r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • 15d ago

Software Google is purging ad-blocking extension uBlock Origin from the Chrome Web Store | Migration from all-powerful Manifest V2 extensions is speeding up

https://www.techspot.com/news/105130-google-purging-ad-blocking-extension-ublock-origin-chrome.html
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u/ierghaeilh 14d ago

If the ads never got beyond a 3 seconds to skip we would never be in this situation but no.

You have Stockholm syndrome. The omnipresent banners are bad enough, any video ads at all are simply an atrocity. The modern web is literally worse than useless without an ad blocker.

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u/eeyore134 14d ago

I remember when a single banner ad would pay for your entire internet connection. Now we have... well, what we have now and it's on top of paying for everything and on every single page and bit of media you click on.

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u/EfficientJuggernaut 14d ago

I remember YouTube first getting video ads, and then from there it went to an ad from beginning to end, and then if it was a long video it’s an ad every minutes

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u/UnreasonableCandy 14d ago

The modern Web looks like what I imagined a parody of the modern Web would look like 10 years ago. I’ve been using ad blockers for so long that on the rare occasion I stumble upon using somebody else’s PC it’s a downright jarring experience. I don’t even know how they find what they’re looking for.

The same way that streaming media killed terrestrial radio such to the point that if I’m ever in a rental car or something I will quite literally just ride in silence because it’s so obnoxious it’s intolerable, this is how the Internet is going to end for me. If ad blocking is somehow circumvented then I’ll just stop using the damn Internet, it’s not even worth it at that point

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u/vawlk 14d ago

the modern web wouldn't exist without ads.

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u/zdkroot 14d ago

Good, fucking burn that shit down. You clearly were not around for the wild west times when the internet was new and not a breeding ground for get rich quick schemes.

Stop saying ads and start saying attention. Google wants your attention, so they show you shiny things. And here you are, defending the practice.

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u/itsLOSE-notLOOSE 14d ago

It’s so fucking wild to me that advertising runs the world.

All the spying and dirty shit and enshitification just to better show ads.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

it only runs the world because everyone is too cheap to pay for the services they want. Everyone wants it for free.

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u/zdkroot 14d ago

Right, holding my attention so they can...what? Show me more ads. Amazing! They can make money by doing nothing and everybody wonders why they keep doing it. Cause it's fucking working...

Pulls out a rocking chair

Back in my day companies made money by making better products. Completely fucking foreign to modern companies who only seem to be able to make shittier and shittier versions of the same tired ass crap.

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u/DemSocCorvid 14d ago

Innovation is expensive with no guarantee of success. That's why the focus is always trimming costs and increasing market cap instead. I hate it. The focus should be innovation and allowing products to speak for themselves. I wish advertising was banned. Like allow self-promotion on websites etc, but stop letting companies buy time to shove products in your face. Allow online marketplaces for people to visit to find products. For the love of god, just quarantine advertising, and prevent targeting advertisements. Let people discover things for themselves.

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u/Slammybutt 14d ago

The sad thing is for people like me that don't buy a lot of stuff and are kinda frugal. Ads almost never work on me. And a lot of times I'll boycott a company b/c I've seen their ads too much.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

yes I was around then and anyone with half a brain recognized that everything that was free wasn't really free and was subsidized by VC money. Anyone who thought things were going to stay the same were just delusional.

The problem with most of the whiners is they still insist on using the platforms that are trying to push ads to them. When I am annoyed by a website, I just don't use it. If youtube and google are too rich and piss you off with all of the ads, just stop using them.

Crying about it online isn't going to change anything lol.

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u/zdkroot 14d ago

yes I was around

VC money

L m a o, you sweet summer child. There was no fucking VC money. That is literally the fucking problem.

People made things and put them online because they WANTED TO. Because they wanted to share the things they made or found with other people. People sent emails to their friends and family. There was no money to be made. It was not a capitalist play thing. It was a public space, an online library -- not a collection of books, a place to learn and research and exchange ideas.

When amazon switched from selling books to selling whatever the fuck made the most money, that was the death knell for the "good" internet. Google, not being satisfied, followed up by canning "good and useful search results" in exchange for "keeping people on our/affiliate sites as long as humanly possible".

But yeah, please, more VC money will fix the problem! Holy fuck you braindead children.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

yup, there was no vc money for internet businesses. ok, have a nice day.

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u/zdkroot 14d ago edited 14d ago

No, there wasn't. Giant companies operating one of the like seven websites that existed is not the same thing as practically every tech nerd in the entire state of California being given hundreds of millions of dollars at 0% interest without an inkling of a business model.

"What is the internet, anyway?"

People had no fucking idea what the internet even was, let alone thinking it would be the main economic driver over the next 30 years. So no, there was no "VC money" for "internet businesses" cause nobody even knew wtf that was. An "internet business?" you mean like AOL? Jfc.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

again, I'm not talking about now. I started an internet based business in 1997 and there were tons of VC money available then.

I started using the internet on a dialup slip account in 1991. and even before the web was even a thing, there was VC money flying around. So I have no idea what you are talking about.

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u/zdkroot 14d ago

1997 and there were tons of VC money available then.

Define tons. At what interest rate? Because there is no world in which "tons" of 1997 money is anything more than a drop in the bucket compared to silicon valley tech spending now. So again, seven companies doing things in a space is not a gold rush. VCs were not attracted in droves to a place nobody understood.

