We’re dropping Google Ads

"Google Ads" is injected third-party code that literally does all of these things (and goes through quite some trouble to obfuscate it) (even if us techies are aware).

And they pay people to serve it to you.

I would like to consider my Android phone to be a "private computer system", yet Google has full access to it and they will disrupt its operations whenever I try to prevent them from either 1) gathering sensitive information or 2) displaying unwanted advertising.

But it came with Android when I bought it, yes? And I chose to agree to this agreement or something, right? Well first, we know by now that this "choice" is mostly illusion. I put Cyanogenmod on it to better protect myself, but the disruption persists and it merely exposes how aggressive the malware in fact is as soon as you put up any form of resistance. The mob can also be real nice people if you don't stand in their way. Also, if you buy a new laptop, the crapware it comes bundled with, is that malware? What if it would disrupt and limit the operation of this laptop if you decide not to use it (yes you must actually use it and thus provide them with sensitive private tracking data, not merely refrain from trying to uninstall it).

Of course I don't really consider my phone to be a "private computer system", not any more, but that is exactly the sad state of affairs. I can't consider it private because I am aware of the above and my lack of real choice in the matter. But this way you can argue that any computer system that malware has gained access to, is no longer private. But that is basically just giving up.

It's a very natural human instinct to legitimize something just because it's the largest, most successful player. There's an internal urge to want to side with the winner. But not all human urges are rational or even okay to give in to, without seriously considering the implications.

Not doing it in the first place, of course! Because this has happened with VLC (a fact you seem to ignore), maybe they fixed it by now, or maybe it's temporary, or maybe you're just not in the "stupid people that would fall for this" filter bubble, but for quite a while Google Ads have been responsible for serving malware and damaging people's computers.

Also just because they try and fix it after the fact for VLC, doesn't mean it's not still happening for all sorts of other software. Google's approach for curation of ads is just not suitable to be able to provide a platform this large in a responsible manner (and I doubt it can ever be, but that doesn't give them a free ticket to behave irresponsibly).

Maybe you've forgotten what this thread was about in the first place, but if their policy is "we will remove ads that contain/link to malware as soon as they are (made) aware of them", then:

1) it's still a perfectly smart choice to use an adblocker because you can still get malware from ads (in addition to many of the other reasons such as opting out of clickbait timewasters, whose "innocence" evaporates as soon as you consider their scale), and a particularly important and smart choice to install it on people's computers that would actually fall for such a fake download link, which is not the HN crowd.

2) as a publisher, I would DEFINITELY want a much tighter guarantee on not serving/linking malware than "we'll remove it when we see it" because now it's not just my safety on the line (or my father trying to download VLC cause I told him over the phone, etc) but my entire audience!

I know I am careful personally, what to click and install, but I honestly wonder how long I myself could keep a fresh Windows install malware-free without running an adblocker. Some of those things are nasty clever and misleading (not thinking about Google Ads in particular, here). Ever consider the amount of good those people are doing? The ones writing the adblockers and keeping the blocklists up-to-date? They are not even getting paid to do it. It gives me such a bitter taste, every time I see a website whining about my adblocker usage. If you care so much, why are you using a third party ad network. If hosting and linking and curating your own advertisements is too much to ask, well then so is me whitelisting your site, sheesh.

The other half is, that the third-party ad networks themselves are in fact already feeding a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. Somewhere in the whole maelstrom of shitty clickbait websites funded by ads for other shitty clickbait websites. I read an article recently linked here about those weird vague thumbnail image clickbait links (the ones about celebrities, diets and skin diseases, mostly) that appear below low quality articles. They followed the links, and it just led to more and more of the same, but it did so while spiraling downward into a lowest common denominator like way, way lower than I'd have imagined.

There's some really out-of-control complex systems (in the systems theory sense of the word) in the guts of the advertising industry and they are already causing tragedy-of-the-commons situations way before, and regardless of, people using ad blockers.

Disabling the ad blocker is not going to help fix those (they'll just gobble up the extra profit). And even then, to (personally) answer your question, yes I think using ad blockers is a net benefit if it keeps those systems at least somewhat in check.

All you need to do is delete the frames where nothing changes in the input box and it'll be a big improvement.

(Obviously, this depends on your framerate. Suck it and see.)