Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"

Comments

It's the freeloaders time

[sopssa]

Somehow Internet has made people to forget that creating quality content costs money. Often a lot of money. Often with these kind of things I'm really surprised at how dumb nerdy people can be too. You know, us who should know better and not be those stupid sheeps who are happy have a "mindless" job and then watch tv for rest of the evening and still enjoy it, even if theres no mentally requiring tasks involved.

But all the while a lot of people, mostly us geeks, cannot grasp that immaterial products and content also costs to create and takes just the same manhours. This is usually the same thing on discussions about piracy too - there's always someone pointing out that "duplicating" that content to sell it to you doesn't cost anything. Really? Are we really that dumb? That may not cost much, but it's creating it that does and those costs are got back from selling it to people. A lot of times a lot later, with some forms of entertainment even years later.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Anonymous Coward]

Plural of sheep is sheep.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[OffTheWallSoccer]

For me, it comes down to the annoyance factor. If the ads on a site are cleanly organized in a way that won't distract me while reading the article, then I'm okay with it. But lots of sites display those seizure-inducing, bright-blinking-scrolling ads. THEY get black-listed.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[scarboni888]

Look - I don't care. In these days of over-saturation of accessible media, information, and other distractions I can tune into something else. If the business model a particular artist or other outfit doesn't work out without me shelling out cash or refraining from blocking the ads then that's not my fault - I'll find another distraction or information source that has found a business model that works.

I'm getting so sick and tired of this dinosaurian party line that we should be expected to pay for content! Seriously - you know what I say? I say that as a content producer you should feel fucking privileged that I'm spending my precious valuable time sopping up your info-goop with my greymatter sponge as opposed to spending it on some other outlet/avenue/source of infostream.

It's called supply and demand. When the supply is infinite the cost is nil.

In fact if I had it my way content producers would throw in some cash to attract my eyeballs to their info-goop stream. let's get with the times, people!

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[wolffenrir]

Then figure out another way to make money. If you business model is based upon annoying the shit out everybody, ripping through cycles, and just peddling bullshit on your website, then just have the guts to fail instead of begging people to play along with your stupid business plan.

Half of the people out there with Windows machines infested with malware got that malware because they DID NOT use privacy and security extensions. So we are all supposed to pretend like this practice a good idea just so somebody can continue making money on a business model we have known is a failed concept for almost a decade?

It's a bad idea. If you want to sell something, then just write it out in your html. Don't play games with your customers' privacy and security. Let's not forget that these adservers also act as data collectors which threaten our privacy in rather serious circumstances.

When a newspaper runs ads, it is not jammed right in the middle of an article. It doesn't jump of the fucking page and flash in red letters. It doesn't create another newspaper filled with bullshit ads and malware and shoot it out at your face. But when we are talking about ads on the web, that is exactly what is happening. We are never talking about people just putting a sales pitch and graphic embedded in the html.

Just modify the scripts that generate your pages to insert the ads yourself. Don't use third parties. Don't fuck with your users. You might be surprised by the result.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Svippy]

From TFA:

Invariably someone always pops into a discussion like this and brings up some analogy with television advertising, radio, or somesuch. It is not in any way the same; advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results. They have complex models which tell them if X number are watching, Y will likely see the ad (and it even varies by ad position, show type, etc!). But they really have no true idea who sees what ad, and that's why it's a medium based on potential and not provable results. On the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such. Comparing a website to TiVo is comparing apples to asparagus.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[blincoln]

I was fine with advertising on websites when it was limited to (non-controversial) static images without sound.
I started using ad-blocking software when website advertising became animated, sound-producing, and often included content that wouldn't be appreciated where I work. I became more aggressive about it when it expanded to include things that cover up the content on the site I'm reading, or similar popup-style behaviour.
Having had it hidden from me for years now, I find unfiltered websites a mind-numbing barrage of distraction that teeters on the edge of unusability. I had a similar experience when I moved away from watching television. I love films and serials, but I no longer have any interest in watching them in broadcast/cable/satellite form due to the ADD-inducing advertising model.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[fbjon]

We need an ad whitelist. I have a blocklist I've copied from somewhere else that effectively blocks just about everything ad-like. However, I don't actually mind ads that are useful and don't flash/scroll/make fart noises. Somehow allowing those through would make the web better for everyone.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[d3ac0n]

I'm with wolffenrir.

As an IT guy I spend far too much time cleaning up infected machines due to malware gotten from bad ads.

Frankly, I simply cannot trust ANYONE anymore. Understand that I have seen infections start after people visited CNN.com, Foxnews.com, MSNBC.com, ESPN.com, Facebook, Amazon, and MANY MANY MANY other major news/social/other sites that serve banner ads from 3rd party vendors. (or from a poorly secured internal ad server)

At this point I simply block all ads everywhere. I use Firefox with Adblock Plus and No Script and my surfing is safe.

I'm sorry Ars, but until you make a solemn and public oath (permanently posted to your front page) to only serve static image content using only html (no flash, no javascript, nothing but plaintext html) then frankly I can't trust you with my PC.

