SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

- the more people that use adblock/sponsor block, the less effective ads are in general (lower advertiser ROI for each ad)

- if ROI for ads drop, ad sellers (eg. youtubers) have to reduce the price charged to advertisers

- given that ad budgets are more or less constant (companies will always need to reach customers) there will simply be more ads, since each ad view is now worth less.

- if ads become completely ineffective (eg. reddit) ads will simply become disguised as content to get past people's filter (aka content marketing, submarine articles etc)

Are the people who tend to use adblock likely to actually engage with the ads with adblock off?

Yeah, I always wondered if adblockers actually _improved_ per ad engagement, as users of an adblocker are opting themselves out of advertisement (thereby removing themselves from "inventory"), and seem like they would be less likely overall to engage with ads, and thus the adblocker usage is reducing the number of non-engaging users.

Sure, overall "inventory" would go down, but I would expect for ads that actually make it to users, per-ad engagement/ROI (and thus "value") to go up.

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Unless ad networks are charging advertisers for ad units that aren't actually shown to anybody, which smells an awful lot like grift to me!

(effectively charging for hidden ad units to inflate numbers)

I've always wondered this.

To add a datapoint, I've used adblock forever, but in places where I do see ads I've never had the thought to click on them, just get past them as quickly as possible.

Other people in my family however have bought things through Instagram/Facebook ads, so there are at least SOME people buying things through ads. They also have never bothered to install adblock.

Conversion rates for ads are super small in my experience anyway so driving conversion up should(?) balance the price out the price of people using adblock who would not see anything, and would not click if they did.

What is your definition of engagement? clicking on it? buying a product after clicking on it? or recognizing the brand when you are buying a product weeks after seeing the ad?

> - if ads become completely ineffective (eg. reddit) ads will simply become disguised as content to get past people's filter (aka content marketing, submarine articles etc)

There's no "if" here. This type of advertising exists across all platforms and content distribution channels, and has existed for centuries. Whether or not ads are blocked does nothing to stop it.

What's a submarine article? Can't find the term on google.

I block ads because I don't have ad blindness, when I watch ads I focus my attention on it like on normal content people who are used to seeing ads don't notice most of ads

As existence proof, I buy stuff I see when I'm watching TV at someone else's place or when I use Instagram (which has ads right in the Stories feed). I see no reason why I'm special since I'm a pretty normal user when I'm using these things.

I block all ads and I don't think i've ever purchased something from an AD, even when i see them elsewhere or on instagram ect.

I honestly wonder what makes me different to you? I definitely don't have self control like that in other aspects of my life. Maybe it's I'm skeptical and figure ever ad is trying to swindle me out of my money maybe?

I’m absolutely not like you, I tune out ads but internalize them, but I’m happy for you that you live in this time. At least you have options to live an ad-free life. I guess you would have been the person to buy a Foreman grill and a Bowflex if you had lived in the 80s.

Good. Let them scramble to find lunch money; jamming ads in my face is rude.

And if ad blockers didn't exist, they would still increase the number of ads anyway. If nobody could block ads, there would be no incentive for companies to be scared about having "too many ads", as there would be nowhere for users to turn to (ie. ad blockers).

aka the "you actually want to show ads to paying customers, because you've got evidence they have disposable income and a willingess to part with it" phenomenon.

So by your logic, we should all be taking in as much advertisements as humanly possible because that would lead to the least net amount of advertisements for all? Excuse me for being somewhat skeptical of that.

Maybe you just spend less than me. I also have high scam tolerance. i.e. one of my personal OKRs is to spend some amount of money per year on things just past my scam threshold.