The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

Firefox is an exception here, which really underscores it's importance

yep, and that's why it is set as my primary browser, sadly integrated browser in the apps is still chrome :/

Android: firefox for android, or the plethora of adblock browsers out there

iOS: adblockers are natively supported through "content blockers", plus there's a plethora of adblock browsers

But not possible in native apps which have largely supplanted the use of web pages.

Users can still choose not to install native apps. For as long as the web remains free, I’ll happily support newspapers, magazines, YT Premium and Patreon with my dollars, while absolutely not using the apps with ads in them, in favour of using 3 different content blocking extensions in Safari, and Strict privacy mode in Edge with uBlock Origin on desktop.

That said, because ads are inserted by third parties, you can often block ads with DNS and/or VPN. It’s a shame that iOS has never allowed changing the DNS while on mobile networks, though.

Really though, I miss when we were building open standards for content though, like RSS and podcasts.

Feels like a different era of the Internet, as we never saw an open standard take off for ChromeCast/AirPlay2 or the mentioned-on-stage open standards for FaceTime. Even the RIAA is trying to lock down music again by promoting MQA (Tidal) over FLAC (HDtracks, Amazon).

Closest thing to “open” that I can think of recently for content would be HLS streaming, which optionally supports encryption, but is otherwise open to use or implement.

Given recent history, I think it could go either way, but I doubt users will ever fully accept a closed web, so as long as the web provides open alternatives on every platform, we’ll still be in the clear... for now. :)

As long as websites continue letting you access them on mobile without the app…

A lot of them try really hard not to. A reason for the "show desktop-version" setting's popularity. It's really sad that this has to be a thing, and doesen't really remedy the situation, more like a bandaid.

I wish Request Desktop Site would also fake a larger viewport width, maybe 1024px or so.

Without that, it’s becoming increasingly less useful IMO.

When I need fake desktop width I tend to use iCab. I suppose you could accomplish something similar with a Shortcut injecting/changing HTML using JS.

On Android there are options such as the open source Blokada [1] that abuse the VPN features to block ads in all apps.

[1] https://blokada.org/

DNS level adblocking is possible untill DNS over HTTPS becomes the standard.

> or the plethora of adblock browsers out there

I use Brave, is there another someone likes more?

I use Kiwi browser, which supports all chrome extensions.

Firefox on Android at least gives you add-ons (hello, uBlock Origin).

Or DNS66 to do it for mostly everywhere in Android.

The only reason that's possible is because of open web standards though so the point still stands.

This largely only really true on Android. iOS at least lets you install content blockers that work with Safari as well as any embedded web browsers within apps. The only place I typically see ads on iOS is in free to play games, and in those cases that's usually a pretty good incentive to play something else.

> iOS at least lets you install content blockers that work with Safari as well as any embedded web browsers within apps.

Only if the app uses SFSafariViewController.

On Android you have DNS66 (non-root) and AdAway (root), both can kill ads in browsers + webviews + native apps.

Somehow people will find a way. If we can't have a universal browser, maybe the answer is to make a browser for every web service. We can make custom apps that pretend to be the official ones while interfacing with the company's servers.

Whatever it takes to maintain control.

Does anyone really have the time and motivation? It seems like so far there aren't any alternative clients (basic web wrappers don't count) for services that need it the most - think WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, etc?

> Does anyone really have the time and motivation?

I don't know if anyone has tried. It's definitely possible, though.

I used to play some of those predatory mobile games. At some point I got sick of their addictive "daily tasks" game design and decided to automate all of it. I intercepted the game's network traffic: it was just JSON. Didn't take long to write software to talk to the server and do the tasks for me.

Any code that's running on the client can be tampered with or replaced. It's probably not going to be easy but it's certainly possible.

> WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram

WhatsApp is already among the best messaging services. It doesn't really do anything that would motivate people to replace it with something better. Having custom software which lacks the remote message deletion feature would be interesting but it would be too much work for too little gain.

I don't use Facebook and Instagram enough to have an opinion.

On the upside, some content of independent authors is largely supported via avenues like Patreon and tips, not ads.

Most of the websites I produce do not have ads on them. I don't make much money, but I do make some and it's better than it used to be. I'm hopeful that there will be more of a trend towards small content producers making enough to survive and we can begin to crowd out the "cancer" that is some of the worst commercialized stuff.

It doesn't have to go away completely. We can just refuse to let it choke everything.

Thank goodness for my pi hole, but unfortunately that only works at my home network! I'm always unpleasantly surprised whenever I leave the safety of 192.168.1.1

Put your PiHole in the cloud. There's no place like 127.0.0.1.

You could also use a VPN to your home network.

You can view source with Firefox on Android. You can also use add-ons to block ads. I haven't tried anything like GreaseMonley for userscripts though.

Safari has robust ad-blocking support built in and good ad blockers even have inspectors to let you block custom elements.

A glimpse of the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

Are you sure? I will have VR (AR?) googles with a camera that sees what my head points at, processes the video graying out ads, and shows it to me on my screens. Not sure commercial interests can prevent this product.

Plugin to overlay ad areas with They Live / Barbara Kruger style positive messages. “smile” “breathe” “relax”

Go full They Live and just replace every ad with "Consume"

And replace people with aliens.

