Ad-Blockers: Friend or Foe?

On the heels of the recent piracy thread I thought it might be interesting to see how blender artists feel about ad-blocking.

Recently I’ve found ad-blocking making its way into headlines suggesting that ad-blockers and users of such could be ultimately responsible for a switch away from free, read ad-supported, services to paid/subscription based services. Content suppliers seem to be under the impression that blocking their ads is essentially theft because the services they provide are not actually free, there is an agreement that they supply the service and/or content in exchange for the viewing of ads and not viewing those ads constitutes a breach of the agreement. In other words they are spending their time creating and/or supplying content and they believe they should be paid for that work. Using an ad-blocker means their services are being used by people who are not paying them for those services, people who might otherwise pay them if they were not using an ad-blocker.

So what do you think, does ad-blocking constitute theft? Will ad-blocking lead to the downfall of free services and lead to a primarily subscription dominated internet? Does ad-blocking hurt content/service providers?

If enough people use ad-blocking even on sites they frequent, then you would easily expect more and more sites and services being placed behind a paywall (and some services once popular with Blender users like Imageshack have done exactly that).

I have disabled ad-block on all sites that I know of that do not plaster your screen with tons of ads (which might even give you a virus if you’re not careful). Even the ABP guys themselves have come out with a new version that, by default, does not block what they call ‘acceptable advertising’.

I’m not alone here, the internet community is indeed starting to realize that blanket blocking is probably not the best idea and are rolling back to at least letting some sites deliver ads.

The problem is not the sites
it is the AD’S THEM SELVES

the on demand bidding for the ad space means that THE BAD GUYS can inject a cros site script and third party cookies into ad’s on RESPECTED sites

The McAffe web site for a time WAS!!! spewing out malware
and SO WAS Norton and The New York Times

the issue is NOT the adds
but the SCRIPTS they run and the tracking cokkies they try to install

i had one California newspaper site want to INSTALL 131 cookies ( most tracking cookies )
JUST to read a news article

THAT is the problem

add on top of that the FACT that if you SEE that FB,riddit,g+,twitter,… like button
THOSE SITES GET A LISTING FROM THAT WEB SITE INFORMING THEM YOU WERE READING THERE SITE!!!
this "big data has GONE WAY TOO FAR!!!

It’s amazing what happens to websites when you run a noscript plugin. Adverts dissapear, those Facebook things dissapear, special fancy-effect-menu’s that are impossible to navigate dissapear. Remember, the web is meant to be about … content, not flashy programs.
Yeah, Just run noscript.

I’d reccomend watching some talks on what people can do with adverts and javascript. Pretty much you are running someone elses software that does whatever it wants: mine butcoins, do DDOS attacks, brute force passwords from a thousand different computers at once. Let’s face it, if Facebook leveraged the idle computing power of it’s users somehow, they would have a hang of a lot of computing power at their disposal.

Back to adblocking: I block ads. If I like using something I buy the pro version (eg with android applications), or make a donation.
Imageine if everything had adverts:

  • Blender, in the top righ tcorner
  • Microsoft Office
  • Your web-broser, not just the pages on
  • Skype (oh wait, uh, yeah)
  • The start menu on your computer (this is happening already with Windows 8 and above)
  • Your desktop background
  • Every lamp-post on your street
  • Your prescription glasses have them engraved on the lenses (how long before google glass/augmented reality has this issue?)

Now imagine if they are all linked together and targetted at you. Eventaully they’ll find out what you like, nad the adverts will ecome very enticing. Technically, you can put advertising anywhere, but for the most part, we ignore it. THe problem with technology-related adverts (eg on websites and programs) is that they can take away the users ability to ignore them. Think of services like adfly. Do you like having to wait 30 seconds when you slick on someones link?

I block them, and if I like the product, I pay for it. They are giving their service away for free, even if it is ‘ad supported.’ The amount a single person donates (even if it’s a couple dollars) is worth far far more than 20 people looking at the page viewing adverts. The price-point for adverts is incredibly low: they are not making money from them. Again, I’ll donate if I like it.

The consequences of ad blocking isn’t really clear because so much is changing. With resources like Patreon insuring monthly funding, conglomerates may not have the last word on what the common solution is. More models are bound to surface as the potential of the internet is tapped.

