[Tiny-Bit Sensational] NY Times recommends ad blockers after CEO mulls ad-block ban

[Guest Kloaked]

Original article: http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/ny-times-recommends-ad-blockers-after-ceo-mulls-banning-readers/

 

Nobody likes ads. Nobody. Well, except for the ones making money off it.

 

That leads into something I've always wondered: do these companies who do sensational and borderline-false advertising actually make money from the amount of advertising they do? It costs a lot of money to advertise. I wonder how that process works and benefits the advertiser in the long run, where they're not losing money.

 

Anyways...

 

 

...

 

 

Quote

 

The New York Times inadvertently found itself on both sides of the media world's ongoing ad-blocking conversation this week when a public statement by its CEO was countered by an article about smartphone battery life.

 

On one side of the argument stood CEO Mark Thompson, who spoke against the practice on Tuesday during a keynote discussion at New York's Social Media Week—and suggested possibly banning Times access for users who employ ad-blocking software. Adweek reported on that conversation, which saw Thompson say that his paper's content should be valued "like it's HBO rather than a broadcast network" and that "trying to use and get the benefit of the Times' journalism without making any contribution to how it's paid is not good."

 

 

 

Here we are again with another media outlet considering hiding their content to would-be viewers if they're using AdBlock.

 

Like I said up top, no one likes ads. No one likes those stupid ass overlays that you have to move your mouse to the tiny, nearly hidden X at the top right (or whatever position it may be). No one likes wondering what kind of bullshit Kim Karda$hian is using for her face, and no one wants to know why doctors hate some random man for his discovery that could cure aids (because those are fake, obviously (in case you didn't know)).

 

What's funny is this next bit:

 

 

Quote

 

Yet the Times followed those statements on Wednesday with a feature-length guide in its technology section titled "Tips and Myths About Extending Smartphone Battery Life." The guide, which is advertised as "part of a series of creative collaborations with The Wirecutter," covers topics such as downloading media instead of streaming it and keeping a phone's automatic brightness setting enabled, and it also dismisses battery-related myths. Most interestingly—at least in light of Thompson's statements—is its unqualified recommendation to "block power-sucking ads."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whoever caught this is a beautiful person. Further in the article, Ars cites the tests on Times' own website that show blocking ads will indeed increase your mobile battery life.

 

This is journalism today, folks. You have CEOs who are out of touch with reality, and don't even pay attention to what's on their own website.Those tests are going to be deleted soon, or modified to not show ads depleting your battery life. I guarantee it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of ads...

 

 

This thread is brought to you by:

 

 

Squarespace.

Build it beautiful.

[Enderman]

maybe you should check your google interest categories so that you get ads that actually interest you instead of useless spam

[zacRupnow]

10 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

Speaking of ads...

This thread is brought to you by:

 

Squarespace.

Build it beautiful.

Squarespace

YOU SHOULD

[Ryoutarou97]

8 minutes ago, Enderman said:

maybe you should check your google interest categories so that you get ads that actually interest you instead of useless spam

I'm not interested in all these ads about how to make my, er, arm bigger. Heh. Wonder why those are showing up. Silly multi-billion dollar advertising engine must have messed up again.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, Ryoutarou97 said:

I'm not interested in all these ads about how to make my, er, arm bigger. Heh. Wonder why those are showing up. Silly multi-billion dollar advertising engine must have messed up again.

uh, that's why you can manually change the interest categories...

of course websites that dont use adsense wont be customized with your preferences, but most sites do, and i always get ads related to PC parts or audio equipment or RC and stuff that I actually like

[Guest Kloaked]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

uh, that's why you can manually change the interest categories...

of course websites that dont use adsense wont be customized with your preferences, but most sites do, and i always get ads related to PC parts or audio equipment or RC and stuff that I actually like

I do too. Adsense knows my interests. Those aren't the ads I talked about.

[Tmt97]

I think if anything adblocker will probably save money for some companies in the long run. Hear me out first before you flame me. Just ask yourself, when in the last year did you buy something because you saw an ad for it? And I don't just mean you bought something that has been advertised somewhere before. I mean that you saw an ad for something that you hadn't previously intended to buy, then made a decision to buy that item because you saw that ad? For me the answer is: "that's never happened in my entire life." Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe you HAVE actually bought something because of an ad, but I'm just speaking from personal experience here. And based on my personal experience, it would seem companies are wasting money advertising(atleast to me). So if anything, using adblocker will motivate companies making money off ads to find a new source of revenue, which will in turn force the companies wasting money on said ads, to stop wasting their money.

[Guest Kloaked]

Just now, Tmt97 said:

I think if anything adblocker will probably save money for some companies in the long run. Hear me out first before you flame me. Just ask yourself, when in the last year did you buy something because you saw an ad for it? And I don't just mean you bought something that has been advertised somewhere before. I mean that you saw an ad for something that you hadn't previously intended to buy, then made a decision to buy that item because you saw that ad? For me the answer is: "that's never happened in my entire life." Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe you HAVE actually bought something because of an ad, but I'm just speaking from personal experience here. And based on my personal experience, it would seem companies are wasting money advertising(atleast to me). So if anything, using adblocker will motivate companies making money off ads to find a new source of revenue, which will in turn force the companies wasting money on said ads, to stop wasting their money.

