There's some amazingly flawed arguments in this thread.
DVR'ing something, choosing to skip ads via Tivo (or an equivalent service), or choosing simply not to look at an advertising billboard/train advertisement is nowhere near the same as using an adblocker service.
With all of the above, the content provider is paid regardless of whether you choose to view the ad. The advertiser pays a fee to place that ad in that show/location knowing that a very high percentage of people won't even see it. The value for them lies in the smaller percentage of people who will see it, purely in terms of increasing awareness for the product.
Perhaps thats unfair. After all, the TV business changed irrevocably in 2007 because of problems created by the DVR. People who had the device fast-forwarded past the ads that bring millions of dollars to CBS, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Viacom, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, Discovery Communications and others. And they watched their favorite shows hours or even days after the shows aired, bringing down the ratings. To compromise, advertisers and TV networks altered the way they conducted business, with sponsors agreeing to pay for three days worth of viewing, not just live audience but only if those later-day viewers didnt zap past the commercials.The agreement was rare, complex and in the TV business seismic.
So if you are DVRing your shows and skipping ads you are costing people money. I do it all the time, but it's a perfectly valid comparison to make to Adblock.
I don't think it's that clear cut. There's two, really easy solutions being provided to the "ads are too intrusive" problem:
1 - Don't visit the site.
2 - Download and install adblocker, and set it up to stop those ads.
2 is more complex and more work for the end user, but it's the one that several people in this thread alone are suggesting it's the simple solution. It boils down to the fact that one way or another, they want the content being provided. If they didn't, they just wouldn't visit the site. You're right in that there's no confusion - there's just a lot of really odd justification being used that 2 is as simple and as correct as 1.
Again - if you want the content, there has to be a way for it to be paid for. If you disagree with that way, don't view the content. The "end experience" isn't the consumer's to own - it's the creator's. If you disagree with the way it's presented to you, don't use it, or make your position clear to the creator. Whilst adblock definitely achieves the latter, it does so in a very harmful way.
I've already covered your second point - those ads work in very different ways. It's not the same.
It's 2-3 clicks of a mouse button. You don't get much more simple than that. And I severely disagree with your second point. Allowing advertisers the ability to dictate what an end users experience should look like is never the correct answer. I don't see or I budging on that point, so whatever.
And sorry, but your last point didn't really sway me. I don't see a whit of difference between turning down radio ads and blocking obnoxious pop-ups. In any event, framing these as a moral decision that has no bearing on the behavior of the advertisers is falling flat with me. They started the war, so to speak, and their refusal to change their behavior has lead to legislation regarding intrusive advertising in every other sector. The AdBlock solution is an imperfect one, but could easily be alleviated by content providers cultivating less annoying ads. That's wholly within their power.
That's not really a great analogy though. In this situation, the people viewing the ad on the bus have no real choice - it's passing through a public space. If it's big and obnoxious enough, they'll have little choice but to view it.
On the web, you're choosing to go to that website to consume that content. If you find the content so obnoxious and offensive, you have a few solutions:
- not visit the site
- visit the site, but make your disapproval of the ads known by actually engaging with the content creator/server
- visit the site and block the ads
You can choose the last one if you like, but if you enjoy the content and want more if it, you're choosing to hurt the creator of the content as opposed to the creator of the ad. Plus, the creator of the ad is just gonna go away and find more intrusive ways of advertising.
The call is 100% yours, but the debate clearly shows that a lot of the time it's the content creators that get hurt here, not the people who make the intrusive ads.
The chiose of using ads to sustain your business model is a choice of the content provider. The content provider is therefore responsible of ensuring that the ads are not annoying. If that does not happen, Adblock gives you a workaround that does not preclude you access to the content you want/need.
While not always feasible there are alternatives to ads ( e.g. Donations, subscriptions, shops) or offering the possibility to remove them by paying a fee.
Nobody has the right to impose ads to you. They decide to give free content to lure you into watching ads and ultimately to sell you something, fine, good luck with that, but You can still decide to ignore their commercial message. You do not have a contract that oblige you to do so, and the fact that people might ignore the ads and enjoy the free ride, it is just the natural risk of this business model.
Many websites heavily depend on user created content, in this case even if you do not click (to just watch in many cases is not sufficient for the website to get money) you may contribute by creating content that is valuable for the rest of community / internet thus helping the website in being relevant among many others.
One thing is to be supportive of your favorite website and another thing is to believe that it is a moral obligation or even comparable to a crime not to do so.
Nice blanket statement. People could be using adblock for a variety of reasons: computer performance, security issues, privacy issues.
