Interesting ideas. I like the foundation and intent of the effort, but I still think it is backwards. I want an opt-in advertising model. Users choose which types of products or companies they are interested in, and can set timeframes for that interest. "Show me bathing suits in March/April." "I am shopping for a new mattress." "Always show ads from Lego." "Shopping for a new Ford/SUV/motorcycle this year." "Interested in discounted kitchenware." "I'm moving out of my parents' house this year." Advertisers would pay MASSIVE amounts to be able to have that information from their potential customers. Niche products - D&D dice sets - could be a NEW advertising demographic that nobody has yet effectively found a way to market to, because everything is so broadly/generically targeted. And, for the user, they would no longer be inundated with irrelevant ads for products/services they have no interest in, thereby elevating the "valuable" screen real estate on any web site very close to 100%... up from the 20-30% of any web site today, that is dedicated to content. As long as marketers are embarrassed by their advertising, and feel like it is rude and interruptive and useless for 90% of the viewers, they will continue to find ways - like this Google effort - to make token gestures towards increasing privacy... rather than focusing on the real problem, which is increasing relevancy.
Fuck relevancy. If I want to look at bathing suits in march and april I'll fucking look up bathing suits in march and april. I don't want anyone to auction off a corner of my screen for the right to show me bathing suits. I don't buy products based on who's trying the hardest to get me to buy them I buy the based on what works best for me and there's absolutely no link between what advertisers want and what I want. "D&D dice sets" are an easy thing to target. Go to Amazon. Search for "D&D dice sets." Turn off adblocking and go to the Washington Post. Dollars to donuts the ads will be for D&D dice sets and that's if you have all your trackers off. Here's the problem: generally, the products I want are niche enough that the people selling them can't afford to advertise to me at all while the products I need are broad enough that literally any other kind of advertising is more effective. That's the other dirty little secret of online advertising: it fucking sucks. The reason outdoor persists, the reason broadcast persists, the reason print persists is we have vastly higher retention for shit that's in our field of view than shit that's on our phones so online advertising will continue to be cheap and useless and annoying. You are literally better off putting a coupon in someone's junk mail than you are putting it in their Facebook feed and you are better off putting it in someone's email than you are putting it in their junk mail which is why email spam is so awful. "Advertising" is a fundamentally terrible business model.
And that's where we differ. 70-75% of my screen real estate (within the browser) is garbage noise. I'd prefer to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, rather than just resign myself to it being that way forever. I don't want anyone to auction off a corner of my screen for the right to show me bathing suits.
I don't think we do agree, honestly. By blocking ads, you keep the price of advertising high. If advertising was more measurably effective, it would be of broader use to everyone (including the niche D&D dice shops), and something that every business could honestly make a budget line for. Right now, advertising is only open to the big-name-brands or orgs with hidden deep pockets behind them (venture capitalists), because it just broadly spams everyone with a generic message, rather than being relevant and personalized. You have given in to the belief that advertising MUST suck by definition, while I feel that advertising doesn't have to suck, and could actually be a value-add. Thought Experiment: The Economist has excellent content available on two identical sites. On Economist A, it is the same as it is today with generic useless advertising network content. On Economist B, it subscribes to an ad network that customizes all ad content according to my preferences. Instead of my $12/year subscription that I currently pay for Economist A (and why the FUCK do I still get ads on the version of the site I PAY FOR?!?), I'd pay $5/month for Economist B. And I'd actually click on the ads, because they were of value to me, and not potential landmines. (Even if I see an ad for something I want, I will close my browser, open another, and Google search for the product. I will NEVER click on an ad intentionally, today. Too risky.)
Your thought experiment is a wish to pay more for better ads. Here's a better thought experiment: Person A has a need for a specialty product. Person B makes a perfect version of that specialty product. Who is going to be better at connecting Person A to Person B: Person A looking for what the fuck he wants or a faceless, shapeless, gerrymandered algorithm operating on imperfect information over an opaque network designed to abstract and obstruct the steady flow of information from Person A to Person B? By blocking ads, I keep the price of ads low. Things that do not work are not valuable. If the goal is to get an ad in front of me, and I make it so that ads don't get in front of me, I've taken the value of ads to ZERO. Advertising MUST suck by definition. You can solve that one by inspection. It is content that I did not ask for that interferes with the content that I did ask for and it does so through imperfect statistics. The approach taken by the Internet has been to get excruciatingly invasive in its statistics rather than recognize that as the system improves the advertising gets increasingly invasive. Even you, arguing that advertising could theoretically be useful, refer to it as "potential landmines." there is no part of my shopping experience that EVER needs "potential landmines." None of it. Zero. Zilch. This is why the casinos in Vegas chase the pornslappers away from the entrances: they're fucking bad for business.
Which is exactly the opposite of what I am championing. I want to know when flights to Reykjavik are below $500, because I am going there in March. If my Economist article is supported by ads for PRODUCTS I WANT AND AM CURRENTLY SHOPPING FOR, 100% of my screen real estate is valuable to me. Um. No. I said that the existing form of ads are screen landmines that are dangerous to click on. It is content that I did not ask for that interferes with the content that I did ask for and it does so through imperfect statistics.
Even you, arguing that advertising could theoretically be useful, refer to it as "potential landmines."
Google, the largest advertising organization in the world, will absolutely email you alerts whenever the price for a flight to Reykjavik goes below $500 in March. This thing that you think needs to be pushed at you via advertising is a three-click pull setup from the company that has 41% of the digital marketshare in the world. You're arguing that if your can opener were a better can opener it'd make a better daquiri. My argument is that can openers will never make decent daquiris.