I understand that this is preventing you from making money, but you haven't earned my TRUST yet. You have to earn that BEFORE you get to earn money from me.

I'm sorry if that upsets your business model, but that's just too damn bad. You don't get to make money from me while putting my machine at risk.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Daengbo]

As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature.

Ars is full of crap on this issue. Annoying and questionable ads didn't come about because of ad blockers. Ad blockers came about to stop the animated "your computer is infected" GIFs and "punch the monkey" Flash ads. Many ad blocker lists specifically avoided blocking text ads because these weren't annoying and borderline illegal.

Ad blocker are a result of evil ads, just like popup blockers were invented to stop annoying pop ups, (not because someone in some tall tower thought that popup blocker might be useful at some future time). Wake up, Ars.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Machtyn]

I will have to agree on a point here. For me, besides getting rid of the annoyance factor, it is a security issue. I trust the sites I browse. I don't necessarily trust the third party sites that inject the advertising on to a page. Even reputable sites get bad adverts on their page.

My one disagreement on the above is the comment on newspaper ads. Many times the articles are split between two pages, the ads are in the middle of the article or are placed in a way that adjusts the flow of text so that you notice them.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[TheCarp]

Sure but, theres two sides to this coin. I think that my own use case here illustrates this well.

I don't run ad blocking software, however, I do run noscript and requestpolicy. These are firefox addons that allow me to control what scripts and other risky (from the point of view of maintianing the integrity of my environment, including the security of my personal information) content run in my local browser by site.

As an example, fsdn.com and slashdot.org are both allowed to run their scripts right now, and fsdn is allowed to get requests from this site. So should someone manage to inject some content that would cause slashdot to tell my browser to run a script on some other random attack page... it would be refused unless I decided to allow it.

Now... anyone who knows much about how web ads work can see the problem here. This setup, done entirely for reasons other than ad blocking, blocks ads voraciously. Its not my fault, I didn't say "I want to block ads" but...the ads are all implemented in a way that makes it impossible to, wholesale, honor them, without risking honoring a malicous and common attack. Also, many of these ad sites attempt to track me from site to site, which, I do not condone.

They have every right to advertise and have advertising. They even have every right to close their site down to paying members, or just people who they can verify in some way view their ads, or run their scripts.

Of course, they don't do that because it would drive away readers if it became less convenient. Instead they have nothing that they can do but bitch and moan about the fact that other people aren't using what they are giving away publically for free in the manner that they intended people to use it.

Thats always a winnining strategy. Whining.

-Steve

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[andydread]

Hey skxawng! Have you even read ars? Hardly any of the tripe you wrote here applies to that site. I just whitelisted them to see and no pop-ups, no-crazy flashing and all i can see are 2 ads on the entire page. One of which is an ars internal ad on the side about an article. The other is a banner at the very top of the page. I plan to leave them permanently in my whitelist. If they screw up with crappy flash of popups then I will remove them from my whitelist.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[illumnatLA]

I agree... I don't have a problem with web page ads in general.

It's the damn ads that

1. Pop up a graphic that covers most of the screen when you accidentally mouse over them
2. Little floaty windows that float over the content you're trying to look at until you close them
3. An overabundance of inline text-linked ads that also float something when you mouse over them
4. Ads that automatically start playing sound.
5. Seizure inducing blinky ads
6. Ads that disguise themselves as error messages
7. Ad servers that slow down the entire page load time

It seems that some webmasters/advertisers have gotten it into their heads that the more annoying they make their ads, the more likely we are to buy their product. In actuality, all they are doing is causing users to close the window and move on to someone else's less annoying site. If one of their stinking ads gets in the way and I accidentally click it, I don't look at the ad... I immediately close the page it opens in annoyance.

Stop trying to annoy the hell out of your readers with terrible ads and they'll be more likely to stop using ad blockers or at least whitelist your site.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear a lot of talk about how annoying ads are from the perspective of people viewing the ads. I have seen numerous articles written by people like Ken Fisher which bemoan the fact that their companies need advertising revenue in order to stay afloat. Of course, I have also seen all of the marketing fluff from the ad networks talking about how great their services are for people like myself who are trying to sell a product.

I want people to block my ads -- as a ad buyer why the hell would I want to pay for an impression, or a click through, from somebody who is not interested in my product? Now, of course I sell something that is legit and my business plan does not depend on some poor bastard accidentally clicking my ad.

Anyway, as an ad buyer, I encourage people to block ads -- if you are not interested in seeing an ad then block it -- save me money.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[walt-sjc]

I'll allow static non-animated pictures. Anything with flash, javascript, or embedded in iframes is blocked. If you can't communicate your message with a picture, you don't deserve my attention. Oh - and adwords is fine too.

Advertisers have no morals and no shame. If they could legally send a barker around who breaks into your house and yells at you through a megaphone, they would. The industry would (and currently is attempting to) outlaw any technology that is capable of bypassing ads in any medium. Hell, if they could get away with it, they would outlaw eyelids so you couldn't close your eyes and mandate locking seatbelts that wouldn't allow you to get up and go to the bathroom during commercial breaks.

