Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking 1051
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"
I have ad block in because of facebook (Score:3, Informative)
The only reason, I have ad block is because of facebook. While personally I don't like facebook, I have lots of friends on it so I do use it. The problem with facebook is it allows ads that look exactly like facebook apps. Sometimes is really hard to tell the ad from the app. So I installed Ad block plus to remove those annoying ads. If facebook would smarten up and start blocking those ads, I would be willing to remove the ad blocker.
Malicious... (Score:1, Informative)
There are simply too many blinky, flashy (and indeed Flash) ads out there. Popups. Popunders. Sound. And far, FAR too many malicious ads: it's bitten too many sites and too many major ad networks to trust any of them. I don't want third-party cookies tracking me, I never did, and I don't.
I've blocked banner ads on the web since they existed. I helped with the Proxomitron (RIP, Scott). A web browser isn't finished these days until it can block ads, and if you're locking people out because they don't view the ads, I will help with ad blockers' counter-countermeasures.
The reason is simple: because banner ads are fucking annoying. (Hint: I don't block text ads. That is reasonable.)
I don't care about your business model, I want to browse your goddamn site without having blinky Flash shit in my face and without having malicious Javascript even try to fuck my browser. We're not pirating or anything, we're just not displaying your ads, we're showing your site to us on our terms, because it's our computer and we can do what the fuck we want.
This makes you come over as a whiny crybaby. "Oh noes, it costs money to write articles!" No it fucking doesn't. People send you gear to review, damn it, what's costing you money about that? Oh my god, traffic? What a monster. Oh, wait, I own a hosting company, and traffic is fucking cheap. Thousands of bloggers prove you wrong about content costing money to produce. I appreciate what you do, man, but it didn't cost me a dime to write this.
Don't make the mistake of thinking readers need your site. Believe me, it's the other way around.
Wo are the REAL freeloaders though? (Score:2, Informative)
The Next Ad you Click on may be a Virus:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/15/2056219 [slashdot.org]
Also, if a websurfer can go faster online by blocking out banner ads (as well as safer, per the article above), then they have that option via browser addons like Adblock (or protection vs. their more than potentially infected scripting via NoScript), or by mechanisms like PAC files or specialized CSS files, or a custom HOSTS file.
There's that above, which means quite possibly spending monies on removing said infestation (which is not cheap, and not every "Joe Sixpack" knows how it is done, or wants to for that matter), and the fact that people pay for their own linetime.
So it's ok for Ken Fisher of arstechnica to ask those same people to not only pay for their linetime, and for possible removal of viruses/spywares/rootkits/trojans/malwares in general that they may have caught from malicious adbanners too, but also to pay for Ken Fisher's life on top of that all as well? A life and lifestyle made off of millions made from ad banner revenues no doubt, and yet not off of his own efforts writing up every article his site has done, as well as the coding work put into his site (which I doubt he did every line of himself as well).
So, who are the REAL freeloaders here? The end users, or those using the end users to make their living from those passing by their sites and being forced to look at flashing ads (which are attacks on the psyche no questions asked and not much better than subliminal ads on T.V., since both basically snag a user's subconscious attention via a "look at me and let me sell you something you may not even need"!)
So, once more: Who is/are the REAL freeloaders here??
The end users, or those using them (website owners) to make their living from those passing by their sites and being forced to look at flashing ads (which are attacks on the psyche no questions asked, basically yelling at them "look at me and let me sell you something you may not even need"? There's the real question to ask here!)??
This is a "double-edged sword", and that is all there is to it, period.
Above all - I wonder how much Ken Fisher pays his article writers in terms of the percentage of profits he makes off of their efforts?? How come I have this feeling it is only tiny crumbs from the massive profits he's earned over time from ad banner monies given he by his sponsors???
I hope the article writer reads this.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:5, Informative)
Invariably someone always pops into a discussion like this and brings up some analogy with television advertising, radio, or somesuch. It is not in any way the same; advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results. They have complex models which tell them if X number are watching, Y will likely see the ad (and it even varies by ad position, show type, etc!). But they really have no true idea who sees what ad, and that's why it's a medium based on potential and not provable results. On the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such. Comparing a website to TiVo is comparing apples to asparagus.
