Report claims ad blocking is costing an estimated $21.8 billion in 2015

[pjm0925]

Good,  the people putting all those adds out there can die in a fire.  If they didn't overdo it, I could deal with it.  It has just gotten too out of hand, you give someone an inch they take a mile so screw 'em.

[minibois]

I don't use ABP anymore, but I can understand why people would..

Ads that appear after the page has loaded, causing you to click the ad instead of the desired link.. Irrelevant or just straight up weird ads..

[Snickerzz]

Yep, it's the same retarded rhetoric from the piracy numbers: Every single pirate would have been translated into a sale because somehow, without piracy the latest cod would have sold 50 million extra copies and such.

The money someone would have spent on the latest cod instead was used to buy baby food or something. Piracy potentially costs the movie industry billions, but the money still goes into the economy some way or another.

[Murdoch]

Piracy potentially costs the movie industry billions, but the money still goes into the economy some way or another.

 

Similarly, the pool of money for marketing budgets must roughly remain about the same, the key point is how it's distributed. If adsense style adverts are ineffectual, advertisers will look for other opportunities such as sponsorships or integrated / native adverts.

[Snickerzz]

Similarly, the pool of money for marketing budgets must roughly remain about the same, the key point is how it's distributed. If adsense style adverts are ineffectual, advertisers will look for other opportunities such as sponsorships or integrated / native adverts.

That doesn't work for most websites though. 

[CtW]

This must really suck for those websites. However, I don't care enough to disable it. I fucking hate ads.

[Doobeedoo]

Boohoo, #1 world problem.

[TheUzu]

No adds = No websites

There is going to be a point where some major sites are going to just block the fuck out of people using add block, the amount of entitlement that most people have in regards to web content is sickening.

Nothing is free, and some people need to learn this.

[cDNA]

"It's not a problem of pricing, it's a problem of distribution"

Same thing for the ads, if they are placed well, they are more efficient than if they are overwhelming.

And if we didn't have to bother with intrusive ads, we wouldn't use adblockers.

[Murdoch]

That doesn't work for most websites though.

Yeah, that was one for the content creators. You can see money being diverted from adsense, into more direct partnerships with content creators, if you look closely at most popular services.

And yepp, this does indeed affect run of the mill websites because those traditional website adverts are becoming increasingly worthless. Having said that, we are still quite a distance away from websites not being able to cover basic server costs with ad revenue. But seriously, websites need to diversify their income, offer a donate button, whatever. But offer an alternative to adverts.

[Murdoch]

No adds = No websites

There is going to be a point where some major sites are going to just block the fuck out of people using add block, the amount of entitlement that most people have in regards to web content is sickening.

Nothing is free, and some people need to learn this.

 

That's fine and all, but it's incredibly entitled to set up advertising networks that track your every move online, harvest unprecedented amounts of user data, sell that data to third parties. All largely done without any consultation with the general public, with nothing but "implied consent". And we're saying that's the only business model that can work, accept that or fuck off?

[ChineseChef]

No adds = No websites

There is going to be a point where some major sites are going to just block the fuck out of people using add block, the amount of entitlement that most people have in regards to web content is sickening.

Nothing is free, and some people need to learn this.

 

Sort of, websites won't be able to just straight up block ad-block users.  Because those people will go somewhere else.  And overall traffic will move to a site that doesn't outright block them.  That will snowball with overall traffic moving to sites that don't block users. 

 

This is the same reason companies like Google and MS don't flex their corporate muscles and threaten to pull out of large markets that treat them "badly".  Like when the EU is trying to have crazy fines for Google or MS, they can't just leave the EU, or companies/consumers will find an alternative.  And once they get used to the alternative, Google/MS would have a super hard time getting them back.  Imagine if Google stopped working for people who use adblock, how long before those users switched to a different primary search engine?  How long before some company specifically catered to those people who got blocked by Google?  Just think of all the vpn/proxy services that make money simply because of region blocking of media content.  People trying to get around country blackouts for Netflix and similar. 

 

If a website blocked users who use adblock all together, site traffic would slowly decline, ad revenue would decline, thus the site would not improve as much/have to cut costs, thus more people leave because it isn't as good anymore; trapping the site in a cycle of decline until they just have to close or let everyone back in, and by then it may be too late.

[Kurosaki Isshin]

I block ads. everywhere. on my phone too (rooted) If the ads were non-invasive I wouldn't mind. but 9/10 ads are invasive. no thank you!

[TheUzu]

That's fine and all, but it's incredibly entitled to set up advertising networks that track your every move online, harvest unprecedented amounts of user data, sell that data to third parties. All largely done without any consultation with the general public, with nothing but "implied consent". And we're saying that's the only business model that can work, accept that or fuck off?

If it's free generally you are the product, if you don't want to be the product then use sites that promise no data collection as part of their business model.

In terms of user data unless your using social media they just know what sites you visit in order to target adds at you, Would you rather have adds that have absolutely no relevance to them whatsoever like adds for children's toys.

Google and Amazon in particular harvest data so they can sell you more stuff, and if they didn't know what you like then how are they going to achieve that, what else could these companies achieve with that data that would benefit them.

If you dont want targeted adds or to be tracked then use a VPN Adblock doesn't block the tracking at all anyway, also dont sign in to anything.

[TheUzu]

Sort of, websites won't be able to just straight up block ad-block users. Because those people will go somewhere else. And overall traffic will move to a site that doesn't outright block them. That will snowball with overall traffic moving to sites that don't block users.

