Ad Blockers, Ads, And You

[Yummychickenblue 301]

I don't think any advertisers visit MLPForums.

 

Your story about the Clorox wipes made think about something: What if brands are making annoying ads for their competitors so that customers don't buy from the brand that annoying ad was advertising?

[Twilight Dirac 720]

I use the free browser extension adblocker plus so i almost never see adds at all, I got sick of them always getting shoved in my face at every turn, adblocker has blocked 375,000 adds in the last year for me, and my bandwith thanks it because i am not wasting data with my browser loading hundreds of thousands of pictures and playing video ads, I wish i had downloaded it sooner, 

 

I don't know how I ever lived without adblock.  It is an amazing browser add-on. 

Edited March 31, 2015 by Twilight Dirac

[Grepper 3,192]

I don't think any advertisers visit MLPForums.

 

Your story about the Clorox wipes made think about something: What if brands are making annoying ads for their competitors so that customers don't buy from the brand that annoying ad was advertising?

 

A false flag operation, eh?

That would be trademark infringement, and the wronged party would know they didn't place the ad, and their army of lawyers could probably figure out who false-flagged them.

[Jeric 46,834]

@Pixel Stick, we have a wonderful historical topic created by our founder that discusses the nature of online ads and even ad blockers. As your OP was phenomenally well written and tackles a counter view of Feld0's ... I'll merge it into that topic.

[Pixel Stick 927]

@Pixel Stick, we have a wonderful historical topic created by our founder that discusses the nature of online ads and even ad blockers. As your OP was phenomenally well written and tackles a counter view of Feld0's ... I'll merge it into that topic.

 

Thanks @Jeric.  I wasn't aware of this topic when I started mine.

 

To answer the question in @Feld0's original post: I don't use ad-blocker software for two reasons:

(1) I do believe in ads as a source of revenue for sites, including MLPForums, and installing an ad-blocker on my computer can reduce that revenue stream for sites that I care about.

(2) I've seen enough reports of people installing ad-blockers that turned out to contain their own spyware, malware or viruses, that I really don't feel like taking that risk on my own computers.

 

However, as my earlier post makes clear, I draw the line at ads that actively put themselves in the way of the content I'm there to see.  I'll use public transportation as an analogy: I'm not at all bothered by the fact that if I get on a bus, I'll see ads up in the corners of the bus for products I may or may not be interested in.  That's fine.  And on at least one occasion, I've gotten some real benefit from such an ad, and gone on to buy the product.  So the ad worked.  But the kinds of ads I'm irritated by are equivalent to the bus driver jumping out of his chair and thrusting a huge sign in my face, and forcing me to tell him to go back to his seat before the bus will take me to my destination, even though I have already paid my fare.  This is especially bad on my phone, where the browser often can't display the ad properly - the ad remains on the screen with no way for me to dismiss it because the dismiss button is off-screen, I can't scroll it or resize it onto the screen, etc..

 

Additionally, my virus scanner frequently pops up on even reputable sites, telling me that some of the content coming from the site's ads is actively malicious (contains malware or viruses).  This has happened numerous times on some of my favorite gaming sites (eg. Armor Games) and news sites (including ABCNews and a local news station).  Thankfully, I've never seen this happen on MLPForums.  But still, I think it's yet another step beyond acceptability to try to install malware on a person's computer under the guise of a web ad, and it is THAT type of ad that has brought me ever closer to installing an ad blocker.

 

The point behind my post was to criticize the ad companies for their increasingly aggressive advertising - the fact that they're getting more and more aggressive is only going to alienate people more and more, and to make more people more likely to install blockers so they don't have to be subject to this crap.  That, more than anything, is what undermines the potential ad revenue for a lot of sites - not the existence of ads themselves, but rather the increasingly intrusive manner in which they appear.

 

Of course, advertisers by and large don't give a damn about your or my browsing experience.  They just want to make money.  So no amount of whining on my part is going to get them to change their ways, sadly.

[Pastel 7,627]

I use an ad blocker, I'm just tired of all thee ads everywhere. Most of them are irrelevant and completely uninteresting and annoying, and sometimes a bit weird.

[Pixel Stick 927]

I don't think any advertisers visit MLPForums.

 

Your story about the Clorox wipes made think about something: What if brands are making annoying ads for their competitors so that customers don't buy from the brand that annoying ad was advertising?