Those were some of my thoughts too. I don't know how all of that stuff works, like I mentioned in the OP, but some of these companies have got to be losing money on all of this shitty advertising. There's no way they bring in more revenue after doing the advertisements unless they're just doing it for teh luls

[Tmt97]

6 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

Those were some of my thoughts too. I don't know how all of that stuff works, like I mentioned in the OP, but some of these companies have got to be losing money on all of this shitty advertising. There's no way they bring in more revenue after doing the advertisements unless they're just doing it for teh luls

Exactly. However I might add to my original post that, for those people who DO buy things from ads, then you should leave adblocker off, because the argument that companies are losing money is valid in your specific case if you actually would buy the stuff that your not seeing. But if your like me and have never bought something in a ad in your entire life regardless of it being filtered to your interests, then they aren't making anymore money with you seeing the ad than with you not seeing it. Because of that, the money(if any) lost due to adblocker really varies from person to person. But I think that most people who are annoyed enough with ads to download and use adblocker in the first place, probably aren't going to be buying stuff in the ads anyway, which is why I have a hard time buying that adblocker costs them any money in reality.

[Ryoutarou97]

11 hours ago, Tmt97 said:

Exactly. However I might add to my original post that, for those people who DO buy things from ads, then you should leave adblocker off, because the argument that companies are losing money is valid in your specific case if you actually would buy the stuff that your not seeing. But if your like me and have never bought something in a ad in your entire life regardless of it being filtered to your interests, then they aren't making anymore money with you seeing the ad than with you not seeing it. Because of that, the money(if any) lost due to adblocker really varies from person to person. But I think that most people who are annoyed enough with ads to download and use adblocker in the first place, probably aren't going to be buying stuff in the ads anyway, which is why I have a hard time buying that adblocker costs them any money in reality.

But one company's loss is another's gain. And I would rather Google have money than BigDigPill inc.

[Ryoutarou97]

12 hours ago, Enderman said:

uh, that's why you can manually change the interest categories...

of course websites that dont use adsense wont be customized with your preferences, but most sites do, and i always get ads related to PC parts or audio equipment or RC and stuff that I actually like

Joke was that I was manually changing my interests to show me porn in the sidebar. But yeah, I get a lot of tech ads too.

[Tmt97]

1 minute ago, Ryoutarou97 said:

Joke was that I was manually changing my interests to show me porn in the sidebar. But yeah, I get a lot of tech ads too.

As far as tech ads go, I usually find them to be equally as pointless. If I don't have the money to upgrade my system then I'm not gonna buy whats in the ad, and if I do have the money to upgrade my system then I've already done extensive research to find exactly what I should buy next. At least in my experience, I haven't seen anything in a tech ad which both interests me and that I haven't already found and considered myself before I saw it. 

[Katorice]

12 minutes ago, Tmt97 said:

As far as tech ads go, I usually find them to be equally as pointless. If I don't have the money to upgrade my system then I'm not gonna buy whats in the ad, and if I do have the money to upgrade my system then I've already done extensive research to find exactly what I should buy next. At least in my experience, I haven't seen anything in a tech ad which both interests me and that I haven't already found and considered myself before I saw it. 

same. but I don't think we're the target audience for "ads"

you and I do research before buying hardware/software/anything.

ads are banking on you not doing research and getting your info from the ad.

this is old thinking, like TV infomercials. I think ads are targeted towards my grandma.. but she doesn't even interwebs so lol.

[Tmt97]

Just now, Katorice said:

same. but I don't think we're the target audience for "ads"

you and I do research before buying hardware/software/anything.

ads are banking on you not doing research and getting your info from the ad.

this is old thinking, like TV infomercials. I think ads are targeted towards my grandma.. but she doesn't even interwebs so lol.

If they honestly think marketing video card, motherboard combo deals to your grandma is going to get them money, then I genuinely feel bad for them. Did no one at that board meeting ask "how the fuck is she gonna install it?" My point still stands though. The money lost due to ad blocker varies on an individual basis. If your one of us who does research before buying then our use of adblocker has no effect on their profit. The only time adblocker has any effect on a companys profit at all is when were talking about an individual who DOES buy things from ads, and then chooses to use adblocker anyway. I think you'd have a hard time proving a significant number of such people actually exist. What I find is that the kind of people that use adblocker are using it because they arn't buying things from ads anyway, either because it annoys them, or because they have already done research, or for some other reason. It wouldn't make any sense to use adblocker if you actually found ads helpful and bought things from them.

[Ryoutarou97]

1 hour ago, Tmt97 said:

As far as tech ads go, I usually find them to be equally as pointless. If I don't have the money to upgrade my system then I'm not gonna buy whats in the ad, and if I do have the money to upgrade my system then I've already done extensive research to find exactly what I should buy next. At least in my experience, I haven't seen anything in a tech ad which both interests me and that I haven't already found and considered myself before I saw it. 

Oh, no, I don't actually buy the things, they just don't annoy me as much as other ads. It's still nice to look at Asus motherboards int he sidebar or an amazon ad for water blocks and fittings so I can mouse over it to check the current price.