is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe, Design Chair at Wildcard and co-founder of Kidpost. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired by Etsy, Inc.), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children. Refer to the advertising and sponsorship page for inquiries.
+Ad Blocking Irony
I’ve been kind of neutral on all of the hubbub around Apple’s new ad blocking technology in iOS 9. But then just this morning I tried to read this New York Times article on my iPad—not just any article, but one that’s specifically about reactions to Apple’s introduction of ad blocking in iOS 9.
In maybe the sweetest bit of irony that ad blocking advocates could ever hope for, the article itself, as it was served to me, was so beset by a crippling ad position across the top of the page that I could not scroll it. You’ll see in the video above that as I try to move down the page, the Salesforce banner consistently and infuriatingly forces it back to the top, over and over again. At about twenty seconds in I try to minimize the ad, hoping that would help. Nope.
This advertisement literally makes it impossible for me to read about blocking advertisements. Perfect.
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