Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1182 points –
Study claims more than half of Americans use ad blockers
theregister.com
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This is 100% the fault of shitty advertisers spamming us with literal scams, malware, and spyware.

I get that ads pay for a free internet. But that doesn't mean that 60% of my screen needs to be malware to read a local news article.

Until advertisers act in good faith, I block as much as possible.

Or those scummy click bait ads disguised as related articles? They make my blood boil with how they prey on the vulnerable.

That's all Google discover is on my phone... Ai generated articles that are just click bait.

is a new episode of RandomShow airing tonight?

Star Trek 31 confirmed to feature major tng character (from today)

blah.

Google is so bad for this, plus the fact that they were the ones who started rewarding clickbait articles.

In my mind though, MSN will never be dethroned from having the shittiest content.

It can't, just check the windows thing which appears as a left sidebar in windows 11 or the edge default homepage

I've been seeing clips from Ready Player One recently and this reminded me of the main bad guy's philosophy on advertising in the OASIS.

we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures

Can't help but feeling there's some parallels there.

Seems unrealistic. In reality, they'd be asking how often the seizures occur and would figure out if the increased ad revenue from going to 90% would offset any potential lawsuits.

Used to be if I found the site of a newspaper I thought I liked, I'd turn off my ad blocker to see how it goes.

I don't even try any more. Again and again and again, every time I turn it off the page gets so cluttered that following the article becomes a chore and takes up so many resources that even scrolling slows to a crawl. Ludicrous nonsense.

The cluttered pages with "videos" running all over the place is what frustrates me the most. I go in and disable javascript and see how it goes. Javascript seems to be the herpes of the internet as far as I am concerned.

I recently noticed a feature on iOS to open all new sites in Reader mode. It’s definitely more readable but mixed results when not everything is there

There’s got to be some sort of Accessibility violation here: where’s the EU when you need someone to stand up for consumers rights

Fr. I legitimately wouldn't mind just a few banner ads to pay for things, but as per usual, the corpos got too damn greedy. So congrats, now you get no ad viewage from me.

Don't forget those annoying floating ads and the tiny X that doesn't actually close the ad

And the fucking videos that auto play in the bottom corner with audio. I think the old people that recently found out about internet are trying to turn it into regular TV.

It’s been years since I would browse the web with sound on.

I installed an ad blocker once I started getting unmuted video ads. I would be studying for an exam and suddenly start getting blasted with a super loud ad. This was in like 2015, before Chrome added the speaker icon next to the tab playing sound I had to look through every tab to find the source and mute it.

Plus they made the whole industry weird and obfuscated like bulk produce or something even though it didn't need weird distribution models and dark unseen players in every corner of every ad bought and seen. Why is it this way? I honestly don't know. How did advertisers willingly make it that way over just paying site owners or 1 aggregator or something... I guess Facebook has kind of become that now

This is 100% the fault of shitty advertisers spamming us with literal scams, malware, and spyware.

And the shitty websites running those ads with just a shrug of their shoulders saying "oops, 3rd party. I can't be expected to control what's on my website."

Nah. While that obviously sucks, I personally don't like people selling me shit. The ads are designed to occupy as much of my mental space as they can and that's a serious breach of what's most valuable to me.