“The Web Is Dying Under a Flood of Garbage Ads” Sparks 5ch Reaction — 5ch: “Except Users Just Use Ad Blockers”

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The story

GO Hatori, editor-in-chief of the web media outlet “Rocket News 24,” wrote a column criticizing the overwhelming amount of pop-ups you can’t figure out how to close, ads that make you wait around for nothing, and ads for sketchy products or scam-like services, arguing that “if sites keep running ads like this, people are going to vanish from the Web” — and it became a hot topic on 5ch’s News Speed+ board. In the thread, opinions ranged from “that’s a platform problem, not the advertisers’” to complaints that while PCs can cope with ad blockers, smartphones lack adequate countermeasures, frustration over how aggressively X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube shove ads at users, and even remarks about the quality of the ads shown on 5ch itself — with posters drawing a clear line between the “quantity” and “quality” of ads.

If sites keep running garbage ads like this, of course people are going to vanish from the Web. — Thoughts from a web media editor-in-chief | Rocket News 24

GO Hatori, 18 hours ago

I am the editor-in-chief of a web media outlet called “Rocket News 24.”

Source: rocketnews24.com / Original article here

What people said

11AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:17
If a company's pop-ups show up four or five times after you've visited their site just once, there's no way in hell you're buying anything from them. Are they stupid?
38AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:22
Re: #11
That's on the ad platform (SSP/ad network), not the intent of the company whose ad happens to be shown.
Some people get randomly pissed at the company shown in the ad, but that's misdirected.
58AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:26
Re: #1
Well, the only ones who'll actually disappear from the Web are the advertisers — users will just use ad blockers.
64AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:27
Re: #58
And then only the shady operators are left standing, so ad quality just keeps getting worse.
68AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:28
Re: #58
That said, things might head the way YouTube's been going — "use our paid service if you want ads blocked." No telling how much longer free ad-blocking software will even keep working.
79AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:29
The article seems to be talking about ad *quality*, but most people in this thread are commenting on how ads are delivered and how many of them there are.
87AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:31
Re: #79
Realistically, how an ad is presented is part of its quality too… if the delivery method or volume is off, the ad's quality as an ad is bad (it won't actually reach the customers it's trying to reach).
96AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:32
Re: #79
What the article actually brings up is:
"ads you can't figure out how to close"
"ads that make you wait around for nothing"
and
"ads for sketchy products or scam-like services"

Everyone's basically saying the same thing lol
102AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:33
Those creepy ads are fine even if most people find them gross — if even 1 out of 1,000 falls for it, that's plenty profitable. Online ads must just be that cheap per targeted person, I guess. Don't really know though.
111AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:34
Re: #102
Same as "it's-me" phone scams or phishing emails — the basic principle is "even a bad marksman hits something if he fires enough shots."
333AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:06
Re: #102
Yeah, that's literally the exact same model as wire fraud or phishing scams.
113AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:34
X has been shoving MLB game updates at me lately. Talk about forcing it down people's throats.
194AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:46
Re: #113
That's seriously annoying.
148AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:40
Is the Web actually losing people in the first place? "No TV, no newspapers, no Web either" — there's no way that's really happening.
159AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:41
Re: #148
Might go back to basics and return to paper. It's that bad. Well, can't really complain since it's free…
181AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:44
Re: #148
I've basically stopped watching broadcast TV entirely. YouTube gets around ad blockers and slaps like two ads right up front, plus it's full of fake outrage-bait shorts and AI-generated junk now, so I've pretty much quit that too. Instagram's full of AI-generated stuff too, so now I only open it to check acquaintances' stories.

So what am I actually watching? I've circled back to watching broadcast dramas… on Netflix.
239AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:53
Re: #148
There are still plenty of people on the Web as infrastructure — as the "pipe" itself — but they've holed up inside specific social media apps and basically stopped visiting old-school "homepages" like they used to.
160AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:41
It's probably the ad agencies that suck, but do the advertisers seriously not care that they're paying good money just to have their ads shown in such a crappy way?
167AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:42
Re: #160
Nobody checks the actual placements one by one — they just look at the nicely dressed-up performance reports the agency hands over and act like they understand.
169AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:43
Not that this is any kind of reference, but
211AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:49
This is what this very thread looks like in a browser with nothing blocked lol
217AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:50
Re: #211 And then that image ends up buried under ads too.
225AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:51
Re: #211
Exactly. Whenever I browse the Web on someone else's setup, I'm shocked like, "wait, this is the default now?!"
229AnonymousOct 12, 2026 09:51
Re: #211
Would this place (5ch) look that insane too if the ads here were turned on?
284AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:01
PC's still fine since there's ad-removal software for it, but mobile's coverage is incomplete.
295AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:02
Re: #284
On mobile it just gets in the way of browsing — completely backwards.
309AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:04
Re: #284
You can block it on PC. So it should be possible on smartphones too. They're probably just leaving it broken on purpose, for profit.
316AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:04
Re: #284
Wait, you don't even have an ad blocker installed? lol
314AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:04
Try viewing 5ch on your phone without a dedicated app/tool and it's wall-to-wall porn ads so bad even guys look away — if a first-time female visitor or a kid saw it, they'd be scarred for life.
323AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:05
Re: #314
5ch has always been that kind of place though.
350AnonymousOct 12, 2026 10:08
Re: #314
Anime-style or game-style raunchy stuff is one thing, but the ads here lately are way too graphic — it's genuinely stressful.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

Most online ads aren’t chosen by advertisers one by one — they’re auto-bid and auto-delivered through ad-trading systems called DSPs and SSPs. Because of this, the root of the problem is often not “the intent of the company running a sketchy ad” but rather the platform’s delivery logic and lax screening standards. Posters in the thread also pointed out this structural distinction, noting that criticism of individual advertisers needs to be kept separate from criticism of the system itself. Meanwhile, ad-blocking browser extensions are widespread on PC, but the same kind of tooling is harder to use on smartphone browsers and apps, and more platforms — YouTube among them — are ramping up anti-ad-blocker measures. This asymmetry feeds the sense that “the ad experience is worse on smartphones.”

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “If sites keep running garbage ads like this, of course people are going to vanish from the Web. Thoughts from a web media editor-in-chief — Rocket News 24.”

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