Blip Fights Back Ad-Block Plus With 90-Second Delay

It's been not too long since I found out about this, but I decided to share it with you guys. Since there's Ad-Block Plus, they have made a change to their player. As of now, if you try to block the advertisements on the Blip player, you will get a message that will last for 90 seconds. Yeah, isn't that just stupid? I mean, even though Ad-Block Plus has been around, it doesn't seem to do any harm at all. But nope, Blip want's you to waste time with bullshit ADs.

Take a look at this and see for yourself:
http://support.blip.tv/entries/21573179-Update-Regarding-Ad-Blockers

Oh joy. Now I can't watch red letter media videos without being forced to watch advertisements, effectively.

Yes, advertisements are annoying. Yes, 30 seconds IS a long time to wait for what I want to watch to come on the screen. Hopefully, any website using Blip will just switch to another player. Assuming YouTube et al don't catch on to this.

NiTROACTiVE said:

Blip want's you to waste time with bullshit ADs.

The trouble is, those "bullshit ADs" are what pay the bills and their producers.

It's probably just a matter of time before someone works out how to defeat their Ad-Block detector. Last such system I encountered used inline javascript to check if a zero-byte web bug had been blocked, once I knew what to let through it stopped complaining about Ad-Block.

youtube-dl gets the real video URL instantly still. I presume a Greasemonkey script can do the same kind of thing.

NiTROACTiVE said:

It's been not too long since I found out about this, but I decided to share it with you guys. Since there's Ad-Block Plus, they have made a change to their player. As of now, if you try to block the advertisements on the Blip player, you will get a message that will last for 90 seconds. Yeah, isn't that just stupid? I mean, even though Ad-Block Plus has been around, it doesn't seem to do any harm at all. But nope, Blip want's you to waste time with bullshit ADs.

Entitlement much? They put ads on so that they can stay operational providing you with free content to watch. They have absolutely all and any right to use anti-ADBlock measures as they please. Man the fuck up.

I'm still kind of confused on how ad revenue on the Internet works exactly. Isn't it based almost entirely on clicks? If so, wouldn't one blocking the ads save them money if said person isn't going to click any way?

Personally I think it would be more productive for them to replace the ads with non-intrusive ads (static image held for 30 seconds) which adblock doesn't block by default, but I guess advertisers aren't getting the message. Ultimately it's their service.

Those with capped connections would have to avoid the site now.

I'm sure we all know that advertisements make things free for us.

Where the confusion lies is why they have to so intrusive, such as making you wait for 30 seconds before watching a video. Football matches are a kaleidoscopic array of colourful advertisements; surrounding the pitch and on the players' outfits. But they don't intrude on the game itself.

So? What? This is a good thing. I'm a fan of many video producers on Blip. Guess what? I don't get to fucking watch new content from them if they don't earn enough money from their videos to pay the fucking bills. My god, people are a bunch of spoiled, self-entitled, whiny little brats. What's one or two 30-second ads compared to the amount of advertising you're bombarded with on regular television? A 30-minute Blip show might have two ads at most, adding to a total of 1 minute of ads for a 30-minute show. That same show on TV is going to have 8 minutes of advertising, effectively cutting it down to 22 minutes. And of course on top of that, you also have to put up with things like endless product-placement.

Or how about the endless commercials you have to sit through when going to the theater to watch a movie you already paid for? Why is 30 seconds suddenly going too far when we are constantly bombarded with hours of advertising in virtually every other form of media? And again, it pays the bills - these are everyday people working their asses off to give us free entertainment - these aren't big Hollywood producers with endless budgets.

Blzut3 said:

I'm still kind of confused on how ad revenue on the Internet works exactly. Isn't it based almost entirely on clicks? If so, wouldn't one blocking the ads save them money if said person isn't going to click any way?

There's pay-per-click and pay-per-immersion. It's usually negotiable which method is being used.

@DoomUK: Intrusive? A 30 second ad before a video is far better than a couple of minutes of advertisements every ten minutes on television. Of course, the less intrusive ads we get the better the viewing experience is, but what we already have is pretty darn good in comparison to old media. Besides, it's exactly those ad blockers that are partially responsible for the more intrusive ads: Advertising is all about return of investment, and if a significant portion of the potential target base is all "lol no pl0x" then hell yes they are going to try and get the most out of the smaller number of people watching as possible.

