Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode

[Redd the Sock]

That's not an internet you're going to like, but you'll have no one to blame but yourself when it gets there. Who's going to pay for this magical non-commercial internet? The government? Is that REALLY what you want?

Read some of the posts:

We want simple banner ads without scripts and other shit that slows down and crashes older computers on web pages.
We want ads that are shorter and more varied on web videos.
We want ads that stay in place and don't try and rollover the link we're trying to click on.
We want ads that don't play sound unless we want them to.

Even ignoring security issues, most of us aren't against advertising, but the current model equates less to getting knowledge of your product out there, to someone loudly shouting "LOOK AT ME!!!!!! LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!!" at all hours. Adblock gave power to the consumer to avoid such crap, and instead of realizing they've crossed a few lines and were driving away customers, marketing companies blame consumers that (surprise) don't want someone yelling "buy my stuff" at them 24/7. Can any business model survive for long if they ignore the market and what it wants because it's determined to do what they want?

I do feel sorry for content creators caught in the crossfire, but I said it above: if any company is losing revenue to adblock, jumping to thinking customers are thieves is just a desperate plea to avoid admitting your marking itself drove them to it. Dial it back a bit and learn what consumers are suseptable to in marketing instead of being in our faces at all times, and a lot of adblocks will come off out of fear of what is being missed in the commercials.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Look this all comes back to "don't be an entitled jerk", nobody has presented a reasonable excuse for interfering with the content.

Several people have, actually.

To summarize a few:
-Ads that are for obvious scams, and not legitimate businesses.
-Tracking Scripts and adware creating vulnerabilities. (I've found Malware in my browser cache before from legitimate sites; including the Escapist.)
-Ads that cause software failure/browser crashes, etc.

I respect content creators, and believe in fair pricing for content (including ads),
But above that I respect my privacy and security (it's kinda my profession).

If a website cannot or will not police what their advertising partners are linking into their site, and making sure it's legitimate business, I'm going to (and have) take measures into my own hands.

 

[KisaiTenshi]

Look this all comes back to "don't be an entitled jerk", nobody has presented a reasonable excuse for interfering with the content.

Several people have, actually.

To summarize a few:
-Ads that are for obvious scams, and not legitimate businesses.
-Tracking Scripts and adware creating vulnerabilities. (I've found Malware in my browser cache before from legitimate sites; including the Escapist.)
-Ads that cause software failure/browser crashes, etc.

I respect content creators, and believe in fair pricing for content (including ads),
But above that I respect my privacy and security (it's kinda my profession).

If a website cannot or will not police what their advertising partners are linking into their site, and making sure it's legitimate business, I'm going to (and have) take measures into my own hands.

It's the website itself that decides who advertises on their site. That is handled by whoever is the broker for the advertiser and website.

Look children, I've been on the internet since the early 90's too. I'm sure you all know what AOL is. AOL was not the internet. The 90's internet predates the World Wide Web. People used Usenet and email before then and still do. If the WWW did not gain popularity, you would be sifting through usenet that looks like your spam inbox. Full of TEXT. Ever try to download a Video from Usenet? 10,000 text messages later and your usenet server missed one, entire video is useless. Yes we all REALLY want to go back to that wonderful time But hey, you were free to skip all the spam because moderation didn't exist.

Now are we done crying about an non-commercial internet that never existed?

 

[KisaiTenshi]

We want simple banner ads without scripts and other shit that slows down and crashes older computers on web pages.
We want ads that are shorter and more varied on web videos.
We want ads that stay in place and don't try and rollover the link we're trying to click on.
We want ads that don't play sound unless we want them to.


I do feel sorry for content creators caught in the crossfire, but I said it above: if any company is losing revenue to adblock, jumping to thinking customers are thieves is just a desperate plea to avoid admitting your marking itself drove them to it. Dial it back a bit and learn what consumers are suseptable to in marketing instead of being in our faces at all times, and a lot of adblocks will come off out of fear of what is being missed in the commercials.

No, see the problem with this line of thinking is that the people blocking the ads, felt entitled to change the website, at the content creators expense. Yes, you literately are stealing revenue if you are blocking the content -instead of- paying for the subscription. There is no middle ground here. View all the ads as intended, or subscribe. If you modify the site, you probably violate the terms of use and they can block you from using the site, if that was what someone wanted.

