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| ▲ | aleqs 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe take a moment to consider why people are choosing to use adblockers in the first place. And whether having content being monetized through and relying on ads is even a good thing overall (it's not). Advertising and marketing is fundamentally a negative for society in most cases. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Maybe take a moment to consider why people are choosing to use adblockers in the first place. So they can get content without compensating for it. I've been on this train since the beginning. I was there when ad-block-plus read the writing on the wall 15 years ago and decided to make a truce with advertisers. It was clearly unsustainable for 50% of web users to be effectively parasites, so maybe we can negotiate on acceptable ad practices. But to the users, a truce with advertisers!?!? Ublock Origin was born days later. | | |
| ▲ | aleqs 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Users do not compensate websites for serving ads. Your argument just doesn't make any sense. Also - negotiating 'a truce with advertisers'? What does that even mean? Granting the ads industry even more power and control over the internet? Can you come up with an idea that isn't a dystopian hellhole on its face? | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Users do not compensate websites for serving ads. Are you confused or being sarcastic? I'll admit the system is one step larger than a typical transaction, which could be hard to understand for some, but the views -> ads -> dollars pipeline is the still straightforward to understand. Maybe not. I don't know when things get too complicated here. | | |
| ▲ | aleqs 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you understand the difference between a user compensating someone directly vs an ad agency or platform doing so? Or do you think users actually think 'i don't want this creator to be compensated so I'll use an ad blocker'? Let me know which part is so confusing/complicated for you. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-] | | >Do you understand the difference between a user compensating someone directly vs an ad agency or platform doing so? No, I don't. From a business perspective its all the same revenue line item. However it does determine who I am working for. >Or do you think users actually think 'i don't want this creator to be compensated so I'll use an ad blocker'? I don't think they are thinking at all, besides "Wow this is cool I can bypass ads!". But I can tell you, from the creator side, it's a massive problem. 30-40% of your customers have this idea that your time has no value (and ~99% if you go the donation route, 90-95% if you paywall) Also keep in mind, any creator can give away their work for free, but they don't. I don't think it's controversial at all to say that's intentional. |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think a lot of us object to the opacity and scale of it all. These aren’t simply commercials running like OTA tv in the days of old. They are basically fracking our data and then selling it to other people without any oversight or ability to stop it. You are basically under assault from the moment you walk through the metaphorical door. Why does a host need my device info, my demographics, every app I’m on, my router info, all this incredibly personal and granular data just so I can watch a damn video? They just start probing and sucking up every bit of information they can get their hands on and they put a lot of effort into making sure I don’t know it’s happening or where it’s going. I will never forget the first time I fired up little snitch mini on my Mac years ago and watched all those little lines light up like the Fourth of July. They are the parasites when you get down to it. If the transaction was clearer and we had the ability to get out of it ultimately I think people would be a lot more willing to deal with ads. But again, it’s not simply ads. This is sophisticated network data mining and reselling that vastly outstrips the value we are getting out of visiting a friggin news site or whatever, and it happens basically every single time you travel to a URL. It’s absolutely relentless, and it certainly doesn’t benefit creators 99.99% of the time. TL;DR: framing this as people simply not wanting to watch ads is not fair at all. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | No, my actual framing is that people don't want to pay for what they use, and ad-block created this generational illusion that you can have things of value made by others for free, and it's a good thing. The system would topple rapidly if people went back to paying directly. But there is a huge caveat. The ad internet created a classless egalitarian internet where everyone can pay with attention, rather than money. Almost everyone has equal attention, not everyone has equal money. This is taken for granted, but it's very real. A payment based internet, devoid of ads and tracking, would be back to the rich people having all the coolest services. But nowhere in any scenario is "free riders counting on suckers to cover their costs". |
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| ▲ | akersten 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Man, I wish folks calibrated their E(I am actually wrong|downvotes). Have you considered what that value could be in this case? | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Creators don't get compensation when people ad-block. Creators don't get compensation when LLMs scrape. It's totally, and completely, unambiguous. The internet just has collective brain damage from the grassroots morals of it being formed 30 years ago by teenagers. How surprising that a bunch of kids decided that the way to save the internet was to make it better for themselves, and worse for the people who make the internet the thing they love. Some of us have grown up now, and realize the correct answer to save the internet was to not engage with ad supported content period. | | |
| ▲ | akersten 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's totally, and completely, unambiguous. The internet just has collective brain damage The point that continues to be missed is that instead of taking downvotes as validation that people simply failed to comprehend the argument you're making (they didn't), you should take them as a check to reevaluate whether your conclusion is as unambiguous as you believe. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 36 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It is rock solid. There is no way to reconcile an internet where the suckers who cannot figure out ad-block carry the overhead costs for those who do. It costs money to create the content you consume, it costs money to serve the content you consume. The internet is not some magical exemption from standard financial practice going back millennia. The cost is your burden, take it or leave it. But don't take it then do mental gymnastics about why it's not actually something you value while walking away with free, shifting the cost onto the next guy. |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are ways to get paid without ads and you can do on-air reads like I said. adblockers don’t impact them. You also don’t have to play Google and YouTube’s games. I’m sorry folks are caught in that arm’s race between users and Google but Google has made browsing so miserable it’s just reality. Adblocking is basic security now. I am not compromising on it. I say this as a “content creator” | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Please ping me when you figure out how to do on-air reads on a website. | | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You don’t need to get sarcastic with me over this. Content creation comes in many forms. You can also promote things in your copy. People do it all the time. Adblockers aren’t going to somehow remove your words. People disclose their sponsorships at the top/bottom of their written content all the time and frequently use affiliate links. |
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| ▲ | kylemaxwell 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The downvotes are for the unnecessarily aggressive approach, even from people without a major dog in the fight. |
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