If only they were safe. (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with this is, the advertisements themselves can not be trusted. Beyond the issue of the sound and animation, advertisements are a malware vector. I'm having a huge problem with 'Antispyware 2010' and its variants. One idiot claims he got his from Microsoft, because it says Microsoft on it. If they were less hazardous, I'd block them less. I turned off blocking for Project Wonderful and for Google's text ads, after all.
Re:My thoughts (Score:2, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't internet ads generate their revenue through the amount of clicks they incur? I know Google's ads do this.
Ken Fisher, the article author, corrects you:
"There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis."
There are so many benefits to RFTA. Yes, I must be new here.
Whitelist of Ads (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Adblock Plus proposal (Score:5, Informative)
"There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis."
Re:Sorry Ars, you are animated too (Score:2, Informative)
When you disable Flash completely, we serve up static backup ads. Flashblock, however, breaks this so it's effectively the same as running a dedicated ad blocker. It's more a technical problem with Flashblock, though.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is not so much about Ads.
Advertising on the net now is full of exploits, bad code, invasive practice, abusive behaviour, and information gathering.
Until people who want to gain revenue accept fully and without reserve that things have to change, there is no point whining about it.
People's dislike of ads has been driven by the way its been done. And if you push things that your customers do not like, you will always garner a response.
Don't forget page load lag (Score:5, Informative)
If you have js code that loads ads it *must* come at the end of the page. I try to be good about keeping adblock off, but incidents of these things lead me to blocking a domain's ads.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sorry Ars, you are animated too (Score:4, Informative)
I find NoScript [noscript.net] pretty effective for what you describe. Ad servers are usually on a specific domain, even those hosted by the content providers themselves, thus making them easy to block. It requires some tweaking at the start, including personalizing a lot of settings and teaching NoScript exactly what to block, but once you've been running it for a while you won't even remember that it ever existed, you won't have third party WSRP slowing your browser down, you will never have to run untrusted Flash content again, and your regular websites will continue to work as they always did.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it figures that the ads would be at their tamest right now, since Ars Technica is trying to encourage people to turn off ad-blocking. They've had problems in the past, though, and apparently even deliberately run obnoxious ads [arstechnica.com]:
As for the larger, more intrusive ads: they are here to stay, provided they abide by our guidelines. We have two options: run these kinds of ads on a limited, select basis (usually one per reader per 24 hours), or stop publishing. That was true 5 years ago, and it is even more true today. Ideally, we'd be able to run these ads without them breaking stuff. We're trying to address that. But these kinds of ads, rare as they may be, are essential to our business. While I am well aware of many of your personal theories as to the ultimate detriment of these ads on a longterm basis, I do not agree and will abide by my data. I have 11 years experience running this business, through worse times than the present, and I remained convinced that we are making the right moves 90% of the time.
Also, note that stuff like obnoxious expand-on-rollover ads is apparently also entirely within the rules.
Re:My thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't internet ads generate their revenue through the amount of clicks they incur? I know Google's ads do this.
By using adblock, what I'm saying is: I'm never going to be clicking on any of the ads on your website.
If I didn't use it, I still wouldn't be clicking on any ads on your website and they will also annoy me.
It's most likely that the people using ad blocking don't care about the ads you display and won't be clicking on them anyway.
You are wrong.
Ads did used to pay only for clickthrough, but I think this model went away a few years ago, because it was a poor model for advertising, and failed to account for the value of branding even when a sale isn't directly attributable to a specific viewing of a specific ad.
Ads currently pay two ways: for clicks and for views. Even if you never click, if your browser downloads and displays the ad, it helps support the site that presented the ad. So, if you're blocking ads entirely, you're denying the site revenue for those ad views that they fail to generate.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly!
Take this an anecdote or whatever, just for the kicks I whitelisted Ars Technica.
For about 100 or so page loads:
- The majority of the ads are for GQ magazine. I didn't even know what the fuck that was before clicking on the link. And no Ars, I don't give a shit what the fuck Kobe Bryant is wearing neither do I care how Pierce Brosnan is having more fun that me. Also, why am I bombarded with GQ ads in the hardware section of the site?
- I had 3 annoying Gilette ads about their Fusion razor. Full blown flash with sound. How is this relevant to a tech/geek site? Ars, I really don't care what razor a douchebag steroid abusing baseball player uses. No really, I don't.
- I get a metric fuckton of ads for Wired magazine, already on their RSS feed, more irrelevant ads.