A compromise version of adblock might be to instead install it and then have it ask you individually confirm if you want to enable it on each site as you visit them. That way every site has to be manually added and must be on their 'best behaviour' if they want that ad revenue.
But as it stands, it is and always has been the advertisers leading the charge of obnoxiousness, so I feel no sympathy if sites use intrusive ads then cry foul when their revenue from it falls off a cliff.
It wasn't meant to be a blanket statement any more than the blanket statement it was responded to, but fair point.
I think that's a fairer stance to take - performance, security issues certainly (especially the former). I can definitely understand that point of view. Less so with privacy - if someone's offering you content for free in exchange for being tracked, again the solution is to not consume their content, or find somewhere where you can consume it on better terms.
You'd also hope that sites whose revenue dips after introducing really intrusive ads would be intelligent enough to find another way of getting that revenue. I suspect that gets harder as the sites get bigger, but you're right - that's on the site themselves.
So if you are DVRing your shows and skipping ads you are costing people money. I do it all the time, but it's a perfectly valid comparison to make to Adblock.
That's quite interesting - I'm pretty sure that hasn't caught on in the UK yet, and I genuinely didn't realise that change had occurred elsewhere. It certainly does make it a fairer comparison in that respect, so cheers for bringing it to my attention.
The chiose of using ads to sustain your business model is a choice of the content provider. The content provider is therefore responsible of ensuring that the ads are not annoying. If that does not happen, Adblock gives you a workaround that does not preclude you access to the content you want/need.
While not always feasible there are alternatives to ads ( e.g. Donations, subscriptions, shops) or offering the possibility to remove them by paying a fee.
Nobody has the right to impose ads to you. They decide to give free content to lure you into watching ads and ultimately to sell you something, fine, good luck with that, but You can still decide to ignore their commercial message. You do not have a contract that oblige you to do so, and the fact that people might ignore the ads and enjoy the free ride, it is just the natural risk of this business model.
Many websites heavily depend on user created content, in this case even if you do not click (to just watch in many cases is not sufficient for the website to get money) you may contribute by creating content that is valuable for the rest of community / internet thus helping the website in being relevant among many others.
One thing is to be supportive of your favorite website and another thing is to believe that it is a moral obligation or even comparable to a crime not to do so.
Not really, no. Even if you disagree, I think we can both agree the ease really is a non-issue. Clicking the mouse a couple of times is not exactly in the realm of "difficult."
The chiose of using ads to sustain your business model is a choice of the content provider. The content provider is therefore responsible of ensuring that the ads are not annoying. If that does not happen, Adblock gives you a workaround that does not preclude you access to the content you want/need.
While not always feasible there are alternatives to ads ( e.g. Donations, subscriptions, shops) or offering the possibility to remove them by paying a fee.
Nobody has the right to impose ads to you. They decide to give free content to lure you into watching ads and ultimately to sell you something, fine, good luck with that, but You can still decide to ignore their commercial message. You do not have a contract that oblige you to do so, and the fact that people might ignore the ads and enjoy the free ride, it is just the natural risk of this business model.
Many websites heavily depend on user created content, in this case even if you do not click (to just watch in many cases is not sufficient for the website to get money) you may contribute by creating content that is valuable for the rest of community / internet thus helping the website in being relevant among many others.
One thing is to be supportive of your favorite website and another thing is to believe that it is a moral obligation or even comparable to a crime not to do so.
Nobody is imposing ads on you. Dont want to watch the ads? Close the tab and don't visit the site.
While there is no written agreement between you and the content creator it is quite clear to me that the creator is providing the content with the expectation that people will at least load the ads. I wouldn't say it is illegal to block the ads but it is douchy. You are basically saying that you are not willing to pay for the content because you can get away with it (technically and legally) despite the creator's dependance on that income.
Getting your software pirated is also a "natural risk" of any digital distribution. It doesn't mean that it's ok to do. So that argument is irrelevant. (not saying that its the same as pirating, just that this part of the argument is pointless)
Not really, no. Even if you disagree, I think we can both agree the ease really is a non-issue. Clicking the mouse a couple of times is not exactly in the realm of "difficult."
Oh, it's pedantry, absolutely, but I feel when people are touting it as the simplest solution it's fair to argue that the simplest solution is the one that has zero clicks and actually shows the site that you disagree with their methods. Then it just boils down to whether you actually want to see that content or not.
GT is the absolute worst site for obtrusive ads, which is made worse by their awful video player. There have been times where I have had to sit thru 3 30 second ads to watch a 3 min video. Also Pachter is a bit of a Bellend, he came off really badly in that NeoGaf doc they put out last year.
