this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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78
Improving online advertising through product and infrastructure | The Mozilla Blog (blog.mozilla.org)
submitted 11 hours ago by tux0r@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

our expanded focus on online advertising won’t be embraced by everyone in our community

you don't say

all 13 comments
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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 24 points 5 hours ago

Targeted ads should be illegal.

Contextual ads are a compromise I would accept. That is, you can buy ads based on the page content, but not the viewer details. So if I'm looking at a website about bikes, you can have bike ads on there. You don't need to know I'm a xx year old living in zip code 10001. That's how ads worked for like decades (centuries?). It's fine.

[–] zecg@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Fuck you, Mozilla. I'll turn off any option you expose and run away to Librewolf or Fennec as soon as you cross the line. And the line is ublock origin, make no mistake about that. Here's a tip: Raymond Hill is the most valuable asset Mozilla has and, here's the kicker -- YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE HIM.

[–] pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah screw these guys, I'm going back to chrome!

But really, relax guys. Ads are the only way to run a profitable browser business. Change my mind. Any paid solution won't get the scale to make the numbers work.

[–] tux0r@feddit.org 0 points 1 hour ago

Why do you think a web browser needs to make money?

[–] disguised_doge@kbin.earth 19 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

became the thing you were to destroy

They get (got?) millions in donations, maybe instead of giving it to their CEO and political activists they put it into the browser they could run their browser without ads. But instead they became the infinite growth (at least attempted anyway, not doing well in the growth department) funded by ads silicon valley company in a nonprofit's disguise.

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Those millions will drain in a few months and at the end of the day they are a company and need to make money. Its not a fairy tale where Mozilla fight against the big tech and ends up winning because of their good will , be realistic we live on a capitalist society , companies need to make money. I prefer to still have them around rather than letting Google being another monopoly on the internet.

[–] Kyouki@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

While realistic - if nobody tries differently without getting just the massive bag of ceo tax money, it'll never ever change.

[–] capt_kafei@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I'm honestly not against this. I know a lot of people will be furious with Mozilla about doing anything related to advertising, but as the article says:

And, for the foreseeable future at least, advertising is a key commercial engine of the internet, and the most efficient way to ensure the majority of content remains free and accessible to as many people as possible.

We may dislike ads, but the vast majority of internet users are not going to engage with content that requires you to pay up front. Creators and journalists need money to survive, and currently, ad-supported viewing is necessary for that to happen.

Instead of just hoping that advertising somehow goes away, I'm glad that Mozilla is working on ways for ads to exist without mass individual user tracking. I wish it wasn't necessary, but wishing won't change the world.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 13 points 9 hours ago

With all due respect, Mozilla is now (and, for a while, has been) an ad company. When an ad company tells you ads are necessary, you should not trust them. Plenty of lousy things have been entrenched as social norms, but it is the job of the entrenchers to justify their existence... Which Mozilla is definitely not doing here.

[–] tux0r@feddit.org 12 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Creators and journalists need money to survive, and currently, ad-supported viewing is necessary for that to happen.

The only way out of this is to block advertising. I, personally, think that you should not have a website if you can't pay for it yourself, but the only acceptable kind of website income is a paywall. If you just have "better advertising", advertising will never go away. And I hate ads.

[–] d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I, personally, think that you should not have a website if you can't pay for it yourself

You might want to consider how expensive web hosting can be, depending on the content and traffic. A belief like that can shut out a huge portion of the world from being able to even bother with a web site. Even a simple blog can get very expensive due to traffic. Maybe not expensive enough for your average 1st world individual... But that still excludes a large portion of the population with internet access.

[–] tux0r@feddit.org 1 points 1 hour ago

So? Is anyone who can’t afford one legally obliged to have a website?