iOS 9 Safari content blockers debut to demand, denouncement & a high-profile delisting

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  • Reply 21 of 421
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by scottyo View Post



    Stop trying to make it a moral issue. It's an economic issue.



    I'm under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to make YOUR business plan succeed. If you can't make it work, do something else productive.



    In America (and other ultra-capitalist countries), it's dog-eat-dog, devil take the hindmost-competitive. Eat some dog or go to the devil.



    Only partly :-)

     

    Well, then you don't get the god damn content buddy boy, you'll pay for it some way or another...

     

    YEah, that's how it in AMERICA, you don't get shit if you don't pay for it. Nice that you at least know that.

     

    I'm fracking amazed about people teaching capitalism that seemingly have never god damn run a business in their lives, or steal as a matter of fact (like most torrenters...). They make me laugh.

     

    Of course, there are plenty of ad happy sites, but even those sites have people coming for the content they supposedly want. Well, you can't have christmas without all the sappy stuff that goes with it...

     

    The existence of News, is so ads can still lead to content, but in a more organised, contained way.

     

    Ads on the web as a way to make money is coming to an end, it's app, or curated content from now on.

     

    If Apple stripped out ads and randomized Google's first search result page, which is currently paid BS from Google by the way, instead of natural searches, I'd be way more for that than stripping ads off sites. Google's searches are way worse than they were 8-10 years ago... Not sure why the hell that happened... Technology devolving?

  • Reply 22 of 421
    Content blockers have been around for more years than I can remember and yet the vast majority of websites I frequent are still up and running despite this technology existing. Perhaps the mindshare and ease-of-use of the iOS will make this so commonplace that websites start virtually shutting their doors, or create paywalls, or simply plead with users to disable them, but I have serious doubts that will happen. Regardless, it's up to these websites to get us to engage them so they simply need to have a product we want. I use content and analytic blockers on Safari on my Mac, as well as don't have Flash or Java installed, so if some site I go to requires that for me to access the content I then decide if it's worth it to launch that site in Chrome. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, and on occasion, if a site has proven themselves to me I'll whitelist them in Safari.
  • Reply 23 of 421
    iqatedoiqatedo Posts: 1,822member

    Are advertisements in Apple News capable of tracking the reader or of placing cookie-like code on an iPhone?

  • Reply 24 of 421
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member

    Marco Arment has become quite the attention whore. I don't believe for a second he is genuine with his comments. This was planned and orchestrated by him. You're telling me during the ENTIRE course of developing and launching this app, the thought of "is this right or wrong" never occurred to him- and only did after the app was released? Right. The fact that 's been pulled was the top headline of so many blogs and tech websites, the amount of  potential revenue he lost by pulling it pales in comparison to the extra publicity he just, which he can use to leverage in his next product, or when Peace inevitably comes back online, and it surely will. 

     

    This tactic is consistent with his anti-Apple screeds, that get republished everywhere, and which he later "regrets". 

  • Reply 25 of 421
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    The advertising industry are solely to blame for this.  Web pages have become a cesspool of advertising garbage and (for me) was ruining the experience.  



    I understand sites like AI depend on that revenue.  However, when the other 95% of sites just shove that crap in one's face holding us hostage, then all bets are off.  I hope this stings them right where it hurts to send a message that the user community has had it with the way they are polluting the Internet.

  • Reply 26 of 421
    Originally Posted by GadgetCanadaV2 View Post

    Peace....Dammit.....Rest in Peace.



    He’s such a complete idiot. Utterly brain dead. What’re the odds that he got a HUGE payout from Google or Amazon?

  • Reply 27 of 421
    Publishers and sites deserve this. Consumers have been force fed terribly slow and intrusive ads for years. And if content publishers need ad revenue to survive then get a damn business degree and find another model to fund your business. It's called adaption and evolution, those that can't do either will die off, including perhaps Apple Insider
  • Reply 28 of 421
    This is insane. Every article I read about this whining of adblockers is plain wrong.
    I've been using Ghostery for years as it stops tracking. If you have an ad that does not track you, it shows! Marco Arment's app Peace uses the Ghostery database.
  • Reply 29 of 421
    Pulling Peace was a d**k move, if you ask me. He was trading on his good name, and regardless of his reasons, he has totally blown that. I certainly won't be rushing out to buy anything else he publishes.

    As for the ethics of "something for nothing", well, I believe the publishers deserve recompense, but now they'll just have to find ad networks that don't assault/insult/violate their readers. Does such a mythical beast exist, or is this, maybe, a great business opportunity for somebody?
  • Reply 30 of 421
    My problem with ads is the tracking and profiling. The advertisers violated the trust of the people.

    If it's purely ads, like on billboards, news papers, that don't spy on me, I have no issue on that.

    Publishers can still make money from ads, just don't have the advertiser follow me around the web.

    So the backlash of users wanting to eliminate ads is justifiable.

