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Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

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Eóin:
I never tend to run any ad blocking software. There are really only two types of ad that bother me, those that scroll with the page and those which are decitful.

In the second camp I mean the type of ads on download sites which are only a big download now button image, or the types which disguise themselves as a popup warning of viruses and what not. Honestly I don't know how any site with self respect could display one of those types of ad.

40hz:
As Linus Torvalds say about Windows they should have been shot in the head 15 years ago :)-Bamse (March 11, 2010, 04:50 AM)
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I'd rather have Linus shot in the head 15 years ago - perhaps then we could have a Windows alternative that didn't suck :-\
-f0dder (March 11, 2010, 05:43 AM)
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So...with all due respect, what's stopping you - or anyone else who feels that way - from writing one?  :mrgreen:

All it would take is a few thousand hours out of one's lifetime in return for nothing other than the satisfaction of doing it.

Woa! Slow down! Don't everybody come up at once! ;D

It's all well and good to say Linus very often has his head up his butt about a lot of things. I'll be the first to agree. But annoying as Linus Torvalds, Rick Stallman, and the rest of the 'old guard' can be when they open their mouths, I still feel they deserve a great deal of respect even though I often don't agree with what they're saying.

And that's because while others talked, and discussed, and complained, and debated - these people actually went out and did something.


Just my two cents. :)

rssapphire:
I'll stop blocking ads when the following conditions are met:

1) NO FLASH. NO JAVA. NO .NET. NO ActiveX. And no, I'm not going to uninstall FLASH/JAVA as it is useful on some sites. If you can't detect that it is installed but being blocked on most sites, that's the ad company's software problem not a problem with what I'm doing.

2) No 3rd party tracking cookies associated with the ads or any other way of tracking me across multiple sites.

3) No movement. Static text or images only. (Exception: Video ads at the beginning or end of videos, provided the video is stopped and starts to play only if I start it.)

4) No Sound unless I knowing choose to start it.

5) Ads from third party sites must never slow or block the rest of the page loading -- even if the third party ad delivery site is very slow or down. I should never have to wait for an ad to load to see the whole page.

6) No ads that expand, move or do other things if I happen to move my mouse over them.

7) No popups of any kind. (Exception: A css popup that appears over the page as it loads is okay provided it has obvious "close" button immediately available and immediately goes away when said button is clicked.)

Interstitial Ads are fine if they meet the above conditions. 

wraith808:
I will gladly put a no filtering entry in any ad removal program I use for sites that I truly enjoy and have TASTEFUL ads. Betanews is an example of a site with tasteless ads. After removing their ads, the pages become so much more readable, less lengthy, and overall easier to work with.
-Josh (March 11, 2010, 05:52 AM)
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But most people are too lazy to do this- it's an all-in or all-out way of doing things (I have to admit, I'm one of the lazy).  Things such as ad revenue become a big deal when you're doing something full-time, and not just as a hobby, just as content is a big deal when you're doing something full-time, and not just as a hobby.  There are some hobbyists that approach (and in some cases surpass) the level of professional blogs- but if their RL was threatened by the time taken doing the hobby, which would take precedence?

I'll stop blocking ads when the following conditions are met:
-rssapphire (March 11, 2010, 07:33 AM)
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Do you selectively unblock sites that meet these requirements?  Or does *everyone* have to meet your requirements before you unblock anyone?

And to the micropayment idea, I quote this comment on the slashdot article:
The issue I have with the concept of many content providers going to a 'micropayment' subscription is that for the user, eventually, all the micropayments for the stuff they want to read ends up being one big MACROpayment.

I've got enough monthly payments to deal with between car payments, car insurance, rent, phone bill, internet, and so forth. I don't want to and am not going to add a bunch of $.99 micropayments on top of everything else.

$.05 an article? Micropayment? How many articles have you read on the internet today? How many this month? Let's see... in the past hour or so I read...

$.05 1-Article MMO-Champion.com
$.10 2-Articles WoW.com
$.10 2-Articles Slashdot.org
$.10 2-Articles ArsTechnica.com
$.10 2-Articles Cracked.com
$.05 1-Article NYTimes.com
$.05 1-Article NewsoftheWeird.com

Ok... that works out to $.55 in an hour. Let's say 3 hours on the internet per day or 21 hours per week... $11.55 a week multiplied by 4 to get per month... $46.20... multiplied by 12 for the yearly cost... $554.40. $554.40 a year on micropayments!!!

So... tell me again... are you willing to make micropayments for every article you read on the internet?

Also, if many websites go to a micropayment model users will get sick of having to enter their credit card or paypal account every time they want to read something. Someone like Rupert Murdoch will come along and offer a whole bunch of this content for one payment instead of a ton of little payments.

It'll be a reintroduction to an AOL type experience where everything the average user would look at would be through the filter of one giant corporation.

Yep... Micropayments is exactly where the big corporations would like us to go.

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Pretty insightful on the monies paid...

f0dder:
As Linus Torvalds say about Windows they should have been shot in the head 15 years ago :)-Bamse (March 11, 2010, 04:50 AM)
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I'd rather have Linus shot in the head 15 years ago - perhaps then we could have a Windows alternative that didn't suck :-\
-f0dder (March 11, 2010, 05:43 AM)
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So...with all due respect, what's stopping you - or anyone else who feels that way - from writing one?  :mrgreen:-40hz (March 11, 2010, 06:45 AM)
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Linux :)

All the potential free developer resources are pooled there - it's simply not realistic to introduce another OS to the market. If linux hadn't tied up these resources, perhaps they could have been utilized to write a decent and modern OS. Don't get me wrong, linux is quite an achievement and it works for a lot of purposes, but it seems like such a darn waste to copy outdated design and only after several years start duct-tape retro-fitting modern features to it.

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