Content creators tend to be more reasonable than consumers. Jim didn't produce a video wielding a pitchfork and devil horns going "YOU WILL VIEW ALL ADS OR I WILL PERSONALLY POKE YOU IN THE POOPER"

Whatever fictional lala land the people blocking the ads exist in, isn't reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they block the ads is because their experience with bad ads comes entirely from adult and piracy sites.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

The 90's internet predates the World Wide Web. People used Usenet and email before then and still do. If the WWW did not gain popularity, you would be sifting through usenet that looks like your spam inbox. Full of TEXT.

Beautiful. I love text, and USENET was freaking awesome when it was actively used for discussion. Good times.

But video and the web isn't the result of advertising - it's a result of technology advancing and faster connections. Getting rid of advertising doesn't mean we go back to text-only. It wasn't advertisers who invented the web.

Now are we done crying about an non-commercial internet that never existed?

What are you talking about? It absolutely did exist. I used to even get my internet service provided for free from a non-commercial group.

And what's the best website on the internet at the moment? Wikipedia, of course. Completely ad-free, user and donation-driven.

And nobody's crying about anything - just pointing out the flaws in your argument.

No, see the problem with this line of thinking is that the people blocking the ads, felt entitled to change the website, at the content creators expense.

But that's how the internet works. Are you offended when people "change your website" by viewing it in a different browser, or applying their own custom style sheet.

Yes, you literately are stealing revenue if you are blocking the content -instead of- paying for the subscription.

No, it absolutely is not stealing. You have not yet been able to explain how it is stealing. What is being stolen?

If you modify the site, you probably violate the terms of use and they can block you from using the site, if that was what someone wanted.

I never agreed to any terms of use just by loading a page. And sure, a site is welcome to block me - but if they do send me data, then I'm allowed to do whatever legal act I want with that data, including removing ads. It's not stealing.

Content creators tend to be more reasonable than consumers.

That's one of the most unbelievable things I've read this week. The same content creators who go on about "not watching ads is stealing"? The same one who think they are entitled to a guaranteed revenue stream? No, that's not reasonable at all.

Jim didn't produce a video wielding a pitchfork and devil horns going "YOU WILL VIEW ALL ADS OR I WILL PERSONALLY POKE YOU IN THE POOPER"

No, he didn't - but he's a reasonable person. But you seem to think we have some obligation to view ads on websites. Which is not a reasonable or realistic position.

Whatever fictional lala land the people blocking the ads exist in, isn't reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they block the ads is because their experience with bad ads comes entirely from adult and piracy sites.[/quote]

 

[Thanatos2k]

It's not standing in the middle of a field - it's standing in the living room of their house which has an open door and a sign out front. You're not in a public place - you're on their site.

That's the exact opposite of how it works.

I am not "on" their site - they are sending the contents of their site to my computer. The analogy is much closer to them being in my living room than me being in theirs.

Yeah, no. Their web server is serving traffic. They have to pay the power costs and the maintenance of that web server. You are most certainly going to them. Suggesting otherwise betrays a basic ignorance of how the internet works.

I repeat - the internet is NOT a public place. For example, unlike a public place, you do not have freedom of speech on the internet. If you would like proof of this, start swearing at another user.

Nonsense. That only applies if I make my speech on a third-party site where they publish what I write. If I run my own website, I absolutely am entitled to Freedom of Speech, and the First Amendment does apply to my website. Which is on the internet.

No, you are entitled to freedom of speech because it's YOUR website, and you choose the rules on your website. If you choose to have freedom of speech on your website, that'll be how it goes. But you have no freedom of speech on someone ELSE'S website, because the internet is not a public place.

Again with the house metaphor. Each website is someone else's house that you visit.

The price of entry is to watch ads - all ads, not just the ones you think you deserve to watch.

If that's the "price of entry" - then they shouldn't deliver any content until I have watched those ads.

That's how videos work. Actually many places won't load the page until the ads are fetched. It happens rather quickly though so you don't notice.

Also, there is no obligation to watch the ads. I just typed an address into my browser. I did not agree to any contract to watch ads, nor enter into any contract of what I would receive when I entered that address.

It's something called a social contract. You didn't sign any contract that says you can't take all the food in the "free samples" tray at the grocery store, but you're a pretty awful person if you do.

The internet currently runs on the model that you don't be selfish and steal all the food in the tray. It's better than the alternative but many people are clearly so shortsighted and driven by self interest that it might not be sustainable.

Fantastic! I'd love to see that.

But I really doubt it's going to happen, because despite ad blocking, blocking ad blockers would likely be more detrimental to their business.

As I said, the point where it isn't is coming, and sooner than you might think.

Absolutely.

I was on the internet back when it was not-for-profit in the early 90s, and nobody ran ads. It was largely run by Universities, research institutions and government funding as well as users funding their own systems

You're living in a fantasy land. The internet at the scale it is today could in no way be run by such organizations on charity at this point.