DoomUK said:

(...) Assuming YouTube et al don't catch on to this.

or a shitty USA goverment make it illegal to block ads and then spread the law in europe, because they are more about money than justice.

I have never encoutered any blip video, but when I do, then I will rather wait 90seconds and read some forum meanwhile etc. than allowing an exception in my adblock.

Wikipedia says:
"In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide" In a year? O.o
That is awfull lot of money for something that the world could live without. Good products do not need any advertisement, in my opinion.

I play games and buy them. The games are not anything spectatular, but they at least entertain people and right ones can even increase their mental abilities.
While those ads just bother people and you pay for them too, by increased price of the products they advertise.

But of course those figures may have been a little exaggurated.

30 seconds is too long. Period.

Once ads start to get annoying they will have a negative effect on the customer. Apparently some advertisers still haven't realized that.

Sokoro said:

Wikipedia says:
"In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide" In a year? O.o
That is awfull lot of money for something that the world could live without. Good products do not need any advertisement, in my opinion.

Jesus Christ, are you a fucking idiot? Do you know what that advertisement money is funding? A large part of it makes any commercially funded media we have viable and working. You kill of advertising, and all you'll have left is NPR, BBC and a couple of religiously or politically biased outlets funded by members of their own niches. Ads and sponsorships also make a great deal of other entertainment-related industries possible. Bah, who cares, lets just cull them all and make all those people lose their hobbies or, even worse, their jobs. Yeah, sounds like great idea.

Graf Zahl said:

Once ads start to get annoying they will have a negative effect on the customer. Apparently some advertisers still haven't realized that.

But without ads there is no effect at all. Apparently some customers still haven't realised that.

Yeah, even a negatively received ad raises awareness of the product. Which is by far the primary goal of marketing. There's that old test: Think of a soda pop; think of a brand of jeans; think of a restaurant; etc. Invariably, the large majority of people will answer with well-known and advertised brands, even if they don't solicit those products. If you think of a niche brand, then you're an outlier, or you had to suppress your initial response.

Jodwin said:

A large part of it makes any commercially funded media we have viable and working. You kill of advertising, and all you'll have left is NPR, BBC and a couple of religiously or politically biased outlets funded by members of their own niches.

Sounds a lot like the old "home taping is killing music" argument again. I'm with Sokoro on this. The world could do without advertising and marketing, though it's a pipe dream that we'll certainly never see. Imagine a world where people didn't get paid money to promote brainless action movies and sell chocolate bars to kids. The number of people being paid to do utterly worthless things is incredible, and advertising is only one example.

On the AD-Block Plus forums, KosherHotDog said this in this thread he replied to:

KosherHotDog of AD-Block Plus Forums said:

Ok, the fix that i found that works, is that when your ad blocker is active, you must open the blockable items. Once you have done this, locate ad.autitude.com and add it to the exception list. This fools blip into thinking you've allowed it, but the video ads are not allowed to play. May this help you in sticking it to the ads.

I also got some reports on the thread that it worked, but how do you get it to work in Google Chrome?

fraggle said:

Sounds a lot like the old "home taping is killing music" argument again. I'm with Sokoro on this. The world could do without advertising and marketing, though it's a pipe dream that we'll certainly never see. Imagine a world where people didn't get paid money to promote brainless action movies and sell chocolate bars to kids. The number of people being paid to do utterly worthless things is incredible, and advertising is only one example.

Yeah but people also would rather not pay-for-play.

fraggle said:

Sounds a lot like the old "home taping is killing music" argument again. I'm with Sokoro on this. The world could do without advertising and marketing.

And how should manufacturers sell their products then?

Sure, there's far too much advertisement and I certainal would appreciate if it got toned down, but eliminating it completely would probably revert society to a state none of us would like.

Graf Zahl said:

30 seconds is too long. Period.

Once ads start to get annoying they will have a negative effect on the customer. Apparently some advertisers still haven't realized that.

