Is the internet getting destroyed by Ads?

stezie

More and more im getting frustrated by imposing adverts on webpages. Im all for a basic advert as a picture on a webpage, within reason.

Developers seem to develop pages to show as little information to the user as possible on the one page so that the user clicks on another page.

Each page has a considerable percentage of advertising

For example, and im only using boards as an example to save copyright issues it happens on nearly every website now, but if I open Computers and Tech I am only presented with 5 lines of information that is of any use to a user. That is without scrolling on a 19" screen. I find that is a shocking minimal amount of information per percentage of desktop real estate.


What is even more annoying is if you are using a browser on a mobile device. What percentage of bandwidth is consumed on advert content, not to mention the cpu and battery consumed before relevant information is presented..

I feel that if adverts was removed entirely from the internet then the technology we had 10-15 years ago is more than capable of presenting 98/99% of all webpage content that a user is interested in.

BrokenArrows

stezie wrote: »

More and more im getting frustrated by imposing adverts on webpages. Im all for a basic advert as a picture on a webpage, within reason.

Developers seem to develop pages to show as little information to the user as possible on the one page so that the user clicks on another page.

Each page has a considerable percentage of advertising

For example, and im only using boards as an example to save copyright issues it happens on nearly every website now, but if I open Computers and Tech I am only presented with 5 lines of information that is of any use to a user. That is without scrolling on a 19" screen. I find that is a shocking minimal amount of information per percentage of desktop real estate.


What is even more annoying is if you are using a browser on a mobile device. What percentage of bandwidth is consumed on advert content, not to mention the cpu and battery consumed before relevant information is presented..

I feel that if adverts was removed entirely from the internet then the technology we had 10-15 years ago is more than capable of presenting 98/99% of all webpage content that a user is interested in.

Yes its annoying but its the only way that companies can provide free content. If you got rid of all the adds then every website would need to start charging.

Darkglasses

Got to find some way to pay the bills. Alternative is to buy a subscription for ad free viewing.

frag420

One thing I have noticed when using the Boards mobile site (not noticed it on any other similar sites) on my smartphone is that when I am scrolling down the page and I come to an advert in the middle of a thread I cannot scroll on it, its like its made of ice and my finger just moves over it. I have to go to scroll until there is space under the ad before I can continue scrolling down the page, very frustrating and would put me of clicking on any ad!

Is this a ploy from advertisers to make me/us see their ad instead of scrolling past it? Are boards aware this is happening?

stezie

I understand that ads pays for the website. But ads only generate revenue when they are clicked on.

If I land on a webpage and 80% of my load time is waiting for a few lines of information, after ad content has loaded then if I haven't clicked on the ad on the first page, im not going to click on the ad on the next page either.

It just seems like a terrible waste of resources. ( bandwidth, cpu, time, etc)

I feel that the imposing ads is now a form of ransom ware.

_Brian

It's just down to monetisation.

Very few websites are there just to provide information. Most were started with revenue in mind, if not immediately then definitely down the line.

People seem to be falling for lots of the click bait crap celeb news, " he scratched behind his ear and you'll never believe what happens next". This just encourages more and more such revenue generators.

But the problem is people won't subscribe to sites either, not in a lifetime would I consider a boards payment, so ads are their solution, on laptop I use an add blocker and I don't use the newer mobile site so I don't see the adds at all.

Avatar MIA

Ads, I don't mind. It's when the BBC started dumbing down, featuring click bait articles on their homepage that I despaired.

stezie

generally I don't mind ads, as your eyes are trained to stay away form them.

They gripe at the minute is that it uses so much bandwidth, especially on mobile devices, Pages don't load as quick as they should as it is waiting for a response from an "ad click " service. pop ups on your mobile browser that take up the full page, and the smallest of X button that your sure to accidently click the ad.


I understand that the website needs to monetize their service, but when the site becomes clumsy and preferences nonsense ads to people then , surely it defeats the purpose.



Take this page from example, how many lines of information is of any relevance right now.

But if you right click on the page and then view source, see how many lines of code are on the page, majority of them for ads, or for sending browsing history.

As tech evolves, bandwidth is increasing , but the benefits aren't increasing at the same rate due to the consumption of data by these ad services.

Its like building a race car, you increase the horse power but you keep the spare wheel and other accessories, and maybe "ad" a few bags of sand...

BrokenArrows

stezie wrote: »

generally I don't mind ads, as your eyes are trained to stay away form them.

Ya i rarely notice adds. Once their are not popups, automatic redirects etc then they are invisible.

Personally i find the Cookie warnings more annoying than adverts. Yes i know websites use cookies, every ****ing website has used cookies since the dawn of time. Jesus. No need for every site to popup and tell you. Stupid, unnecessary rule.

Fysh

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Ya i rarely notice adds. Once their are not popups, automatic redirects etc then they are invisible.