Totally agree. Bromite is a patched chrome with privacy enhancements and ad blocking. It used to provide a system webview engine that allowed all that for apps's integrated webviews... So its technically possible but Google doesnt like that feature

https://github.com/bromite/bromite/wiki/Installing-SystemWeb...

It's only a matter of time until sites are rendering ads and content via websockets and wasm.

If it runs client side there’s an ability somewhere to control it.

Until ads run in a trusted enclave. DRM for streaming paves the technological path.

DVDs had unskippable content sections, usually used for ads (i.e. trailers for other films).

WebAssembly is also trying to close that small window in the web.

no hope for open source?

> (My VR goggles will gray out billboards, etc.)

I think it'll be the exact opposite. I think the Black Mirror episodes are closer to what will be in our (not too distant) future. The content will track your gaze, and if you are not looking at the ad, then measures will be taken to get your attention back to where "it should be".

>then measures will be taken to get your attention back to where "it should be".

Please drink verification can.

The measures depicted in Black Mirror are straight up torture. Loud noise to punish people who refuse to look at advertisements? That level of abuse should be cause for violent resistance.

Doubtful the sheeple would resist. That would take too much effort. It's just easier to watch the commercial.

Wasn't there one that just paused the video, and would not continue until you watched the ad? The advertisers have to crawl before they can run. But if they had their way, loud noises would not be beyond their acceptable measures. I mean, they did spend all of that money producing the ad, so the least you can do is watch it.

> Doubtful the sheeple would resist. That would take too much effort. It's just easier to watch the commercial.

No, neo-Luddites will. If they aren't successful later generations will eventually forget how it was to not have coercive ads, so they won't have the same visceral response to the indignities they cause. Sort of like what happened with the market system.

> My VR goggles will gray out billboards

Only if the billboard doesn't qualify for "acceptable billboard ads" (or you could jailbreak and run a different billboard blocker like a rebel)

> With ML, eventually this will become pervasive, even into the physical world. (My VR goggles will gray out billboards, etc.)

Will your glasses grey out James Bond's Aston Martin in Goldfinger?

Not really necessary unless Bond’s current fling proclaims “This is a truly astonishing automobile, James. From which dealer is it available, and are there any current incentives?”

If only advertising was so opaque.

With style transfer improving a bit they can make it any brand ;P

No, because it will be smart enough to know that I enjoy seeing that.

This is the real dystopia. Ever talk to the adtech experts? The question they ask is how can we display the ads that people will enjoy seeing the most? Hence Instagram is effectively all ads.

I'm willing to try that. So far, I only see ads I hate.

What ever happened to gold like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcWPusAmaWI

Those are just the ads you recognize. How many ads do you see in a day that you don't even recognize as ads because they're not obvious or obtrusive, they just subtly bring your attention to a product that you never would have thought or cared about without it. Quiet product placement, ads disguised as news, fluff science sponsored by corporations, then there's those big companies that create lifestyles around their brand and people become so entrenched in that company's products, they don't even think about the fact they've never even considered an alternative.

> It's like a creeping cancer that cannot be stopped

Billboards are heavily regulated and sparse in New Zealand. It can be stopped, but it takes willpower and hard work.

And a culture that has less respect for private property, for better or for worse. 4 states ban billboards fwiw

The use of your private property should not impede someone else's ability to use theirs. I don't think building airhorns is allowed either, because it really affects others. Or how you can't just build a kilometer high mirror setup that burns your neighborhood down

As desperately as much as I'd like there to be a compelling VR experience equivalent to 2d internet we have today there just isn't one. VR seems to be the exclusive domain of games. I can't imagine Facebook's Oculus graying out billboards unless it's to replace someone else's advertisement with their own.

That cancer is called consumerism

Please don't turn an economic model into a political platform.

When the economic model's enthusiastic practitioners turn it into a political platform, what's the rest of us supposed to do?

I half agree with parent and half agree with you.

On one hand, economic models are political platforms.

On the other hand all the -isms are very loaded topics due to decades of misrepresentation (as is the nature of politics).

But, I think this post isn't the place to discuss it.

Politics and economics are inseparably connected.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they are the same. Capitalism is a way to describe market efficiency which is a good thing, but people are turning the word to mean a system where people hurt each other for profit.

I agree people shouldn't hurt each other, but that doesn't mean we should redefine a word and abandon a system of marketplaces.

You see I disagree with your fundamental premise, capitalism is a means to amplify creation of money and wealth inequality which is a bad thing, but people sometimes use it for good to help each other.

The definition of capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

I wish I could edit my first comment to include the definition. I hate inequality and people hurting others through abusive practices too.

That’s what I would call the spiritual or religious definition. It’s followed by the philosophical followers of capitalism (economics majors and similar). The practical definition of capitalism is studied by the operational practitioners (business administration, executives) of capitalism and only superficially resembles the former.

I'm sorry; I am not well versed at making things up and passing it off as statements of fact.

I would guess that VR googles that can gray out billboards, etc will likely first get used by governments to keep people from seeing protests. What would previously have been anti-government protestors will be changed by the googles to show them holding pro- government placards. Police brutality will be censored by the goggles. You will get in huge trouble if you go outside without your goggles.