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Comment by ehsankia | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's about putting "ad blockers" out of business. Hell, they're not businesses, uBlock is OSS. I think the idea is, people get so annoyed by poor ads that is in your face that they get pushed beyond their "threshold" and get an ad blocker. If ads are used with moderation, most people won't get annoyed enough to go out of their way and install a traditional ad blocker.

Bad ads ruin it for Google. They teach users to mentally block ALL ads. It's like people abusing antibiotics and building a resistance.

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Yeah I'm generally pro billboard like advertisement - websites need to earn some money off visits and that's acceptable.

Ads that drive me on a different page, cover the full page unless closed or otherwise hamper navigation unless I interact with them first can die in a firey hell.

I've uBlock but youtube and other content creators sites that so far hasn't annoyed me with ads are free to go. I.e. Looking For Group started serving to mobile page redirecting ads, so they went in the blacklist, but until then they were free to serve whatever.

Or another example of how I see ads on the internet:

You walking down the street having a guy handing out leaflets, trying to force his leaflet on you... You're most likely to get annoyed by them.

There is a little stand at the corner having leaflets, without anyone yelling in your face or handing it out, you're more likely to go grab one if the product fits you.

Walking to work every morning I have created my real life AdBlock, where I just ignore people handing stuff. (Not their fault... just businesses not understanding how to change ways)

Well here comes Google, shoving leaflets up your ass because they think their leaflets are special and more acceptable!

Google-owned YouTube is the main reason I use uBlock, though. I don't care how "good" the ad is really. 15 seconds is an eternity in this age...

> Bad ads ruin it for Google.

That might be why someone proposed it. But your parent comment mentions why management approved of the risky move:

> They are trying to put "competing internet ad companies" out of business.

If there is even just a whiff of that, Google will be in very big trouble with competition authorities.

So if - and that is a big if - Google goes ahead with this plan, they will have to make absolutely sure that any blocking is based on objective and simple to understand quality criteria.

It doesn't need to be spoken out loud, it's kinda obvious. I too would make it sound like this is totally not the reason.

And for the record, I don't think everyone at Google is evil, but I imagine a few managers are in it for the money and not merely the altruistic idea of making ads better.

>It doesn't need to be spoken out loud, it's kinda obvious.

On the contrary, it is completely obvious that Google has very little to gain from shaving a few percentage points off competitors and incur the risk of regulatory action.

The greatest danger they face is ad blockers and a general decline of the Web. If Google is in it for the money they must save the Web from death by advertising.

They can probably avoid the competition issues by creating the ad-blocker but not lining it to an ad list, then providing a "choose an ad-block list" option? The same way MS created the browser-choice screen!?

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