Ad Block plus and content creators

[Tygron]

So i'm gonna rant here a little bit. I was looking for a good topic to toss this into but really I kinda want Linus to see this after seeing the part in the WAN show of July 11th 2014. There is a TL;DR

 

So we all know what Ad Block Plus is used for, we know that content creators use ad revenue as income. Be that for things like Linus Media Group or just an individual making content on their own. But what we never seem to talk about is why ad block needed to come about.

 

Now ok, I know there are a lot of people who either don't want to ever see an ad at all or just want to give the finger to content creators and say "No you're not going to get money for this hahaha". But I have a feeling there are many people like me who don't want to be bothered by ads with the way they've become. I grew up on dial up internet, I was on forums and stuff at the age of 10 and saw ads and things on a pretty frequent basis. Several years later they moved more and more toward things that moved or made noise or in some way tried to call attention to themselves more. Then they started hiding themselves and moving around the page or completely jumping out in front of what your reading or blocking the entire page (btw, web designers who make those "like our page on facebook!" popups after i've scrolled down 2% of the page... fuck you, go kill yourself please). And when Youtube started putting more and more ads on the page, the ones above the recommended videos got bigger and bigger. Then they started popping up at the bottom of videos so I have to click them away, and then they started stopping the video midway through and then they started before video's and sometimes at the beginning and even the middle (until they completely did away with halfway mark ads).

 

This is where my problem began. Ads became an annoyance. No longer were they on the sides of the page being silent and behaving, but they were deliberately stopping my web browsing and video watching. This causes a problem. Ads are suppose to make me click or buy a product right? Well all the interruptive ads began to make me do is hate whoever is putting out that ad. So I looked for a solution, and Ad Block Plus was it. I was surprised at how well it worked, I saw absolutely no ads. Even ads that were put out on sites that run their own ads through the site were blocked, and I wouldn't have expected that on those sites. I actually went out and unblocked those ads because they behave and I click on some of those, as they lead to more content on the site itself usually.

 

But for the past few years i've heard people whine and complain about people using and ad block. Whining that i'm blocking money from going to content creators that make the content I watch or view on the internet. And i'll admit, I want the people who provide my entertainment to get paid. But I see no change in the way ads are shown, they continue to become more interruptive. This is where I want to tell the content creators that they are also part of the problem. I bet there are a fair number of people like me who would have no problem with ads if they behaved like they used to. Like a billboard on the side of the highway. It's there, but it doesn't jump out in front of your car going "HEY LOOK AT ME".

 

So if you want people like me to stop blocking some money for you, here's what you need to do. Message youtube, frequently. All of you. Complain about the way ads are being blocked and that they are being blocked because they are obtrusive and interruptive and completely stop people from getting to the content they want to watch. Go to Google, or whatever other places supply the ads for whatever site, blog, whatever your using and complain there too. Get this nonsense to stop, and I and hopefully many others will stop blocking ads. I won't say that will 100% fix the problem, but i'm fairly certain there's more than a fair few that block ads for this reason. It's your job to fix this just as much as it's ours to not block ads. But until you do something about it, you shouldn't be allowed to cry about it.

 

Now I see some people going towards this going to gets sponsors and ads from other places and putting them into the video themselves. And as long as that stays the way it is and doesn't get any more annoying, i'm ok with it. Honestly I like the way Linus and Teksyndicate have been doing it because it's entertaining still. But if I really want to I can skip over that portion of the video. I see it as a sort of desperate "oh crap this youtube ad thing isn't working because people are blocking it wahhhh" but the above section explains all that. And if this works better then that's fine, I don't know if either mentioned channels have youtube's ads implemented anymore anyway since well... I block ads.

 

All in all, I realize these aren't exactly full paragraphs and I only did it to segment my thoughts a bit to make it easier to read. I hope someone at Linus Media Group or Linus himself, or even other content creators read this and hopefully help to get this issue fixed. I'm tired of hearing the complaint of blocking off money from content creators and "the internet isn't free". You can't complain if you don't try to fix the problem yourself. I realize there will still be people blocking ads to block ads, but I can't even use my phone without popups getting in the way of me getting to what I want to do. That isn't advertising, that's harassing. And i'm going to do everything I can to stop it, and if that means it hurts whoevers wallet, so be it. Hopefully it'll hurt enough to fix the problem.

 

 

TL;DR: Content creators, you need to go complain to your webhosts or who ever is in charge of the ads for your website, blog, youtube channel, or whatever to get them from being interruptive. Go back to 2004 and earlier where ads were just there, quietly not moving or flashing on the sides of webpages. Do not pop up in my view of things, or stop me from watching a video. If you feel your income is hurt because of ads being blocked, you need to do something about it or stop crying about it. End of line.