    Also, not only my user experience affected, greedy advertisers sucking up my alloyed bandwidth. THEY ARE COSTING ME MONEY!
  • Reply 31 of 421
    Hey AI, if you want money, just ask, I'm happy to give you money. But I don't want to waste my time, battery life, and bandwidth with your ads. I pay Ars technica for add free every year. Now if you haven't even offered an add-free product, stop whining about add blockers. Of course we can guess why you haven't tried a paid option- Ars is mostly original content that is worth money whereas your site is about 10% that, with the rest being stories that were broken by other rumor sites, stories pulled from the Internet at large, or how-tos that are basically just cut and paste from Apple's website.
  • Reply 32 of 421
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by proline View Post



    Hey AI, if you want money, just ask, I'm happy to give you money. But I don't want to waste my time, battery life, and bandwidth with your ads. I pay Ars technica for add free every year. Now if you haven't even offered an add-free product, stop whining about add blockers. Of course we can guess why you haven't tried a paid option- Ars is mostly original content that is worth money whereas your site is about 10% that, with the rest being stories that were broken by other rumor sites, stories pulled from the Internet at large, or how-tos that are basically just cut and paste from Apple's website.



    I'd pay not only for an ad-free AI site, but also for the mods to rid the troll infestation that's been plaguing the forums and letting them run amok.

  • Reply 33 of 421
    For some people, ads are much more annoying and, in some cases, debilitating, than for others. If you have any condition that makes you easily distractable (ADD, ADHD, etc.),or epilepsy, using the web with Flash and other animated ads may simply not be an option. I had epilepsy as a child, and, while I'm not sure what (if anything) I would be formally diagnosed with today (I am clearly no longer epileptic), blinking or flashing objects are really disturbing (I rarely watch television and actually CAN'T watch any show where I have to track stories through an ad - I watch baseball, which I can do, because the only thing that needs to be tracked through inning breaks is the score, I can't go to any form of bar, club or concert with disco or similar lighting, and I have a somewhat difficult time with emergency vehicles - they work "too well" on me). The web is only accessible to me due to using multiple ad blockers (and I ignore all site requests to disable blockers - I need them). If ad blockers disappeared, I would no longer be able to use most websites (other than wikipedia and university sites) at all. I am, however, willing to pay for good content - I have subscribed to the New York Times for years, and would subscribe to other sites I valued highly. Give us the choice - for some people, ADS ARE NOT AN OPTION.
  • Reply 34 of 421
    sflocal wrote: »

    I'd pay not only for an ad-free AI site, but also for the mods to rid the troll infestation that's been plaguing the forums and letting them run amok.

    I'd like the site to be SSL so any local LAN access will be encrypted. I'd pay for that feature alone.
  • Reply 35 of 421
    Well, my first post went missing.

    What about writing the truth instead, AI? The ads are not the biggest problem, the tracking is.
    If you use Ghostery you stop the tracking. If the website have have a non tracking ad, it shows!

    Marco Arment's app Peace used the Ghostery database, so what's the problem?
  • Reply 36 of 421
    Your website is the problem! You reflect 100% of the problem!

    When it comes to performance hindering bloat loaded with crap ads AI is the king! You are the absolute worst site I visit regularly in terms of bloat and slowness to load. Now that I have installed Crystal, solely because of YOUR site, instead of the absolutely horrible performance you have been providing, your site now loads MUCH MUCH MUCH faster and is no longer a huge annoyance. You are a victim of your own stupidity for building a dog of a site from a performance and advertising bloat standpoint. So get off your soapbox and fix it! Figure out how to build a proper infrastructure stripped of all the bullshit that annoys to no end, then come back to us begging for forgiveness and only then ask us politely to whitelist you.
  • Reply 37 of 421
    shenshen Posts: 434member
    I never had an ad blocker before. But the number of times over the last 6 months I have been kicked out my app and I to the App Store by adds is up from never to multiple times daily. So I installed on on my Mac and iPhone just today. I am sick of this shit.

    You want ad money? Get better ads. That simple.

    Podcasts, websites, shows, they all have sponsors now. And if I respect the site or podcast, I will use the sponsor. Assuming I also need the product. But I am done giving my info to sites that don't play nice. I am done being tracked because nobody would let me opt out. I am done caring.

    This site went from good to acceptable to ad covered. And a few days ago kicked me out to the App Store. If my ad blocking costs a job, then maybe you should have gotten better ads.
  • Reply 38 of 421
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post



    I think that most reasonable people will happily settle for a quid pro quo and truce if these same online publishers didn't swamp us with the crappy, creepy (as in tracking us), Flashy, in-your-face, intrusive ads that recipients are paying for via the receiver-pays data plans in countries like the U.S.



    You reap what you sow.



    Add: What are the recommendations for ad blockers for iOS?



    Purify ($3.99) and Crystal (free), and both are in iTunes.

  • Reply 39 of 421
    Content blocking is the best thing to happen to iOS in a long time. Advertisements and trackers are in direct conflict with the user's intent and focus. A shake-up is long overdue. Publishers MUST find an alternative, ethical source of revenue and this move will force them.

    I am very much in favour of supporting publishers, but NOT through these mechanisms. I believe the answer is for content aggregators (like Apple's News app) to open up for ad-free subscriptions. Pay a monthly fee, read as much as you like. Based on what you read, the aggregated sites get shares of the revenue. Just like we've been doing with music and movies for years.
  • Reply 40 of 421
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    I use the AI app and don't mind the banner ads or sponsorship stories (as long as they are identified as such).

    I do mind the redirect ads, the force click ads, the pop up ads with the tiniest x so you can't close it on the first time. Those are the problems.

    Imagine you're driving down a road and a guy with a sandwich board jumps in front of you at a red light. You have to interact with him so he gets out of your way and it's annoying.
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