Disclosure: I work on ads at Google; this is a personal post.
In the discussion of why I work on ads people asked whether I use an ad blocker (no) and what I think of them (it's complicated). So, what about ad blockers?
It should be up to you what you see. If you don't want your computer displaying ads, or any other sort of content, you shouldn't have to. At the same time, most sites are offering a trade: you're welcome to our content if you also view our ads.
These are in conflict, but I feel like the resolution could be simple:
- You are free to block any ads you want.
- Sites can know when ads are blocked.
Sites could choose to respond to ad blocking by showing a message explaining that ads are what fund the site and requiring users to either subscribe or allow ads if they want to proceed. Or not: the marginal cost of serving a page is trivial and perhaps some visitors will share articles they enjoy. Still others might implement something like the first-n-free approach you see with paywalls, or progressively more obnoxious nagging.
This isn't what we have today:
Some sites (ex: Facebook) try to disguise their ads to get them past blockers. A big site that runs their own ads might scramble the names of resources on every page view, while a smaller site might hire an ad-tech company to proxy their site and stitch in ads. When successful, users are seeing content they specifically said they didn't want.
Some blockers (ex: uBlock Origin but not AdBlock) hide "please disable your ad blocker or subscribe" messages. For example, 37% of uBlock Origin issues are people pointing out anti-adblock banners it misses (ex: #9005, #9006, #9007). When successful, sites are serving content to users they specifically said they didn't want to serve.
I don't have any sort of proposal here; I'm not proposing a browser feature or government regulation. But in thinking about how future decisions might affect ads, I'm going to be most excited about ones that support (1) and (2).
Ads decrease consumption drastically, and (patreon user) Gwen found it to be a massive loss. Important to know if there are other ways of making money or that's not your (only) goal.
I've found targeting ads to be, at best, 'selling pizza right in front of the pizza store - right after the customers have left with the pizza they bought*'. Arguably some small (rare) theoretical benefits even if doing almost no work (though in a world filled with badly targeted ads, they'll get mowed down like all the rest) via followup, but it's not pre-emptive and I have to keep track of what I want (to consume), and when it's coming out.
Ads aren't some service where I subscribe (ooh, that Batman-/Christopher Nolan-movie/TV Show was really good, I want to see trailers for it automatically when the the next one comes out). Instead they're trying to serve old left overs. (Fill in the blank) advertises that show I've already finished watching* because it's popular and on their streaming service which ?? they know I use but don't know I've already seen it ??. Ads for the new phone I have on the very same phone... Either someone has gone mad with greed, or people actually have multiple phones that are the same phone?
*It wasn't that great. I'm not going back for more of the same, again.
It seems bizarre for me to say 'ask me what ads I want to see', but like...wouldn't that be more effective? I know what I want, I know what I'd buy.* (Everyone tweeting #SnyderCut since forever, everyone following that tag...it doesn't take rocket science to know what they want. For all I know they paid for it in advance (kickstarter style).)
*The next level thing would be budgeting. That's too much to ask for. (But might interface better with deals, in some way beyond 'a pre-order the book and it's cheaper' deal.)
I'd say the weaknesses include not knowing about new products, or new categories of products. But honestly? That's a problem right now that might be fixed this way: If people are 'wasting time on social media'...a website based around watching cool ads might work.
I have ways of finding new things and they work. Often I don't need trailers for movies. Ads aren't good at discovering right now. The myth of 'you didn't know you needed it' remains disappointingly absent.
I didn't find out about TurboTax from ads - but I got those after I used it.