What would convince you to uninstall ad block?

[Guest]

For me, I didn't use ad block for some time. 

When the occasional YouTube video started getting a pre roll ad, I was still not blocking but started to get fed up with it. 

 

 

Personally, I'd uninstall ad block if ads weren't blocking content. IE pre roll ads on YouTube videos. 

Also some sites have super obnoxious ads with loud audio that I used to leave those websites sometimes. 

 

If you could seriously consider this unrealistic scenario... What would sway you? 

[Tan3l6]

Only cold, hard cash

[Hinjima]

6 minutes ago, fpo said:

For me, I didn't use ad block for some time. 

When the occasional YouTube video started getting a pre roll ad, I was still not blocking but started to get fed up with it. 

 

 

Personally, I'd uninstall ad block if ads weren't blocking content. IE pre roll ads on YouTube videos. 

Also some sites have super obnoxious ads with loud audio that I used to leave those websites sometimes. 

 

If you could seriously consider this unrealistic scenario... What would sway you? 

I will admit, I use adblock. I can't stand ads and they are 99% not relevant to anything I like.  For the content creates that I like and watch on a regualar basis I always buy one or two months of Patreon - Twitch month sub or floatplane to balance it out.   A youtube add gives around $0.01 and $0.03 per add so I am giving them quite a bit more and thats fine for me.
I dont know what would sway me into watching ads, I personaly know what I want to buy or save up for so I dont need ads telling me to buy something.

[Eigenvektor]

The large majority of YouTube videos still have ads, they're simply called sponsor spots. Ad block is primarily needed for sites that plaster ads everywhere so that you can't click anywhere without accidentally triggering something or popups with weird close button placement.

 

How about a compromise: An ad blocker that still loads the ad, but simply doesn't show it to me. That way I can enjoy the site without garish ads, and the ad company has exactly the same they had before. An "ad impression" that has zero effect on me, except now it also doesn't annoy me or do weird things to my browser.

[porina]

Following would be my demands to make ads acceptable enough that I'd uninstall adblock:

 

For web content:

• Ad is inline with content and does not obscure content
• Ad is clearly an ad, and does not try to represent itself as something it isn't e.g. fake download buttons
• No animation, video, sound, new windows or similar unless explicitly interacted with. Mouse over events does not count as an interaction
• Site's promoting their own content also counts in this e.g. "before you leave, please subscribe", or video that is not related directly to the page contents.

For video content:

• Has a big skip button with no delay to activation. Skipping removes all ads in the current sequence, not just the playing one
• Audio level is matched to surrounding content

For all adverts:

• Ad is relevant to the site content. In case of sites with highly diverse content, it should be relevant to the page/content it is displayed near
• No ad tracking beyond if an advert is displayed or clicked. No cross site user tracking or profiling.
• No misrepresentation. That is displaying anything that intentionally makes you think it is something it is not, even if it is technically correct.

 

Chances of all above happening: exactly 0%. 

[porina]

6 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

How about a compromise: An ad blocker that still loads the ad, but simply doesn't show it to me. That way I can enjoy the site without garish ads, and the ad company has exactly the same they had before. An "ad impression" that has zero effect on me, except now it also doesn't annoy me or do weird things to my browser.

I had wondered about this very idea in the past. The browser could render the full web page into a virtual space. Wanted image content would be copied from the virtual space to display. From the web site perspective, everything looks like it is working.

[OhioYJ]

Just now, porina said:

I had wondered about this very idea in the past. The browser could render the full web page into a virtual space. Wanted image content would be copied from the virtual space to display. From the web site perspective, everything looks like it is working.

What about the malicious ads that floating around out there. While not common, I'd rather the stuff just not load to begin with.

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, porina said:

I had wondered about this very idea in the past. The browser could render the full web page into a virtual space. Wanted image content would be copied from the virtual space to display. From the web site perspective, everything looks like it is working.

Yeah, I've often wondered why there's no ad blocker doing this. Sure, you would no longer save bandwidth (personally don't care), but still save sanity. Of course in a sense this is now bordering on "theft" even more, because now the ad company is tricked into paying money for an ad impression that never took place. But is that really any worse than an ad impression that my brains "ad blocker" filters out?

[porina]

Just now, OhioYJ said:

What about the malicious ads that floating around out there. While not common, I'd rather the stuff just not load to begin with.

It doesn't solve that problem, but the browser could try to contain bad stuff.

[Needfuldoer]

I actually don't mind ads all that much, unless they auto-play videos and cause the content to jump around like crazy when they appear and disappear.

 

Fandom wikis are a good example of sites that use the worst kinds of ads, especially on mobile. AdBlock Plus and Privacy Badger are indispensable for sites like that.

[porina]

4 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Yeah, I've often wondered why there's no ad blocker doing this.

Could be difficult to implement well. I suppose you could use existing adblock filter lists so you know which parts of which site are considered ads, and then not display the content related to the parts that would have been blocked. Will it break formatting, or other wanted interactive elements on sites?

[Tan3l6]

I hear YT and Twitch ads are like in 10s of seconds. I'm glad I have not spent hours on watching them in my life.

[Eigenvektor]

2 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

What about the malicious ads that floating around out there. While not common, I'd rather the stuff just not load to begin with.

I remember in site ad "popups" that purposely had their full screen and close buttons swapped.

 

Do they really think tricking me into going somewhere else when I clearly didn't want to interact with the ad is going to reflect positively on them and make me reconsider their offer? If anything its a turn off and reason to avoid the associated brand.

 

If stuff like this hadn't started to take over, there would be no need for ad blocker everywhere all the time. Since most sites don't control their own ads you can never be sure what is going to creep in.

