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A comment on Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20%. Parent comment

Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by trowawee on Thursday November 02, 2017 @05:45PM (#15614563)
So, I don't have a formal study saying that techies are the most likely to ad-block/least likely to click ads. What we know:

- Ad-blocker users skew young and wealthy.[1] The developer community as a whole also skews young and wealthy.

- If you are aware of the existence of ad-blocking technology, you probably use it.[2]

- Via comparison with other sites, you can also make some extrapolations. Take IGN - not a perfect proxy, but a reasonable one, with a core audience that is probably fairly demographically similar to the core audience for most developer-oriented sites. Approximately 40% of their traffic was using ad-blockers in 2015.[3] A Wired statement posted in 2016 has 20% of their traffic using ad-blockers.[4]

- Anecdotal evidence: every dev I've worked with has at least one ad-blocker installed. The vast majority of dev-adjacent people I've worked with - PMs, technical writers, designers - have ad-blockers installed.

Put it together and I think it makes a fairly compelling case that techies are the last audience on earth you'd want to orient your online marketing towards. I used to hope that something like The Deck[5], which was explicitly targeted towards "web, design & creative professionals", would be a good solution to this, and I even permitted their ads on Metafilter, but they shut down last year, presumably because they just weren't making enough money. They did everything that people claimed they wanted: the ads were unobtrusive, mostly text and optimized images, they didn't engage in tracking, they didn't sell user data (as far as I know), and they still couldn't make it work.

1. https://marketingland.com/ad-blocker-usage-highest-among-key... people-and-high-earners-143546

2. https://digiday.com/media/survey-80-percent-know-ad-blocking...

3. http://adage.com/article/digital/websites-hit-hardest-ad-blo...

4. https://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocki...

5. http://decknetwork.net/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by skinnymuch on Friday November 03, 2017 @10:06AM (#15619293)
People can claim all they want about wanting The Deck sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, those ads are still blocked most of the time. Possibly out of laziness to completely whitelist it, but the end result is the same. The ads are blocked like any other. I don't feel as optimistic that people blocking ads even want The Deck sort of ads. But without a study I'm okay not being sure.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by trowawee on Friday November 03, 2017 @11:15AM (#15619778)
Yeah, that's what I was trying to get across. I think the revealed preferences of most people using adblockers is that, while they say they would be ok with unobtrusive ads, they really don't want any ads at all. And to be honest, that's not a ludicrous view, because I've found that even on sites that have ostensibly "unobtrusive ads", all it takes is one bad actor and one slip-up in the ad network's verification process and unobtrusive ads become obtrusive and/or start invading your privacy. But we're going to have to find some other way to pay for content at some point.

Also, thanks for fixing that link.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by skinnymuch on Saturday November 04, 2017 @02:57PM (#15626370)
Maybe, but a lot of sites only use Carbon/Deck or Adsense and some of those click bait native ad networks. I'm not sure if any of the click bait native ad networks have ever done too much with the issues you listed. I personally believe it's a bit too privileged to say no to Adsense like ads and native ads. You're likely to ever get a virus from them. At worst they are mildly annoying. That's all.

I find the one bad actor excuse to be just that. Another rationale or excuse.

So yeah I think the people just don't want any ads at all. Just like if I showed people how to block Spotify ads on their desktop and on how to do it on rooted android or iPhones, many people would stop paying Spotify. I don't tell my friends about these things for moral reasons, but it's just adding on to the point. People by and large will go with what's convenient. A simple app that can block Spotify ads will do for them. While jailbreaking would be too inconvenient.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stack Overflow reducing headcount by 20% by skinnymuch on Friday November 03, 2017 @10:02AM (#15619278)
Nice post with citations.

Your first link messes up though. Seems to be the correct link, but got cut off somehow. In case you don't or can't correct it anymore, it's: https://marketingland.com/ad-blocker-usage-highest-among-key...

[ Parent | on HN ]