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Ask HN: Who will win the ad-blocking fight, long term?

7 points by petra ↗ HN
There's probably a fight brewing between adblockers and adtech companies - for example Apple's latest adblocker.

So i wonder: We have examples from other areas like cryptography ,viruses , etc of such fights - and usually it's possible to understand early on if there exist a power asymmetry (for example, it's far easier to encrypt than decrypt) , and at least in general, deduce who will have the upper hand.

So can we say something similar about the ad-blocking fight, long term ?

9 comments

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[dead] paulhauggis
Ads will just be integrated into content and the two will no longer be distinguishable. It's already starting to happen.

This is the end result of ad-blockers.

[dead] paulhauggis_999
Content creators will just make it part of the content. Television has done this to some extent and I already see it on blogs.
taprun
Everyone will win when producers find a better monetization strategy and we get rid of ads entirely. Consumers will pay for things of value. Just look at Netflix for but one example.
insoluble
This view sounds a bit too Utopian for reality, but it sure would be nice. The idea of everyone winning implies that goods, services, and other things of value are distributed fairly. Marx seemed keen on this idea.

But I suppose there is hope. If systems like Amazon's recommendation system got good enough, and if perhaps AI buddies began watching you and giving you product advice at just the right time, advertisements could be a thing of the past. The key is getting the right product options to the right consumers at the right time.

drdeca
>If systems like Amazon's recommendation system got good enough, and if perhaps AI buddies began watching you and giving you product advice at just the right time, advertisements could be a thing of the past.

That just sounds like targeted advertisements?

Or do you mean, specifically only when you are looking for the thing in question, finding the thing which is most likely to be what you want?

insoluble
Indeed it sounds like advertising on the surface, but my original thought was more of something on your side, like a buddy. In Amazon's case, the user is indeed usually in the process of looking for products, so I am not sure that really qualifies as advertisement. In the case of the "AI buddy", I meant not so much a buddy whose purpose is to give you product advice, but more like an all-around digital servant who helps you when you need information or advice -- a digital butler.

Two of the most important factors are thus: consent and being driven by consumers rather than producers. In the case of Amazon, to my understanding the product recommendations ("Customers who bought this ...") are based on purchase trends rather than on which producer paid the most to be listed first. Hence, these recommendations should be based on consumer preferences and product fit, rather than on bids by advertisers.

cm2012
There are some comments dead and flagged in this thread that probably shouldn't be, based on the text alone.

To add something more useful to this post, I imagine that the balance will stay where it is now. Technical people will always find a way to use adblock, but the vast majority will kept from using it with partnerships (a la AdBlock Plus and Google) or tech.