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Yes, Ian doesn't do any bullshit with ad block detection or blocking. The site works fine with ads blocked. I'm reminded that there should be a tiered ad block tool. I would like to be able to not block traditional ad banners (an img tag and a link, maybe with an affiliate ID), like the ones on the sidebar of Ian's site, while still blocking the surveillance ads like Google serves. I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well, but, as a user, they don't bother me at all...and, I'm far more likely to click them if they're really relevant to the site I'm looking at.

Honestly, the old way of doing ads was also The Good Internet. No surveillance, the people placing the ads needed to actually think about where to spend their money, the sites had to decide personally whether the ad fit their audience and ethics. The ad surveillance networks launder all the ethical questions into a wash of hateful attention stealing and tracking user behavior.

by Semaphor1 hours ago|

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> I know traditional ad banners don't perform all that well

I’m not sure that’s always true. We have our own homegrown adserver that’s almost 100% context based (a few ads for stores do rudimentary IP geo-targeting, all purely first-party though), and it does well with both banners and text based ads. It’s in the digital photography niche. I’d assume generally places that are strongly oriented towards a niche can do a lot with context based advertisment. CTR is much better than for Google ads (that we also run).

by SwellJoe1 hours ago|

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Yeah, I think publishers/advertisers are actually leaving money on the table by using Google ads instead of bespoke targeted ads from direct sponsors. It's a lot harder to manage ads without Google doing all the work, but they're better for readers and advertisers if there's a human with good taste and judgement in the loop.