181–190 of 377 posts
A side comment: while blocking ads might reduce revenue for sites, it also means the advertiser has to pay for views by people who wouldn't click on the ads anyway.
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> Ads are inherently psychologically abusive, targeting your insecurities and exploiting sex and basic instinct to move product. This is a pretty wild claim. Most ads I see are relatively tame (like the “Build on AWS” and iPhone X ads I see around San Francisco), and I don’t see them “exploiting sex or basic instinct.”
Ads targeted at women almost universally target their vulnerabilities in subtle ways, many of which are culturally cultivated and manipulated by marketers. Consider how the food industry plays on weight anxiety: "light", "guilt free" (why should anyone feel guilt over eating?), "sinful", "temptation", "fear X". All the foods are "out to kill you" or at least make you "fat and undesirable". It's all manufactured, alar…
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I like some content. I am willing to pay ten times[0] the revenue ads would generate, potentially more, to see the content without ads. I want to pay for only the content I read, and not a monthly sum. Why am I unable to pay, and what incentives would change the system so that I can pay, other than using an ad blocker? [0] Say a website has a CPM of $5 and displays 10 ads to each user, such that a single impression f…
>what incentives would change the system so that I can pay, other than using an ad blocker? That's really simple, more people need to be willing to pay. I mean, I say in other parts of the page that I can't pay what the content is worth, but I'm actually not sure that's true for myself. But it is true for the general public. And it's not they can't because they can't afford it, but rather, they don't want to. So we c…
Am i expected to pay to 50 different sites? That quickly becomes unmanageable.
Maybe something like radio stations have is required for the internet. Where the artists get paid based on how often a radio station plays their song.
Disabling javascript is the best anti-anti-adblock solution. I wish chrome added an option for tampermonkey scripts to be run with disabled js, that would make this solution perfect.
that's up to tampermonkey but maybe it's possible that google wouldn't like it since it would let userscripts access extension apis
what tampermonkey does is inserting the script into the page in a script tag to isolate it from the extension[1] and let it access variables defined by scripts on the page, but if scripts are blocked on the page it just doesn't run
i made my own custom js manager (with no userscript api support) that lets you choose if the script should be ran in the extension or page context (defaults to extension which works with scripts blocked) but i don't know if it's in good enough state to put on the internet and i've never really made things for anyone but myself
[1] https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/content_scripts#exec...
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I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell y…
If you don’t consent why view their content? And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200” Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view. Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simp…
Aren't we talking about someone explicitly blocking the content they object to?
I also don't quite buy the argument that a view on a page relieved of all ads is somehow funding bad behaviour.
And I completely don't follow the argument that viewing content somehow obligates you to contribute to their morally bankrupt revenue system. If this means the end for web pages relying on morally questionably ad companies then I'd consider that a success.
In the paper, this excerpt: > We choose Adblock as it is one of the most popular. It is also possible to use Adblock Plus or uBlock, as the way they operate is exactly the same — HTTP filters and HTML element hiding. AdBlock in the Chrome store uses Adblock Plus filtering engine[1], so to say the way these two "operate is exactly the same" makes sense. However uBlock Origin uses its own code base, and is far better e…
What would you recommend for mobile? Browsing on Android with Chrome is a nightmare, and the last time I tried FF it was a bit sluggish (although it did allowed me to install extensions!)
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I mean, you're using moralistic arguments to defend a clearly immoral market actor whose entire business model revolves around abusing lack of regulations to collect and sell consumer information without their knowledge or informed consent. You're defending a business entity whose entire existence is against your personal interest. In market terms, you are not a rational actor maximizing self interest. If you're not…
Again you spend so many words to say so little to address the actual topic at hand and instead shift the topic. This time to... doubling down on saying I'm brainwashed? Ok, I'm brainwashed, thanks.
If they can't make it, then it's no excuse to resort to creepy stuff like tracking and profiling people without their consent, or with them ignoring the extent or implications of it. It's nothing short of abusing people, and it being the last card not to get out of business is hardly an excuse.
You made a free mall analogy in another comment: if businesses can't run free mall without abusing customers, then don't run free malls; it's not like people always expected free malls, it's just that some companies began to offer products/content cheaper and cheaper, and now they hit rock-bottom. Whose fault is it? The customer for asking, or the businesses to enter a race to the bottom, and then going full unethical?
Again, I get your points, but don't track me, my friends or my family.
I wish, instead of fighting Ad Blockers, they would try as hard to fix they way they run ads. Not to mention the sites, which only exist to display ads and practically don't have their own content except for clickbait headlines. A side comment: while blocking ads might reduce revenue for sites, it also means the advertiser has to pay for views by people who wouldn't click on the ads anyway.
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If you don’t consent why view their content? And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200” Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view. Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simp…
When you arrive on most sites with ads, they don't make you to accept anything. They don't give you a term of service to read. You just click, and download the code, and it executes. It's an implicit contract, which means they sell your data without your consent, as most people don't understand what's going on. Actually, even when you understand what's going on, the sheer number of things to check to get the full pic…
Because they want to allow things like indexing they serve the content and the "paywall" (payment being you allowing ads) in one swoop. Yes it's on your computer and you control your computer so you can get rid of their paywall, but you can also do that to software that requires a license key to activate, yet we don't seem to defend cracked software the same way.
Maybe if we reimplemented the internet today we'd allow browsers to send an "Allows Ads" header and have an HTTP Status Code for "I only accept clients who accept ads".
I mean, even Google doesn't actually make you click on a term of service to search.
> - what they are doing is immoral > - what we are doing is not illegal
Only one of these is a factual statement. Ad-blocking is not illegal, and of course it shouldn't be.
But what they're doing is extracting value out of their content. You can argue it's immoral, but it's not a factual statement in the sense your other statement is.
> But there is little incentive to be seek morality when playing with an immoral player. So there is not scenario here, where not using an adblock is a good strategy.
What you're saying to me is pretty much "if they won't play fair why should I". Which is fine logic, I just think if you're going to follow that line of thought, don't trumpet it from the rooftops like it's some sort of interesting proposal. To me they're desperate to generate value from content people won't pay upfront from and leaning on unfortunate tactics, and you're saying I won't pay at all. Neither side is right, yet only one side seems to be really proud about what it's doing
Again, my point isn't that Ad Blocking shouldn't be allowed, and I'm not here to convince anyone to uninstall their ad-blocker. My point is if you don't like ad-driven content, the "moral high ground" isn't to say "yeah well why'd their server return status code 200 and let me download the assets?". The moral high ground is to decline to use their services. Except that'd take actual inconvenience, curating the minority services that aren't ad-driven. So it's much easier to just say that ad blocking is "taking a stand" instead of admitting it's really just "having your cake and eating it to"