This is the same reason companies like Google and MS don't flex their corporate muscles and threaten to pull out of large markets that treat them "badly". Like when the EU is trying to have crazy fines for Google or MS, they can't just leave the EU, or companies/consumers will find an alternative. And once they get used to the alternative, Google/MS would have a super hard time getting them back. Imagine if Google stopped working for people who use adblock, how long before those users switched to a different primary search engine? How long before some company specifically catered to those people who got blocked by Google? Just think of all the vpn/proxy services that make money simply because of region blocking of media content. People trying to get around country blackouts for Netflix and similar.

If a website blocked users who use adblock all together, site traffic would slowly decline, ad revenue would decline, thus the site would not improve as much/have to cut costs, thus more people leave because it isn't as good anymore; trapping the site in a cycle of decline until they just have to close or let everyone back in, and by then it may be too late.

I said at a certain point, there could simply be a point where blocking add-block had no downsides if 98% of people used it for example, no one company would move alone lobbying for making Adblock illegal would be the first port of call I'd imagine.

Move away from Google?

So no gmail, Google search and YouTube.

I'd rather watch 5 minutes adds than have to use bing and Yahoo! Video.

[EonityLuna]

I gladly unblock adverts on sites that I take advantage of if they aren't too obnoxious and in-your-face.

I use an adblocker because of several reasons:

• advertising can be distracting for me
• pre-emptively block malware that may spread through even legit advertising networks
• for my own privacy (I give over only the data that allows software features I want to use work, not for someone to just sell me stuff, and only after I review and consent to it)

[Murdoch]

If it's free generally you are the product, if you don't want to be the product then use sites that promise no data collection as part of their business model.

In terms of user data unless your using social media they just know what sites you visit in order to target adds at you, Would you rather have adds that have absolutely no relevance to them whatsoever like adds for children's toys.

Google and Amazon in particular harvest data so they can sell you more stuff, and if they didn't know what you like then how are they going to achieve that, what else could these companies achieve with that data that would benefit them.

If you dont want targeted adds or to be tracked then use a VPN Adblock doesn't block the tracking at all anyway, also dont sign in to anything.

 

Indeed. Personally I use uBlock, Ghostery and Noscript, and connect via a VPN. I also use DuckDuckGo as my search engine. I whitelist certain websites, and the adverts are either related to the website or they are location based (which are usually useless to me as my VPN uses a dutch based IP). And I am completely fine with that.

 

I also don't have a problem with services like Amazon using my purchase history or what I've browsed on their site, to tailor recommendations to me. They don't track me across the net, so they have my consent as a user of their website. Google on the other hand, has become far too prevalent for my liking, thus I barely use their services anymore, with the exception of YouTube.

[TheUzu]

Indeed. Personally I use uBlock, Ghostery and Noscript, and connect via a VPN. I also use DuckDuckGo as my search engine. I whitelist certain websites, and the adverts are either related to the website or they are location based (which are usually useless to me as my VPN uses a dutch based IP). And I am completely fine with that.

I also don't have a problem with services like Amazon using my purchase history or what I've browsed on their site, to tailor recommendations to me. They don't track me across the net, so they have my consent as a user of their website. Google on the other hand, has become far too prevalent for my liking, thus I barely use their services anymore, with the exception of YouTube.

In terms of whitelisting sites it would be much fairer in my opinion to blacklist sites instead, maybe in the form of an opensource project which monitors websites add sourcing and blacklisting accordingly.

Otherwise when you receive a valuable service be that information or something else from a website that you don't normally use, they receive no benefit from you.

But for me I practice the ancient tradition of being careful on which sites I visit and using potent AV software, therefore helping out the websites and services that help me.

I use a VPN to bypass region blocking, other than that it's vanilla internet for me.

[xXChaoticSymphonyXx]

 

 

... $21.8 billion globally in lost advertising revenue in 2015.

 

Also all likely recovered, as profits, by your internet providers due to the increased prices they are charging for internet service. Maybe it's time content providers demand a cut of the action from them instead of tossing around aggressive ad campaigns that just tempt more people into running Ad blocking programs.

[patrick3027]

YouTube is to blame. I started using ad blockers when they launched ads before every video. That's a joke Google, and you know it.

[nims0c]

I stopped using Adblock Plus and haven't really felt the desire to reinstall it. Sure, there are annoying ads from time to time, but I haven't been overly bothered.

[IMPERIUS]

The fucks i dont give are insane

[AxelRantila]

Sure, there are annoying ads from time to time, but I haven't been overly bothered.

I'm sort of in the same seat. For the most part I haven't been bothered by online adds in quite some time. There are exceptions for sure, but they are just that, exceptions.

[Miguel Batista]

In terms of whitelisting sites it would be much fairer in my opinion to blacklist sites instead, maybe in the form of an opensource project which monitors websites add sourcing and blacklisting accordingly.

Otherwise when you receive a valuable service be that information or something else from a website that you don't normally use, they receive no benefit from you.

But for me I practice the ancient tradition of being careful on which sites I visit and using potent AV software, therefore helping out the websites and services that help me.

I use a VPN to bypass region blocking, other than that it's vanilla internet for me.

In my opinion it is not much fairer. I believe I should have the right to choose where my money goes to and if you call that "self-entitlement", you're wrong. It is like saying that if you get approached by a marketing agency while walking down the street you are forced to give them your full attention, they can take all the information you've given them and sell it somewhere else making money out of you twice (without you seeing a dyme for it).

Ah, and you may be stabbed.

So yeah, I will continue to block everything by default until such a time where ads are regulated and not full page buy now loud sounds and flashy malware installing imagery. We have Donald Trump for that.

[jaggysnake57]

you tube ads....thats why i ad block