 

At least in the United States, that would amount to trademark infringement and possibly slander, and would get the companies in a lot of trouble.

[Nit Pick 247]

I have somewhat of a history with ads.

 

Long before TIVO, I had to sit through the most asinine commercials.

 

I saw this and I felt sick to my stomach.

 

 

It lingers in my memory to this very day of how stupid old Taco Bell commercials were.  The worst part of it is, they got it right.  Having their product linger in my mind was doing something right by doing something wrong (oh SO wrong).  Drag doesn't bother me but... the length that these fictional characters had to go through to have "GOOD" nachos for an affordable price is stupid.  Whats worse is it made me mention Taco Bell, in turn, making people who like Taco Bell (not everyone but some) who are reading this thread are in the mood for it (if it did).

 

Also I hate it when the commercial is SUPER loud when the thing I'm watching is at a reasonable volume.

 

Not only that, advertisements of car commercials.  They go to such great lengths to make their cars seem sexy, elegant or high class.   Hearing stuff like 0% FPR Financing or how they nonchalantly say $30,000 is such a steal when I could barely afford my car (I paid in full).

 

The worst part is hearing the same commercial twice or three times in a row before the days of TIVO.  Often just the 45 second one then the 30, then the 15 second version.  Honestly how many times can you sit through the same commercial until you torture yourself?

The oldest adblock to this day is the mute button.

 

I just wish there was an auto skip extension to chrome for Youtube that skips the commercials automatically and closes the little pop up windows at the bottom of Youtube videos.  Not only that, have the extension mute the commercials too.  Like the extension for Hulu.  I do agree that ad revenue needs to exist for sites or Youtubers to keep making videos.

 

I tinkered around with my adblock and there's a "show all the ads except these sites" part.  I can't figure out how that works.

[Jonny Music 3,303]

I don't mind ads at all and I can fully understand the advertisers' perspective. Which is why I support ads and refuse to use AdBlock. If there are websites I enjoy that are free yet they use ads, I will not mind them at all because I know for the very fact that ads are the main source of revenue for the content creators and owners of websites, etc.

 

This very site does give me the option to either turn the ads on or off, and I chose to leave them on because I want to support the staff members who are working very hard to keep this wonderful site up and running with no cost to me.

 

Same thing goes with other sites like YouTube. I enjoy the site a lot and I will not mind ads at all (for ads that are skipable or not, I have the patience to deal with them, because I can tolerate them, because I'd love to support my favourite websites the best I can).

 

I agree with Rich on Adblock though (videos down below):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnoE3064Ius

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMMJPPm4KfI

[Adorkable 2,737]

I just use Adblock mostly for YouTube. Can't go wrong there, eh?

[simba86 1,541]

I love adblocker, right now my adblocker is almost at 400,000 blocked ads! I hate ads, they eat up my meager data allowence, they slow down my computer and load times, they pop up in my face and block out the whole page and i have to wait for it to load to click it off, I get tired of clicking on something and having it redirect to a totally different ad or having it open up several new windows worth of ads, and all the video ads that auto play and eat up my data! they annoy me to no end and eat up the data I need to do other things, used to be before i put adblocker on my browser the ads ate up so much data that i did not have enough left to catch the new pony episodes! now i block them all and i have enough data to watch them.

[Guest90210 3,567]

I use uBlock Origin, and encourage everyone to install some sort of adblocking software simply for the sake of the user's security. Malware & other types of malicious items are increasingly prevalent in advertisements that could slow down your pages load times and potentially infect your machine, compromising your security.

 

However, the stance I had in my original post in this thread has not changed. Ads are a crucial source of revenue for sites & businesses. Sites that practice fair, safe, and unintrusive advertising deserve to be whitelisted from your adblocker. If your ad is preventing the user from accessing my content in a reasonable manner, or potentially contains malware, then I'm activating uBlock. If your ad is safe, relevant, and unrestrictive, I'll allow it.

 

I disable uBlock on these forums because the ads are as I described. They don't bother me on here. Same with Equestria Daily, Gamefaqs, and other sites. For places like NFL . com or YouTube which bombard the user with ads, I enable it. I'd be fine with whitelisting certain YouTube channels which I would be fine with watching ads for, but unfortunately, to my knowledge the only adblock software which has this feature is AdBlock itself.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Rivendare

[Zyrael 1,471]

 

sometimes ads feel like their sole purpose is to interrupt what you're doing and waste your time. How annoying is it when you're watching a video and the video cuts out two or three times for an ad? or when you're trying to read an article and an ad slowly pops up taking up the entire screen? or when you're on a page and a video ad starts blasting from your computer? 