The chiose of using ads to sustain your business model is a choice of the content provider. The content provider is therefore responsible of ensuring that the ads are not annoying. If that does not happen, Adblock gives you a workaround that does not preclude you access to the content you want/need.
While not always feasible there are alternatives to ads ( e.g. Donations, subscriptions, shops) or offering the possibility to remove them by paying a fee.
Nobody has the right to impose ads to you. They decide to give free content to lure you into watching ads and ultimately to sell you something, fine, good luck with that, but You can still decide to ignore their commercial message. You do not have a contract that oblige you to do so, and the fact that people might ignore the ads and enjoy the free ride, it is just the natural risk of this business model.
Many websites heavily depend on user created content, in this case even if you do not click (to just watch in many cases is not sufficient for the website to get money) you may contribute by creating content that is valuable for the rest of community / internet thus helping the website in being relevant among many others.
One thing is to be supportive of your favorite website and another thing is to believe that it is a moral obligation or even comparable to a crime not to do so.
If you can morally justify this, you can justify anything. But you are stealing. You can do all sorts of mental backflips trying to justify it, but you when your defense boils down to, "It's morally okay because it's easy to do", you know you're in the wrong.
"If he didn't want me smearing shit on his house, he should have had some kind of laser security system set up. That's just one of the risks you take choosing the 'house' model of living situation. Thus I am completely absolved of all possible guilt, because he didn't work harder to step me from acting like an immoral piece of shit."
If you can morally justify this, you can justify anything. But you are stealing. You can do all sorts of mental backflips trying to justify it, but you when your defense boils down to, "It's morally okay because it's easy to do", you know you're in the wrong.
"If he didn't want me smearing shit on his house, he should have had some kind of laser security system set up. That's just one of the risks you take choosing the 'house' model of living situation. Thus I am completely absolved of all possible guilt, because he didn't work harder to step me from acting like an immoral piece of shit."
Nobody is imposing ads on you. Dont want to watch the ads? Close the tab and don't visit the site.
While there is no written agreement between you and the content creator it is quite clear to me that the creator is providing the content with the expectation that people will at least load the ads. I wouldn't say it is illegal to block the ads but it is douchy. You are basically saying that you are not willing to pay for the content because you can get away with it (technically and legally) despite the creator's dependance on that income.
Getting your software pirated is also a "natural risk" of any digital distribution. It doesn't mean that it's ok to do. So that argument is irrelevant. (not saying that its the same as pirating, just that this part of the argument is pointless)
Some people just have this massive sense of entitlement that says the rest of the world is obligated to do labor for them, for free. Free content, free games, free music, free TV shows, free everything. And yes, if they could get away with stealing physical goods, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The only reason they don't is because there's more danger of getting caught - nothing else. The morality is identical - the producer spent money to create and host the content, and they are taking it and denying them income for the work they did. And if someone else dared do the same to them, they'd scream bloody murder.
No, he has it right. The content/"house" does not belong to you. It belongs to the content's creator.
Edit: let me be a bit more clear about that. The browser is yours. The content it displays isn't.
The question from *randominternetperson* was intentionally provocating.
"Professional analyst" answers by going down and maybe below the level of said person. What an idiot.
It's difficult to see the doomsday scenario in every videogame site made with business intentions being replaced by videogame sites made by hobbyists.
Pachter made a fool of himself in his response, "we'll make you watch the ads, scumbag" is the sort of attitude that would see few tears shed at the fall of the corporate video game review/analysis scene. "Nothing would exist without ads" apparently either, I guess he's never heard of open source or any of those "scumbags" who contribute for the sake contribution rather than monetisation.
Been using Adblock so long that I forgot ads were even a thing. Now that I think about it, webpages do look a lot cleaner than they used to. Thought I'd try turning them off for a minute on Gametrailers, go to watch a video and I'm immediately greeted with a video ad on the side playing simultaneously over my Gametrailers video. Yep, Adblock goes back on. I'm fine with banner ads, but do not want to put up with annoying videos that start playing on a page.
I think it's interesting to note that Twitch offers a decent alternative to the usual advertisements. While some channels do run regular ads, some run banner ads. Some, like a streamer that is by no means a household name, playing a niche game makes enough money off donations that he was able to quit his job and stream full time. I subscribed to his channel, because of the content and because he runs giveaways and subscriber only perks. It's an interesting system.
Been using Adblock so long that I forgot ads were even a thing. Now that I think about it, webpages do look a lot cleaner than they used to. Thought I'd try turning them off for a minute on Gametrailers, go to watch a video and I'm immediately greeted with a video ad on the side playing simultaneously over my Gametrailers video. Yep, Adblock goes back on. I'm fine with banner ads, but do not want to put up with annoying videos that start playing on a page.