As for who's going to pay? We can just run our own server like we used to, and pay for it ourselves, rather than handing control of the internet to corporate interests.

And the infrastructure? Where is that going to magically come from? You do know there's a whole lot of it, right?

And you will wash out your sites inside of 4 months the moment you do that. I hate to put it this way. But the moment a site such as the escapist takes an aggressive stance against their consumers in this regard, their entire user base will abandon them instantly. You know this, I know this. Anybody familiar with gamers, gamer culture and the gaming community knows this. Gamers are easy to anger, notoriously unforgiving. If you are making a return off of this community you must by definitions be playing a percentage game. And you will find that it is much better to ask for support and let them understand the problem, then to put any sort of ad based paywall in place. Because that's what that is. You must open the doors to accept my spam, potentially malicious code, unwanted invasive crap in lieu of payment.

I agree that's what would happen, today. Unless all the sites did it at once. Then what. Rage and rage and rage and eventually cave. As I said, it's going to get to a point where companies are going to be forced into a corner and must start doing it.

Very very few websites would survive purely on donations. Are you seriously prepared to shell out a dollar+ every month for EVERY SINGLE WEBSITE you visit? Think about how many of them that would be.

The internet would collapse.

And before you tell me that nono ads are perfectly safe these days and other such fecal matter, 2 things, go up a few pages and note the nice gentleman complaining about the in video ads. Notice the one critical element. "He could not mute his sound". The ad had seized control of a portion of his personal system in order to deliver itself. THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!! THAT IS IN FACT MALICIOUS CODE!!! The second is you obviously work for ad deliverers and understand the back end. Its quite possible you work for a large reputable network that is secure and is not run by eastern european mobsters. Good for you. Unfortunately you are in the minority. I spend my days cleaning up after those that aren't so nice. And let me tell you, they are constant, they are relentless, they are malicious, and they can show up on pretty much every ad supported site I have ever seen.

People's definition of "malicious code" has gotten to be so hyperbolic as to be nonsensical. I hate ads that force sound on as much as you do, but to call them malicious code is to completely throw away the definition.

Read some of the posts:

We want simple banner ads without scripts and other shit that slows down and crashes older computers on web pages.
We want ads that are shorter and more varied on web videos.
We want ads that stay in place and don't try and rollover the link we're trying to click on.
We want ads that don't play sound unless we want them to.

It's like the piracy argument.

"We don't want games with DRM."
"We don't want games with a force online component."
"We don't want games with microtransactions."
"We don't want games with online passes."
"We don't want games with shoehorned multiplayer."
"Give us all that and we'll buy your game"

And then everyone pirates it anyways.

You're just speaking for yourself.

This isn't a democracy. You don't get to decide what ads sites run. Either view them or don't view the site. Your line of thinking is pure selfishness.

 

[Cerebrawl]

Whatever fictional lala land the people blocking the ads exist in, isn't reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they block the ads is because their experience with bad ads comes entirely from adult and piracy sites.

You just went for a full out fallacy ladden malicious slandering statement, full on strawman. You basically just godwined yourself. Especially since several people here have had malware from the escapist and other reputable sites, and facebook is the #1 malware and virus infection vector on the internet.

Consider yourself reported.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Yeah, no. Their web server is serving traffic. They have to pay the power costs and the maintenance of that web server. You are most certainly going to them. Suggesting otherwise betrays a basic ignorance of how the internet works.

I'm sorry, you're the one showing that you don't know how it works.

My computer sends a request to their server. Their server can either ignore that request, or send any data it wishes to, at their choice. The server is sending data to my computer, at which point the data is under my control.

No, you are entitled to freedom of speech because it's YOUR website, and you choose the rules on your website. If you choose to have freedom of speech on your website, that'll be how it goes. But you have no freedom of speech on someone ELSE'S website,

That's exactly what I said.

because the internet is not a public place.

Not true. Some of it is, some of it isn't.

Again with the house metaphor. Each website is someone else's house that you visit.

Not true. A website is data being sent to me. I can't send a copy of my house to you.

That's how videos work. Actually many places won't load the page until the ads are fetched.

No, that's not how all videos work. Some of them are supported by ads running on the page alongside the video, not as a clip before the video screens. If a video won't load until an ad plays, that's fine with me. But many don't work that way.

It's something called a social contract.

It's not a social contract I agreed to. I never agreed to the idea of ads polluting the internet in the first place.