Ad blocker really can’t be a foe alone. Services is a term that is being thrown around these days. Click bait for instance doesn’t provide economic value. It just manipulates human curiosity for fast cash. That is the type of site that ad block is perfect for. That behavior should not be rewarded because it’s psychological manipulation toward psychologically constructed ads. It’s just unethical. That prevents it from having true economic value.

In cases where ad block is used to block ads in sites that are frequented and the services are valued by the individual that is blocking them, it is breaking the agreement. Theft might not be an accurate description of what is occurring because of the lack of a physical good, but it still breaks the system. This of course isn’t a deterrent for everyone. I suspect that there is going to be abuse of the technology, though eliminating it isn’t likely to have a positive effect on the economic system as abuse is a two way street.

It’s a bit of a paradox come to think of it.:confused:

double post

I wish it were possible to donate to each website, and remove ads for a year, or not, I just wish it were easier to support them.

sites I only visit once, I won’t be paying.

Sites like blender artists I would gladly pay.

I do not know if I understood what you pose (because my english). Web sites can detect Ad Blockers and choose not show you the content if you have enabled Ad Block. I guess Apps for mobile devices could also implement something similar if they detect that they are being blocked. So if they do not know how to implement it, it is not user problem.

I think Adblock is necessary because otherwise advertising can be very annoying and dangerous in some operating systems. So if a web or app think that I should have ad block disabled to use their content, they should let me know right through an explicit message. Thus, I can choose what to do with that website/app (allow or block).

That’s a bit of a stretch there, because a lot of these additional examples already get funding from sources other than ads.

Blender for instance sees funding from donations
Microsoft Office is premium software that costs over 100 bucks, so there’s a funding source right there
Prescription Glasses are not free, again, their manufacture is funded when you pay that small fortune to buy a pair
Streetlamps, taxpayer money.

For a lot of websites and free web services though, ads are one of the only means they are using to make money. No ads, no money, because it’s unrealistic to expect enough people to buy the premium tier to fully fund everything.

To me, advertisements do not belong on the Internet, and I will not tolerate them.

I have no problem whatsoever subscribing to content. For example, I have sattelite radio in my cars. They are “commercial free,” but of course, they’re not “free.” I subscribe to them. I also subscribe to various subscription-only web sites.

As the owner of a public site, you have the right to detect that I am using an ad-blocker and to refuse to provide content to me. I, of course, will never “allow the dust of your city to be on my sandals” ever again in all of my mortal life, but that’s simply my response as a “customer” to the way that you elect to run your “business.” Fair’s fair, and if you find other customers who feel differently, they are now your customers but I am not.

Magazines have been “by subscription” ever since magazines were invented. There’s no reason why this model would not work on the Internet. But ads do not.

Frankly, if I did not have good ad-blockers, I probably would not use the Internet much at all. “I’m not the one that needs you. You need me.”

Does anyone here have a website that uses an ad service such as Google Ads? I’m curious to what degree of control do you have over the ads that are displayed on your site. I mean I’ve never seen a porn ad on CNN’s site so I imagine there’s at least some degree of control, but is this something where you can just select broad categories or can a website owner blacklist/whitelist specific ads and/or advertisers?

I have to admit in my opinion the credibility of some of these, depending on who you ask, reputable sites is undermined when they display those “lose weight with this one weird obscure trick” ads that are only selling medical quakery designed to prey upon peoples insecurities. On TV for instance those “paid advertisements,” which is an odd way to differentiate them because they’re all paid advertisements, are usually prefaced with a disclaimer stating the views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the network airing them, but they don’t preface normal ads in the same way and I’ve certainly never seen a website display such a disclaimer.

Should ad supported sites be held responsible for promoting fraudulent products? If they were would it lead to greater scrutiny over the types of ads displayed on their sites and thus lower the amount of fraudulent claims being made through advertisement?

P.S. On another interesting note apparently there’s some questions surrounding patriotic events during sporting events. As it turns out, here in the states, the US military has been paying organizations such as the NFL to host patriotic events during half time shows and during the opening ceremonies, but those events are not prefaced as paid advertisements and apparently there’s some type of requirement that such organizations make public when they’ve been paid by someone to promote something.

