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Comment by nupark2 | Hacker News Reader

I've "read the fucking article", and my take-away is that Wladmir is, in effect, selling ads.

In return for some sort of consideration and a pledge to only provide "acceptable" advertising, Wladmir will unblock your ads by default in AdBlock Plus:

> We have agreements with some websites and advertisers that only advertising matching our criteria will be used, their ads will be unblocked then. We hope to grow our list significantly over time.

Given that selling advertisements runs entirely contrary to the purpose of "Adblock", and that Wladimir's incentives are now inversely aligned with the user's incentives, I imagine we're going to see the same descent into increasingly obtrusive advertising that you almost always see once an organization heads down this path.

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Actually, Wladimir's incentives are now aligned precisely with mine - to provide a means for me to not have to see all the noisy, obtrusive crap but still support websites providing me with free content in general (note: this means whitelists are -not- sufficient for me, and blacklists would be overly irritating to maintain).

In fact, as a result of this article I've just installed AdBlock Plus for the first time since it now does, by default, exactly what I've always wanted in a blocking tool - and I appreciate as a feature the fact that it required exactly zero configuration to do so.

I think you misunderstand incentives. If Wladmir accepts money from advertisers, there's an innate incentive to accept more money from more advertisers, and to lower his standards for what makes an acceptable advertisement. He might want to support non-obtrusive ads, but the major incentive (money) is entirely contrary to that goal and your own preferences.

That aside, I wish to address the "free content" dichotomy (either we accept ads, or we lose free content ).

First of all, the content is not free; there are both tangible and intangible costs to you; advertising is funded through higher prices on the products we buy, and there are the intangible costs to being inundated with ads.

Second, advertising is surely not the only viable model. If adblocking were to actually succeed in undermining the web advertising industry, it would also provide impetus for the development of low-resistance web payment mechanisms, similar to the app stores and in-app purchasing that have revolutionized content purchasing on mobile devices.

In other words: 100% blocking of advertisements would not lead to the loss of "free" (but not really free) content, it would merely lead to the establishment of a more direct and efficient mechanism for funding that content.

I don't see any evidence that he's being paid to whitelist ads on various websites. It could simply be that the site operators are agreeing to meet certain criteria for 'non-annoying' ads, and will be de-listed if they breach that agreement.

You argue in absolutes. That's - difficult.

First of all: You can opt out of that feature with minor hassle. I usually don't like opt-in by default features, but here he has a point, imo.

Now - if you opt out, where is your problem with the change? If he would break future versions of AdBlock to force ads on you, someone would step up and make sure that there's an AdBlockBlock plugin.

Are you, by chance, using applications on the mobile OS of your choice that displays ad to gain revenue?

I'm not actually sure if you intended to respond to my post, or another one in the thread. I've only addressed incentives involved, and the inexorable conclusion of misaligned incentives.

Whether that results in Adblock plus plus or not isn't something I tried to address, though the eventuality seems likely.

> Are you, by chance, using applications on the mobile OS of your choice that displays ad to gain revenue?

No. Few apps of any quality push ads, as they're incredibly detrimental to the UX on such a small screen device.

Yes, I wanted to respond to your post and the subthread that you started with 'he is selling ads'. I think that gives your position away.

Now it's fine to be critical and to dislike that change, but I considered your 'he takes money (according to another subthread that's planned but not the case just yet) and that will lead to more and more ads being "okay"' too - simple.

Mobile apps w/ ads: Angry Birds on Android?

> Yes, I wanted to respond to your post and the subthread that you started with 'he is selling ads'. I think that gives your position away.

Well, the fact that he plans to financially benefit from displaying advertisements (or allowing them to be displayed) is key to understanding the alignment of his incentives: money for ads, insofar as his userbase will put up with it.

> Mobile apps w/ ads: Angry Birds on Android?

Haven't played it; I'd assumed it was a paid game. It's 99 cents on iOS. Unclear why it's free on Android.

I'd be really interested in knowing whether Wladmir benefits financially from these agreements.

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