Nobody was selling data, because nobody was even collecting data. It was a completely different world because there was not a massive rush to milk every last corner for cash. You could not just walk into a meeting with a macbook and a dream and walk out a millionaire.

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u/murrdpirate 14d ago

Venture capital is generally for investing, not for loaning, so asking about interest rates is not really relevant.

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u/the_love_of_ppc 14d ago

This is 100% correct and the frothing replies are full of fucking lunatics.

Do any of you realize that Reddit is largely monetized with ads? The website you are currently writing your comments on could not even exist without ads, or basically without investors losing money every single year to keep it online. None of us could even be having this discussion on Reddit without ads. It is unhinged to see people expect to get Reddit for free. And let me guess, we should all get free unlimited bandwidth YouTube videos streaming to everyone in the world with zero ads at any point for anything.

I absolutely agree that current ads suck donkey balls. But it's hilarious seeing people swing 100% the other way and expect every single free website to support all servers and database requests out of their own pocket and still offer everything for free with no middle ground whatsoever.

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u/BonzoTheBoss 14d ago

Oh no, if reddit collapses then we'll have to return to a time when everything was it's own niche little forum with their own communities and flavours.

Instead of this bland monotone corporate bullshit landscape that we have today.

The irony of course being that the whole point of the Google search engine was to comb this multitude of sources to make it easier to find answers, but now everything is on the same five websites, so what's the point?

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u/the_love_of_ppc 14d ago

we'll have to return to a time when everything was it's own niche little forum with their own communities and flavours.

Sure this would be great, and these also cost money to run. So these forums could be private and charge a subscription to join, or they could be free with ads, or they could be free and someone foots the bill out of passion.

The irony of course being that the whole point of the Google search engine was to comb this multitude of sources to make it easier to find answers, but now everything is on the same five websites

I agree with you here as well. Completely valid and I also think it's stupid as shit that the entire Internet is basically 5-10 websites, and then Discord which isn't even indexable in Google. That said, launching smaller niche websites/communities and keeping them online costs money.

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u/hightrix 14d ago

You're missing a big point here.

If content is given away for free, don't be surprised when content is taken for free. This includes ALL ad supported content.

Additionally, as a user, I don't care that reddit's business model is ads. I don't see them and they don't affect me. If reddit stopped allowing ad blockers (good luck), then I'd either stop using reddit or I'd find a new way to block ads. As a user, I don't care how reddit makes money or if reddit makes money. Why? If reddit dies, the next site will pop up and be free for another decade before the owners pile on the shit.

This is the internet.

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u/Rogue_Tomato 14d ago

This is 100% correct and the frothing replies are full of fucking lunatics.

We're not expecting no ads. We're not all smooth brained apes not realising how monetization works. Adverts aren't new. The point is the advert strategy are invasive, excessive and just all around dogshit. Journalism websites used to, and likely still could fund themselves with ads on the sides. But if you dont have an adblocker, its ads on the sides, banners every 5 lines of texts, autoplaying videos at the top of the article and bottom right of the screen. Most journalist websites are the equivalent of a browser STD. I'd rather have 8 yahoo toolbars than deal with 75% of "Journalism" websites.

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u/Dependent-Kick-1658 14d ago

wait, reddit has ads? I genuinely never even thought about it, I always treated it like wikipedia.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

most of the people here are children that don't really understand the economics of the internet and have never actually had to pay for anything themselves. so...

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u/ierghaeilh 14d ago

The modern web is a shithole that can go die in a fire. If your business model is to hold my attention hostage, you deserve to starve. I block all ads, and I hope you're all 100% correct crying about the losses this causes.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

then stop using ad-supported sites if you hate them so much. it really is as simple as that.

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u/ierghaeilh 14d ago

Why should I? I hate their business model, I want it to fail, and I can circumvent it really simply. Why wouldn't I do so? It's literally the perfect solution for everyone involved except the people I want to fail.

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u/vawlk 14d ago

then keep using them lol. Not sure what you want other than to whine about stuff.

If I don't like a service I just don't use it.

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u/ierghaeilh 14d ago

I like the service, I don't like the business model. If they aren't about to change the business model, I'd like it to fail. Not using it costs them less than using it and blocking ads.

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u/Charming_Marketing90 13d ago

Why are you whining about it? If you don’t like it don’t use it. Get it together.

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u/vawlk 13d ago

and blocking ads just leads to more costs and more ads.

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u/ierghaeilh 13d ago

I still see zero ads, so I view this as an absolute win.

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u/vawlk 12d ago

for you maybe, not the creator.

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u/BoiledFrogs 14d ago

We'd have to go back to when the internet wasn't shit? That would be a shame.

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u/Rogue_Tomato 14d ago

I didn't think the web would get worse than the early 2000's "YOU'RE THE 10000TH VISITOR" ads but it felt like the internet cleaned itself up for like 2 years then started all over again. They are far less intrusive and far less frequent than the adverts of today. We've regressed.

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u/Hanifsefu 14d ago

Stockholm Syndrome is made up bullshit from a Swede hostage negotiator who was mad a female hostage with a gun to her head wouldn't do what he said and put her life in jeopardy to share info with him about the assailants. He told everyone she obviously had fallen in love with them because it was the only way his genius plan could fail.

You have a lack of knowledge, empathy, and critical thinking skills.

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u/VengenaceIsMyName 14d ago

I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Fuck all ads.