Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is the debate in a nutshell: "online advertising has grown so predatory that while blocking is estimated to cost publishers billions of lost revenue a year, it's started to seem less like robbery than self-defense: Ads slow devices, eat up data plans, and sometimes deliver malware. Meanwhile, the industry is building ever-more-detailed dossiers on every user based on web habits." So how can advertising possibly work online? "The Pi-hole team recommends a renewed focus on subscriptions, affiliate links, and curated endorsements for products and services that might truly interest users." As described in the article, Pi-hole is a free, open source software package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi (that) blocks ads across an entire network, including in most apps." The development of ad blocking technology is depicted in this article as being motivated by "resentment", but I think this really is the wrong word. They probably said "resistance."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 22, 2024 4:38 p.m.

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