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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

#21

Post by isleyaardvark »

"If I had to generate revenue to keep my sites going, I would find a way other than advertising to do it. Or I'd shut them down."

He makes it sound easy. As though there weren't a multitude of websites facing the same problem with covering their operating costs.

TV before cable faced a similar dilemma. Anyone could access it, but how do you pay for it? Ads did. Cable TV came along with commercial-free channels, but the consumer would pay for those directly. That solution has been discussed with some websites, and it's generally ill-received (e.g. NYT, Hulu).

I think ads can work, I wish they were done better in many cases. What I won't do is criticize them for their business model without offering a suggestion of my own.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#22

Post by doron »

rick888 wrote: post #14
lotharbot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 instal…

I consider ads that are served from many well known ad services intrusive to my experience, they dramatically slow the rendering of pages, often block content, or have such jarring graphics or color themes it is almost impossible to read the document.

Ads are blocked for me by default, and i choose to unblock them in websites that generate repeated value for me.

this includes the content of the website, but also the speed and how the ads complement the design of the website itself.

I will consider paying website to get content completely ad free.

I would like to also have the option to get a discount for just clicking on the Ad from the vendor, if you want my attention offer me an incentive.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#23

Post by justinph »

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.

While I agree with the sentiment, that's a whole heck of a love of evolution to work against. Nature (think of life on the Serengeti) is all about screwing over one creature for the benefit of another.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#24

Post by blhack »

I really don't understand this sentiment. If you don't like the ads, stop using the site.

There is a coffee shop in Tempe, AZ that I very very rarely go to. Why? Because the wifi there is horrible. It's slow; there are too many people there using pandora and not enough bandwidth to go around.

Would it be appropriate for me to whine about this while continuing to go there?

When using a website (or any service) you are basically choosing to endure a bit of inconvenience (spending money, or viewing ads) in exchange for something you want (coffee, content). I get that people want to skip the first part, but I don't get how they think that could ever work.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#25

Post by ErrantX »

briancarper wrote: post #15
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 stat…

I think they can say they feel it borders on unethical (which is the impression I got from it). Along the lines of: "ok so you can block our ads, but that's a bit sucky guys :("

On the topic of your article (I assume it's yours?):

I pay for a book, and then I read the book start-to-finish with no ads, no distractions. A few pages at the back maybe, but I can ignore those. Books are nice.

I assume you can see the difference here?

In terms of forcing you too look at the ads. I dont think the ars article tries to imply that either. They are saying they would appreciate it if you looked at their ads. Please.

I dont know if you have seen the ars site with ads but they are one I personally unblock: they aren't particularly in your face, are generally aesthetically pleasing and I also like their content (some of the best on the web). Encouraging that approach is a plus IMO.

If I had to generate revenue to keep my sites going, I would find a way other than advertising to do it. Or I'd shut them down.

Seems a "shoot yourself in the foot" scenario. Chances are people wouldn't actually pay monetary cost for your content - people hate doing that generally. Adverts are "zero cost" to a consumer :) most are happy to swap free content for a few adverts.

Why is it unethical, as your seemingly suggesting, to do that? :)

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#26

Post by natrius »

It's painful to see so many intelligent people unable or unwilling to analyze the effects their actions cause. If you block ads on sites you enjoy without communicating with the producers of that site, you are lowering the probability that sites you enjoy will continue to be produced. There are several ways to mitigate this effect if you don't like ads:

1) Pay for a subscription.

2) If no subscription is offered, ask for one to be offered.

3) If you'd simply like less offensive ads, ask for less offensive ads.

Taking actions that in sum lower the probability of things you like being produced in the future is incredibly stupid.

"The internet is also a wonderful thing. FIRST a person or company puts a lot of information somewhere that everyone can read it effortlessly for free, and THEN they sometimes expect me to look at their ads. And I can simply choose not to."

Ars Technica doesn't expect you to look at their ads. They expect you to render their ads or pay for a subscription. If you choose to do neither of those, you are a parasite.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#27

Post by cilantro »

briancarper wrote: post #15
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 stat…

I read the Ars article to mean: "We won't judge you for blocking our ads, at the same time, please don't judge us if we choose to block content from those who block our ads."

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#28

Post by briancarper »

ErrantX wrote: post #25
briancarper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stat…

I think they can say they feel it borders on unethical (which is the impression I got from it). Along the lines of: "ok so you can block our ads, but that's a bit sucky guys :(" On the topic of your article (I assume it's yours?): I pay for a book, and then I read the book start-to-finish with no ads, no distractions. A few pages at the back maybe, but I can ignore those. Books are nice. I assume you can see the diff…

Yes, it's my blog post. (I would hesitate to call it an article.) Advertising is unethical insofar as it's manipulative and dishonest and invasive. Even if not unethical, it's highly annoying and aesthetically displeasing. Most people probably are OK with ads, but I'm not, so I wouldn't run ads on my own site.

I looked at the ads on Ars briefly, both animated Flash ads, one for razor blades and the other I couldn't even tell what it was selling. I admit to being very emotional about this, and I can understand how some people can tolerate these, but I can't.

I'm uncertain I see your point about books. Are you asking why I can ignore the ads in the back of books, but not ignore the ones on websites? Because it's possible to read the book start to finish without any knowledge whatsoever that the ads exist. It's trivial to ignore them. If the ads on websites were all relegated to some page I had to deliberately navigate to, that'd be similar.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#29

Post by metamemetics »

natrius wrote: post #26

It's painful to see so many intelligent people unable or unwilling to analyze the effects their actions cause. If you block ads on sites you enjoy without communicating with the producers of that site, you are lowering the probability that sites you enjoy will continue to be produced. There are several ways to mitigate this effect if you don't like ads: 1) Pay for a subscription. 2) If no subscription is offered, ask…

3rd party javascript ads hosted on ad servers should be blocked. The majority of them disrespect web site viewers, so it is a rational decision for web site viewers to block them.

If a site is running ads that they don't mind being associated with and are worthy of reader's attention, they shouldnt mind hosting them directly from their webserver as content.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#30

Post by natrius »

metamemetics wrote: post #29
natrius wrote: post #26

It's painful to see so many intelligent people unable or unwilling to analyze the effects their actions cause. If you block ads on sites you enjoy without communicating with the producers of that site, you are lowering the probability that sites you enjoy will continue to be produced. There are several ways to mitigate this effect if you don't like ads: 1) Pay for a subscription. 2) If no subscription is offered, ask…

3rd party javascript ads hosted on ad servers should be blocked. The majority of them disrespect web site viewers, so it is a rational decision for web site viewers to block them. If a site is running ads that they don't mind being associated with and are worthy of reader's attention, they shouldnt mind hosting them directly from their webserver as content.

Inform sites which you enjoy of this opinion. If you don't, you're just reducing the probability of sites you like existing in the future, which is stupid.
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