Did I mention I hate most ads?

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Epsillon]

That's all very well, but these ad farms aren't just serving ads, are they? Most of the time they're also installing tracking cookies and collecting private information. You want me to see ads? Don't try to track me, then. Until this shit stops, I won't just be using AdBlock, I'll be blacklisting ad farms on my proxy and barring them on the gateway. Not only is this the primary motivation for me eschewing ad farms but it is also my fundamental right to retain control of what I allow in and out of my private network. Don't like it? Tough. My network, my rules.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[RocketScientist]

Do you use a DVR to skip commercials?

If so, please explain how that's different from using adblock.

Now I'll tell you how using a DVR is different from using adblock. I haven't seen a TV commercial that an infect my TV and make it quit working or invade my privacy or steal my identity. I have seen very widespread Flash advertisements on web pages that will do exactly that.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[ultranova]

Somehow Internet has made people to forget that creating quality content costs money. Often a lot of money. Often with these kind of things I'm really surprised at how dumb nerdy people can be too.

Dumb? Or just indifferent? This is a society which glorifies greed and selfishness, of watching out for number one and putting one's personal gain above all. Time and again do hear that the purpose of business is to generate profits for the owner, not care for the common good. Again and again do "libertarians" argue against public services because they require taxation. Should it really come as a surprise when the rest of us say "fine" and jump in on the bandwagon? And does that really make us dumb?

This is simply normal people emulating the aristocracy, doing what they're told is proper and good over and over again. "Not my problem", says a businessman who fires his employees; "not my problem", says a netizen who deprives a site of any source of revenue. Welcome to the next round of "Consequences of Capitalism"; the sound you heard is the society slowly crumbling around you since no one can be bothered to maintain it and often actively cursing any attempt to force them to.

You know, us who should know better and not be those stupid sheeps who are happy have a "mindless" job and then watch tv for rest of the evening and still enjoy it, even if theres no mentally requiring tasks involved.

I enjoy Jackass. It doesn't mean I'm dumb, it just means I enjoy Jackass.

You fail logic forever. But then again, most people who call others "sheep" do.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[fruitbane]

I concur. However, beyond this, internet advertising often serves a different purpose than TV advertising. Many TV ads are for products they don't expect you to go right out and buy (click through?). They want to plant the product names and images in your head so that when you next go shopping for certain classes of items you will buy their particular brand. If you have a headache you'll reach for Tylenol instead of generic acetaminophen, or Dial instead of Irish Spring. It's assumed that continued sales of a product have something to do with the presence of advertising.

Internet ads tend to take up less time and space than a full TV ad so they can't do the little story and humor vignettes but are, instead, used to flash crazy shit at you so that you'll click through and either a) get malware or b) maybe make an impulse investigation into their product. Internet ads are like leaders to a full ad instead of the full ad themselves. I guess in their current form internet ads function more like billboards on the highway, only without the "keep us in mind" ads, instead focused solely on "MacDonalds - Exit 32, 2 miles"

Maybe if banner ads advertised products like Dove soap or Cascade dish detergent instead of questionable mortgage products it would be more stable and less likely to be blocked. Internet advertising simply hasn't risen to any kind of reputable level.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[makomk]

Well, it figures that the ads would be at their tamest right now, since Ars Technica is trying to encourage people to turn off ad-blocking. They've had problems in the past, though, and apparently even deliberately run obnoxious ads:

As for the larger, more intrusive ads: they are here to stay, provided they abide by our guidelines. We have two options: run these kinds of ads on a limited, select basis (usually one per reader per 24 hours), or stop publishing. That was true 5 years ago, and it is even more true today. Ideally, we'd be able to run these ads without them breaking stuff. We're trying to address that. But these kinds of ads, rare as they may be, are essential to our business. While I am well aware of many of your personal theories as to the ultimate detriment of these ads on a longterm basis, I do not agree and will abide by my data. I have 11 years experience running this business, through worse times than the present, and I remained convinced that we are making the right moves 90% of the time.

Also, note that stuff like obnoxious expand-on-rollover ads is apparently also entirely within the rules.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[dc29A]

Exactly!

Take this an anecdote or whatever, just for the kicks I whitelisted Ars Technica.

For about 100 or so page loads:
- The majority of the ads are for GQ magazine. I didn't even know what the fuck that was before clicking on the link. And no Ars, I don't give a shit what the fuck Kobe Bryant is wearing neither do I care how Pierce Brosnan is having more fun that me. Also, why am I bombarded with GQ ads in the hardware section of the site?
- I had 3 annoying Gilette ads about their Fusion razor. Full blown flash with sound. How is this relevant to a tech/geek site? Ars, I really don't care what razor a douchebag steroid abusing baseball player uses. No really, I don't.
- I get a metric fuckton of ads for Wired magazine, already on their RSS feed, more irrelevant ads.
- I got about 10 or so Microsoft ads about some 'Business Synergy Client Focused' gobbledygook. What the shit? Oh and it's animated flash bogging down my machine.
- I got about 5 or so ads that didn't load completely, I can't even make out what the fuck they are. Trying to connect to some backwater adserver, great way to make sure the page will take years to load.

