Internet ad blocking
Fri Oct 9 00:43:34 EDT 2015"The ads pay for the content."
Not if I don't buy the advertised products. If I don't buy the products, the advertiser doesn't get any income from me. If the ads are for things I would never buy, then seeing the ads is a waste of my time and bandwidth, and of no value to the advertiser either. I mostly don't see ads, because I use a lot of ad blocking, and I also block as much of the marketer-sniffing/data-gathering as I can. The ads in my browser's tabs right now at work (where I can't block them - a stupid waste of the government's bandwidth, and thereby your and my tax dollars) are not for things I would buy. What's showing up now:
The same rationale applies to TV. For years I've used a DVR (and VCRs before that), which makes it easy to skip commercials. The 2nd DVR (open source; this capability would be sued off the market if it were a commercial (haha) product) searches programs for commercial breaks (fades to black, network logo's gone; volume boost; 30-sec increments, etc) and can skip them autonomously on playback. Again, if the commercials are for things I still wouldn't buy, who benefits for the time I lose (1/4 - 1/3 of most non-public-TV programs) watching the commercials? And the political ads? I want people learning about the issues, and the education and character of the candidates. That's not what we get from the ads.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/772922.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Not if I don't buy the advertised products. If I don't buy the products, the advertiser doesn't get any income from me. If the ads are for things I would never buy, then seeing the ads is a waste of my time and bandwidth, and of no value to the advertiser either. I mostly don't see ads, because I use a lot of ad blocking, and I also block as much of the marketer-sniffing/data-gathering as I can. The ads in my browser's tabs right now at work (where I can't block them - a stupid waste of the government's bandwidth, and thereby your and my tax dollars) are not for things I would buy. What's showing up now:
- Red Cross Donations - flooding in SC
- Fimco Skid Sprayer (Don't know/care what it's for. Paint? Pesticides?)
- Dollar Shave Club (I have a beard. (Do blades and creams cost $1 a day?))
- Boston Scientific - Bronchial Thermoplasty (I don't have asthma.)
- Verizon FiOS (I don't have a cell phone)
- Chili's (I think; ad has a logo but not a name. I don't eat out much.)
- Luxury Arlington Condos/Columbia Pike Apartments/New Arlington Apartments/Pentagon City Apartments/Dominion Arms Apts/Potomac Towers Apts ('cause I'm looking at Arlington weather? I have a house.)
- Boston Sci (again; different tab)
- a bunch of web-hosting ads (These are spot on. I'm on a hosting-review/commentary site. In particular, these are hosting services that are not owned by EIG (Endurance International Group).)
- euroVPS
- stablehost
- liquidweb
- WPengine
- euroVPS
The same rationale applies to TV. For years I've used a DVR (and VCRs before that), which makes it easy to skip commercials. The 2nd DVR (open source; this capability would be sued off the market if it were a commercial (haha) product) searches programs for commercial breaks (fades to black, network logo's gone; volume boost; 30-sec increments, etc) and can skip them autonomously on playback. Again, if the commercials are for things I still wouldn't buy, who benefits for the time I lose (1/4 - 1/3 of most non-public-TV programs) watching the commercials? And the political ads? I want people learning about the issues, and the education and character of the candidates. That's not what we get from the ads.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/772922.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]