Some local news sites in my city show local ads that are simply static images loaded in their pages, mimicking traditional newspaper ads, without any kind of tracking. Although it’s questionable at a philosophical level if ads can be ethical, I can live with it, and that method will pass automated adblockers, so it’s a win-win.
I could almost live with ads if they were static, but the typical article-reading experience without afblock goes like this:
See the first paragraph. Start reading. An autoplay video pops in at the top of the page obscuring the view. You scroll down but it’s pinned to the top of the viewport. You close it with the miniscule x button. You finish the first paragraph and scroll down past a huge ad to the next paragraph. A banner ad appears at the bottom of the page. You dismiss it with the x. You start reading and two seconds later the banner you dismissed reappears with a new ad, obscuring the content again. You try to dismiss it, but miss and open the ad. Press back in the browser and start again from step 1.
Its exhausting, and it’s so painfully constrained, like trying to view a webpage by peeking at it through someone’s letterbox.
The Internet with ads, as it stands, is not worth seeing.
Not to mention it greatly lowered the quality of content. Now it’s 95% getting a catchy clickbate title with the actual body often not even agreeing with the title. It’s fucking exhausting.
I think the biggest issue with personalised ads is that they can exploit weaknesses in people are prevent public discourse about themselves (since they’re different for everyone), which is especially bad for political ads. So these ads that you’re describing seem good in my book.
Some local news sites in my city show local ads that are simply static images loaded in their pages, mimicking traditional newspaper ads, without any kind of tracking. Although it’s questionable at a philosophical level if ads can be ethical, I can live with it, and that method will pass automated adblockers, so it’s a win-win.
You know, I think I’d be okay with that. As long as it’s not something that’s begging for your attention or trying to get you to click on it.
Or loading at random intervals so you have to scroll around to find where you were before the page jumped around. Very little infuriates me more.
I could almost live with ads if they were static, but the typical article-reading experience without afblock goes like this:
See the first paragraph. Start reading. An autoplay video pops in at the top of the page obscuring the view. You scroll down but it’s pinned to the top of the viewport. You close it with the miniscule x button. You finish the first paragraph and scroll down past a huge ad to the next paragraph. A banner ad appears at the bottom of the page. You dismiss it with the x. You start reading and two seconds later the banner you dismissed reappears with a new ad, obscuring the content again. You try to dismiss it, but miss and open the ad. Press back in the browser and start again from step 1.
Its exhausting, and it’s so painfully constrained, like trying to view a webpage by peeking at it through someone’s letterbox.
The Internet with ads, as it stands, is not worth seeing.
Not to mention it greatly lowered the quality of content. Now it’s 95% getting a catchy clickbate title with the actual body often not even agreeing with the title. It’s fucking exhausting.
I think the biggest issue with personalised ads is that they can exploit weaknesses in people are prevent public discourse about themselves (since they’re different for everyone), which is especially bad for political ads. So these ads that you’re describing seem good in my book.