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Content on the internet costs money to produce. Advertising pays the bills for site hosting and content creation.

I don't know why people revel in blocking the revenue streams that grant them these things.
But it's not blocked. Cross site tracking is blocked. That's privacy. The sites can still have generic ads. When you read a magazine or watch a tv show, those ads don't know the other magizines you've read or shows you've watched.

And tracked ads are stupid anyway. All I've ever seen are ads for sites I just purchased something on. They already got me. I bought something. It's so pointless that now all the ads I see are for that particular site. If I decide to buy something from them again, it's likely not right away, and likely because of my previous purchase experience. Not the targeted ads.
 
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Content on the internet costs money to produce. Advertising pays the bills for site hosting and content creation.

I don't know why people revel in blocking the revenue streams that grant them these things.

Agree. I hate ads but for what they buy (e.g. "free" YouTube), I see them as a necessary evil.
 
Fair enough, but I see a few current and future problems with this.

1. Just because I look at something doesn't guarantee I am another more than mildly curious. Continuing to bombard me with "please buy this..." ad's will make me less likely to casually browse in the future.

2. Continuing to push ad's for things I'm already looking at means that you aren't pushing for new things. If I'm already looking at a product... show me something different!

3. Repetitious advertisements are ignored. How many times has you watched something on Hulu only to be shown the same 2-3 commercials repeatedly? Not effective.

4. The biggest problem, in my opinion and experience, is that consumers are becoming dull to the effects of advertisement. We see them on TV, websites, in our bills, in email, on billboards, in stores, etc. When does that stop being effective? It's information overload.

That's poor campaign and targeting management. Ad suppression is vital to effective retargeting ads; picking when and what to show ads for and turning them off after purchase or when no interest is shown. Simply showing ads for anything and everything someone looks at forever is lazy marketing that does not work as well.
 
...I don't want to look at an item on Amazon and then have that item show up on every other website I visit for 6 months. It's the tracking and targeting of ads that I don't like, not the ads themselves. ...

This is the key. Cross-site ads are annoying and intrusive.

Worse, if my kids use my computer to go search for something on Amazon, I end up seeing the ads everywhere and forever.
Not long ago, one of them linked through to Amazon from a website that listed funny reviews. I started getting ads for things like the Squatty-Potty, 5 pound bags of Gummy Bears, and 55 gallon barrels of lube....awesome....
 
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Who the **** loves ads!?

Nothing is for free, so a certain amount of ads is absolutely ok. But as many advertising companies - in all their freedom - have completely lost their mind, cluttering my browser with endless popups, wobbling gifs, cross-site annoyances and autoplaying clips, this is the only possible answer.

It's always the same thing with "freedom". It can be misused. Then there will be restrictions.
 
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Content on the internet costs money to produce. Advertising pays the bills for site hosting and content creation.

I don't know why people revel in blocking the revenue streams that grant them these things.

Because some of us already plunk down money to support the continuation of professionally produced journalism, have paid subscriptions to other sites, and get a resentment because a bunch of tracking scripts still follow us wherever we go forever and ever just so they can stick web-milled "content" that is "recommended for you!" all over the place in other websites we may encounter, that's why.

I understand why they do it, they are trying to get some of the freeloaders to quit freeloading and help keep the lights on at the place. That doesn't make me happier when I'm not one of the freeloaders. OK so I don't blanket-block ads but I take the trouble to block a raft of tracking scripts on some sites I frequent, along with some other scripts that don't appear essential to serve me content I have paid for already with subscription fees. Some of those scripts are pretty nosy.

Of course I don't delude myself that I've prevented accretion of the typical four to five thousand data points that data miners have on the average web surfer. Some of those data points could be pretty moldy by now in my case. I hope they still think I'm looking 24/7 for a 2006 Honda with <80k miles on it. :D
 
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I understand their concerns, and yes I do use many things that are supported by ads. But: I have not yet seen a useful targeted ad. I have literally never bought anything at all due to a targeted ad in my web browser.
 
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I see this my adblocker is on.
Screen Shot 2017-09-15 at 9.51.26 AM.png
 
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Rethink it or what? They'll block every ad they show on Safari? Sign me up! I'm all for companies making money for their content online, but if sites like Daring Fireball can do it with such a tiny, unobtrusive, no-tracking ad, then I'm sure these sites could do it with 2/3 fewer ads and no tracking. It's about being efficient. Don't bloat your site out of control and more people will use it. What I've often liked about MacRumors is that their ad experience isn't too bad. Occasionally over the years there will be something weird or annoying but not very often. The design is also fairly clean given how information dense it can be.
 
Wow....after reading the different sides of the story here I decided to do something I haven't done in years. I had a look at the websites I visit regularly with uBlock and Ghostery off. What a rude awakening:

- Sites load much much slower
- There is a lot of crap on there that blocks a clear view on the content
- The same stupid ads come up all the time. Targeted yes but booooooring
- Intrusive video ads start playing without asking me
- Sounds play on some websites intruding into the music i am listening to
- Safari warned me twice of scripts slowing down my computer
- Some pages hang...

This was only in 20 minutes of browsing around do as you can imagine all blockers are on again!

I wouldn't mind a few non-intrusive banner ads. But I do refuse the refuse they are throwing at me! Oh yes and targeted ads are promoting what I already know. Boring as hell. Give me some untargeted random stuff if you want to catch my attention!!

Right now the advertising idiots are just too intrusive and do not deserve to live on my computer. Oh yes and I pay my bandwidth so their use of it is parasitic!
 
