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A comment on Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play while you're away.". Parent comment

Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by xtracto on Thursday February 26, 2026 @05:51PM (#47173230)
There was a Firefox extension long ago that did NOT block ads but hid them. Basically it loaded them and for all the site knew, the add was showing, so it was transparent.

But, the ad wasn't rendering in the page. So the user didnt need to suffer them, but the website owners still profited.

The only losers where ad buyers, who IMHO are exactly the ones that should be affected.until they realize that ads are not effective.

Someone should bring something like that for current platforms. Even for video like, a placeholder video with a tip, interesting fact or whatever, playing while the page load the real video.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by Permik on Thursday February 26, 2026 @08:56PM (#47175328)
Not sure if you're talking about Adnauseam, but this is basically the lawful evil version of the extension you're describing. https://adnauseam.io/

Adnauseam actually clicks on every ad in the background, otherwise it's just a wrapper on uBlock Origin.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by xtracto on Thursday February 26, 2026 @09:52PM (#47175805)
Yes! That one. But we need it for video ads as well now.

Ads are an evil that must be removed from the internet, and draining the wallets of companies using ads, without upside, would make them place less value on them.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by kyorochan on Friday February 27, 2026 @05:26AM (#47178861)
If ads are not effective, why do you think companies keep buying them? Surely they would have realized by now.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by rchaud on Friday February 27, 2026 @11:07AM (#47182155)
Companies have ad budgets that must be spent to the last dollar lest that dollar be deducted from next year's budget.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by ej88 on Friday February 27, 2026 @01:33PM (#47183847)
The only reason why have an ad budget is because buying ads was effective. If they were no longer effective there would be no ad budget
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by rfwhyte on Friday February 27, 2026 @11:19AM (#47182300)
Ad buyers wouldn't be buying ads if they weren't effective.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by dpoloncsak on Friday February 27, 2026 @03:48PM (#47185395)
>The only losers where ad buyers, who IMHO are exactly the ones that should be affected.until they realize that ads are not effective.

Honest question, what do you envision will keep the free-internet free in lou of ads? Do you think a pay-walled internet, $3 for this site, $5 for this....would ever take off?

I too block ads, but feel like i'm slowly contributing to the death spiral of the internet

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by estimator7292 on Friday February 27, 2026 @04:09PM (#47185649)
The internet used to be free.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by xtracto on Saturday February 28, 2026 @01:12AM (#47191115)
It's so sad to read that there is people who is completely oblivious to the time when we had amazing free Gopher sites, or the WWW started and was fully Free (with L as in Libre).

People born in 2000+ have no idea about that time

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by dpoloncsak on Saturday February 28, 2026 @12:00PM (#47197613)
Servers cost money, at the end of the day
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play... by neruthes on Friday February 27, 2026 @09:06PM (#47189175)
Perhaps in recent years informational blog articles are mostly ads for the writer's products, services, and the chance to employ them? Informational stuff will remain public and free because eager seekers of monetization will easily convert to creators of marketplace-protected products and sell something on Steam or Gumroad. As long as one's primary purpose is to be informed, there will always be some writer not monetizing that particular piece of information. Maintaining the infrastructure (data centers and cables) eventually costs a lot of money and it must be paid by somebody eventually. Serving text pieces from a CDN is cheap enough for any blogger to personally afford, but no sane video hosting website will stop putting ads around.
[ Parent | on HN ]