I like the spirit of this, but I just think Mavericks is a bizarre break point for this type of approach. At least hit Yosemite so you can benefit from NVMe. For me, Mojave feels like the neatest break point, but if you’re rocking Nvidia, there’s also a case for High Sierra.
Readit Newsshortformblog commented on Show HN: OS X Mavericks Forever mavericksforever.com/... · Posted by u/Wowfunhappy
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I know that ads are based on impressions as I told you before, but my money still has to end up somewhere even if I am using an ad blocker. So where does it end up if not as ad revenue on some websites? You must not confuse the people paying for the ads and in turn for the ad revenue of websites by buying stuff with the people deciding how that money gets distributed among all the websites by looking at ads.
We can even go one step further, if anyone is screwing over websites, then that is the ad industry by not paying for blocked ads. I buy an iPhone and Apple takes some additional money from me to spend on advertising. I did not ask for that but I am fine with it. Now I expect Apple to spend the money they took from me on ads in order to support websites. But if the guy that Apple wants to show the ad that I paid for does not want to see it and blocks it, then I want Apple to respect that and still pay the website. I know, not going to happen, but do not put the blame on people blocking ads.
You’re describing socialism (wealth redistribution to be exact). At this point, just make that money a tax and give it to the publishers directly. Cut out the middlemen.
Well, I don't give a shit about the advertising goals of Apple or anyone else, that is why I block ads. And that is also completely irrelevant, the question was whether I am screwing over websites when I am using an ad blocker. I argue not, because as a consumer I still contribute to the ad budgets that become the ad revenue of the websites. What I am not doing when I block ads is influencing how the money gets distributed among all the websites, I can live with that. And if the money is not consumer money, so what? What do I have to do with companies distributing VC money among websites?
LOL, you don’t. You really don’t. As I told you like four hours ago, ads are impression-based. Just because you bought something that helped them buy an ad doesn’t mean you did shit for my website.
In fact, you did the opposite.
I am neither complaining nor trying them what to do with their money, that looks like a complete deflection to me.
If I am buying Apple products, am I contributing to their ad budget? If so, where does that money end up? Is it likely that some of it will end up as ad revenue on some website? What difference does it make whether or not I block ads? Or the other way around, if I am visiting websites and look at Apple ads but do not buy Apple products, am I contributing to the ad revenue of the websites?
Maybe in the cosmic sense you are, in that they have a giant pile of money, and you contributed a few pennies to it, but this is not how accounting works. Your transaction and their ad budget are separate things.
Also, advertising does other things than tell you to buy something, and it doesn’t always take the form of banner ads. Apple, for example, does a ton of brand awareness advertising. Affiliate marketing often targets direct transactions. Maybe your goal is to simply start a relationship that might someday lead to a really big purchase.
Often, in the era of SaaS, people advertise to existing customers. Apple does this—they have a TV service and a music service and a cloud service.
There are plenty of reasons for them to advertise after you bought the original product.
But your original point was that customers bought the ads. Maybe they didn’t! Maybe they were given funding by a VC firm and the company decided it wanted to build an audience. Maybe they want to advocate for a political issue.
I think the biggest problem with your argument is that it has tunnel vision and sees advertising as this one dimensional thing, when in reality it takes many forms. Plenty of those forms are bad, but it is not as simple as “I bought a product, now I never want to see an Apple ad ever again.” Many businesses (Amazon, eBay) make most of their money off of customers they’ve already advertised to that they advertise to again and again.
If I buy an iPhone, does some fraction of the price contribute to Apple's ad budget? If so, where does that money end up? What would change if I did not block Apple ads?
It’s up to them how they spend their money, not you. You can complain if they somehow damaged your product, they got your money unfairly, or were somehow doing something bad with your data, but at some point it is their money to spend how they see fit. They earned it, and they might spend it on advertising.
If I buy stuff at a grocery store, I can’t get a random bagger fired just because I feel like it. At some point the transaction ends and they ultimately continue to operate with or without your input.
Of course, they will not get paid for me visiting the website if I block the ads, but that was not my point. People have already bought stuff and with that paid for the ad budget. And that money will be spent somewhere. Maybe someone else will see the ad that I blocked, someone who would otherwise not have seen it because the ad budget would have been exhausted. Or maybe the prices for ads go up because there are less impressions to sell. Only if companies would lower their ad budgets in response to ad blocking would there be less money to distribute. If that would be the case, then my argument would fail.
Your point is illogical. It’s like you’ve invented a theory as to how companies advertise that has zero tethering to reality.
It’s especially stupid because it doesn’t include publishers in the equation at all. It’s just you looping over yourself attempting to validate your choice for running an ad blocker.
Admit you’re doing it because you want to callously screw over publishers. You certainly haven’t put their thoughts into consideration here.
To be clear: Run an ad blocker if you want, but stop acting as if you bought those ads. The chicken dinner I ate the other night has no say how I live my life after our transaction has ended.
But the entire reason that the web is so frustrating is that visitors don't want to pay for anything.
They are already paying, it is the way they are paying that causes the mess. When you buy a product, some fraction of the price is the ad budget that gets then distributed to websites showing ads. Therefore there is also nothing wrong with blocking ads, they have already been paid for, whether you look at them or not. The ad budget will end up somewhere as long as not everyone is blocking all ads, only the distribution will get skewed. Which admittedly might be a problem for websites that have a user base that is disproportionally likely to use ad blockers.
Paying for content directly has the problem that you can only pay for a selected few websites before the amount you have to pay becomes unreasonable. If you read one article on a hundred different websites, you can not realistically pay for a hundred subscriptions that are all priced as if you spent all your time on a single website. Nobody has yet succeeded in creating a web wide payment method that only charges you for the content that you actually consume and is frictionless enough to actually work, i.e. does not force you to make a conscious payment decisions for a few cents or maybe even only fractions of a cent for every link you click and is not a privacy nightmare collecting all the links you click for billing purposes.
Also if you directly pay for content, you will pay twice - you will pay for the subscription and you will still pay into the ad budget with all the stuff you buy.
Publishers don't get paid a dime if you block the ad unless they are doing a direct ad transaction. Adtech has largely made that transaction a rarity for like 30 years.
It's not like newspapers where advertising is paid in full before publishers put stories online. It has not been that way for a long time.
Your reasoning for not accessing advertising reminds me of that scene in Arrested Development where, to hide the money they've taken out of the till, they throw away the bananas. It doesn't hide the transaction, it compounds the problem.
If publishers were getting paid before any ads ran the publishing business would be a hell of a lot stronger.