 

I don't want anything they're trying to sell me. If I did, I'd seek it out myself... ads are oppressive in their constant presence and interference. 

[PoisonClaw 8,153]

While I see ads as a necessary evil at times since they help pay site fees and the like, Adblock is also a necessary evil sometimes. There are plenty of sites I avoid using adblocker on like Blip, Channel Awesome and their reviewer's personal sites, this very forum, ect. One of the only sites I do use adblock on is Youtube, since their ads are some of the worst. Blip had 20-30 second ads at intervals through the video and you could skip those if you wanted. Those were fine. Youtube, on the other hand, has 30+ second ads that are unskippable, have them pop up far more frequently and have ads that tend to be longer than the video you're watching, running anywere from 15-30 minutes on a less than 5 minute long video.

 

Most ads tend to be out of the way though, like the ones on this site. They're there and you still see them, but they're not being shoved in your face. It's when the ads start becoming intrusive, like covering up your entire screen in the middle of watching a video that pisses people off. For me, the first time a site plays an autoplay ad that blares through my speakers with no warning is also the last time since there is no reason for those kinds of ads to even exist. 

 

Thing is is that electronic advertisements have always had a tentative existence. With TV, very rarely did people actually watch the ads, since the commercial break was prime time to either grab a snack or run to the bathroom. Nowadays, more and more people are watching shows on demand like with Netflix, or just record it with a DVR and fast forward through the commercials. Plus, with services like Patreon, content creators can get paid directly for their services, forgoing the need for ads entirely.  

[Koukatsu 5,898]

Have you ever considered the site owner's end of the story when you cut off part of their revenue stream using an ad blocker (regardless of whether you actually use one or not)?
Other (please explain in a reply)

 

I only use adblock in certain scenarios.

1. The site does not have an opt-out feature for donators/subscribers.
2. The site uses numerous, poor quality, or intrusive/noisy ads that can crash my browser. (Yes, this does happen, and actually quite a lot to me.)

 

[Guest]

I'm not using adBlock now and I probably never will because I don't really mind ads. Sometimes ads are necessary to keep a site alive and I completely understand that. So I don't mind them just as long as they don't forcefully jump at my face or start playing music all of a sudden. 

[Guest]

I still actively use adblock even on this site. I am not ashamed to admit it either. I have ads enabled on my youtube channel and it does not bother me if people use adblock there either. I am content making whatever I end up making without having to force people to do things they don't want to do. I will never make a speech about how people need to disable stuff to support my content because if ads are not working to fund my content, then instead of blaming the viewers, I would find another solution to funding my content.

 

Ads clearly are not as effective for some people, and when that happens, you find another angle, not try to guilt or pressure people into turning off adblock. I leave it on for the mere principle that I am not going to be guilted, bullied, pressured, forced or told I have to turn it off. If you want revenue from me, you have to find a more clever way to get it. Your website lists itself as a free service with no obligation of financing from my pocket. As mean as it sounds, I honestly don't care how much servers cost a month. Other websites find a way to fund themselves despite adblock being a thing, and you can do the same. I pay all my expenses out of pocket to create content, and the little I do make helps subsidize that a little bit, but I would never EXPECT a certain level of cash flow when people are not OBLIGATED to pay for anything.

 

This site takes chunks of artists commissions, has monthly donations, subscribers and other services that I am probably forgetting (such as people being able to buy their own ads to display their commission shops). If that isn't enough to fund the site to where you need to tell people to turn off adblock, then you need to figure something else out you could be doing.

 

That's my take on the matter. I know it'll be an unpopular opinion, but it is my opinion on the matter and I'm sticking to it. Take it for what you will.

[Steve Piranha 28,741]

I didn;t had ad block for a while, one out of laziness, two it's of awareness of the income of the webmaster. Sadly, many ads are misused, starting with pop-up ads, which are counterproductive in my opinion. Other ads are so heavy that they lag my we experience or have audio. There was a time i got so fed up with it that I said "screw this" and installed an ad block so I could browse in peace. The only sites I deactivate ad block ar Equestria Daily, Fimfiction, here, and Derpibooru, because these sites use well their ads, and don;t bother my browse experience, but others like wikias and tvtropes are hell 

[Kronos the Revenant 1,971]

I only block ads because some of them use some animations or are interactive and for some reason, the animated ads load first, severely slowing down upload and download times.