Why can't I get ads I would be even remotely interested in? Gadgets deals, hardware deals, game deals, interesting bands, interesting books ... you know ... geek stuff? I don't care about fucking GQ, I am not "GQ", never will be.

Sorry Ars, back to the block list.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[wilsone8]

And yet, your post seems to show that advertising was working on you:

- The majority of the ads are for GQ magazine. I didn't even know what the fuck that was before clicking on the link

. Perfect. The ad gave you knowledge of a product you were unaware of before. That's the whole point of advertising.

- I had 3 annoying Gilette ads about their Fusion razor.

If you can remembver the name of the product afterwards, then the ad is working. Also, and I know this may come as a shock, but not every ad is going to be perfectly relevent to you.

- I get a metric fuckton of ads for Wired magazine, already on their RSS feed, more irrelevant ads

You expect Ars to some how know that ahead of time? You whine that the ads aren't relevent, but they are for a product you already use. I would say that means the ad was at least targeted at the right demographic, even if its not relevent to you in particular.

- I got about 10 or so Microsoft ads about some 'Business Synergy Client Focused' gobbledygook

Another tech related ad on a tech site. Makes sense to me...

All this is missing the point of the article. Ars gets paid by the view. If you don't view ads, they don't get paid. That means they have to get rid of staff, reduce content, etc. If you like Ars, you should view the ads. If you don't want to view the ads, then either become a subscriber or don't view Ars.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[mundanetechnomancer]

- I had 3 annoying Gilette ads about their Fusion razor.

If you can remembver the name of the product afterwards, then the ad is working. Also, and I know this may come as a shock, but not every ad is going to be perfectly relevent to you.

this is based on the concept that anytime someone remembers the ad, the ad is a success. I have avoided products because i found their ads annoying, but marketing people don't think that happens

Sorry Ars, you are animated too

[markdavis]

We have been through all this stuff over and over again. People wouldn't have started blocking ads in the first place if they were reasonable ads. These are the reasons I use an ad-blocker:

* Animation- movement of any type
* Sound
* Popups
* Flyouts
* More ad space than content space
* Slow loading third-party sites

I am so anti-animation (I can't STAND movement on the screen while I am trying to read) that I have to block even non-Ad content (using "Flash Killer" and/or a manual Adblock addition for those sections with movement). Sometimes I even have to resort to killing Javascript ("JS Switch"). I don't want to deny sites revenue, but without being able to block the above types of Ad's, I wouldn't visit (or stay on) a site, anyway- so there is little difference.

Sorry Ars Technica... you can CLAIM your ads are non-intrusive and "quality", but I just visited your site with adblocking off and was immediately met with one highly annoying animated banner and a second, lower-animated, section. At least you only had two.

I am tired of companies trying to turn the Internet into Television.

Re:Sorry Ars, you are animated too

[Bit101]

I'm with that too. I'm perfectly fine with ads like the Google text ads. Hell, I even enjoy them sometimes. I went to a site that had these ads that constantly advertised for different MMOs, which I tried. I won't have found about these sites.

Ads suck

[mcelrath]

Ads are invasive, intrusive, annoying, and I don't want to see them. ever. There are laws against sending advertisements over the fax and cold-calling cell phones. The logic is that the recipient must pay for the unsolicited advertisement (in fax paper, toner, or cell phone minutes).

Internet ads are no different. I pay for bandwidth and connection time, so your ad directly costs me money, and it should be illegal for that reason. It costs me time too, making your page slower and more annoying. I don't want to have to hunt for the content among all the cleverly disguised ads. I don't want to have to examine the links to figure out which ones are ads and which ones are legitimate.

I will continue blocking ads until the end of time. If you can't figure out how to make money without annoying people, that's your problem. Get creative folks, and stop whining about how you wish people would just be more receptive to being annoyed.

Re:Ads suck

[Iyonesco]

If you don't want to see adverts don't visit any websites that have adverts on them. If you're repeatedly visiting websites that you know to have adverts then you're looking at the adverts voluntarily so it is no way an invasion or an intrusion.

Besides, without adverts the only way websites will be able to fund themselves is through fees. Would you rather pay a few dollars a month for every website you visit?

Sometimes?

[Aladrin]

If sometimes you 'have to accept those ads' then I have to block your ads totally. Maybe you should rethink that strategy, Ars?

Re:Sometimes?

[distantbody]

Maybe you should rethink that strategy, Ars?

Paywall here we come!!!

Adblock Plus proposal

[kasper_souren]

They're missing the point. Most of the ads only get them money if people click on them. From my experience people who run adblock software are also people who refuse to click on ads in general. So instead of calling people to be annoyed by ads they should call people to turn off their adblock for a second, click on an ad and turn it back on. But well, that's not gonna make the advertisers happy. The authors of Adblock Plus came up with a better proposal http://adblockplus.org/blog/an-approach-to-fair-ad-blocking - I wonder if Ars Technica has looked into that.

