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We’re dropping Google Ads

groundup.org.za

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#161

Post by Confusion »

Crito wrote: post #121
paulcole wrote: post #93

You're the first armchair philosopher to reply with a non-equivalent real world analogy looking to trip me up! Congratulations.

Here's a digital analogy for you. Suppose I: 1) Disable my ad blocker. 2) "Open Link in New Tab" 3) Wait for my browser to finish requesting that data from the server 4) Close the tab without ever looking at it. Is that unethical? Is it unethical for me to decide I don't want to read a webpage after requesting it? Should the "open in new tab" feature always force a tab switch against my wishes, so ensure I'm not ripp…

No, because you didn't enjoy the content either. Having the ads forced into your view is the cost of enjoying the content. So this is not a good analogy.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#162

Post by zoul »

dheera wrote: post #80
rootusrootus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's just like any other kind of piracy. If the content isn't valuable enough to see with ads enabled, then the ethical answer is to not view the content at all.

I read newspapers without looking at the ads. I use highways and public transportation without looking at the billboards. I don't see how it's any different. I would say it should be arguably illegal to resell content with ads removed, but how something is rendered in my brain or inside the confines of my home is upto me to decide. There's nothing illegal about ripping out the ad pages before reading a magazine at ho…

There is a big difference between print and web: by the time you rip the ads out of the newspaper you have already made it to the ad statistics (“our newspaper sells X copies daily”). On the other hand, with an ad blocker an ad load is never recorded. In the first case, the publisher still makes money, in the second he doesn’t.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#163

Post by hoppa_liza »

guelo wrote: post #156

I applaud the advertisers. For a good long while racists were afraid or ashamed to push their racism too publicly. I liked that world, less hate and venom being spewed around poisoning the public sphere. But something snapped in the last few years and all the assholes have become loud and proud of their assholiness and they are celebrated and encouraged to be the biggest asshole they can possibly be. From what I can…

While I generally agree with you, I do not think control is the best route, but rather guidance. Oppressing/bottling high energy individuals is destructive on the long run even if it seems otherwise at the beginning. Directing this energy into a constructive path however is more beneficial to the individuals themselves as well as the communities they live in.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#164

Post by zipwitch »

eli wrote: post #30
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

I don't think anyone is seriously doubting your legal right to block ads. > If it is not sustainable, new business models will be invented. If the ad blocking becomes so widespread that the ad-supported model becomes unsustainable, I think a lot of people will be unhappy with what happens next. There will be a lot more paywalls and a lot more native advertising, which will be fine for entrenched players but much hard…

Do not underestimate the American corporation's ability to believe they have a right to a profitable business model. This is a nation where municipalities are regularly stopped from building their own broadband.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#166

Post by candiodari »

gruez wrote: post #25
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

>Or invent a system by which 10% of the ad revenue gets cut out to the end user. That will incentivize people to unblock ads. microsoft tried that with bing rewards. i suspect it's not working well because i only heard of it in the context of botting it to get free money. the advertiser wants to spend as little money to gain as many sales, whereas the viewer (and blackhats) want to get as much money as possible. the…

I wonder if there is another solution:

All large websites switch to canvas rendering (like Netflix already does). This provides scrape, adblocker, content filter, ... protection.

And of course it makes the internet completely unusable by anyone either blind or ...

You might even create a startup that makes a javascript web browser, that allows all these companies to get consistent rendering across all web browsers, prevent ad blockers from working, while enabling them to use all their current infrastructure as-is. This would work better because it would still enable ad-network providers to send their javascript to the end-user, so they can keep doing their little custom checks to verify if they're being scammed or not.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#167

Post by fmueller »

paulcole wrote: post #46
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

> I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Legally I have no idea. But ethically/morally, I'd argue you don't. By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views for content and you're breaking that agreement. Doesn't feel right to me.

The good thing about morale is that it doesn't have to be the same for different people. It's not an absolute value. You can live up to your high morale standards and watch ads (which sounds a bit odd). Other people think differently.

Other people like me think we are morally bound to ignore ads as much as possible because we think they destroy a healthy capitalism and are misused to track people and distribute malware. Therefore I use an ad-blocker.

But that's only a side note. In the internet your argument is invalid because I don't know in advance whether a website uses ads or not. To discover that I would have to visit that site without an ad-blocker and let them serve ads without warning. And that would be unacceptable.

The solution for that problem is the various websites either use paywalls or detect ad-blockers and don't provide content when one is in use. In this case we really have an agreement. If I turn off my ad-blocker I'm allowed to watch the content, otherwise I'm not.

But I never ever had the desire to see content which has been hidden behind an ad-blocker blocker.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#168

Post by pjc50 »

graycat wrote: post #84
phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

Okay, question on ad blockers: So far I have not tried to use one. And my Web site for my startup, to be ad supported, has not gone live yet. But, what if: What if my Web server sends the actual ads, as JPG, GIF, WEBM, etc. files instead of just URLs to ad servers at some ad network? Then will an ad blocker still work?

Hardly anyone will pay for that kind of ad, because it can't be audited and you could just forge ad impressions.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#169

Post by executesorder66 »

Mz wrote: post #13
mevile wrote: post #6

I always imagined that some website/mobile app/service would appear that would let you buy subscriptions for access to multiple publishers at once. I think people have a hard time spending $5 here a month $10 there a month, but would spend maybe $49 for a range of access to sites. I don't know why something like that hasn't taken off yet. You could pick the sites you want access to or they could do a pay out based on…

You can also just do a tip jar model or patreon. So far, for me, the tip jar has been more successful than ads or Patreon (though I am new to Patreon, so, time will tell). I would be happy to get rid of ads altogether (with the exception of one site, for REASONS) if I thought that would drive up tips. But I have experimented a bit and it didn't seem to drive up tips. Then, whenever I read these discussions, there is…

> When you suggest this is a broken model and content producers also deserve compensation, the answer is typically "not my problem," basically.

I hate ads. I hate that they track you. I hate that they waste data. But most of all I hate that they are annoying. I always use an ablocker and I don't care if you don't get paid because I didn't look at an ad.

I am still busy with my degree this year. (I am studying part time) But next year I want to start my own website. With a blog and a place to share my side projects. Will I put ads on the website? Fuck no. In fact I will put up messages begging people to install adblockers if I detect that they aren't using one.

Just because I write some interesting code or article and then share it on the public internet, doesn't mean people now owe me money. I don't deserve compensation for putting stuff on the internet, and why would anyone else? But if my employer didn't pay me I would be really pissed off. Because we have an agreement that I will write code for them and they will pay me for it. I don't remember signing a contract with the whole internet saying that I will pay everyone who publicly shares some text or other media.

If someone is butthurt that they can't make a product/service/content valuable enough to sell it for money, but instead rely on advertisers for money, then that is their problem.

Do you think we all deserve to be paid for commenting on hackernews? Lots of people here write incredibly interesting and insightful comments. We all do it for free without complaining.

Edit: formatting/spelling

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#170

Post by DocTomoe »

nebabyte wrote: post #85
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

Not even about the bits/bytes/data to me. My eyeballs are not being loaned to you; my senses/attention is not for sale. I'm perfectly fine with paywalls - that's the 'correct' approach as far as I'm concerned. You can decide to conceal the information you know; if it's valuable and nonexcludable (usually isn't), then hey, you have a sale. But if you don't, don't expect your deals with third parties to hold up on some…

> if it's valuable and nonexcludable (usually isn't), then hey, you have a sale.

Which means now we need to have some kind of legal, international safeguard to protect against content thieves, who copy paywalled content and publish it themselves. Everyone loses in that scenario.

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