Also, the much stronger contract is how the protocols of the internet work. If you don't want people using ad blockers, then don't publicly expose your data.

You're living in a fantasy land. The internet at the scale it is today could in no way be run by such organizations on charity at this point.

I never said it could be. I said it could be run using a combination of funding sources. Can you point out where I said it should run on charity alone? Also, I don't really care if it shrinks from the scale it is today. It's far too vapid, with most of it consisting of pointless Facebook pages and Tweets, etc.
[/quote]

And the infrastructure? Where is that going to magically come from? You do know there's a whole lot of it, right?

From telecommunications companies, from private companies, from educational and research institutions, or from government provided infrastructure in more socialistically-minded countries.

I agree that's what would happen, today. Unless all the sites did it at once. Then what. Rage and rage and rage and eventually cave.

Rage? More like celebrate!

Very very few websites would survive purely on donations. Are you seriously prepared to shell out a dollar+ every month for EVERY SINGLE WEBSITE you visit? Think about how many of them that would be.

About 10, maybe? That would be totally manageable.

The internet would collapse.

No, it would just clean out the scum. The internet is not going away, and it does not depend on advertisers to survive. It never has, and it never will.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's the website itself that decides who advertises on their site. That is handled by whoever is the broker for the advertiser and website.

Yes, they do decide who advertises on the site.
And that "who" includes enormous internet ad-conglomerates like Google, Doubleclick, Quantiserve etc. all of whom have an incredibly large pool of clients.

If you're following so far, the web of relationships so far looks like this:

(A) End Users <<< (B) Content Sites (ie, The Escapist) << (C) Ad-conglomerates << (D) Clients Looking to Advertise

Now, (D) wants exposure for their stuff to reach (A).

(D) can be anyone. From a legitimate business to a public-awareness group to scum-sucking thieves posing as a business or web service.

(C) takes on clients from (D) and pays (B) for exposure to (A).
Since (C)'s main goal is exposure, it's in their best interest to get as wide of a reach as possible towards (A).
The larger (C)'s network, the more value they have to (D).

Eventually, (C) got too big to care if some illegitimate clients from (D) slipped through (malware, scammers, thieves, etc). It's not like anyone could sue them; it's not their fault, it's just (D)'s.
So they will gladly route any shit tagged for a given demographic to (B) regardless of what it actually is.

If/when (A) has problems because of (D)'s dickery and (C)'s negligence, (B) is stuck in the unpleasant position of having to listen to (A)'s complaints directly. Contrary to what you think, (B) has less say in what (C) gives them because (C) is what keeps (B) in business, and (C) knows it. (B) may file complaints or blacklist domains owned by (D) routed to them via (C) but it's an uphill battle for (B) just due to the volume of crap (C) routes from (D) or due to limitations forced upon (B) by (C)'s system

(the Escapist Server Admin has actually described the above in this very thread back around page 6, if you had actually bothered to read)

*snipped* Post from Page 6. Click the name to read.

In short: (A) got tired of dealing with (C) and (D)'s ads/crap, so they created and used Ad-blockers, thus severing the relationship, which puts (B) in a very tight spot.

Now, I'm not claiming that everyone that used ad-blockers did so just for their security.
Plenty of folks hate ads and just don't want to deal with them; the consequences be damned.

But this does disprove your notion that there wasn't any stated reason ("excuse", same thing) to use ad-blockers.

Look children, I've been on the internet since the early 90's too...

So you were on Usenet in the 90s. Oh wow, so amazing...so was I.
Yet somehow I don't share this urge to talk down to anyone because of that.

Now are we done crying about an non-commercial internet that never existed?

Well, if you want to split hairs, APRAnet was non-commercial, being used by the military and universities.

 

[direkiller]

Whatever fictional lala land the people blocking the ads exist in, isn't reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they block the ads is because their experience with bad ads comes entirely from adult and piracy sites.

Im guessing you haven't been around this site very long(by more then your post count), here is a list just for the escapist

Ads taking so long to load they were longer then the video, and the video was not buffering in the background
The video ads randomly playing audio only 30 seconds into the video,after i watched the thing already
bottom bar ads that pop up every time you go near the reply section
video border adds that had no exit so I had to reload the page
Sound ads on video
Sound ads on a video with a border that I could not exit out of.
more then one sound ad at a time
Second tab ads
broken capta ads(that still don't work)
Side bar ads with random sizes that broke the formatting of the page

 

[Thanatos2k]

I'm sorry, you're the one showing that you don't know how it works.

My computer sends a request to their server. Their server can either ignore that request, or send any data it wishes to, at their choice. The server is sending data to my computer, at which point the data is under my control.

