Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette

[skisnow@lemmy.ca]

What's become really disturbing in the past ten or so years is how they've applied ML to the targeting. Used to be it was just basic keywords and demographic stuff. Now the big platforms put your entire last decades' worth of history (often both web browsing and social media) through a bunch of filters and spot that people who are like you are more likely to buy this product or join this website.

The reason why it's fucked up is that "people who are like you" could mean things like anorexia, or addiction problems, or the kind of relationship trouble that makes you a soft target for incel indoctrination, or a bunch of other protected vulnerabilities that would get a company sued through the floor if they actually did it up front. But because it's all just a bunch of untagged probability distributions in a black box, it's impossible to "prove" that you deliberately and knowingly targeted a gambling addict to push a high interest credit card, or a recovering alcoholic with booze, even though that's exactly what happened inside the bundle of weights.

[ecen@lemmy.world]

While I definitely agree that most advertising these days is terrible, I do wonder how it should be done. How would you market a product you made? I genuinely want to know what you find acceptable.

Say that you invent a new type of ladder that is much more stable than normal ones, or maybe you start 3D printing a very cool figurine that you've designed. In either case, you realize you have a product that some people will probably want to buy, if only they knew about it.

You probably won't go to an ad network, I wouldn't. But do you make a post about it on Lemmy? That's advertising. Do you tell your friends about it? Most of them probably don't need a ladder, but maybe a couple would buy your figurine, though that is unlikely to be enough to kickstart your 3D design company.

[monkdervierte@lemmy.zip]

My feeling of guilt when scummy megacorporations miss out on ad revenue:

[vinstaal0@feddit.nl]

There is nothing like a free lunch.

You either have to directly pay for something or indirectly pay for it by selling your time or data.

Companies need to get their name out there and in the past you did that with a banner on your building, a space in the phone book and maybe your name on the side of the vans. Now we live in the digital world and we use digital advertisement. Heck a lot of companies sponsor certain event including charity events.

If we would totally remove advertisement, your local mom-and-pop shops will get more traffic, but in a lot of countries they would have basically a monopoly unless another competitor exists in the same region.

I don't really mind watching a bit of advertisement on something like a YouTube video or a banner ad on a site. Heck, buildings or vans with logos etc are fine as well in my opinion. My issue is more with the tracking and some forced advertisement (putting your logo on my clothing, vehicle etc).

[redpandaraider@feddit.org]

I'm sorry to tell you but smoking is completely socially accepted.

[monkdervierte@lemmy.zip]

And the good old guilt tripping at the end, with the usual "quality content".

[vinstaal0@feddit.nl]

Sadly I don't believe I can use SmartTube. I was really limited in options for my TV box due to regional reasons and Googling blocking way more surrounding casting than Apple with airplay

[szymon@programming.dev]

We should bring back paying to read a newspaper, magazine, (pc-magazine :P)

Get the hell out with AI slop and constant dark marketing

Let the idiots live on Instagram and don't depend on their 'content'

[1984@lemmy.today]

Would love to but a lot of them have shut down now since people didnt buy them.

[auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

What device? FireTV/Firestick/etc all support it (surprisingly).

[lemmyng@piefed.ca]

All ad networks, even the less intrusive ones, can be abused to distribute malware. In this day and age not having an ad blocker is like rawdogging internet strangers.

[squaresinger@lemmy.world]

"dark" as in "not visible". Adblock users can't be tracked (or at least not as easily), hence they are not visible to the ad companies. "Dark", in this instance, is not a derogatory term.

"Brutal" is, though. So I totally agree with you there. Ads are the brutal thing nowadays.

[squaresinger@lemmy.world]

We should bring back paying to read a newspaper, magazine, (pc-magazine :P)

You are probably not wrong, and we should be paying for a lot more things, but the genie is out of the bottle for many things here and it's difficult to roll that back.

For example, newspaper reading habits have changed a lot. Before the internet, you'd usually stick with one newspaper and that's it. Maybe two if you have too much money. You buy your newspaper and you read it front to back, probably even the topics you don't particularly care about.

Now it's often the other way round. Most people read news from quite a few sources (or often just follow links on social media and don't really even care for the publisher), but they don't read their news from virtual cover to virtual cover. Instead, they stick to the topics they care for, or maybe even read about the same thing in multiple publications, comparing what they have to say about it.

For this kind of newspaper reading, current forms of monetarisation don't really work. Most newspapers only offer subscriptions to the whole newspaper, often in the range of €5-15 per month. So if I were to pay for the ~20 newspapers that I read news from at least semi-frequently, that's €200-600 per month. No way I can or want to afford that.

Some allow you to pay per article, but that is usually pretty expensive too (€1-3 per article) and also I need to register to every single newspaper. That's not great either.

What I'd really like to see would be a industry-wide subscription. For example, I pay €10 per month and that allows me to read 100 articles per month across all newspapers. That would be really nice.

[vanilla_puddinfudge@infosec.pub]

You think most people open settings or hamburger menus? You're more optimistic than I am.

These days the average caveman is used by his phone, not the other way around.

[vanilla_puddinfudge@infosec.pub]

Then change it?

[vanilla_puddinfudge@infosec.pub]

Depends. Using some no-name dns server in Uzbekistan is likely not going to be easily reachable for your queries by your local government, if at all.

Then again, most of you don't have queries over encrypted protocols anyway, so it's an open book regardless of who your third-party is.

Best case if you're a luddite, run a very highly recommended(by the fediverse) VPN, like windscribe or mullvad, and use their dns servers. Wireguard will encrypt the queries, and the vpn being supposedly trustworthy would put any cork in it otherwise.

[vanilla_puddinfudge@infosec.pub]

News Media: "ADVERTISERS CAN'T DISTRIBUTE ADS BECAUSE OF YOUUUUUU"

g-good!

[vanilla_puddinfudge@infosec.pub]

"Son, are those ads in my house!?"

dad, please, it's only a little marketing!

"NO SON OF MINE! GET MY BELT!"

dad, no!

"What's our DNS address!?"

dad, I don't kno-

"Count the licks, boy! I'll teach you the hard way!"

[dojan@pawb.social]

I use Mullvad's VPN and DNS on a router level. Every device on my network is blanketed by it. Some services don't work, but I am willing to sacrifice their profits for my integrity. Thus, to them I say 然らば fuckmothers.

[korhaka@sopuli.xyz]

I have an adblocker but not an antivirus