[Askew]

Intrusive ads drove people to adblock, if people want to then rely on ads after that has occurred then of course people who already block them is going to be an issue, and because there are still intrusive and annoying ads the numbers of adblock users will continue to rise.

[Unhelpful]

I use adblock during general web browsing, with exception sites being linustechtips, lag.tv, and teksyndicate, but on youtube or twitch I turn it off. I can't stand popup ads, but I am willing to endure 10 second ads on youtube.

[Tygron]

intrusive ads drove people to adblock, if people want to then rely on ads after that has occurred then of course people who already block them is going to be an issue.

Just trying to get content creators to stop being stupid and do something about it. I'm tired of hearing the complaining about it.

[Fate]

I use adblock for everything except Linustechtips.com because this is pretty much the only site I go to that doesn't have ridiculous ads and I want to support Linus Media Group.

[PokémonTrainerFour]

Youtube ads tend to bypass AdBlock anyway, so it hasn't made a difference for me.

 

Anyway, if I remember right, Adsense doesn't even generate much revenue in the first place.

[Askew]

Youtube ads tend to bypass AdBlock anyway, so it hasn't made a difference for me.

 

 

Not for me (or countless others)

[Tygron]

Youtube ads tend to bypass AdBlock anyway, so it hasn't made a difference for me.

really? never had a problem here ever

[PokémonTrainerFour]

Not for me (or countless others)

 

really? never had a problem here ever

 

Really? AdBlock hasn't blocked any ads on youtube recently for me. I get all of the ads.

[Tygron]

Really? AdBlock hasn't blocked any ads on youtube recently for me. I get all of the ads.

odd, you sure it isn't off on youtube and or you're subscribed to the right list?

[PokémonTrainerFour]

odd, you sure it isn't off on youtube and or you're subscribed to the right list?

 

It's turned on, and I'm using AdBlock Pro, subscribed to EasyList

[Tygron]

A TL;DR on a rant! Yes!

You're welcome

 

 

It's turned on, and I'm using AdBlock Pro, subscribed to EasyList

Odd... what browser are you using, and is there a way to make sure Ad Block is up to date. Perhaps for some reason it isn't?

[Epis]

Basically, I just block all ads and whitelist sites that do not have intrusive or annoying ads. LTT is an example of this.

[PokémonTrainerFour]

You're welcome

 

 

Odd... what browser are you using, and is there a way to make sure Ad Block is up to date. Perhaps for some reason it isn't?

 

Using Chrome, I just hit the update button on the list, I assume it's updated now.

[Tygron]

Using Chrome, I just hit the update button on the list, I assume it's updated now.

hmm. well if it's still not working the only thing I can think of is youtube is added to your whitelist. But outside of that I don't know what could be wrong. Sorry

 

 

And yea guys I know the whitelist exists but. I don't really trust ads from anywhere anymore. Not until this crap gets fixed.

[Guest]

I wonder where they stand on a business standpoint. Perhaps intrusive ads are still preferable to them because even though they annoy us, they surely generate more clicks by less savvy people (otherwise they wouldn't bother) and perhaps that's believed to counterbalance the fact that we, a perhaps vocal minority, are actively avoiding them.

I think that while most people are annoyed by ads, we're perhaps a niche of power users who are particularly irritated by them. My grandma sees an ad in the middle of a youtube video and she doesn't care, she watched TV for most of her life and they had ads too. I view an ad and I feel my life burning away.

[Tygron]

I wonder where they stand on a business standpoint. Perhaps intrusive ads are still preferable to them because even though they annoy us, they surely generate more clicks by less savvy people (otherwise they wouldn't bother) and perhaps that's believed to counterbalance the fact that we, a perhaps vocal minority, are actively avoiding them.

I think that while most people are annoyed by ads, we're perhaps a niche of power users who are particularly irritated by them. My grandma sees an ad in the middle of a youtube video and she doesn't care, she watched TV for most of her life and they had ads too. I view an ad and I feel my life burning away.

I see your point and do understand that. I dunno. I just feel there's a difference for the way ads work. Like billboards on the side of the highway work there, commercial segments on tv work. Popup ads on the internet don't. Meh I dunno. Just throwing another complain out there.

[TetraSky]

I need adblock.. because of ads that put a big "DOWNLOAD" button on pages where I need to download something... where I see like 20 links/pictures  that says "download" but only one of them is the real one... the rest are either malwares or plain junk. That along with websites that seems to be 90% ads and 10% content... which there are many these days.

 

I use Adblock Edge, I don't have any way of "whitelisting" things like youtube. If it was always only a small ad at the bottom of the video that I can get rid of easily, I wouldn't mind, but having to waste time on a pre-roll ad or worse, an ad in the middle of the video... no thanks.

