Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

I really do feel like there are two versions of the internet. One for people who aggressively use ad-blockers, pay for premium (non-ad) versions of things, manage their inboxes well, and generally are tech savvy enough to avoid 95% of unwanted advertising. Then there's everyone else who just accept the hundreds of ads washing over them at all times, that 60% of their screen real-estate is for ads, are completely comfortable with auto-playing videos, that are okay sitting through 30-second ads before watching a random funny video on youtube, etc. The second category can be sub-divided by motivations (some don't know there's a better way, some don't think it's worth the effort, etc.), but the resulting experience is the same no matter where you fall in group 2.

Here's the (a?) kicker: advertisers are willing to pay orders of magnitude more to get ads in front of group 1. They'll pour so many resources into it that they'll make everything "worse"* for group 2. Group 1 adjusts their filters (both technical and mental), get back to neutral, but the rest of the internet is just a little worse off going forward because advertisers and publishers saw a very slight up tick in clicks after their scorched earth campaign to reach group 1. Rinse and repeat until we find ourselves where we are now.

I used to think that over time group 2 members would trickle into group 1, sort of like how programmers and hackers were using Google before it was cool and slowly the world followed, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Personally I'm seeing the groups continuing to divide. Group 2 really just doesn't see the problems, doesn't care, or isn't willing to put in the slightest effort to improve their interactions with technology and the internet.

My "favorite" outcome of all this is when a member of group 1 is forced to use a device owned by someone in group 2 and are horrified at what they see (favorite because it is equal parts sad and funny).

* "worse" in quotes here because group 2 doesn't seem to notice or care about the slow decline into madness.

I use Brave, Adblock, DDG etc, recently booted into my Windows partition to open a Macro-enabled Excel report. Had to look something up and used the default Edge browser without blockers etc. The experience felt like a sick joke- pop-ups everywhere, hijacked scrollbars, auto-playing ad videos galore, for a single web search. I feel guilty that many unaware internet users are subject to such a degraded browsing experience.

Recently had a similar experience. I was horrified. If there were no alternatives, I'd just stop browsing the web for the most part, to be honest. Library it is.

Thankfully, there are lots of smart people staying one step ahead of the greedy corporations. And there will continue to be until the internet becomes a bearable experience by default. That'll probably never happen though.

> Then there's everyone else who just accept the hundreds of ads washing over them at all times, that 60% of their screen real-estate is for ads, are completely comfortable with auto-playing videos, that are okay sitting through 30-second ads before watching a random funny video on youtube, etc.

I can't stand it when people are like this! Like when I'm over at someone's house and they're playing something on YouTube or whatever, and they've got no ad blocking, and even if the "Skip Ad" button shows up they don't even bother clicking it.

When I ask them why they don't have an ad blocker installed, and how easy and set-it-and-forget it that would be, either they figuratively shrug or they say it would be unethical to block ads. Some of them enjoy the ads, which I think is partly due to conditioning.

Their whole screen can be plastered with ads and elements they have to dismiss, and they see no problem with it.

Inside, when I witness this, my face melts in horror like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I’ve generally straddled group 1 and 2. I’ll invest some effort into keeping a clean experience but have never gone all the way.

However over the past six months or so I’ve seen a drastic shift in how bad the experience is. I think what shocks me most is how often a website will effectively crash mobile safari on an iPhone 13 pro.

That’s jolted me awake as to how terrible the default experience is for people that are squarely in your group 2.

> Group 2 really just doesn't see the problems

I think that this is precisely what's going on. More-or-less everyone filters spam. It's just that some people make their computers to it, while others do it with their brains. Not entirely unlike how most people who live in noisy cities learn to just tune out the noise.

I guess I'm someone who does not use ad blockers (and never have). To me, it simply feels wrong. I do pay for Youtube premium. And I do have subscriptions for some media sites (NY TImes, Economist.)

I don't find ads all that bad. But I will avoid sites that go overboard.

I also take care to report spam messages in my email. And I ignore phone calls from anyone I don't know.

So I guess I straddle the line between the two people you describe.

By accepting ads, you open yourself up to a malicious vector for malware.

Because I cannot trust ad networks to get it right 100% of the time, both content-wise as well as safety, out they go.

> By accepting ads, you open yourself up to a malicious vector for malware.

This is definitely the common justification for ad blockers. As I said in another comment: ad blockers themselves are a potential vector for malware.

> ad blockers themselves are a potential vector for malware

In practice, ublock origin and you're good.

I am glad to see we agree that adblockers are justified.

Any ethical qualms I had disappeared when my browser was hijacked by a malicious ad that made it into a major ad network when I was browsing nytimes.

Now adblocking is simply a matter of security.

> Any ethical qualms I had disappeared when my browser was hijacked by a malicious ad that made it into a major ad network when I was browsing nytimes.

Websites can inject malware irrespective of ads. Not to mention that ad blockers, themselves, are a good vector for exploitation. (Another consideration, obviously, would be to avoid websites that show you ads that you don't like (or fear) rather than circumvent their only path to revenue.)

I generally count on Google (and Chrome) to prevent that. At the risk of jinxing myself: I've never had malware installed on my computer view a website.

Group 2 are the people who had 17 browser bar extensions running at the same time and filling half of their screens in 2007.

They don't care and they hate it when you fix it because then they have to do it all over again.

I have a first letter/common last name gmail address that I have had since gmail was invite only. No matter how well I manage spam, there are idiots around the country with my same last name that use my email address for every service they have. I have amassed countless bank statements, credit card logins, cable/tv bills, along with all the spam that comes with it. My gmail account is basically useless at this point.

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