Personally i find the Cookie warnings more annoying than adverts. Yes i know websites use cookies, every ****ing website has used cookies since the dawn of time. Jesus. No need for every site to popup and tell you. Stupid, unnecessary rule.

That one's the fault of the numbskulls who determine IT-related legislation in the UK. They required by law that all websites accessible to UK users show the cookie warning, and because that's actually bloody difficult to do with any granularity the end result is that a great deal of sites either show a cookie warning for everyone or use IP-geolocation lookup to identify the source request and show the popup to any users coming from an IP address that *might* be in the UK. (I'm guessing most IP geolocation services aren't too worried about e.g. distinguishing between NI and RoI, so I assume a fair amount of users in Ireland see warnings that aren't, in their case, actually required...)

ItHurtsWhenIP

stezie wrote: »

...
Take this page from example, how many lines of information is of any relevance right now.
...

I'm not quite understanding your issue here ... This is what I see in my browser, and no I am not a subscriber:


Edit: with apologies for an Inception view. :rolleyes:

stezie

stezie wrote: »

I understand that ads pays for the website. But ads only generate revenue when they are clicked on.

If I land on a webpage and 80% of my load time is waiting for a few lines of information, after ad content has loaded then if I haven't clicked on the ad on the first page, im not going to click on the ad on the next page either.

It just seems like a terrible waste of resources. ( bandwidth, cpu, time, etc)

I feel that the imposing ads is now a form of ransom ware.

Many places charge per display of ad also, higher rate for a click through though

ED E

Its a dying model, people in the industry predict it. Nobody is sure whats next though.

Yahoo ads for example, a big broker, has been caught serving malware as the ads contain JS now so they cant control what the ad they serve you will actually contain.

I'd have to dig to find the article but there are examples of sites where your browser will make 200 requests with ads enabled and only around 30 with them blocked.

I'd like to support sites/creators but having a mandatory 30s ad to watch a 40s video just isn't on. When I use youtube mobile where I havent bothered ad blocking its amazing to see how I see the same preroll every time (Sweat with kayla, Adsense is SO far off there), maybe a sign that advertisers know its a on its last breath.

Robert ninja

I get that they have to exist but its their own fault for making them so intrusive that people seek ad blocking solutions. Ads should just be links and lightweight pictures. Anything more like fullscreen takeovers, java, flash etc are a burden on the person and possibly even their bandwidth in parts of the world where bandwidth caps very limiting. You'll be watching a youtube video and it (the video) starts up in low resolution even though it has high res option, stutters to take off, freezes/struggles if you try to scrub the timeline and then suddenly a full HD perfectly smooth ad comes up.

Or if you're on very limited hardware like I was once, the ads practically caused the browser to crash. My mobile is pretty damn weak and everytime an ad is on the page or interrupts a video everything is so slow afterwards. They're also gimping the mobile versions of the sites so that it's not ideal to run them through a mobile browser (and therefore possibly be using ad block solutions), encouraing you to use the App so they can harvest more data and deliver more ads uncontended. Apps are a bane to the integrity of the internet anyway.

BBC 30-45 second ad video for 15 seconds of footage? **** right off.

It's always been like that on YouTube, super smooth 1080 ads infront of (and now during) video struggling at 480 or 720p.

Also auto play ads that play video and audio, or some crappy bouncing moving jpeg? Insta adblock

jelone

All we know that google earn tons of money via ads, so ... but google is still useful and good, not like bings and such other lame search engines.

PrzemoF

There are no ads on the internet as far as I can see...

BrokenArrows

While i dont think ads are destroying the internet, poor performance, high cpu usage websites are destroying the internet.

My laptop is fairly high spec and my browser generally freezes on some websites with embedded video. Usually some badly programmed flash video player which pegs my cpu .

I wish to god Flash would just die and not be supported anymore. Its been years since the mobile phone market abandoned flash. Why cant desktop do the same.

ItHurtsWhenIP

BrokenArrows wrote: »

While i dont think ads are destroying the internet, poor performance, high cpu usage websites are destroying the internet.

My laptop is fairly high spec and my browser generally freezes on some websites with embedded video. Usually some badly programmed flash video player which pegs my cpu .

I wish to god Flash would just die and not be supported anymore. Its been years since the mobile phone market abandoned flash. Why cant desktop do the same.

They are getting rid of Flash - Mozilla will kill support for it this time next year I think. I believe Google has similar plans for Chrome. I neither know, nor care about M$FT's browser, whatever it's called!

Dravokivich

I don't think it's just adds. But even the most simple of websites are very heavy on media content. Just take boards very example when it's performing slowly, or if your internet slows down. All of a sudden everything drills downwards ina very simple format. Too much use of images.

Zardoz

Just use Ad Block Plus ,bye bye ads.