This is one of the most bizarre semantical arguments I've seen someone try to make. I mean, I know you know that websites host data off their servers, servers you have no control over. I know you know that the internet is not based off of your computer. Is this one of those "I have to be right" moments? I give up. You win. The internet is hosted on your computer. Moving on....

That's exactly what I said.

99.999% of the internet you visit is on a third party site, so it is confusing again why you're trying to argue this point. See above, you win, the internet has complete freedom of speech. Moving on...

Not true. A website is data being sent to me. I can't send a copy of my house to you.

I'm rolling my eyes really, really hard here.

No, that's not how all videos work. Some of them are supported by ads running on the page alongside the video, not as a clip before the video screens. If a video won't load until an ad plays, that's fine with me. But many don't work that way.

Again, you don't get to decide what kind of ads you see.

It's not a social contract I agreed to. I never agreed to the idea of ads polluting the internet in the first place.

If it's not a contract you agree to, don't use the internet. Simple enough. Or just keep grabbing from the tray, hoping it will always be there for you.

I never said it could be. I said it could be run using a combination of funding sources. Can you point out where I said it should run on charity alone? Also, I don't really care if it shrinks from the scale it is today. It's far too vapid, with most of it consisting of pointless Facebook pages and Tweets, etc.

So "funding sources" that are not corporately run. Ooooook. So elaborate on your fantasy setup then instead of saying "I didn't say that." Then we can expose how unrealistic it is. Unless you don't actually have concrete ideas.

Again, there's that hint of selfishness with the "I don't care about the rest of the internet, I only care about me." It pervades the arguments of ad blockers.

From telecommunications companies, from private companies, from educational and research institutions, or from government provided infrastructure in more socialistically-minded countries.

You just said you didn't want it commercially run. Telecommunications companies and private companies and even some educational institutions are commercially run.

Are you like one of those guys from the 80s who mutters about how the internet sucked since Usenet went out of style? Why would want us to return to an inferior age?

Rage? More like celebrate!

Can you stop acting facetiously? It's getting rather annoying.

About 10, maybe? That would be totally manageable.

You only visit 10 websites in a month? I....don't believe you.

No, it would just clean out the scum. The internet is not going away, and it does not depend on advertisers to survive. It never has, and it never will.

So companies like Google, Yahoo, and such are scum? That's.......well.

 

[Thanatos2k]

It's the website itself that decides who advertises on their site. That is handled by whoever is the broker for the advertiser and website.

Yes, they do decide who advertises on the site.
And that "who" includes enormous internet ad-conglomerates like Google, Doubleclick, Quantiserve etc. all of whom have an incredibly large pool of clients.

If you're following so far, the web of relationships so far looks like this:

(A) End Users <<< (B) Content Sites (ie, The Escapist) << (C) Ad-conglomerates << (D) Clients Looking for Ads

Now, (D) wants exposure for their stuff to reach (A).

(D) can be anyone. From a legitimate business to a public-awareness group to scum-sucking thieves posing as a business or web service.

(C) takes on clients from (D) and pays (B) for exposure to (A).
Since (C)'s main goal is exposure, it's in their best interest to get as wide of a reach as possible towards (A).
The larger (C)'s network, the more value they have to (D).

Eventually, (C) got too big to care if some illegitimate clients from (D) slipped through (malware, scammers, thieves, etc). It's not like anyone could sue them; it's not their fault, it's just (D)'s.
So they will gladly route any shit tagged for a given demographic to (B) regardless of what it actually is.

If/when (A) has problems because of (D)'s dickery and (C)'s negligence, (B) is stuck in the unpleasant position of having to listen to (A)'s complaints directly. Contrary to what you think, (B) has less say in what (C) gives them because (C) is what keeps (B) in business, and (C) knows it. (B) may file complaints or blacklist domains owned by (D) routed to them via (C) but it's an uphill battle for (B) just due to the volume of crap (C) routes from (D) or due to limitations forced upon (B) by (C)'s system

It's decent but not an entirely accurate description. Often, B has controls they can use to block certain types of things at the C and D level. Also, the many Cs of the world are working really hard to keep out the disreputable Ds, some far more effectively than others. When is the last time you saw malware get hosted on the front page of Yahoo, ESPN, or Forbes?

The problem most of the time is a lack of interested high quality Ds and too much space on Bs. So rather than not show anything, Bs will let Cs show the lower quality Ds just to make some money. This *is* a problem at the B level, they do not have to sign up with every C on the block and let the highest ROI ad through.