[Misanthrope]

I think it's quite regrettable that Linus went too far into his "Content creator" mode on the last WAN show and didn't even acknowledge some of the other content in that thread, namely Lawlz post on Adblock plus rules for white listing which I think was quite revealing. To quote this info:
 

Which ads are "acceptable"?
We currently have the following requirements:

• Static advertisements only (no animations, sounds or similar)
• Preferably text only, no attention-grabbing images
• Ad placement:
  • Ads should never obscure page content (e.g. require users to click a button to close the ad before viewing the page).
  • For pages featuring a reading text ads should not be placed in the middle, where they interrupt the reading flow. However, they can be placed above the text content, below it or on the sides. The same applies to search results pages: paid search results cannot be mixed with organic results.
  • When ads are placed above the content of a main page, they should not require the user to scroll down. The available vertical space is likely to be at least 700 pixels. Advertising should not occupy more than one-third of that height. Paid search results on search pages are allowed to occupy more space, but they should never outnumber organic results.
  • When placed on the side ads should leave enough space for the main content. The available horizontal space can be expected to be at least 1000 pixels, and advertising should not occupy more than a third of that width.
• Advertising should be clearly marked as such with the word "advertising" or its equivalent, and it should be distinguishable from page content, for instance via a border and/or different a background color.
• Marking and placement requirements do not apply for hyperlinks with affiliate referrer IDs embedded in the content of the page. Additional criteria for hyperlinks with affiliate referrer IDs:
  • Redirects originating from the hyperlink should not present any other webpage than the destination page.
  • In texts, not more than 2 percent of the words can be hyperlinked for monetization purposes.
  • Hyperlinks should not be formatted or behave differently than other links.
  • Hyperlinks should not be misleading, in either content or placement.

These criteria are not necessarily final; we are always working at improving them. In particular, we want to require that every user's privacy is respected (e.g. mandatory Do Not Track support). However, we are not yet in a position to enforce that requirement.

 

Now under this specific rules, I don't think any of us would have any problems with ad block. If everybody was to follow this we wouldn't even need it. Content creators need to understand just how often this is just not the case at all and how the advertisers they end up accepting for their website are much more disruptive.

And I'm sorry to say but from what I've seen on this forum, I think for the most part this forum would actually comply with all those rules except very few ads I've seen here that had some very minor movement, Ironically enough LinusTech could very easily already have this forum white listed for Adblock. 

I am not questioning whenever or not he should have to PAY for that to happen, I honestly would like to wait for those specific allegations to develop further. But the entire idea that any content creator should automatically adhere to a strict "Adblock is automatically wrong" mentality it's just not something I can agree with, specially when someone like him does actually a pretty good job of self policing reasonable adds and site structure which is all Adblock is asking for here.

[Builder]

I think it's fine when he puts ads directly into his videos, I'm sure he gets paid more for them than through partnership.

 

I just don't like the psychological attack ones, like most of them are with Google.

 

/rant

[Tygron]

I think it's fine when he puts ads directly into his videos, I'm sure he gets paid more for them than through partnership.

Yea I think those are ok as long as they stay the way they are. Either Linus entertains me with the way he advertises them or they're a brief intro at the beginning that seems more like a show intro, and or at the end of the video where I don't have to watch it at all if I don't want to.

 

 

I think it's quite regrettable that Linus went too far into his "Content creator" mode on the last WAN show and didn't even acknowledge some of the other content in that thread, namely Lawlz post on Adblock plus rules for white listing which I think was quite revealing. To quote this info:

 

Now under this specific rules, I don't think any of us would have any problems with ad block. If everybody was to follow this we wouldn't even need it. Content creators need to understand just how often this is just not the case at all and how the advertisers they end up accepting for their website are much more disruptive.

And I'm sorry to say but from what I've seen on this forum, I think for the most part this forum would actually comply with all those rules except very few ads I've seen here that had some very minor movement, Ironically enough LinusTech could very easily already have this forum white listed for Adblock. 

I am not questioning whenever or not he should have to PAY for that to happen, I honestly would like to wait for those specific allegations to develop further. But the entire idea that any content creator should automatically adhere to a strict "Adblock is automatically wrong" mentality it's just not something I can agree with, specially when someone like him does actually a pretty good job of self policing reasonable adds and site structure which is all Adblock is asking for here.

I didn't know that, and now that I do i'm fine with the ads that would be allowed through that. And you're right, if everyone was to follow those rules we wouldn't need ad block.

 

It is because Linus went into his content creator mode that got me thinking about this again. If he were to have brought up some real issues about blocking ads I would have been ok with it. The same dribble about "wahh content creators bottom line tho" set me off again on this. And the reason I mention something on the forum instead of just being angry about it, is because I feel Linus is a big enough person, in contact with equally as large people on youtube and other sites that he can say something to the right person or get everyone to collectively say something loud enough that might get the attention of someone who might be able to do something about it. I could be wrong about that, but this is my attempt at trying to get the whole situation actually solved instead of everyone continuing to whine like idiots.