 

4 minutes ago, porina said:

Could be difficult to implement well. I suppose you could use existing adblock filter lists so you know which parts of which site are considered ads, and then not display the content related to the parts that would have been blocked. Will it break formatting, or other wanted interactive elements on sites?

Ad blockers are already messing with formatting by not loading images etc. I think they could simply continue to do what they are doing now, just still download the content that isn't visible. Or replace them with empty gray placeholder images that say "ad"

[whispous]

Lacks option "If ads weren't intrusive"

[manikyath]

when ads stop *interrupting* the content i watch.

 

key on the 'interruption' here. an ad break isnt necessarily an "interruption", in the same way as a TV quiz may have an ad break between rounds.. but in this example if they have an ad break between the question and the answer... i dont want this in my life.

 

and it just appears that the internet has mostly become the second half of that. i simply *cannot* watch twitch without an adblocker, because the sudden unplanned 2 minute adbreaks *ALWAYS*, without a fault, make me miss a key moment.

 

i've never minded the 30 second ad at the start of watching a twitch stream, what i do mind.. is that it vomits the same single ad (yes, last time i had ads enabled on twitch i had *ONE* ad that would play) over and over again, interrupting the stuff i'm actually trying to watch.

[lewdicrous]

I use an ad blocker to customize webpages, via element blocking, so I see no reason to stop using them.

[da na]

if my computer were to explode were I to keep adblock installed, I might consider getting rid of it.

[gopher-server]

I have used Ublock Origin on Firefox since it first came out.  It does a lot more than just block ads and has been quite reliable as far as not mangling websites. The latest annoyance it got rid of was those constant "log in with Google" popups that seem to be everywhere.  Haven't seen one of those in months.  There is nothing that could convince me to stop.

[Donut417]

After an ad on Facebook tried to give me a virus I basically said fuck the advertisers and the sites. Sites that use ads to support themselves need to do better diligence on who's purchasing ads to ensure they are not distributing malware. 

 

In the context of Youtube, if Premium was $5.99 vs being $11.99 id probably consider subscribing. 

[8tg]

Turn your adblocker off and look at any news article.

They took the best part about online news, as in not having to deal with tv advertisements, and made it actually worse than tv or a newspaper. It is nearly impossible to read.

Nobody bat an eye at a banner ad or side space ad. But when they started integrating them into the content space, adding auto playing videos, pop up ads, page following banner ads, god no.

You go to read an article, it goes “please disable your adblocker”, no.

Then the formatting in place these days is to cut off the content early and “click here to continue reading” because they want to present you the footer ads on the main view as quickly as possible, and they don’t end.

The entire time you’re scrolling past ads, there’s something playing audio you don’t know what, it’s actually like you have malware except it’s intentional web design.

Unskippable YouTube ads, or any YouTube ad in general. I block absolutely everything I can and sites where their content is so riddled with garbage advertisements that even an adblocker can’t keep up, I don’t use anymore.

They could pay me whatever to stop using ad blockers, because I’d stop using ad blockers by never touching the internet again.

 

You know how nice it is to click on a YouTube video, and it just plays the fucking video? No preplay ads, no mid roll ads, I even have an extension that’s a p2p content blocking effort that blocks sponsored segments of videos and deletes advertisement links from descriptions. 
I would rather pay for YouTube than ever see any of that shit. I’d rather give a content creator a dollar from my pocket personally per view than ever let the ads display.

[CuriousBread]

Really good content. 

For instance LTT produced excellent content and consistent enough I migrated to Floatplane where I pay a monthly fee to watch their content ad free and ensure all my money goes into supporting them directly. 

 

Ads is just a secondary method of compensating creators. If the content is good enough most people would happily pony up the dosh, but if it's just marginally good and people are using the content to fill in the silence between what they need to do, they would not stop using an adblocker. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, CuriousBread said:

rs. If the content is good enough most people would happily pony up the dosh

The issue is there are too many streaming platforms. Not to mention everyone and their dog wants to make a product or service a subscription. Eventually people will become subscription poor. 

[Erioch]

I'm in the "nothing" camp.  I don't know who here remembers the days of ads popping up everywhere you went and almost nothing you could do to stop them.  That was mostly fixed but it's starting to be that intrusive again.

 

My local newspaper, which I pay a yearly subscription for, has more ads than content if I don't block them.  For a service I pay for.  

 

I will never stop blocking them.  If I can't use a site because of that, I won't use that site.

[CuriousBread]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

The issue is there are too many streaming platforms. Not to mention everyone and their dog wants to make a product or service a subscription. Eventually people will become subscription poor. 

Then people will have to be more selective about who they subscribe to. You don't walk into a restaurant and order every single dish because you like all of them. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, CuriousBread said:

Then people will have to be more selective about who they subscribe to. You don't walk into a restaurant and order every single dish because you like all of them. 

Im already selective about what I subscribe to. The issue is, prices keep going up. Things that shouldn't have subscriptions have subscriptions. Like cars have subscriptions. Software of all types now has subscription's when a few years ago you just bought the new version when you needed the newer features. Not everything needs a subscription or needs to have a subscription only option. Which is my point. 

 

Also when people dont feel there is value in the subscriptions they will get the content others ways. WHen all the content was on Netflix for example piracy actually dropped. Now these services all got greedy, piracy is going to make a comeback. Sure there are the people who will pirate to just pirate. But then there are those who either cant afford the subscription or those who feel there's not enough value in the subscription. Youtube Premium for example I feel at $11.99 it doesn't have enough value. At $5.99 I feel there's more value there. My friend subscribes to Youtube TV, why isn't a premium sub included? Because of greed. Companies are pricing themselves out of business. Its kinda like how GPU sales have dropped, because people A) Dont want to support the greed. B) Dont see the value in the new products. C) Dont have the money due to inflation.