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A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
11–20 of 227 posts
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#12I'm so torn on Adblockers. While I agree that advertisers generally don't act in good faith, the penalty falls unfairly on content producers. Two wrongs don't make a right, but maybe the middle ground is to be a responsible website owner who uses best privacy practices around advertising while consumers un-adblock their site. Seems like it's really just an arms race not benefiting content producers, as it is now.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#13Kill ads using a host file. You have to update it every few weeks but it makes the web so much easier to look at. Using a Hosts File To Make The Internet Not Suck (as much) || http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ For backup blocking... Adblock Plus - Surf the web without annoying ads! || https://adblockplus.org/
hosts files are nice, until you need to unblock something to make it work.
then they turn into a big pain.
Unfortunately "unblock-to-make-work" is step #1 when dealing with academic websites, in my experience.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#14Does anybody remember the internet in the early 90s? Before it started getting rammed full of ads and get quick rich startup schemes? It was kind of awesome, kind of a mess. People just put up whatever personal scratch they wanted to itch paid the then outrageous hosting fees ($20/mo for 1MB of space!) and the world was good.
My point is that these days, it seems like providing the same experience for most people, involves millions of dollars, thousands of dollars a month in hosting fees, forming a company and having a marketing department that buys ads on ad networks.
We can all dream of making our millions, but sometimes it's just cool to have a modern personal site and get on with life.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#15The thing about current ads is, even if they are perfectly relevant, that they are so overwhelming that the distraction is not worth the potential benefits.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#16The major argument against adblockers (at least as far as I have seen) is that it deprives content creators a source of revenue. I can't disagree with this statement because it is true, it is a (read: singular) source of income that we (read: users of an adblocking program/method) are eliminating. I for one believe that they should ge something.et paid for their work, but ads just don't seem to be the right solution. I know there is paypal donations, and patreon subscriptions (or similar services) but these don't seem to draw people to contribute. I can't seem to think of any other alternatives to these, but I'm sure there must be something. Anyone have any ideas?
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#17I'm as scared as the next person of all the data being sucked up but if I wanted to be charitable, ... a different pov is perfect advertising which would effectively read your mind and present you info exactly when you need it. Thinking about going on vacation to Vietnam? perfect advertizing would devine that and show you ads for good hotel deals, flights, attractions, restaurants, events, markets, etc in Vietnam. Perfect advertising would also not present ads for things you'd already done there unless it knew you'd probably want to do them again. It would know if you're an adventurous eater or a conservative eater and present you with restaurants that meet your preferences. If you're a thrillseeker it would present you with thrilling activity options. If you're a clubber you'd get ads for the best clubs featuring the artists that fit your preferences best.
Perfect advertising could read your mood tonight and suggest restaurants if your mood indicated you wanted to go out. I could know which ones are already booked solid and not present them. It would would know if wanted a quiet intimate dinner or a louder venue. It would know which friends are free and suggest asking them along.
Yes I'm scared of some of the repercussion of getting to that state and all the abuse and how it will probably never get there but it's certainly a fun thought experiment to imagine what perfect advertising might be.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#18I think the anger is quite misplaced here by the author as it has never been the ad industry that has done "everything that was within their technical capabilities to spy on people and shovel ads on top of them" as the ad networks are simply a platform for which there are buyers of ads/eyeballs (advertisers) and sites/apps that display said advertising. It's the sites that you use that have chosen to include the code snippets needed to display ads or track you (not withstanding those terrible ad injector add-ons). Without your favorite sites providing it space to advertise on, there would be no advertising network.
In fact, our reluctance to pay for any type of content has led to the state we are in today. Paywalls largely don't work for many types of content and advertising is much more lucrative for the sites you patronize. Who's paying for that "Which Harry Potter Character Are You?" quiz on Buzzfeed that you gleefully wasted 5 minutes of you life on? Certainly not you; it was the advertiser who paid in exchange for an opportunity to influence you in some way (either direct action or indirect branding).
When you think about the 'morality' of ad blockers, it's not about the ad networks that we're talking about, it's the publishing sites that produce the content you consume. When you block an ad, the network doesn't pay the site. Simple as that.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#19Does anybody remember the internet in the early 90s? Before it started getting rammed full of ads and get quick rich startup schemes? It was kind of awesome, kind of a mess. People just put up whatever personal scratch they wanted to itch paid the then outrageous hosting fees ($20/mo for 1MB of space!) and the world was good. My point is that these days, it seems like providing the same experience for most people, in…
You can still have a modern personal website. The reason we do not see them as much anymore is that 1) the web has gone much more mainstream, and 2) social media sites have taken over a lot of the market share the personal sites once had.
Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
But its the content creators being punished, not the ad companies. If anything ad blockers are in their interest since the type of person who blocks ads is probably the type of person to ignore them anyway.
>But its the content creators being punished, not the ad companies. It's both, right?
I don't think so. If an ad isn't displayed, then the impression probably doesn't count and the publishing site doesn't get paid. It would certainly hurt the content creator more.