Re:Adblock Plus proposal

[Nirac]

From the article:

"There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis."

Re:Adblock Plus proposal

[dzfoo]

But that argument itself is based on a misconception: that advertisers are just nice rich guys that will throw money at you for just displaying ads, and that the mere fact of exposing the ads is value in and of itself.

Advertising is an investment. The expectation of the advertiser is to recoup that investment by increased sales or market share. If site visitors ultimately do not care about the ads and do not click on them, or somehow the impressions are not translated into a return on that investment; then they do nothing for the advertiser. Eventually, the value of those ads will decrease to the advertiser, to the point that it will pay less for them, or it may decide not to advertise at all on your site.

In the end, it is not just merely displaying the ads that makes money, but the complex dynamics of the market, its interaction with potential customers, and the ability to influence their behaviour. Sure, the nice rich guys will throw money at you for the short term, with the promise that all those eyes on your site will eventually turn into gold, but counting on this a priori is a flawed business model.

This is not to say that advertising does not work. Obviously it makes a lot of money to a lot of people. However, it means that a site cannot monetize every single viewer, at least not realistically for the long term. It also means that those who refuse to view your ads will only inflate your page view count artificially, if somehow you manage to force them into exposing them to the ads. And ultimately, this will result in diluting the value of your site to advertisers.

        -dZ.

My thoughts

[Mystery00]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't internet ads generate their revenue through the amount of clicks they incur? I know Google's ads do this.

By using adblock, what I'm saying is: I'm never going to be clicking on any of the ads on your website.

If I didn't use it, I still wouldn't be clicking on any ads on your website and they will also annoy me.

It's most likely that the people using ad blocking don't care about the ads you display and won't be clicking on them anyway.

The other side: Ad abuse and malware

[KingSkippus]

I posted this there, and I'll post it here, too.

I consider it irresponsible not to browse the web with a really good ad/Flash/javascript blocker. Not just because of the annoyance factor, but because it is a significant vector of malicious code attacks. This isn't just hypothetical; in the recent past, sites such as Wikia and a gaming site I visit injected malicious code and infected users' machines. The site hosts were completely unaware of it; the code was being injected through a third-party ad provider. Fortunately, I found out about this through someone else when they brought it to my attention, because the code never made it to my browser.

Ars raises a good point, but the simple truth is that given the choice between having less content available or putting my system's security at risk, I'll choose the first option any day. I'm sorry--I really am, because I know that it is devastating to sites such as theirs, and I'd gladly whitelist their site but for the risk. I don't blame reputable sites like Ars, I blame a decade and a half of abuse by ad companies. But such is the state of affairs.

Plus, please keep in mind that a lot of sites I visit are new to me, and they're sites that I don't know whether or not they're reputable. Many of them engage in what I consider an "ad assault" on me, barraging me with all sorts of annoyances for content that is of little to no value. When I'm just puttering around the Internet without visiting one of my usual haunts, most of the content means so little to me that until I have a chance to evaluate whether or not it's worth it and whether or not they advertise in some sane, responsible manner, I feel fully justified in not letting them force feed such annoyances to me.

For what it's worth, he is right, I'm glad they brought the issue up in a tactful manner, and I'm going to subscribe to Ars since I do indeed find its content of high value. When sites I value provide such an alternate business model for paying for their existence, I do try to do my part to support them.

Turn off Flash ads, and I'll turn off the ad block

[TodLiebeck]

If I open Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, with a few tabs active in each on popular sites, the entirety of both cores of my Intel E7500 CPU will be consumed by Flash advertisements.

I'm on a Linux machine with a lot of memory, which makes for the worst case scenario: First, Flash is horrible on Linux. Second, I use virtual desktops and leave browsers open for days at a time. Memory is not a problem.

Flash ads tend to be poorly written by a creative designer who could give a rat's rear end about your system resources.

The ads interfere with my ability to work, which costs me money. They also cause my computer to consume significantly more power. So in effect, your Flash ads are even bad for the environment.

They're also of course quite annoying, and if given only the options of browsing the internet with Flash ads or not browsing the internet at all, I'll choose the latter.

How about you try this experiment: Turn off Flash ads. Post a banner at the top of your site that says, "Hey, we've turned off Flash ads. Please exclude this site from your ad blocker so we can make money."

Re:I have ad block in because of facebook

[DarkOx]

Its the advertisers fault. I understand that advertising is all about making sure your message is heard above the noise but they are the ones who jumped the shark.

When it was just banners and the occasional frame with some adds in it, I never attempted to filter them out other than with my own mental powers. When they started doing pop-ups and float overs, I even tolerated it. When they started making adds that pretended to be system messages, virus scanner alerts, and other applications that really struck me as fraudulent and abusive and so I started blocking ads and helping others do the same.

It's *my* CPU you're using

[Colin Smith]

*My* RAM. *My* bandwidth.