What about the many other websites on the internet, would you prefer to pay a subscription to every last website that you frequent as a result of your refusal to help them get operating revenue via ads?

This also includes this forum, it would be funny if CGcookie decided to add code that creates a paywall for those with their ad blockers turned on (the ads here are not only placed in areas that are not intrusive, but there’s no quack ads either).

Something like that might be tough to implement, I don’t think there’s a way for a website to know for sure that someone is using an ad-blocker. What they would do is use javascript to detect if the ads were loaded or not and if they did not load the site might assume the viewer is using an ad-blocker, but there are other reasons an ad might not load such as the ad server crashing.

The Ad’s them selves are normally NOT the problem .
They can be
Think of back in 2001 to 5 ish
the blinking pop up adds
the ads that were on pop ups that had NO closing “x”
a cool CSS tool was hijacked

then the sites with 1/2 a million ad’s on one page started showing up

but MOST sites this is not a issue

the ad’s are not that many and they mostly are not taking up HALF of the screen and mostly do not flash at you
( some still do on Yahoo )

it is the OTHER!!! THINGS!!! that the ad’s DO DO!!!

and all the scripts

When using No-script ( MY DEFAULT!!! ) some NEWS sites ( the BIG ONES!!) have scripts that run
then these scripts get SECOND party scripts from other sites
ten THOSE second party scripts get third ones and those get fourth ones … and so on

then and only then will the NEWS STORY show up

THAT is the reason for people running
No-Script
Ad block plus
Ghostery
the EFF’s “privacy badger”
and CLEAR cookies on shutdown of the browser

I don’t like adds… I have pretty much everything blocked, unless it’s a site with ‘tastefull’ advertizing. By tasteful, I mean not in my face all the time. And even then, I only unblock on sites that I want to support.

I much prefer a volunteer donation system to adds. Paid services I tend to give a wide berth, though, particularly with so many open source/ freeware options around.

I like paying to freeware/ open source projects, but it pisses me off when commercial items and software I bought is working less than optimal, so I try to save myself the aggravation by supporting experimental projects. (Yes, I don’t get aggravated by experimental projects :stuck_out_tongue: - The creators of those aren’t trying to force feed me their product and claiming the world about them).

Any ways, I hate adds and I’ll block the majority of them. I find adds to be a symptom of an ill consumer society, where it’s more important to buy, than what you buy.

“Hey, buy my stuff! Oh, you already have stuff? Well, my stuff is newer and shinier, fork over. Just throw out the old stuff, you don’t need it any more, any ways.”

Most of the time, ‘old stuff’ is just fine, but with the internet, the ‘buy now’ mentality is seeing renewal pretty much every day. New ways to entice consumers to consume. I hate that mentality. It’s like sheep to the slaughter. Commercials telling you what you need all the time. If I never saw another commercial or add in my life, oh horror, I’d have to figure out for myself what I need.

Then there’s the stress factor. We were never meant to cope with as much information as is forced into our lives everyday, and commercials and adds are only piling on an already huge pyre of informational overload. Even if people say they aren’t really noticing them any more, the subconscious mind will pick up on pretty much everything and store it away. Which of course is what Big Money is betting on.

I am an information junkie, myself, but I do my best to cut out the information that is really not relevant to my life, or I’d slowly go insane. If I haven’t already :stuck_out_tongue:

So, yeah, adds and commercials has to go. From my life, that is. What others do is their business. I would not force anything on anyone.

I fail to understand how a 256 x 256 image can bother so many people.

How else then would you get the word out that you have a new product? Without ads, there can be no commerce because no one will know what the company is producing or what service it’s providing.

Also, if you feel like every little advertisement out there is forcing you to buy a product or service, then it’s an issue of developing a degree of consumer discretion (not all ads are in your face and neither is it something that should be seen as a purely black & white issue).

The grain of truth, yes, consumerism can become a problem for some when you note that some people buy just for the sake of buying stuff (but don’t blame the companies for the mere act of talking about what they’ve been producing).