 

[KisaiTenshi]

Beautiful. I love text, and USENET was freaking awesome when it was actively used for discussion. Good times.

And it was overrun with spam, which was because the cost of entry to advertising on usenet and email was exactly 0$+ a throw away AOL account.

What are you talking about? It absolutely did exist. I used to even get my internet service provided for free from a non-commercial group.

And what's the best website on the internet at the moment? Wikipedia, of course. Completely ad-free, user and donation-driven.

And unless you've been living in a cave, they have advertisements begging for donations for half of the year, and each year it takes more time. No site can run on charity and volunteers alone, and Wikipedia is the perfect example of that.

But that's how the internet works. Are you offended when people "change your website" by viewing it in a different browser, or applying their own custom style sheet.

Changing the site so it fits on a screen, printer or mobile device is not the same as having the blocking software prevent loading certain urls, and hiding certain css elements out of spite, which you are advocating.

No, it absolutely is not stealing. You have not yet been able to explain how it is stealing. What is being stolen?

Bandwidth isn't free. Given a video content site likely has 95% percentile agreements, not per-MB billing like Wireless carriers.

That's one of the most unbelievable things I've read this week. The same content creators who go on about "not watching ads is stealing"? The same one who think they are entitled to a guaranteed revenue stream? No, that's not reasonable at all.

If have the choice of not visiting at all and not wasting everyone involve's time and money. But since you said you are a paying subscriber, we know what you really think.

No, he didn't - but he's a reasonable person. But you seem to think we have some obligation to view ads on websites. Which is not a reasonable or realistic position.

You do, but nobody expects you to buy a product every time it's viewed, nor does anyone expect you to not go fix yourself a snack while it plays.

Since a small minority of people seem convinced there is at least one legitimate excuse to block ads, I'll give you the only two reasons ads may be temporarily blocked without causing an uproar:
a) You're using 2G GPRS on a feature phone/tether. (eg while on Amtrak though the midwest.)
b) You're using Satellite Internet access (eg out on a ship in the middle of the pacific on a cruise.)

In both of these cases, you're probably only checking your email, and trying to visit any site with a pageload greater than 64KB is intolerable.

 

[Do4600]

Advertising is so awful, it used to be, "Try Kent cigarettes if you please, they sure are swell"

Advertising on the internet now is very much kin to inviting in an insulting screaming maniac that will only leave after you perform a dance for them.

 

[orangeapples]

I used adblock for a while because some of the website I would go to were really bad. Th Escapist had a particularly nasty one that would cover the screen and play a video that it would not let me close. It would have been fine on the home page or something, but it was on every page on the site. Then there was another one that was a banner ad that would cover the screen, but they were screencast of other ads for the same company and the ads ended up with 3 x buttons on it but only one of them would work.

Eventually companies started getting smart with how they deal with ad blockers and had those redirect pages that you have to sit on for 2 minutes.

I got really tired of that and turned off the adblock. Funny thing though I became a member of the escapist's publisher club not because I wanted to remove ads, but to watch content on tablets and phones...

Now whenever I see ads on the site I start thinking, "oh I forgot to log in."

I don't even mind the ads on other sites anymore. as I'm getting older I don't have the energy to fight the system anymore...

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This is one of the most bizarre semantical arguments I've seen someone try to make.

It's not a bizarre or a semantic argument. It's just factual.

I mean, I know you know that websites host data off their servers, servers you have no control over. I know you know that the internet is not based off of your computer. Is this one of those "I have to be right" moments? I give up. You win. The internet is hosted on your computer. Moving on....

But I never said the internet is hosted on my computer. I said the server sends data to my computer after receiving a request. That's how it works. What am I wrong about.

You are wrong to put words in my mouth like saying that I think the internet is hosted on my computer, when that's clearly not what I said.

99.999% of the internet you visit is on a third party site, so it is confusing again why you're trying to argue this point.

I'm arguing the point that "there is no freedom of speech on the internet." This is patently false. Those third-party sites have their own freedom of speech, and the internet does not obsolete the First Amendment or eliminate freedom of speech in any way.

You argument is like saying there is no freedom of speech in the press, because a newspaper doesn't print your letters.

See above, you win, the internet has complete freedom of speech. Moving on...

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said the internet had complete[ freedom of speech. You were the one who made the absolutist argument that there is no freedom of speech on the internet.

Not true. A website is data being sent to me. I can't send a copy of my house to you.

I'm rolling my eyes really, really hard here.

Why? Do your eyes need exercise?

Again, you don't get to decide what kind of ads you see.

Oh, but I do. Adblock proves you wrong on this.

