Advertising is devastating to my well-being • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#21

Post by Ardit20 » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 1:02 PM UTC

The very big difference between buying a book and listening to a tv, radio programme or reading a website is that for the former you actually pay about £10 or £20, for the latter you do not.

As for the contract point, I think there is an implicit contract between the publisher and the reader that they can access the content for free as long as they are willing to accept the slight intrusion of the ads.

As for the ethical matter, I do think that he is being a free loader, accessing content which is free only because of the many who do not use an ad blocker. In one way therefore he is cheating and that is unethical. It is perfectly fine, selfish and normal behaviour, but hardly angelic or ethical simply because he is not fulfilling his part of the bargain.

If he hates adverts so much and a significant minority acts as he does then publishers will either be forced to start charging for their content as Times Online has began to do and as they do for books, or valuable information will stop being generated, thus, making us all poorer.

Finally, this is capitalism, if you do not like it, you might be welcomed in North Korea or at least in China.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#22

Post by nkohari » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 1:12 PM UTC

If you don't want to look at ads, just be prepared to pay subscription fees for everything.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#23

Post by mfukar » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 1:18 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #19

>(By contrast, books (for example) are awesome. 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.) This reminded me of a line from Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death : >Imagine what you would think of me, and this book, if I were to pause here...and then proceed to write a few words in behalf of U…

That sums up my opinion about the article as well. What I wonder though, is why people don't relate their distaste for online advertising to ads via conventional media. Advertisements are equally frustrating regardless of medium, and are by definition disrespectful to any half-educated person (ie. not a "consumer").

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#24

Post by edw519 » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 1:24 PM UTC

Businesses exist to milk you of as much of your money as possible.

How sad. I wonder if OP actually believes this or if it was just part of his rant. Or maybe he didn't get enough hugs from his first boss.

I'd like to think that there are still many of us who need to earn enough to insure continuation of business without sacrificing our souls or the original purpose of all our hard work.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#25

Post by RyanMcGreal » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:06 PM UTC

mfukar wrote: post #23

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #19

>(By contrast, books (for example) are awesome. 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.) This reminded me of a line from Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death : >Imagine what you would think of me, and this book, if I were to pause here...and then proceed to write a few words in behalf of U…

That sums up my opinion about the article as well. What I wonder though, is why people don't relate their distaste for online advertising to ads via conventional media. Advertisements are equally frustrating regardless of medium, and are by definition disrespectful to any half-educated person (ie. not a "consumer").

It sounds like the author does relate his distaste for online advertising to ads on conventional media. He notes that he doesn't listen to commercial radio or watch commercial television.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#26

Post by motters » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:24 PM UTC

On the internet at least the solution is simple. It's called Ad-art (http://add-art.org/). Advertisement elsewhere, such as on billboards is more problematic to deal with, but if you are at the cutting edge of augmented reality this is not necessarily a problem either. http://blognostic.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/what-augmented-re...

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#27

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:27 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #25

mfukar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sums up my opinion about the article as well. What I wonder though, is why people don't relate their distaste for online advertising to ads via conventional media. Advertisements are equally frustrating regardless of medium, and are by definition disrespectful to any half-educated person (ie. not a "consumer").

It sounds like the author does relate his distaste for online advertising to ads on conventional media. He notes that he doesn't listen to commercial radio or watch commercial television.

Yes, by grossly overestimating the ratio of content to ads, and ignoring the fact that they can be ignored in those media too. My newspaper ads can be removed and thrown away - the first thing I do. My radio station is 50 minutes of music per hour (or 100% if I listen to public radio). Tivo solves the television problem.

He's a precious fusspot.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#28

Post by igrekel » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:34 PM UTC

Ardit20 wrote: post #21

The very big difference between buying a book and listening to a tv, radio programme or reading a website is that for the former you actually pay about £10 or £20, for the latter you do not. As for the contract point, I think there is an implicit contract between the publisher and the reader that they can access the content for free as long as they are willing to accept the slight intrusion of the ads. As for the eth…

Thats why forced adds in a DVD you bought so annoying!

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:43 PM UTC

alexandros wrote: post #7

In a twist that the author certainly did not intend to happen, his description of books as an ad-free medium led me to think of a model where out of copyright books are printed with in-page ads and distributed for free. Would that work? :)

[deleted]

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#30

Post by sbierwagen » Wed, Jul 07, 2010, 2:47 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #24

Businesses exist to milk you of as much of your money as possible. How sad. I wonder if OP actually believes this or if it was just part of his rant. Or maybe he didn't get enough hugs from his first boss. I'd like to think that there are still many of us who need to earn enough to insure continuation of business without sacrificing our souls or the original purpose of all our hard work.

Are you perhaps unfamiliar with capitalism?

I do not think it is somehow a controversial statement that employees of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit. He may have stated it in a controversial or misleading way, but it is not untrue.

Additionally, it seems you have interpreted it as some sort of polemic regarding work/life balance, an interpretation which I do not believe is supported by the text.