I pay for it all, and I don't really care if your site folds (this includes you slashdot), you're just a momentary diversion, don't flatter yourself otherwise. There will be another along in 10 minutes.

So, i'm going to continue to block images, particularly moving ones. Javascript, flash, and pretty much anything else they come up with. I used to leave google ads alone, they were relevant, textual and just sat there inviting a click, but they blew it as well.
 

Re:It's *my* CPU you're using

[edumacator]

Wow.

What a parasitic way to think about the content on the internet...

Personally, I try to reward good content...yeah that's you slashdot...sometimes...by allowing their ads. But I accept your somewhat jaded perspective. Hopefully their are enough people like me out there, so good sites don't fail.

Cart before the horse again....

[macraig]

Here we have yet another politician trying to manipulate us into seeing things his way with a fallacious argument. Why does anyone decide to use ad-blocking software in the first place? Do people set out with the express goal that "Heh, I'm gonna teach these fuckers a lesson"? I certainly didn't. Nope... I employed ad-blocking techniques because the ads became a truly hard-sell nightmare. Does anyone recall the meatspace jokes about car salesmen and "hard sell" tactics? That's what we're talking about here: digital ads that take a hard-sell approach.

NOBODY likes the hard-sell tactics. That's why I, and most other people, employ RECIPROCAL tactics to block ads, because far too many are insanely hard-sell. Has it been simple greed and lack of self-restraint, no scruples, or did their business model just suck vacuum from the start? Is either cause my fault, my problem? Honestly... and they blame *us* for starting the whole contest? Ya got it ass backwards there, chum. Ad-blocking is here to stay BECAUSE your foolish greed arrived first.

Honestly, it's already just too damned late; this ship had already sailed. Advertisers proved themselves to be consistently untrustworthy and self-centered, and we responded in kind. How do they intend to win back our trust? Oh, that's right: by blaming the bad behavior on *us* and claiming they always had our best interests at heart.

Bullshit.

Ya know what? I do believe I could survive well enough without their "content" if it just dried up and blew away. So find yourselves a revenue model, guys, one that actually works and that we can actually afford, or just go away. Ad-blocking is here to stay.

Love this comment by Ars

[s.d.]

"If you're not willing to unblock our ads, we're fairly happy for you to not read the content we work very hard on, or to just stop visiting the site altogether." (in comment thread here)

Ok, your terms are acceptable. See ya.

Re:Love this comment by Ars

[Angst Badger]

Ok, your terms are acceptable. See ya.

Pretty much. Ars Technica's approach here is to ask people to do something they dislike so Ars can make money. What they're finding out is that a substantial number of people dislike the ads more than they like the content, and if push comes to shove, they're willing to give up the content along with the ads. If your business model consists of haranguing your users and telling them that if they don't do something unpleasant, they'll be sorry, you have become rather embarrassingly detached from reality and should probably look for something else to do. It's 2010, fer chrissakes. You'd think that by now people would have figured out that, at least on the web, popular does not equal profitable, and any business "plan" that involves attracting lots of non-paying spectators and making money from their mere presence is likely to crater.

My counter argument

[erroneus]

Not blocking ads can be devastating to users' computers.

Blocking ads is more than just a means to cut down on the annoying clutter on the screen. It is a security measure. And the fact is, "respect" is and should be a two-way street. Advertisers do not respect the audience. They will place as many ads "...as the market can bear" or will tolerate. They want attention and will use seizure-inducing colors and flashing to get it. Further, hidden among the many redirects, there are scripts and other exploits designed to turn a user's computer into a bot or worse.

If advertisers used only the most respectful methods, the need for ad blockers would not exist and neither would the ad blockers themselves.

As things stand, even on the most legitimate of sites, users are at risk due to the methods advertisers use when enlisting and deploying advertising campaigns.

Lower my defenses so you can earn money from my eyes? Burn in hell!

1. Pay respect to your audience
2. Use methods that do not require "web client cooperation" and trust the sites hosting your ads. (Use scripts to inject text based ads into the articles originating from the site being read, not from external sites! There is a problem of trust that everyone needs to overcome.)

I don't leave my windows and doors open to allow advertisers to walk into my home because OTHER people will enter as well.

Content Creators Just Can't Win

[GospelHead821]

This sort of argument, as it pertains to piracy, is pretty darned common over at TechDirt, which I also read. I have a lot of sympathy for the creators of "boring" content, like news sites. At least a musician can do live performances and sell merchandise; an author can do lectures and book signings. People used to pay for content so we blame the content creators for having a bad business model and challenge them to come up with something that we'll buy. But we still want the content and we want the money-making good/service to be related to the content too. What is a news site supposed to do? How many people are going to buy an Ars Technica t-shirt? So they make money by selling ads to third parties but people find ways to avoid looking at the ads. Some people would argue that this is Ars Technica's problem and that if they can't find a service that people will buy, they "deserve" to go out of business. How can people have this kind of attitude and then wonder why the content that remains is spineless and pandering? It's because we've driven the real content creators away and all that's left are marketers with delusions of creativity.