]If it's not a contract you agree to, don't use the internet.

Or I could just block ads. Why is it up to me? How about they stop putting their ads up on the internet if they don't want them blocked? Like I said, I never agreed with them putting ads on the internet in the first place.

So "funding sources" that are not corporately run. Ooooook. So elaborate on your fantasy setup then instead of saying "I didn't say that." Then we can expose how unrealistic it is. Unless you don't actually have concrete ideas.

I already did elaborate. Internet infrastructure could easily be provided by private telecommunications companies, as it already is. ISPs generally don't rely on web ads for their revenue. We pay by subscribing to the phone lines, wireless services, etc. Parts of it is also provided by Universities and such.

Infrastructure could also be provided by governments as a public good, in the way that highways, Public Transport (and network infrastructure, for that matter) is in many places. The internet and its infrastructure existed long before web advertising did. Web advertising did not cause this infrastructure to exist, it just rides on the back of it.

And frankly, if the government is going to spend money on highways that provide transport infrastructure, then why not information infrastructure? It's a vital service these days, and it's worth funding it with taxes to protect it from corporate monopolization, and provide more equality of access. Just look at what some of the ISPs want to do to Net Neutrality, for example.

Again, there's that hint of selfishness with the "I don't care about the rest of the internet, I only care about me." It pervades the arguments of ad blockers.

And there's the selfishness of "we deserve a revenue stream" and "who cares about the public good" from those who push advertising, as well as the untrue arguments like your notion that the internet is somehow built on web advertising.

You just said you didn't want it commercially run. Telecommunications companies and private companies and even some educational institutions are commercially run.

But they are not run via web ads. And I didn't say all of it has to be non-commercial. Internet infrastructure has long consisted of a hybrid of public and private resources. None of it depends on web advertising.

Are you like one of those guys from the 80s who mutters about how the internet sucked since Usenet went out of style? Why would want us to return to an inferior age?

A little like that. Not completely. I appreciate some developments, but it wasn't inferior back then. As far as ethics and signal-to-noise ratio goes, it was much better.

You only visit 10 websites in a month? I....don't believe you.

Why not? It's true. There's not much that's interesting online. It's not worth my time visiting a heap of websites. I have a job and other hobbies to spend my time on.

So companies like Google, Yahoo, and such are scum? That's.......well.

Yep. Companies that want to own the internet, and want to own all the information about you that they can gather, and sell it to even bigger scum like predatory advertisers.

 

[KisaiTenshi]

Whatever fictional lala land the people blocking the ads exist in, isn't reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason they block the ads is because their experience with bad ads comes entirely from adult and piracy sites.

Im guessing you haven't been around this site very long(by more then your post count), here is a list just for the escapist

Ads taking so long to load they were longer then the video, and the video was not buffering in the background
The video ads randomly playing audio only 30 seconds into the video,after i watched the thing already
bottom bar ads that pop up every time you go near the reply section
video border adds that had no exit so I had to reload the page
Sound ads on video
Sound ads on a video with a border that I could not exit out of.
more then one sound ad at a time
Second tab ads
broken capta ads(that still don't work)
Side bar ads with random sizes that broke the formatting of the page

I've been around for years, I followed Yahtzee and the Extra Credit's people for years, I just never made a forum account.

Now my experience has been:
Initial page load, 1-5 seconds while the code for the top ad appears via http://www.appnexus.com/ (adnxs.com)
Then the site appears as normal. no sound ads or video ads. Currently on this page, I have an ad from ING Direct and an ad for some mobile app thingy.
There's no second-tab ads, and the sidebars are blank.
and just to doublecheck, I'm going to load the page in Firefox (which has no retargeting cookies) instead of Chrome.
Flash ad for Polysporin, and the ad at the bottom is "The Escapist Hoodies" which is served through doubleclick via project Rubicon. Refreshing the page gives me the same ads, but now the square ad is another escapist ad.

I don't know what weird parallel universe you guys are in.

Also I was given the captcha when I posted the second message to this forum, it indeed works. If this were my own site I'd ask for screenshots.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I don't know what weird parallel universe you guys are in.

Depending on your location, the time of the year, and if there is a feature ad campaign running, the ad content can vary. Particularly for those outside the US. Most ads are targeted to US viewers, so those in other regions often have far fewer ads.

