Technical people often complain about popups and other marketing practices, not realizing that the vast majority of people aren't technical and do not complain, much less care, about such practices. They'll click the close button on the popup and move on.
They absolutely care. It's just that they think it can't be helped. People love it when I install uBlock Origin for them. They tell tell me the web just feels nicer, less annoying to use.
"Users don't mind" is nothing but adtech propaganda.
They definitely care. They’re just not empowered to do anything about it It’s ubiquitous and technical solutions are not available to the non-technical.
I can tell you from experience, they really do not care. It's not even something that crosses their minds. You can see for yourself, ask 100 non-technical people you know about stuff like ads and popups. I bet over 50% of them simply do not care. It is a technical person's bias to think they do.
I assume that asking "do you care?" will give you "no" quite often. But asking "do you want to see ads?" will give you an equal amount of "no" if not more. Or asking "do you want to block ads?" will give you a lots of "yes". It's all in the question, as over 50% of all savvy marketeers will know.
That's probably the reason why even the people in the marketing department of my last tech lead gig run adblockers on their Macs. They used to not do that but as one of them recently told me "the internet has turned to shit". I had the feeling the irony of the situation was not lost on him, but he was unable to verbalize it.
I also recall a company where the IT just rolled out an adblocker one day (in 2018 or so) to about a 1000 seats and it was the talk of the week in the cafeteria because the internet had become sooo much better.
Sure, these are individual experiences with little statistical value. They confirm my bias that people, given a choice, would like to see less ads. Most of them don't know they have a choice beyond "seeing ads" and "not using the internet", so they submit. Show them more choices and they gladly chose less ads.
I have done that. Most people go, "oh, cool," then continue on. They really don't care one way or another, and it's more evident when I ask them later about what I just did and how they feel.
> I have done that. Most people go, "oh, cool," then continue on. They really don't care one way or another, and it's more evident when I ask them later about what I just did and how they feel.
They start caring when they use another computer that doesn't block popups.
You say you've installed ublock origin for people? Lovely - go back a month later and remove it, then see how much they care.
People don't care when they think they have no chance to get something, but they do care when something they have is taken away.
Many people don't care about the results of a lottery for a car, but take away those same peoples $1 for a ticket, and suddenly they are very interested in the result.
Your experience matches reality: since you're only executing the first half of the experiment, you don't see any results. The reality is that the results only show up if you complete the experiment.
I've also seen what you described, as some have gotten new computers or started using new browsers (or new profiles in browsers which reset extensions). People generally find it nice to use ad blockers but really don't mind that much when it's gone. The average person tolerates a surprising amount of bullshit, you see it already with the amount of ads people already used to watch with cable and now watch with YouTube ads, for example. What seems essential for you and me is just a little perk for most people, it seems.
That's not my experience at all. I install uBlock Origin on every browser that I use. It's literally the first thing I do. After a while I started hearing people's comments. The web just feels nicer, they said. They know. Even when they can't quite explain why, they know.
Like the sibling commented, have you removed the ad blocker and seen their reaction after some time? In my experience they don't really care after a while. That is to say, they found the ad blocker a nice perk but not a fundamental need.
Then, like the sibling says, you've only done half the experiment. Regardless, I would also never remove someone's adblocker, but I've seen that when it is removed, for whatever reason such as switching computers or browsers, people often don't care enough to install it again.
I'm not a fan of experimenting on people. That's what adtech does with their engagement A/B tests.
In the end it doesn't matter if they care or not. We care. We think it's the right thing. So we install it again for their benefit. Because we care about them.
I don't have access to everyone's computers that I know. I tell them to install and use an adblocker and sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, up to them. Ironic that you say you don't want to experiment on people but then seek to patronize their choices by doing things for "their benefit." People can do what they wish, once the information has been passed on to them.
I don't randomly grab people's phones and install things on them though. I'm talking about the computers I share with coworkers, friends and family. I use the computers too. Since I don't tolerate ads, they won't need to either.
So I don't see it as patronizing them at all. I see it as leadership. I'm putting my reputation on the line. People trust me with all this computer stuff, if I screw things up they won't trust me anymore. So I make it my responsibility to ensure it works and that they will like it, even though they "don't care". For example, on these shared computers I don't turn it up to the point it breaks pages. I know how to deal with those breakages, they don't. So I ensure they never have to.
If you're sharing the computers then that's a different story. We don't share our computers so we don't all have ad blockers on them. Mine does of course and I add them to my family's but if they switch browsers or reset / upgrade their PC, I'm not often there to redo the install. So I'll tell them to do it but they don't always do it. So I give up, if they know about ad blockers but don't care enough to reinstall them, that's on them at that point. Which leads me to my point that people don't generally care.
I haven’t had to ask. They verbalize their frustrations.e
I think your questioning probably requires a certain level of care, thought, and ability to form a response that isn’t necessarily indicative of whether someone cares to whatever degree. Someone can say, “Oh, I don’t care” and still experience annoyance indicating that they do actually care.
I also think 50% is way too low a bar to claim a class of people does or doesn’t do sometbing like “caring”. If 60% of people “don’t care” and the it’s a really big deal for people who do, it doesn’t seem like a claim that “such people don’t care” is the truth.
