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Advertising is devastating to my well-being

briancarper.net

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Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#11

Post by scott_s »

kscaldef wrote: post #7
scott_s wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reaction, which I think has similar meaning to what you said but doesn't contain the same subtly of your comment, is: This is not sustainable.

My feeling is exactly the opposite. Sustainable is coming up with business models where you provide something of value that people are willing to pay for. OTOH, steadily cranking up the quantity of advertising (already at the point where many newspapers and magazines are over 50% ads, TV is 1/3 ads, and many movies are little more than a continuous string of product placements) is _not_ sustainable.

I suppose "this" is ambiguous, but I was thinking about the whole situation.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#14

Post by rick888 »

lotharbot wrote: post #6
kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

Perhaps a better way to phrase it: you should expect your customers to act in accordance with their best interests (as they understand them.) They aren't trying to "screw" you so much as trying to get the best value they can. Not viewing annoying ads is of value to people, which is why they go to the trouble of running adblock or paying for ad-free premium pages. It's up to content providers to figure out how to get…

"I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock."

How do you know if the site has changed if you are using adblock? If they do decide to change ads, it won't really matter because they are already blocked.

What about people that are using a computer with adblock already installed? They never saw the ads on the blocked site.

Adblock doesn't just block one site's ads. It blocks entire networks of ads, which hurts innocent sites that may or may not have intrusive ads. This is why I can't support its usage.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#15

Post by briancarper »

zb wrote: post #4

Ars Technica: "I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical..." This guy (first sentence, no less): "There's an interesting article on Ars Technica about how blocking ads is somehow unethical..." Give me a break.

The article starts off saying that ad-blocking is not unethical, but then goes on to strongly imply that it is. e.g.

I think in some ways the Internet and its vast anonymity feeds into a culture where many people do not think about the people, the families, the careers that go into producing a website.

And:

And anyway, my point still stands: if you like this site you shouldn't block ads.

These sound like ethical statements to me. I may be reading more into the language of the article than is warranted, but that's how I read it: "Don't block ads because it hurts people, hurts businesses, and is therefore wrong to do."

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#16

Post by kevinh »

jrockway wrote: post #9
kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

Your argument, while emotional, leads nowhere. So not viewing ads hurts society; why should I care whether or not I hurt society? Now we are right back where we started.

If people don't view the ads, the site shuts down. Maybe you don't like that site all that much, so it's fine. However, more and more sites would shut down due to lack of funding. Or, perhaps, they find different manners of obtaining money. Maybe they enforce pay walls, maybe they have product placement in their articles.

The fact is, most advertising is not obtrusive. Despite the problems that Google Ads has, it is not visually obtrusive. Hell, half of the time I don't even notice them. Does it hurt me? No. Does it help the site sustain itself? Yes. Would I notice a pay wall or product placement? Yes. Would it obstruct my enjoyment of the website? Yes.

To directly answer your question: you should care if you hurt society. If people stop being altruistic altogether, politeness and civility go out the window. An Ayn Rand style system pops up, with people being concerned how to give themselves the most power and goods while screwing others over the most. Maybe you're fine with that; I'm not.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#17

Post by swombat »

[deleted] wrote: post #13

[deleted]

Ok, let's take a simple example here. Google published loads of Chrome adverts to raise awareness of their new browser.

The result of those adverts is that a lot of people switched to Chrome, making it a valid browser choice and, hopefully, hastening IE's demise.

A number of people who read about Chrome in adverts would only have heard of it a year later if it wasn't for the ads. I think those ads were perfectly well justified - they raised awareness for a product which most people didn't even know existed.

There's many more examples like this. I think your point is incorrect.

PS: I don't actually support Ars in this anti-ad-blocker thing. I think ad blockers are absolutely fair game, much like ads themselves are. Ars has no right to demand your attention on their ads, so fuck'em. They shouldn't come whining about ad blockers, they should just upgrade their business models to something that works in a world of ad blockers. That said, declaring that ads are completely useless is equally wrong.

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