Interesting about donations. I have a small site up for a crochet/knit pattern application I wrote in Java and on it there’s a donation link where people can donate via PayPal. I’ve had numerous people email me and thank me for the application and it’s nice to know there are those thankful for it. I’ve added a few features that people requested too. If you don’t already know there’s a very large community of people who create and sell crochet and knit patterns.

Anyway the interesting thing is that I’ve had a couple of people write me and say they’d donate if I did this or that, which I would’ve done even if they didn’t say they’d donate, and after doing it, such as a tutorial someone requested, they wrote back and thanked me, but never donated. I know they never donated because to date I have received zero donations.

I also recall one person from Greece who asked that I translate the application into Greek. Initially I said no because I don’t speak Greek and Google translate isn’t really good enough for that type of thing. She offered to do the translations for me so I agreed. I programmed the infrastructure to allow the application to support multiple languages and then compiled lists of text that needed to be translated. I sent her everything that needed to be translated, which was probably a lot more than she thought, and never heard back.

P.S. Kinda reminds me of this article I recently read on-line about a guy in Australia who recently video taped people while he, pretending to be a blind man, walked up to them on the street and asked them if they could change a $5 while handing them a $50 bill. I didn’t watch the video, but apparently there’s a surprising number of people who took the $50 and gave him $5 in change.

How else then would you get the word out that you have a new product? Without ads, there can be no commerce because no one will know what the company is producing or what service it’s providing.

How does your local fish-and chip shop attract people? It ain’t by putting adverts everywhere. Commerce can (and did) exist a long time before advertising.

Also, if you feel like every little advertisement out there is forcing you to buy a product or service…

They are not forcing you, but they are attempting to pursuade you.

Imagine someone is trying to poison you. On day one they leave a poisoned chocolate bar on your desk. On day two it’s a coffee. By the second week it’s candyfloss. Eventually they’ll find something you like enough that you eat it and die.
That’s how advertising works. And once they figure out what you’re particularly susceptable to, you start noticing the adverts. Then you start clicking on them. Then one day you buy.
That’s what advertising is about. That’s how it works. So yes, it doesn’t force you to, but particularly in the modern age of big data, it will eventually make a sale - if it knows enough about you.

Interesting about donations. … Anyway the interesting thing is that I’ve had a couple of people write me and say they’d donate if I did this or that, which I would’ve done even if they didn’t say they’d donate, and after doing it, such as a tutorial someone requested, they wrote back and thanked me, but never donated. I know they never donated because to date I have received zero donations.

And that’s a brief insight into consumerism. If you don’t have it, you pay for it. If you have it, why should I pay for it?
Yes, this is a problem. You need a large userbase for there to be donations.

What about the many other websites on the internet, would you prefer to pay a subscription to every last website that you frequent as a result of your refusal to help them get operating revenue via ads?

I run some websites. Do I have adverts on them? no. If every website has a paywall, a person like me will create a website that doesn’t, and it will be a thousand times more popular, even if it has less content. Compare wikipedia to encarta. Free but less accurate vs pay.

So on the web, can money be made? Yes, just look at the quantity of online stores selling physical products. Look at the number of online stores selling virtual products. But to me, getting money from adverts is strange. Where does the money come from? The company providing the advert. Where does it go? The hoster. What service is the hoster providing? Well, he provides some space on his webpage. What does this make the cost? The cost is the visual noise of the advert.


Do you get email spam? Do you like it? Web advertisements are the same as email spam: adverts shoved down your throat.


I’ve already been here but:
If there was the same level of advertising in real life as there was on the internet, thenveryone would have an advert on their fence because a company was paying them for their fence-space. In fact, every fence would be pretty much covered in adverts. But you’re actually be trying to look at the fence because you’re a fence inspector.

If adblock is friend or foe depens on what site you use it.

They are friend if you are visiting unsafe sites (usually the unsafe sites that does not seem to have virus have got some ads that may have got virus so it’s good to use adblock at these sites)

They are foe if you are visiting safe sites such like youtube.
(everyone have got a channel or more that love visiting for it’s nice or helpful videos, using adblock you are destroying these channels because the most times, their only help to continue producing these videos are the ads)
Think again about youtube, youtube ads are safe from viruses, no need to use adblock on sites such like youtube.