Subscriptions means the end of links

[drewhk]

One serious problem with subscriptions and paywalls is that they effectively prevent linking content -- the most important feature of the web.

Don't forget page load lag

[Late Adopter]

Ironically Slashdot demonstrated this for me when I tried to pull up their front page before coming into this story. I'm on a pretty snappy connection, and Slashdot is no slouch, but because my browser was waiting on ad.doubleclick.com I was stuck looking at the top banner and that was pretty much it.

If you have js code that loads ads it *must* come at the end of the page. I try to be good about keeping adblock off, but incidents of these things lead me to blocking a domain's ads.

Privacy

[digitalhermit]

Here's the main problem I have with enabling ads..

Load NoScript in your browser.. Then load some random sites. Some of them are advertiser sites that are being blocked. Some of these advertiser sites (maybe disguised as a social networking site) can then set/read cookies from your browser. In their databases they can aggregate your browsing patterns.

Here's where it's a problem...

On one social networking site that I use I have many of my co-workers and business associates. In the past I've already had ads start showing up on non-related sites after browsing new products. For example, I don't have a pet but someone asked me to research some flea medication. Within moments after researching on one site, I started noticing flea powders being advertised on another site. Coincidence? What would you think?

I don't want my personal life to start spilling into my public/work life. The problem with these ad sites is that I do not know what information they are storing about me. I don't know if their revenues one day start to decline so they start opening up my records to seedy advertisers. What if Facebook modifies their policy or some seedy advertiser exploits a bug in the Facebook API and starts posting on my home page? What if my co-workers start seeing "Holley 4-Barrel Carbs and the Men Who Love Them" on my page and get the wrong impression? What if LinuxJournal posts "Finger, mount, fsck and sleep" on my wall (and say I work at Microsoft)?

Slashdot does it right

[Idiomatick]

/. has ads for passerbys and noobs. To support the community they let good users have a free pass, this doesn't cost them much and improves the site. Lastly they allow people to donate/sign up with money.

They plan for and only expect a small chunk of people to sign up, but each signed up person pays for 1000 not signed up people. And the other bit of advertising is additional revenue without annoying anyone you really want on the site. Perfect! All sites should be run this way.

That or have an additional source of revenue and leave the website as a loss in efforts to increase $ to the other products. Put website into 'advertising' as an expense rather than kidding yourself and thinking it is a revenue stream.

Re:And NoScript?

[metamatic]

In particular, NoScript seems to prevent 100% of Ars's ads. I don't have AdBlock installed, but I have NoScript, and I see no ads on that page.

If they are saying they demand that I run all the scripts on their site if I'm going to look at the content, well sorry, no way.

Ars Technica? Who is that?

[wowbagger]

Ars Technica, who is that? Oh yes, that's one of those annoying sites I don't read anymore, because they insist upon breaking every story into a dozen pages so they can push more ads.

Hey Ars,
here's some
advice:

(buy Brawndo capacitors - they got electrolytics, its what current craves!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

Rather than
making me
search for
a Print link

(Buy BigJuggs Disks - you KNOW what you want to store!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

So that I
can read
your site
quickly

(Play NoLife for free for the next three minutes- only $123.99!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

and actually
use ALL of
my screen,
instead of
just the
middle

(Host your site on NotWorking Pollution!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

why don't
you put it
on one page

(Microsoft, we aren't sociopathic monopolists, we just act like one)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

And see
if that
works.
(visit our sister site ICanHasContent!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

(post us to Wastebook!)
(Post us to Shovel!)
(Post us to DidntReadIt!)
(Post us to NoLife!)
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next)

Internet advertisers made a choice:

[Burz]

They could more closely emulate the ads of printed media, which drew only rare complaints from readers... or they could emulate the ads of TV, which cause a lot of people to recoil.

What we got on the web are TV-like ads without sound but which:

still flicker, shake and gyrate;
actively obstruct the UI;
imitate system warnings to mislead;
peg the CPU to near 100% on slower systems;
act as a programmable vector for malware and surveillance.

Yikes.

In order to keep infection rates of my naive Windows customers down, I have to not only educate them about trojans and phishing (teaching them to hover over links before clicking works wonders)... I also have to install Adblock as an absolute necessity. Otherwise they WILL get infected in short order, often in an attempt to rid themselves of an "infection" that a popup ad "found".

What's more, this is not television. People come to the Internet to find what they want, not to have "Hey we know what you want!!" pushed in their faces twice as often as with ye olde media.

I now believe that ads should be limited to GIFs and JPEGs on the website's main page. The advertisers crossed over into unethical territory before ad-blocking users, about the same time that actual content on websites became heavily dependent on Javascript. That leaves me with the following questions: What are journalists and advertisers doing about this problem? Do advertisers even care that their delivery infrastructure is poisonous?

Adblock might compromise by letting GIF and JPEG through as a default. But these questions still need to be dealt with.

The problem with 'micropayment' subscriptions

[illumnatLA]

The issue I have with the concept of many content providers going to a 'micropayment' subscription is that for the user, eventually, all the micropayments for the stuff they want to read ends up being one big MACROpayment.

