Tuesday, September 24, 2013

You can't beat them

So, I finally did it yesterday. I installed AdBlock. Because I just couldn't take it anymore. It has been so good to listen to 4 or 5 songs on You Tube without hearing the same stupid ad, over and over and over again. I hesitated doing that for a while, because I know Adblock are a bunch of evil terrorists, who don't tell you that they don't actually block all ads. They block the ads of those who wont pay their extortion fee to be excluded. They don't care a hill of beans about me. They just found a way to extort money from companies and pass it off as helping me avoid ads, which I actually don't get to do if someone pays them to stop blocking them.

 Here’s how Adblock Plus’ “Acceptable Ads” program works. The Adblock Plus “community” flags new ads as completely beyond the pale or as acceptable. A group of 200 or so “open source” volunteers then builds Adblock Plus filters designed to block ads that fall into both categories. But for most small websites, blogs or news sites, the “acceptable” ads are “whitelisted” by default. That means, they’ll go right through. They won’t be blocked.......“Large companies,” says Faida, are held to a different standard. To pay for the cost of operating Adblock Plus for everyone, the company charges such companies a fee to participate in the “Acceptable Ads” program. If they pay the fee, their non-obtrusive, community-acceptable ads go through.....So if Google fails to pony up, all of the ads that support Google’s services –- including text ads and sponsored search result ads that Adblock Plus users have already decided are acceptable — are blocked..... For the little guys to get their acceptable ads whitelisted automatically, those who could “afford to pay” must contribute.
But it still sounds to me like something that bears more than a passing resemblance to a protection racket. Pay up, or we’ll break your windows! Pay up, or millions of Adblock Plus users will never see any of your ads.

  http://www.salon.com/2013/09/02/the_internets_next_victim_advertising/

That is how they fund it to give it to us for free. For me, I would pay 5 bucks a month to have it, and would rather they block everything. Not that that matters anyway.....
Because there is always a downside. I know that. So far, it is like getting free chocolate for the rest of your life. And not the crappy stuff. The really good stuff you buy upstairs at Macy's. The kind your grandma got you for your birthday. The ones in the pretty box with the double wrapping and the dividers and the chart telling you what each one was made of. That kind.
So, what bad thing will happen next? Because bad shit always follows something really good.
Coming next, they will just imbed the ads right into the videos and shows, and you wont be able to have one without the other, or be able to skip over them. And not just the new shows. But every video out there, right back to the Honeymooners and every show, music video and sporting event since.
You can't beat them, you can only beat them for a while, while you can. I will enjoy it while it lasts.

I actually don't mind the ads. Sure, I would rather not have them. But I would be willing to tolerate them if they were presented in a fair way, and not run over and over again to the point that they are extremely annoying. On one TV channel I watch the news, they run the same exact ad over again four times in each ad slot, and sometimes that means I have to watch it 16 or 20 times per hour to see the news. That sort of thing has driven me and others to the point we will block the ads. If they treated us fairly, we might not feel the need to bother.
There just doesn't seem to be any will to do it in a fair way. Many are excessively loud like these days. I guess the theory there is that while they run the ads, we are looking away, at Facebook, or at some handheld device like an Iphone, and they have to try and get our attention back. 
I am okay with ads. Would I pay to avoid them? Probably if I could and it was a reasonable price. But if I couldn't, I would still watch, as long as it is reasonable, which watching on You tube and many TV channels on the net has not been for a long time.
I have a different solution though. Maybe it is time for the companies to get out of the sponsorship business when it comes to programming. With things like the internet now, or even on your phone, what about paying me to watch your ad, instead of advertising on a show? Something to think about. If you paid me a certain amount, I would probably watch your ad...once..and maybe even buy your product if you made your case within the time it took me to watch the ad. Or possibly, you could give me a rebate on the product if I watched the ad and then went to purchase it.
With that money, or savings, I could then pay for the shows and videos I want to watch, and get them with no ads to ruin the art. 
Just a thought.
I know you can't beat them, but maybe you can join them and make it so everyone gets what they want.
For now I will try to beat them and block the Ads. I know at this very second there is a team of really smart Harvard graduates who are working to make Adblock redundant and bypass it without paying a cent of extortion money to them. 
While they are busy doing that, I will beat them and then I will try to join them when the new thing comes along. It would be great if they tried to join me instead of trying to beat me--over the head--with their ads. But, that won't happen.
I have lived long enough to know better. The world doesn't work that way.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting opinions, it's nice to hear from someone who uses Adblock, but understands the implications. Advertisements can be very intrusive nowadays, and publishers still need to fund their websites. It's a difficult situation in drastic need of an overhaul. We help educate the world about adblocking. If you're interested, you can read more here- http://blog.pagefair.com

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Daily profile about a specific artist,their life, their work and their impact