Watched this and I agree with him. I’ve disabled (not uninstalled!) uBlock Origin and installed Ad Nauseum on both my home computers. At work I still use uBlock Origin since our data is limited (and we have a lot of computers online) so I try to work to reduce my bandwidth usage where I can. uBO helps with that. AN does not.
At home though, I’m on gigabit cable and it’s only my wife and I, so no worries there.
I like what he says about ad blockers just making advertisers shift tactics while spending some high amount on ads and getting a $0 ROI will make them think twice about how ads are done.
I think, if you’re looking at the bigger picture, this more direct attack on ads will lead to more sites being paywalled. I’ve never seen paid search until 2025, and I’ve been online since 1994. AltaVista, Yahoo, and later Google were always free. But now you have search companies saying “pay us and we won’t track you, since we will be working for you.” I think in this day and age we’re already subscribing to so many things that the free options will continue to be good enough, but Proton has the right idea, bundling a lot of services people might want to use, like email and VPN and storage. They may not be the best at any of those things, but they are pretty good and they want you to be the customer rather than data brokers being the customer and you being the product, and I think that is admirable.
It’ll be a long game. As you “click” they’ll think you’re REALLY interested. However it won’t matter since you won’t see them.
Where you’re really hurting them is they use the Click Through Rate (CTR) as a metric. They know that less than 0.01% of people click, but the real metric is the sales funnel. If they can prove that you saw the ad and then eventually it led to a sale? Oh marketers lose their shit over that.
So, this destroys that conversion metric. They’ll see way more click through, but the conversion metrics won’t align. That’s decades of models and algorithms that have been built to show that they’re good at that… Going to zero. That’s the metric that other companies pay gobs of money to advertising companies to prove - that their ads were not only seen but led to tangible sales.
And that’s why everyone should do this. Ad companies know you’re going to attempt to block ads. This fucks with them as an industry, and I couldn’t be happier. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. After all, we’re doing what they want!
Watched this and I agree with him. I’ve disabled (not uninstalled!) uBlock Origin and installed Ad Nauseum on both my home computers. At work I still use uBlock Origin since our data is limited (and we have a lot of computers online) so I try to work to reduce my bandwidth usage where I can. uBO helps with that. AN does not.
At home though, I’m on gigabit cable and it’s only my wife and I, so no worries there.
I like what he says about ad blockers just making advertisers shift tactics while spending some high amount on ads and getting a $0 ROI will make them think twice about how ads are done.
I think, if you’re looking at the bigger picture, this more direct attack on ads will lead to more sites being paywalled. I’ve never seen paid search until 2025, and I’ve been online since 1994. AltaVista, Yahoo, and later Google were always free. But now you have search companies saying “pay us and we won’t track you, since we will be working for you.” I think in this day and age we’re already subscribing to so many things that the free options will continue to be good enough, but Proton has the right idea, bundling a lot of services people might want to use, like email and VPN and storage. They may not be the best at any of those things, but they are pretty good and they want you to be the customer rather than data brokers being the customer and you being the product, and I think that is admirable.
Do they stop tracking or do they just not show the ads?
A good question. I think both. I am not their agent, nor their customer/user, so I don’t have that answer.
It’ll be a long game. As you “click” they’ll think you’re REALLY interested. However it won’t matter since you won’t see them.
Where you’re really hurting them is they use the Click Through Rate (CTR) as a metric. They know that less than 0.01% of people click, but the real metric is the sales funnel. If they can prove that you saw the ad and then eventually it led to a sale? Oh marketers lose their shit over that.
So, this destroys that conversion metric. They’ll see way more click through, but the conversion metrics won’t align. That’s decades of models and algorithms that have been built to show that they’re good at that… Going to zero. That’s the metric that other companies pay gobs of money to advertising companies to prove - that their ads were not only seen but led to tangible sales.
And that’s why everyone should do this. Ad companies know you’re going to attempt to block ads. This fucks with them as an industry, and I couldn’t be happier. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. After all, we’re doing what they want!