if I’m curious, I’m going through https://archive.today – not only are your ads not getting seen, you’re not getting my page views either

I go a step further and block them in DDG. This includes any “article” I have to scroll through to find the answer.

Get PopUpOFF and AdNauseam. Don’t just back down without a fight. If I need to read an article to find some information I am going to read it, dumb bullshit be damned, even if I have to break half your site to do so. I’ve even been spiteful enough to hack away at the page with inspect element if it still manages to get past those add-ons.

Occasionally my phone recommends an article to read that I find interesting, I click it and it opens in the built in chrome based browser and is a sea of ads. Fortunately there’s an “open in Firefox” button so I actually can read the article

I love cookies!

…not the browser kind. I’m partial to chocolate chip!

І ԁоո’t раrtісulаrly thіոk thаt summаrіzеrs аrе а gооԁ gоаl, sіոсе аі summаrіеs саո оftеո bе wrоոg, mіsіոtеrрrеt іոfоrmаtіоո, оr оmіt іmроrtаոt іոfоrmаtіո thеy fаіl tо іԁеոtіfy аs іmроrtаոt.

I think if that starts to become common people should start using tools like this as well as the use of pre-baked PDF or image rendered text to thwart it on their content.

An AI feature actually useful for consumers? Corporate overloards say no thx, let’s instead create fill the net with more AI-generated SEO bullshit

Sometimes the reading mode bypasses paywalls and popups.

Also make sure to block “annoyances” in uBlock.

For the rest, I’m using the Nuke Anything extension.

I used to do that but it turns out ublock has a option for that!! When u click on the ublock plugin that is a thunder symbol option which u can use to delete any element on the page. 🙃

That sounds like a lot of work. On sites where that work (which is not all of them, some are made by competent people), firefox “reading mode” just do the job.

I guess a lot of people have a strange aversion towards messing with the code of websites. Which is weird and dumb, it’s downloaded to your browser, it’s not running on their system, you’re free to mess with it as much as you want. Best to familiarize yourself with the Web developer tools, they can be an effective weapon against scammy sites which use deceptive methods like this.

Generally the first thing I try is to hit ESC to stop a paywall script from running.

If that doesn’t work I try pressing ctrl-A ctrl-C to copy the whole page as soon as I see something. This works on pages that load and are then hidden by a script, but you have to be quick. Then I open Notepad and paste. If this doesn’t work I’ll either try it once more and see if I can be faster or just say screw it, if they want to hide their content that bad I don’t need it. If it’s important to me google will usually find the same news or info somewhere else.

Depends, some pages don’t actually load the full content. Removing the paywall pop-up doesn’t really work then.

I just put Firefox into reader mode before that can load.

People know how to do that, but why not just leave instead?

I’d rather just leave if I hit a pay wall, I want to hit their metrics. but I have a huge amount of blocked elements via ublock and a handful of my own tampermonkey scripts for frequently used sites

Right Click->Block Element

I’ve found this rarely works myself, due to them disabling other parts of the page, it’s less hassle to just find the article elsewhere

It’s ironic, they depend on perpetual growth, which means the more efficient they get at growing, the faster they outgrow their effective markets and then end up in a position where they need to further optimize optimal positions.

Sure, there’s probably smaller optimizations they could make, but they don’t just depend on growth but a certain % of growth.

Cornering markets is the beginning of the end for businesses in our growth obsessed system.

What they’re “forgetting” is that those who block ads are more likely to say “fuck product X I’ll never buy it because of this ad” if forced to see an ad. (Well, they don’t care, they know, but they can still sell the “spot” so to speak because the advertisers themselves are dumb enough not know that it is just shooting themselves in the foot.)

You got any blacklists that catch YouTube and twitch ads? Afaik those are provided from their own cdn now, so dns won’t work unless I’m mistaken

Peak monetisation. Don’t let them even see the article [copied from another website and run through ChatGPT] until they fork over the entrance fee.

At least you won’t use up that bandwidth routing traffic through pihole. You also get a nice cache for faster loading on frequented sites.

We want them gone. The market goes where the users use it. The Internet did not have the advertising presence it does now when it was conceived. Saying they want us gone means they are the only game in town. They aren’t. They are too big for their britches and need to realize the users dictate the usage.

But everyone wants everything for free…

I don’t know how people who block ads are so delusional to think that these websites would be sad to see them go, any more than shops would be sad to see shoplifters take their business elsewhere.

I get why some people might block ads but don’t kid yourselves, you’re blocking the only revenue stream for most sites and it doesn’t cost you anything. I’m not taking about tracking of course, sites that track you can get fucked.

and the people who make the content get compensated via ad revenue

We’re assuming that the only possible goal is money. The people who make the content can also get compensated by enjoying the propagation of their ideas, just as one example.

This is exactly why I choose to persevere with ad-blocking addons and make their website work the way I want it to without dumb bullshit getting in my way. :D

If you want people to use your website, make your website usable with unobtrusive ads or I’ll make it usable for me, and you won’t see a dime of ad revenue. Unfortunately, most sites seem to just double down (which doesn’t work because it just makes ad-blocking even more necessary and popular). Sucks for them.

The web, “as intended,” worked for several years with utterly no ad content. And when ads did start coming along, they were largely innocuous; little things in side bars, not obnoxious full-page videos that are rarely dismissible.

Anyone who tries to sell you on the idea that the web was designed for commerce or as a way to distribute anything other than information is a lying fucker.

It really is dead, isn’t it?

I still have an itch from last time

My less tech savy younger family members have learned to completely ignore ads, wait for the skip button and effectively avoid all the false skip buttons on account of playing mobile games with ads since they were babies. Advertisers have perfected the human brain of people who rawdog the internet to be incapable of retaining any information from any ad they see and finding skip buttons wherever they may be.

From my personal observational account, i think I’ve only seen boomers and some older millennials ever interacting with ads. A gen alpha’s brain wouldn’t even remember an ad they just saw. They have perfected filtering them.

Yep, they brought it upon themselves, I still remember as a kid falling for a “you are the visitor number 1 million” and getting a virus; and now we have porn and cults advertising on youtube, nothing changed.

Honestly I wouldn’t even mind some basic banner flashing, i.e. not neon fucking strobe and plastered over everything. I can understand them wanting to get a little bit of an eye catch. But not all of the ads can be like that and not with pop-ups and shit.

I certainly do lot miss the days when I’d go onto a website covered in ads for cheap, garbage MMOs… And then suddenly hear random music really fucking loudly. Scrambling to figure out where it’s coming from I’d find 4 or 5 smaller windows has opened up behind my main browser window.

You can say “bullshit” here, lemmy isn’t so concerned with making everything child friendly to appease advertisers like tiktok or youtube.