I've got enough monthly payments to deal with between car payments, car insurance, rent, phone bill, internet, and so forth. I don't want to and am not going to add a bunch of $.99 micropayments on top of everything else.

$.05 an article? Micropayment? How many articles have you read on the internet today? How many this month? Let's see... in the past hour or so I read... $.05 1-Article MMO-Champion.com $.10 2-Articles WoW.com $.10 2-Articles Slashdot.org $.10 2-Articles ArsTechnica.com $.10 2-Articles Cracked.com $.05 1-Article NYTimes.com $.05 1-Article NewsoftheWeird.com

Ok... that works out to $.55 in an hour. Let's say 3 hours on the internet per day or 21 hours per week... $11.55 a week multiplied by 4 to get per month... $46.20... multiplied by 12 for the yearly cost... $554.40. $554.40 a year on micropayments!!!

So... tell me again... are you willing to make micropayments for every article you read on the internet?

Also, if many websites go to a micropayment model users will get sick of having to enter their credit card or paypal account every time they want to read something. Someone like Rupert Murdoch will come along and offer a whole bunch of this content for one payment instead of a ton of little payments.

It'll be a reintroduction to an AOL type experience where everything the average user would look at would be through the filter of one giant corporation.

Yep... Micropayments is exactly where the big corporations would like us to go.

The Problem is Third-Party Ads

[Prototerm]

Ok, here's a really radical idea: Maybe the problem isn't the ads, but that the ads are provided by third party hosting sites that are out of the control of the web site *using* those ads. If the web site hosted the ad file, then *they* would be held responsible for the singing, dancing gophers trying to sell you the latest in prophylactics, and ad-blockers would be less effective.

But in general, the reason ad blocking exists, and will continue to exist is:
1) animation (any kind)
2) sound and/or music
3) popups, pupunders, and any other sort of ad that *demands* your immediate attention like a little kid jumping up and down, waving his hands because he has to go to the bathroom.

Advertisers need to understand: we *tolerate* you. But make yourself too annoying, and we *will* cut you off at the knees. This is true of Television (Tivo), Radio (iPod), Newspapers (yeah, just flip the page here), and now the Internet. Push us too far, and someone *will* develop ad blocking software that happily tells you we are viewing your ad, while at the same time dropping the whole thing in the trash. Please don't turn this into a war. It's one you can't win.

Ars are owned by Condé Nast

[T-Kir]

I searched the comments here and noted that no-one has mentioned that Ars are owned by Condé Nast, a company with an estimated $4-5Billion+ annual revenue. They also own Wired and Reddit, let alone Vogue, GQ and numerous other publications.

Why do I mention this? Context. If Ars was still an independent operator then I'd have more sympathy for their argument, and yes they still have numbers to maintain... but have you considered their sister magazines, take Vogue/GQ for example and think of page content vs pages of advertising. I watched "The September Issue" a few weeks ago and the thing that stuck in my mind was that that issue of Vogue had about 800 pages and only over a 100 pages were actual content, the rest were adverts. Fucking nuts! So yes, the argument of advertising driven content isn't going away and we'll see what happens should Mr Murdoch (who seems to want to own every content producer on the planet) try his pay-wall experiment.

As for ad-blocking... I continue using it and am glad since I've seen the latest shit that people have to deal with, auto-loading videos, sound, fly-outs you can't shut, flash ads that grind your page to a halt, as well as the malware that floats around and even hits high profile sites... I want control of what opens up in my browser and the only ads I'd ever consider are Google textual ads... why? cos they don't piss me off. Advertising should be an enticement of a good deal, done in a thoughtful and pleasant manner.. Unfortunately the Advertising 'industry' (I also include SEO bastards too here) battles everyone to promise customers the Earth while pissing off the very people they're meant to attract, they go through periods of continual fads in order to push shit and pretend to everyone they are 'unique' in their services, yet do the same as everyone else. The arguments from most advertisers that people who use ad-blocking software need burning at the stake tells me a lot, in that they just don't 'get-it', a good advertiser/marketer will have spent time arguing both camps and understand the issues at hand (as well as the people they're meant to be advertising to) whereas the rest fail at being the clever people they advertise themselves to be.

My suggestion to Ars, if it is that much of an issue then block your content from being shown 'full-stop' to anyone using ad-blocking software as you did in your experiment... then you only have to serve a minimal bandwidth using text page explaining why, fucking deal with it instead of whining like everyone else (i.e. News Corp, et al). The advertising industry won't die, but it will contract, change and evolve. But as a web browser I will not be dictated to that I have to have certain content forced down my throat, and I will control what I choose to see. There are multiple revenue streams possible, and I view Ars as producing higher quality content than a lot of other sites out there that I would be willing to pay for if I visited it enough (El Reg, BBC News, Slashdot and Fark tend to be my usual reads, and as a TV license holder I already pay for BBC News). Going back to context again, it would also be handy if Ars was to tell us their average percentage of userbase are that employ ad-blocking, which as a tech site I'd guess would be higher than a regular new site.