Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 299 posts

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#171

Post by darawk »

alex_young wrote: post #121
darawk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? Reading through the glass may be a bit different, because the glass is transparent on purpose to entice you to buy the paper, so they intend for you to do that. That is, it's part of the deal…

> The litmus test for stealing here is breaking an agreement. This sounds fine, but how can you break an agreement you haven't conceded to? I cannot see how the simple fact that an ad was offered alongside other content constitutes any agreement from the receiving party. No one owns your attention.

> This sounds fine, but how can you break an agreement you haven't conceded to? I cannot see how the simple fact that an ad was offered alongside other content constitutes any agreement from the receiving party.

Indeed this is the question. If you haven't meaningfully entered an agreement, then I don't believe you're obligated to abide this term. However, that's sort of the question. What constitutes entering an agreement? How explicit do they have to be exactly to make it enforceable? I don't know the answer to that question, but it seems to me that there ought to be some standard by which you can be considered to have agreed to some sort of service-terms.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#172

Post by darawk »

danShumway wrote: post #151
darawk wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think technical implementations matter for some reason. I find that rather odd. Do you think that someone leaving their front door open entitles you to the contents of their home?

If they put up a public sign in front of it that says "come on in and take anything you want" then... kind of. It's not that access implies consent, it's that the technical standard is the methodology by which a company grants consent. The fact that there's ink on a piece of paper is meaningless by itself, but if it forms my signature on a contract, then it does have meaning. The fact that I can get to a server is me…

> If they put up a public sign in front of it that says "come on in and take anything you want" then... kind of.

Do you believe that putting up a website is the equivalent of that sign?

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#173

Post by darawk »

dingaling wrote: post #163
darawk wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think technical implementations matter for some reason. I find that rather odd. Do you think that someone leaving their front door open entitles you to the contents of their home?

Analogy time! It's more like a robot that the householder has placed at their front gate that responds to arbitrary requests from visitors "Can I have a table lamp?" "AFFIRMATIVE OK" "Can I have a list of all retrievable objects?" "AFFIRMATIVE OK"

What if they put a sign up next to that robot that says the robots answers do not constitute a legally binding agreement to ownership transfer of any property herein?

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

alex_young wrote: post #121
darawk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? Reading through the glass may be a bit different, because the glass is transparent on purpose to entice you to buy the paper, so they intend for you to do that. That is, it's part of the deal…

> The litmus test for stealing here is breaking an agreement. This sounds fine, but how can you break an agreement you haven't conceded to? I cannot see how the simple fact that an ad was offered alongside other content constitutes any agreement from the receiving party. No one owns your attention.

> This sounds fine, but how can you break an agreement you haven't conceded to?

That's quite easy to do.

The question is why it should matter that you did so.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

darawk wrote: post #113
horsawlarway wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they haven't expressed any wishes at all. If a site blocks me because I have an adblocker, I happily leave. But if a site sends content to my machine... that's on them.

> But if a site sends content to my machine... that's on them. Do you apply this moral principle in other areas? If your friend leaves their wallet at your house, do you consider the money in it to be yours?

A site does not send content to you by accident. Literally the very job of a web server is to evaluate whether or not you met the conditions entitling you to content. A HTTP 200 response literally means "here, you can have it".

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#176

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

darawk wrote: post #169
c22 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the response, I found it illuminating. You seem to contradict yourself, though, you claim you view Tivo use as stealing but later you make a concession to my view: > If the website does not say that you have to watch the ads to view the content, then i'd say that it's not stealing. Same with television, by the way. I have never seen a TV program imply that I must watch the ads in exchange for consuming…

> I have never seen a TV program imply that I must watch the ads in exchange for consuming the content. Given this, how do you support your claim? Or are such messages common on television in your locality? Sorry, I should have been more clear. I consider it stealing if and only if that agreement is made explicit. Most television channels i'm aware of do not do this. So fast forwarding / muting is not stealing. But i…

> Sorry, I should have been more clear. I consider it stealing if and only if that agreement is made explicit. Most television channels i'm aware of do not do this. So fast forwarding / muting is not stealing. But in principle it could be, if they specifically requested that you not do it.