30 seconds of ads for a 30 minute video is too long, but 8 minutes of ads for a 22 minute TV show isn't? Explain to me, if producers aren't paid ad revenue, why should they spend money making content for others to enjoy. Out of the goodness of their hearts? Yeah, sure, I bet a lot of producers would still make videos for free if they could, but if they have no source of income, no source of funding, then it doesn't matter whether they want to do it or not - they simply won't have the resources either way. I don't see what's so wrong about people wanting to make money on the videos they produce on the Internet.

geekmarine said:

30 seconds of ads for a 30 minute video is too long, but 8 minutes of ads for a 22 minute TV show isn't?

I don't watch ad-financed TV. Guess why! ;)

And yes, 30 seconds is too long if they come before you can even start watching.

fraggle said:

Sounds a lot like the old "home taping is killing music" argument again.

Then you're not listening. Ad skipping isn't actually part of the equation - corporations know exactly what their clickthroughs are and are weighing the cost/benefit ratios of all avenues of advertising. If they don't get enough revenues from an ad-supported site, that site doesn't get their money.

Graf Zahl said:

I don't watch ad-financed TV. Guess why! ;)

And yes, 30 seconds is too long if they come before you can even start watching.

All media has to be financed one way or another. If you're already paying for the media and there are ads, fine, you have every right to complain, but it doesn't make sense to complain about ads in media that you view for free. You come across as saying that content creators do not deserve some form of compensation for their work, that if you're not paying for the work directly, they don't deserve to earn money from it.

If that's not what you're saying, then fine, my mistake, but it seems to me that a lot of people are trying to make the argument that they want it both ways - they want the content to be free, but they think ads which pay for the content and allowed it to be viewed for free are too much of an inconvenience.

I block ads as a security measure. The possibility of getting a virus from a malicious ad is greater than the mild inconvenience of having to sit through a 90 second disclaimer. Until THAT ends, adblockers are useful and necessary.

rf` said:

I block ads as a security measure. The possibility of getting a virus from a malicious ad is greater than the mild inconvenience of having to sit through a 90 second disclaimer. Until THAT ends, adblockers are useful and necessary.

I block by default for random surfing, but set Adblock to turn off on certain websites I frequent regularly. It's slower, and more annoying than surfing without ads, but I'd feel like an ass if I didn't at least tangentially support websites that I love (like Rock Paper Shotgun).

Hell, sometimes I even click the ads. I appreciate a website that puts up ads that 1) aren't annoying, and 2) are actually related to the theme of the website. I've even seen charities using banner ads!

Turn your Ad Blockers off for a moment, and you'll see an inconspicuous banner at the bottom of this page.

I wish all internet advertisements were like that.

Anyone saying that 30 seconds of advertising video isn't too long has never had (or can't remember having) a slow Internet connection. When watching a 30 second video involves 60 seconds of buffering, it is far too long. And, yes, some people are stuck in a situation where a faster connection is not an option.

Even though I now have a connection that can handle it, if an advertising video pops up somewhere instead of the video that I am trying to see I just close the tab. Advert = no view from me.

schwerpunk said:

2) are actually related to the theme of the website. I've even seen charities using banner ads!

Personally I like ads that are related to my own interests. Good work Google! :P

Enjay said:

Anyone saying that 30 seconds of advertising video isn't too long has never had (or can't remember having) a slow Internet connection. When watching a 30 second video involves 60 seconds of buffering, it is far too long. And, yes, some people are stuck in a situation where a faster connection is not an option.

Even though I now have a connection that can handle it, if an advertising video pops up somewhere instead of the video that I am trying to see I just close the tab. Advert = no view from me.

I wouldn't watch 30-minute TV shows on a slow Internet connection in the first place. Christ, if you can't handle a 30-second ad, then WTF are you doing watching TV shows over the Internet?

IMO, it seems that people are confusing Blip with Youtube. We're not talking 10-second funny cat videos here, in which case the arguments would make sense. We're talking full-length TV shows and even movies. Sorry, but this just bothers me - I'm a huge fan of many shows on Blip, and the people who seem most outraged by this change are people who don't even know what Blip offers.