[LHfunk 422]

I have a Doge ad blocker. It replaces ads with Doge.

[Guest90210 3,567]

I only block ads because some of them use some animations or are interactive and for some reason, the animated ads load first, severely slowing down upload and download times.

 

That's an example of how not to implement ads on ones site. Ads that disrupt the viewing experience are an issue.

 

I still actively use adblock even on this site. I am not ashamed to admit it either. I have ads enabled on my youtube channel and it does not bother me if people use adblock there either. I am content making whatever I end up making without having to force people to do things they don't want to do. I will never make a speech about how people need to disable stuff to support my content because if ads are not working to fund my content, then instead of blaming the viewers, I would find another solution to funding my content.

 

Ads clearly are not as effective for some people, and when that happens, you find another angle, not try to guilt or pressure people into turning off adblock. I leave it on for the mere principle that I am not going to be guilted, bullied, pressured, forced or told I have to turn it off. If you want revenue from me, you have to find a more clever way to get it. Your website lists itself as a free service with no obligation of financing from my pocket. As mean as it sounds, I honestly don't care how much servers cost a month. Other websites find a way to fund themselves despite adblock being a thing, and you can do the same. I pay all my expenses out of pocket to create content, and the little I do make helps subsidize that a little bit, but I would never EXPECT a certain level of cash flow when people are not OBLIGATED to pay for anything.

 

This site takes chunks of artists commissions, has monthly donations, subscribers and other services that I am probably forgetting (such as people being able to buy their own ads to display their commission shops). If that isn't enough to fund the site to where you need to tell people to turn off adblock, then you need to figure something else out you could be doing.

 

That's the thing; while they'd appreciate it if you do disable AdBlock on here, no one's forced to nor are they exceedingly pressured into doing so. The second you sign up, ads are disabled by default. You have to manually re-enable them in your profile settings.

 

Donations & commission takeouts don't bring in as much revenue as you may think. Considering the expanded userbase of this site (the most popular Brony forum on the web), server costs probably aren't covered by donations & commissions alone. As Feld0 says in his OP,

 

"Based on the feedback I've seen, just about everyone who has enabled the option has seemingly been impressed with how "reasonable" my placement of ads is. If anything, this proves that it is indeed possible to run advertising on a site in such a way that you do not feel the need to block it."

 

I agree with him here. This solution to server costs & other expenses is perfectly reasonable, in my opinion. Small, soundless banner ads that don't disrupt my viewing experience are a fair enough compromise to reward the site's owners for providing free quality content. For that reason, and just for the principle of non-intrusive internet advertising, I disable adblocking on this site. They are fair to me, the user, so I will reward them for their content in any way I can.

 

But again, its totally optional. No one's obligated to turn on ads - its up to the user, and I appreciate how Feld0 and the staff have approached this issue.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Rivendare

[EpicEnergy 22,063]

I don't use ad blockers, they cost a lot.

[Splashee 28,537]

Ads and I don't get along very well, to tell you the truth

[dead account 2,703]

Ad Blockers make the Internet more fun, I always use them with some exceptions. Without an ad blocker, I wouldn't use the internet that much. YouTube always shows videos I didn't ask for, it is a must here. Many other websites are full of flashing images and pop up windows, it is a literal nightmare! I only accept still images as ads, not more. If I visit a news page for example, I can't focus on the article when it's flickering everywhere and I'm worried about an epileptic attack of sorts. Or when pop up windows block my sight. It makes no sense.

But I turned off the ad blocker on all websites I visit regularly. All websites but one: YouTube. I don't bother to turn it off when I visit a website only once.

Long story short: Ad Blocker is a hero and should be considered as husbando.

[daviddaviddavid 772]

I hate ads, and even though I acknowledge their objective importance for multiple reasons I use an adblocker on every site (including this one) and would not ever want to change. When an article locks content behind a paywall or forces me to disable ads to view it, I disable JavaScript on my browser so that it can't detect whether or not I have an adblocker running. If a site hypothetically had ads that were unblockable, I'd probably permanently stop visiting it.

I hate ads.