And if there is a major feature ad campaign on, that can greatly increase the intrusiveness of ads on The Escapist.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Likely been said before, but I feel the need to point out that the kinds of obnoxious ads that Jim complained about are probably a large reason why Adblock exists, not the other way around. They assaulted our eyes and our ears long before Adblock's time, so no, they're not a response to it. It's also not Adblock's fault that advertisers are getting more obnoxious in their delivery since its time, because again, they've been trying to shovel whatever they're selling onto us in a way we can't ignore since before it existed. Adblock hasn't created the fact that advertisers try to tie us down so we can't possibly not see what they're trying to convince us to buy; from a pure business standpoint, that's in their best interest anyway. Adblock has just become a scapegoat for it. Now they can point at someone else and say it's their fault, when, as I pointed out twice now, a few bad apples would have done it anyway, and everyone else is either going to see it's effective, or see why it might be, and do it in turn.

Does Adblock still cause problems? Yeah, it does. But a petition for awareness about it is best served by more informed dialogue. I personally thought the angle of, "The advertising serves me, the content creator, and while I understand why you'd want to block it, it still doesn't help me continue to bring this show to you." was more than justification enough; that gives motivation to the viewer to consider not using such things, while also showing that you're not putting it on them to not want to have the advertising shoved in their face. When you blame the viewer for Adblock's existence, then you're going into dark waters, because Adblock was created in response to the ads, not the other way around. People don't want advertising shoved in their face; they came to see whatever it's in the way of, and they shouldn't be blamed for that. The motivation isn't "steal from the content creator", it's "remove roadblocks in the way of the content". They should be given a motivation to put up with it anyway, be shown that it doesn't exist just to serve whatever company whose crap you're probably not even going to buy anyway, but that it also helps the person whose work you came to enjoy and didn't want to be interrupted from.

Content creators affected by users of Adblock need to remember what that true motivation for its use is, and that at the end of the day, it doesn't have anything to do with the creators themselves; most people think Adblock, at worst, hurts the creators of the ads, and are fine with that. They don't know it goes further, and remembering that will go much further toward reaching out to their consumers than blaming them for the end result, which can in turn motivate them to spite the creator as well. Be on their side so they can be on yours.

Clarification: In case it's not one hundred percent clear by the fact that I paraphrased something he said, I am aware Jim largely did this, and am not criticizing his stance on the whole. I in fact appreciate him dropping the douchebag persona and speaking honestly and frankly about it, because it did speak to me as an end user. I kind of got into a tangent later that involved the subject at large because he dipped his toe into blaming waters, and used it as a springboard, but other than the implication that Adblock is the source of the problems Adblock is causing, I think he went about the address the right way.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

And it was overrun with spam, which was because the cost of entry to advertising on usenet and email was exactly 0$+ a throw away AOL account.

You obviously weren't around in the early 90s, because the spam onslaught didn't come until later. Hell, AOL didn't come to USENET until later.

And unless you've been living in a cave, they have advertisements begging for donations for half of the year, and each year it takes more time. No site can run on charity and volunteers alone, and Wikipedia is the perfect example of that.

Uh, yeah, so what? And how is that equivalent to third-party advertising?

Changing the site so it fits on a screen, printer or mobile device is not the same as having the blocking software prevent loading certain urls, and hiding certain css elements out of spite, which you are advocating.

No, it is functionally the same, and I am not advocating doing anything out of spite. In fact, I'm not advocating anything at all. Do what you want.

Bandwidth isn't free. Given a video content site likely has 95% percentile agreements, not per-MB billing like Wireless carriers.

Right. I pay for my bandwidth. The site pays for its bandwidth. If the site chooses to transmit a video to me with its bandwidth, what is being stolen? It's their choice to serve that video to me. Not theft.

If have the choice of not visiting at all and not wasting everyone involve's time and money. But since you said you are a paying subscriber, we know what you really think.

I prefer to pay for content directly, rather than via proxies like advertisers. So, I will pay for content where I can. If I can't, and it's ad-supported, I usually just don't bother. Ideally it would even better to pay the content creator directly rather than going through intermediaries like publishers, too.

You do, but nobody expects you to buy a product every time it's viewed, nor does anyone expect you to not go fix yourself a snack while it plays.

Here is one of the big hypocrisies I find with these argument. A lot of the people who argue for the advertising do so from the perspective of the content creator or site owner getting paid. So they say it's theft to block ads - but then say you don't actually have to watch them.

But isn't that unfair on the advertiser who paid for the ad? By advocating that the viewer let the ads run but not watch them, isn't that "stealing" (as you describe it) from the advertiser by the content creator? Why is it bad to block the ads, but OK to not watch the ads and bilk the advertiser out of the attention they want on the ad?

Why is the concern only for the site owner/content creator, and not the company trying to sell their product, who pays for the ad in the first place?