Because of adblock, some websites are just scraping by. These sites have to sell huge adspace per page because of adblock users. People are justifying their use of adblock with the very problem it creates.
I understand the complaints about invasive ads and can empathize with those who use AdBlock to get around them. I don't judge, but I do wonder about what the future of gaming websites will be like once the ad revenue dries up. When sites start disappearing and content gets paywalled, will we be better off because the ads are gone?
Mass pay walls will never happen on the internet for any given industry. It's a logistical nightmare for everyone.
If gaming sites as we know them severely shrink to a fraction of their current it is due to 3 major threats:
1) Nintendo's advertising model catches on.
Their Nintendo Directs and the upcoming Nintendo Treehouse copied by other publishers would be a big shift because it means the publishers are by passing gaming sites to talk directly with their customers.
2) Crowdfunding continues to grow as the means to fund projects.
Due to the nature of crowdfunding any dev that wants to be successful has to interact with their benefactors. A growth in crowdfunding means a growth in these micro communities and within these communities you will have people who will in their spare time create wikis and other community oriented tasks to disseminate information in the local dev forums.
3) Youtube+Twitch
The first 2 are direct threats to shrink the actual number of gaming sites. These 2 streaming sites if they continue to dominate the streaming space will forcibly transform gaming sites because most will see little incentive to have their own independent shop and will just setup a twitch or your youtube account.
They're offering to fix all of your windows errors and poor performance if only you'd click yes, and yet you complain about that? Real champions like Pachter would click on that ad several times even though he only needs to click once to get his windows errors fixed, just to show what a good little consumer is supposed to do when faced with ads.
The worst ones are those flash ads that pop out of the advertisement then take up the entire screen. There are also some that move around which makes hitting the x to close it even more annoying.
If it's an X, even. I've seen quite a few ads that swap the usual Windows symbols for close and minimise/maximise to bait users into clicking the wrong one.
if you use it on sites you like, you are basically saying you expect them to provide you with content for free. if you use it on sites you 'dislike' (IGN, gametrailers etc), then why are you going to that site in the first place? if you have such a problem with it don't go there.
They're offering to fix all of your windows errors and poor performance if only you'd click yes, and yet you complain about that? Real champions like Pachter would click on that ad several times even though he only needs to click once to get his windows errors fixed, just to show what a good little consumer is supposed to do when faced with ads.
If it's an X, even. I've seen quite a few ads that swap the usual Windows symbols for close and minimise/maximise to bait users into clicking the wrong one.
I use ABP and NoScript and I miss the good ol'days of legitimate sites having a shitload of popups including the occasional one where it was a never ending loop of pop-ups forcing you to end the process entirely and flash and java based ads that could be injected with all sorts malware and running Spybot every other day to clean it out. Seeing the Curse ad along this topic reminds me of the mess that network of sites (and MMO-Champion after they acquired it) had a couple years back and a time or two before IIRC with whatever ad network they used putting out wonderful, malware ridden laden ads.
Like already said, Adblock wasn't created just because people didn't want ads, it was created because those ads were intrusive if not flat out dangerous. And yeah, there's a good reason why pop-up blockers became integrated into browsers.
This is the type of shit people are talking about. Ads designed to trick non-technical users into downloading ostensibly malicious programs .
I hate that some content producers ignore the elephant in the room: the online advertising business has been exploitative, corrupt, and quite frankly efficient for years now. It is only recently that chickens have come back to roost.
Having an "It Is What It Is" type approach to this ("Suck it up, we need it to survive") doesn't help them. They need to try to make things better, either by making their ads (and ad business) better or using an alternative business model.
if you use it on sites you like, you are basically saying you expect them to provide you with content for free. if you use it on sites you 'dislike' (IGN, gametrailers etc), then why are you going to that site in the first place? if you have such a problem with it don't go there.
I unblock adds on site I go to regularly/want to support. I don't think I've ever intentionally clicked on an ad tbh, but if it makes them some money then it's all good.
I adblock pretty much everything outside of GAF and a couple other sites, my banks, credit cards, work sites, etc.
GAF is because I like it and more importantly, the ads are nowhere near intrusive as you'd get in other places. I actually have clicked on a few that interested me even.
Fuck the haters who equate adblocking to a moral issue.
As someone who works fulltime on multiple gaming websites, it really hurts when so many people use adblocks. Its true that it is the choice of the visitor, but websites offer free content, every day. The least you could do is at least put your adblock off. We try to not use intrusive ads, just ads on the places you expect them without them downgrading the experience of visiting our websites.