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Facebook and Google are probably loving this, that's why you don't see them complaining - yeah they won't be able to track your activity on other sites but if nobody else can either they are still left with the mountain of data that is your activity on THEIR sites, which is more than enough to build a profile of things you'd be interested in so you can be targeted for ads.

This will limit the choice of people trying to advertise their products because targeted ads are obviously hugely more effective than random ones.

These other advertising agencies should absolutely be scared, they are going to lose significant market share almost overnight.

Whatever happened to the idea of ads being creative and entertaining? Everyone loves watching Super Bowl ads, why is the internet just chock full of lazy, uninspired, obnoxious spam instead...
 
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This is odd. I used content blocker all the time. This is the first I've seen this happening on MacRumors post especially only this post. Very odd.

Anyway I support Apple new feature. They can go cry about it.
 

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As someone who works in paid media, this is going to be a pain in the butt. Retargeted marketing is very effective. Plus if you're going to get ads, do you want them to be for stuff you actually like? A lot of the time special deals are offered to people with targeted marketing.


i'm glad you're here, because I get to tell you: your targeting algorithms stink! Mostly I get ads trying to get me to buy something I looked at once and decided NOT to buy. It's like a salesman chasing you down the street after you left his store. It's creepy and makes me angry at the vendor. It's possible I would change my mind about targeted ads if your targeting was any good. Right now, your tech isn't good enough, and the experience you create sucks. In its current state, it's not worth 1% of the privacy I have to give up, nor the creepy experience. Get better, or get out.
[doublepost=1505494015][/doublepost]
Whatever happened to the idea of ads being creative and entertaining? Everyone loves watching Super Bowl ads, why is the internet just chock full of lazy, uninspired, obnoxious spam instead...

What, you're not absolutely intrigued by what celebrities looked like, THEN... and NOW?
 
i'm glad you're here, because I get to tell you: your targeting algorithms stink! Mostly I get ads trying to get me to buy something I looked at once and decided NOT to buy. It's like a salesman chasing you down the street after you left his store. It's creepy and makes me angry at the vendor. It's possible I would change my mind about targeted ads if your targeting was any good. Right now, your tech isn't good enough, and the experience you create sucks. In its current state, it's not worth 1% of the privacy I have to give up, nor the creepy experience. Get better, or get out.
[doublepost=1505494015][/doublepost]

What, you're not absolutely intrigued by what celebrities looked like, THEN... and NOW?


See my post further up. Many advertisers dont use re-targeting correctly.

Mine dont stink- they work very well for my clients and afford me a very nice lifestyle with nice things in Manhattan.
 
This is the key. Cross-site ads are annoying and intrusive.

Worse, if my kids use my computer to go search for something on Amazon, I end up seeing the ads everywhere and forever.
Not long ago, one of them linked through to Amazon from a website that listed funny reviews. I started getting ads for things like the Squatty-Potty, 5 pound bags of Gummy Bears, and 55 gallon barrels of lube....awesome....

Exactly. I've run into the same case. It's a perfect example of the stupid, creepy targeted done by the current algorithms.
 
Plus if you're going to get ads, do you want them to be for stuff you actually like?

No. Chances are I'm not going to buy the thing that's being advertised anyways, but having the ad be totally irrelevant to my interests only makes that easier, thus saving me money.
 
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See my post further up. Many advertisers dont use re-targeting correctly.


I read your post; thanks (hope I read the right one). If some entities are using targeting incorrectly, then Amazon is one of them. I have sidebar ads following me around to buy items I browsed on Amazon. As if I am too stupid to click BUY unless an ad shows up in some entirely different context. And if Amazon is screwing this up, that's sufficient in and of itself to do something about it.
 
Beautiful. Apple continues to concentrate on customers, which is why Apple continues to be successful. Love the whining of the advertisers. Cry like children, we love the tears. I'm so looking forward to not having every website I visit absolutely wallpapered in whatever I browsed on Amazon a week ago. These idiots think showing me ads for something I already bought - hundreds of them, all day, every day - is *useful to me*? And not having videos play automatically, that's just icing on the cake.
 
Content on the internet costs money to produce. Advertising pays the bills for site hosting and content creation.

I don't know why people revel in blocking the revenue streams that grant them these things.

Most useful websites should provide an appropriately priced option to work ad-free.

I find it silly that I see ad tracking for weeks for a product I searched for - usually on Amazon - and purchased a day later from maybe bhphoto... or amazing. Clearly the ad tracking doesn't work and an economy depending on broken ads sure doesn't seem sustainable
 
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Sorry, but I think the tracking shouldn't be allowed at all. Ads are fine, but company A shouldn't know that I was looking at Company B and they definitely shouldn't know what I was looking for from Company B.
 
Even though everyone here has anecdotal evidence that targeting algoriths suck and recommend things they don't want, the problem is that they still work a bajillion times better than random untargeted ads.

I own an Internet cafe in Florida and targeted Facebook ads were and still are instrumental in making sure we survive. If we are running a League of Legends tournament I will pay Facebook an extra $20 or so to show our post to people within 50 miles of the cafe that are interested in League of Legends and get an extra 20-30 people to come in that saw our ad when browsing Facebook.

If I showed the same ad to a grandmother in Tokyo it would be completely pointless. The same concept applies to tracking sites, why advertise lawn mowers to someone who doesn't have a yard?
 
You know Apple is doing something right when advertising groups are mad at it. This is a phenomenal feature that will compliment the great ad blocking that came with IOS 9.
 
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