I'm not directly disputing what you're saying, just wanted to point out for context that (1) you have to reach some threshold before you have to start paying AB+ to whitelist you (I don't know much about the business of advertising so unclear how high a bar this is to clear); (2) technically an independent entity gets to determine what's "acceptable" (I don't know how independent it actually is in practice).

> AB+ "acceptable ads" exists to solicit bribes from websites to display their ads.

Surely you admit that the "acceptable" criteria are at least directionally correct? So even if you find the model icky, it's also "improving" the overall quality of ads (i.e. making them less intrusive/obnoxious/annoying)?

Given the shortcomings of AB+, what do you think is a better way of (1) defining acceptable ad standards; (2) generating enough revenue as an organization to build/maintain ad whitelists? Genuine questions to provoke discussion :)

> you have to reach some threshold before you have to start paying AB+ to whitelist you

Irrelevant. I (and 99% of other users) spend the majority of my time on the internet on websites large enough to meet the threshold.

> technically an independent entity gets to determine what's "acceptable"

Skimming the first page of that "independent" committee's bylaws: they self describe as being "hosted by eeyeo" (the developer of AB+).

> So even if you find the model icky, it's also "improving" the overall quality of ads (i.e. making them less intrusive/obnoxious/annoying)?

I don't care about via what mechanism advertisers improve their ads - that is their job to worry about not mine.

> what do you think is a better way of defining acceptable ad standards

I, the user, choose what is acceptable in my browser, not a for-profit company that benefits from bribes to whitelist ads. Believe it or not I do whitelist some websites with what I consider acceptable ads, but I do not and will never use an ad whitelist.

> generating enough revenue as an organization to build/maintain ad whitelists

Ad whitelists that generate revenue essentially always have a conflict of interest.

Web advertising's abysmal reputation isn't some freak accident. Websites and advertisers should work together to create actually acceptable ads rather than trying to bribe adblockers and hope users don't notice.

Just whitelist some pages that reasonably uses ads with ublock origin. Putting a profit-seeking entity into the picture is not a good idea.