It is true: If everyone would use adblockers, a LOT of website would no longer exist. Even NeoGAF. I'm not trying to make a moral issue out of it, I'm just saying that behind every website, there are people trying to make a living out of it. If they can't do that, they can't keep the website online, simple as that.
My suggestion: it is ok to have an adblocker, but please make an exception for the websites you visit often (like, daily). You make use of the service they provide a lot, and it is very little efford for you to give something back.
That's my two cents.
Edit: and yes, it is also partly our responsibility to find new ways to make some money. So there's that as well. But still, it can't hurt to support the websites you like. We have a video journal with game news every friday, and every now and then we place an item at the end where we kindly ask our viewers to turn of their ad blocker on our website, we even explain how to only turn of the adblocker for our website. We don't make demands, but we ask kindly.
29. Let's not conflate pop-ups with legitimate ways to deliver ads. Don't visit the site that gives popups. Video ads on Twitch, for example pay for that hugely expensive site. Banners won't cut it. I see that as reasonable. Broadcaster income from ad delivery reflects just how many people use AdBlock on Twitch - even considering mobile use, the vast majority block ads. So, what is the solution?
As someone who works fulltime on multiple gaming websites, it really hurts when so many people use adblocks. Its true that it is the choice of the visitor, but websites offer free content, every day. The least you could do is at least put your adblock off. We try to not use intrusive ads, just ads on the places you expect them without them downgrading the experience of visiting our websites.
It is true: If everyone would use adblockers, a LOT of website would no longer exist. Even NeoGAF.
My suggestion: it is ok to have an adblocker, but please make an exception for the websites you visit often (like, daily). You make use of the service they provide a lot, and it is very little efford for you to give something back.
Yeah, that's whay I'm saying, if a website has very irritating ads, its on them. Thankfully, more and more websites (and advertisers) are realising that.
. In any event, framing these as a moral decision that has no bearing on the behavior of the advertisers is falling flat with me. They started the war, so to speak, and their refusal to change their behavior has lead to legislation regarding intrusive advertising in every other sector. The AdBlock solution is an imperfect one, but could easily be alleviated by content providers cultivating less annoying ads. That's wholly within their power.
If you are going to throw stuff all over your content, play sounds that require you to look around to find a way to turn them off, or provide ads that could potentially lead to malicious programs, you are going to get adblocked be me regardless of how much I like your content.
No, you are saying that you don't like ads and at no point did you agree to watch them in exchange for content.
I see a lot of people justifying adblock with security concerns and certain ads going over the top. I'll explain the "scumbag" stance.
I hate ads.
I pay for the internet and there is no additional fee to use these sites. How content creators choose to monetize their work is their own business. If they choose to monetize it in a way that tries to make me look at ads, that is their choice but I have no obligation to look at them. I have no obligation to not go to the site if I'm blocking ads. If you want me to feel responsibility for you getting paid for your work, ask me for money. Don't try and force me to look at bullshit that I don't care about because I won't do it.
(A caveat: if you can force me to under threat of a ban, like here, then I will)
And i certainly won't do it out of any sense of obligation or respect for games journalism of all things.
It's evolution. Consumers have evolved to a place where you cannot force them to look at things they don't want to. It's time for content creators to evolve and monetize their work in less offensive ways. And I have no doubt they will. There will be casualties, but don't expect me to feel sorry for them.
Now, am I a piece of shit who expects everything for free? Absolutely not. I pay subscriptions for my music. I buy albums if they are good enough. I pay subscriptions for TV and movies. I buy those if they are good enough. I buy books and would pay a subscription for those too. If all of these things, which are all more worthwhile to society as a whole than videogame journalism can ever hope to be, can survive without trying to force me to watch additional advertising, then there is no excuse for everyone else. I pay a subscription to access the internet with no agreement to look at anything I don't choose to. I pay extra to view certain things on the internet if they are good enough.
The problem with games journalism is that Just because games journalism right now is expensive to produce doesn't mean it is more valuable than YouTube. The truth is, most of it can be replaced by any asshole with a camera and an opinion. Anyone can gush about upcoming games, regurgitate marketing materials, and claim things are sexist. Your greatest value is to videogame publishers because you hype up their new releases. If money is a problem, just ask EA to buy you out. I won't trust your articles any less and you can stop bitching about people not looking at the ads on your site.
I know the ones you mean. Some of IGNs are super annoying, I've seen ones that almost open an entire bespoke web page over the top of the one I'm meant to be reading, then they hide the close button.
I've only come across those on a couple of sites I visit. Ad banners don't bother me though