Well, your ethics seems to change in a matter of minutes, it's hard to follow.

> i'd say that seems acceptable, unless the terms of the content delivery explicitly forbid decoupling the audio/visual channel in this way.

OK, you got me. Now I know you can't be serious.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#177

Post by darawk »

mikestew wrote: post #143
darawk wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think technical implementations matter for some reason. I find that rather odd. Do you think that someone leaving their front door open entitles you to the contents of their home?

Whether if it's the contents of a home or the contents of a text file sitting on a web server, if I ask, "can I have the contents of that, please?" and they answer in the affirmative then the answer to your question is, umm, yes? And should I decide to leave items that I don't want, I don't see where the homeowner has reason to complain.

So, you consider a GET request to be the equivalent of an unconditional request for content. That's an interesting perspective. What if the GET request delivers you the terms of a contract, that then requires a POST request containing "agree=yes" to the terms of the initial GET request to obtain the actual content, and the terms of that first stage GET request say "You must not use an ad blocker when viewing the second stage GET request".

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#178

Post by vkou »

Hoasi wrote: post #93
koolba wrote: post #39

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. I've been using ad blockers and NoScript plugins for longer than I can remember. Before that I was using /etc/hosts file based blocking. I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. On the contrary, I've always felt that content to display, and in particular code to execute, on my device is…

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. > I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. Never understood that concept either. It probably originated with people who were making a quick buck with ads on their sites defending their turf when the winds changed. For a while advertising was like free money, so that's understandable. Th…

People have looked for better business models as long as the internet was around. It always comes back to ads.

As it turns out, nobody wants to pay for micro-transactions, and organizations with more then 1 employee can't survive off Patreon.

So, you get labour of love bloggers, a handful of donation-funded individuals making youtube videos, and everyone else in an arms race to put as many frigging ads on their sites as they can.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#179

Post by decasteve »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #144
darawk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have no right or way to dictate to me what program should I use to render the data Why not? Why am I not allowed to say "If you want to consume my content, you need to view it in Firefox", if you don't want to agree to my terms, don't view my content. This is how all contracts work. This is how all business works. Why is the internet different?

> Why is the internet different? The Internet isn't really different, it's just people are bending over backwards to have their cake (send free content) and eat it too (tell people how they're supposed to view that content). When you're serving stuff over HTTP, you're giving me data in response to a valid HTTP request. That data is a binary/text blob. The HTTP protocol does not include any technical or legal provisio…

I’d add that there’s nothing stopping anyone from creating their own protocols and their own content browsers that can enforce whatever contract the software makers and content creators choose.

DRM and proprietary apps already do this.

The HTTP User Agent implies user agency when it comes to how and what content is rendered.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#180

Post by vkou »

darawk wrote: post #62
horsawlarway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want to see the ad, simply don't read the article. What makes you think you have the right to the content, without abiding its terms? We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. If you'd like to chose to not display your content when I have a blocker enabled, so be it, I'll leave and never come back. But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control…

> We've entered no contract, you have no right to dictate any terms to me at all. Period. That's fine for you to say, it just doesn't happen to be true. TOS are enforceable to some degree. > But to make an assumption that you have any sort of control of my time and attention is insidious. Fuck off. So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

> So, you think you have a right to their work product, but they don't have a right to your attention? Why the asymmetry?

Nobody has a right to your work product. Nobody's putting a gun to your head, and demanding that you distribute it.

But if you choose to publically broadcast it, then yeah, people have a right to listen to it. And only the parts of it that they care for.

Putting something up on the open internet is the digital equivalent of a broadcast. Gating it behind a login, or an adblock-blocker is another thing.

Post reply on HN