seen people who block ads accused of "stealing".

[JohnTHaller]

Many sponsors and partners will not accept log-based self-hosted stats as they can be easily faked. Many will only accept a 3rd party stats site like Google Analytics as they can be provided with a read-only view into it and know that the underlying data isn't faked. It could be gamed, of course, with some effort (botnet of IPs loading pages from the site, etc) but it's much more involved than faking a Piwik report. Of course, many of the blocklists that block GA also block self-hosted Piwik anyway.

There's sympathy for ad-supported sites because that's the vast majority of the internet's content. And micropayments, paid memberships, etc have almost universally failed with the exception of a few very large publishers and a few very specific niche publishers.

[comex]

> Why is there so much sympathy for ad-supported sites on HN but when other industries with obsolete business models are brought up (like record companies) it's all about "disrupting" them? Have we given up on finding better ways to support content online?

Because there are a lot of users here who run websites and see the business model 'from the other side'... and almost none who work for record companies.

There are other reasons, but that's a big one.

[gpvos]

I have no problem with ads per se, only with: 1. any form of tracking across sites, and 2. any unnecessary animation or other movement on the page,[0] and 3. malware. I will do anything to block these things, ruthlessly.

For #2, I actually still have to use ABP, although most are already blocked by RequestPolicy or NoScript, which I use (combined) for #1 and #3 (combined).

[0] In my opinion, even animation necessary for the main content should be click-to-start, but I cannot currently completely achieve this. But disabling GIF animation plus click-to-activate for plugins gives me most of what I want. NoScript also helps.