- I got about 10 or so Microsoft ads about some 'Business Synergy Client Focused' gobbledygook. What the shit? Oh and it's animated flash bogging down my machine.
- I got about 5 or so ads that didn't load completely, I can't even make out what the fuck they are. Trying to connect to some backwater adserver, great way to make sure the page will take years to load.
Why can't I get ads I would be even remotely interested in? Gadgets deals, hardware deals, game deals, interesting bands, interesting books ... you know ... geek stuff? I don't care about fucking GQ, I am not "GQ", never will be.
Sorry Ars, back to the block list.
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:2, Informative)
There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars [arstechnica.com]
They've killed the golden goose (Score:1, Informative)
Adds in general have reached a tipping point where people are no longer interested in these mediums and have found alternatives.
When I have to sit through 20 minutes of adds per hour of a paid subscription to cable tv just to watch a show, hear only 4 songs on the radio durring my 40 minute commute, or pay for a pound of newspaper that only has a page of content I'm interested in, I'll just throw in the towel with these mediums. Same thing for the Internet, count me out if I can't block adds on a lot of sites.
Nut up or Shut up (Score:2, Informative)
See, here's the thing: I don't care.
Clearly you have the technology to withhold content from users running adblockers, so why don't you just do that?
Why don't we make a deal? I don't care how you run your site if you don't care how I run my browser. If that means excluding me from your content if I refuse to look at ads or run flash or scripts, then so be it. If its compelling enough content to make me turn off my ad blocker, than I will. If you're worried about losing impressions due to people not knowing why your site isn't rendering, include a message saying as much in the ad-block version.
Its time to nut up or shut up. Bitching about it in this article is a lame attempt at emotional extortion.
Yes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:2, Informative)
And yet, your post seems to show that advertising was working on you:
. Perfect. The ad gave you knowledge of a product you were unaware of before. That's the whole point of advertising.
I remember Google going from small startup to a gigantic behemoth because they spewed forth a metric fuckton of irrelevant and highly annoying ads in flash.
Oh wait ...
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree with you that people should recognize the need for publishers like whoever owns Ars to make some money, I also recognize the some people have declared total war on ads, I being among them. Ars is perpetrating the same behaviors that make people block ads, Flash ads, noisy ads, off-demographic ads, distracting ads, and worse, a total GLUT of ads. I am not obligated to make them money, nor should I be. Me making them money is, and should be, a voluntary act on my behalf, and should follow the principles I would willing engage in. If they want to charge for content, fine. If they want to hide all content when they detect an ad-blocker, fine. I will go elsewhere. If they want to have a limited amount of small, Google-like, text ads that are targeted to the content, then I might turn off my adblocker, but only if these ads may be useful to me, personally.
I am not obligated to give anyone money.
Though, to be completely honest, I probably won't turn off my ad-blocker, or white-list Ars if they decide to be responsible advertisers. I am sick and tired of advertising. I'm absolutely SICK of people trying to force their products down my throat, worse trying to hoist their products on me with cheap, annoying, psychological tricks, completely eschewing the only thing that matters, the actual quality of their product (and if it would actually be useful to me). I hate television, where its getting to the point where it is 1:1 ratio between ads and content (which now often is nothing but a thinly disguised ad). I hate sports (used to love baseball, at least), because they are nothing but an after-thought for advertisements, the advertising is now the content, the sport (or program, or webpage) is only to entice you in. I'm sick of constantly being attacked by distracting ads. I'm sick to the point where a scotched earth policy is the only psychologically satisfying conclusion. I'm had to alter my recreational habits to the point where completely eschewing anything that tries to force its manipulative ideas down my throat is not a sacrifice.
In a short; "fuck 'em!".
Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score:1, Informative)
Plural of sheep is sheep.
Jeez, who really cares?!
Re:The problem with 'micropayment' subscriptions (Score:3, Informative)
These micropayments are not micro in any way; if a site expects you to pay 5 cents for an article, they are asking the equivalent of a fortune ($50 effective revenue per thousand). What we need is a real micropayment infrastructure that can be shared across sites and do away with the obtrusive ads once and for all.
While it varies from site to site, the effective revenue that most sites get for every thousand views is not usually more than a couple of dollars, and for small sites far less. This translates to fractions of a penny of revenue per page viewed.
So doing the math again on your year-end total would be in the range of $10-20, not $550