A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers • Hacker News Board

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#121

Post by calbear81 » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:20 AM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #110

s3r3nity wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to you and I agree this is a nice step - though it doesn't work at scale, nor is it 100% appropriate for the ideals of the web. If you think about the web as the penultimate democracy for content, where content of the highest quality is available to even the poorest person, then saying "pay for this or you'll remain ignorant" is just not fair. Example: I would be more ok if Coursera/Udacity and the like went with…

That's not without cost, though. It could mean that poor become so inundated with ads that they waste their already limited budget on frivolous bullshit and junk food, and have to take out more payday loans to pay the water bill this month.

Your point has been made several times on this topic but can someone cite some study about how poor people are more "susceptible" to the ill effects of advertising and how everything that is being advertised is obviously "bullshit"?

If anything, advertising is what allows poor people to have the same access to content/information without having to pay real wages in return for access.

What types of online ads that you see do you consider bullshit?

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#122

Post by comex » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:20 AM UTC

trimbo wrote: post #98

calbear81 wrote: post #18

I 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…

> In fact, our reluctance to pay for any type of content has led to the state we are in today Then how come, every time I pay for content, that content still has ads? The paywalled newspaper sites I frequent do this. Or, notice how they do this in every movie theater in America now -- you can't sit there in peace before a movie. Instead, before the trailers start, you're subjected to a barrage of loud ads. Even on th…

Thankfully, progress is not purely monotonic towards ads. In the old days, you either watched TV shows on air with commercials (except on HBO) or... waited for the entire season to come out on DVD or something. Or pirated them, once that became technically feasible. Now, Netflix, iTunes, and friends will sell you most shows ad-free, and this has become my only method of watching TV since it is such a better experience.

Even on the Internet, remember the good old days of popup ads and blinking banner ads (that you couldn't easily scroll out of view)? I don't know what sites everyone else visits, but I don't use an ad blocker simply because most of the sites I visit either have no ads (like this one) or have few and unobtrusive enough ads that I can easily ignore them. (I don't care about tracking.) A notable exception is YouTube, where the obnoxious video ads caused me to start ad blocking recently.

Oh, and... while there are plenty of ads out there plaguing mobile devices, most good apps (at least on iOS) either don't have them or have an in-app purchase to disable them. Compare that to the websites the apps replace, and you can see a significant improvement.

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#123

Post by nl » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:21 AM UTC

itistoday2 wrote: post #106

itistoday2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, our reluctance to pay for any type of content has led to the state we are in today. People's reluctance to pay and their aversion to advertising is, I think, understandable and reasonable. It is just a quirk of the time period that we find ourselves in that there is any "moral" dilemma attached to this situation. The reason people perceive it as a moral situation is because we've established a society in w…

I'd be interested to know what the Internet is like for folks in countries like Sweden where welfare systems are far more capable. For example, do Swedish websites also rely heavily on advertising? How does the economy of Swedish content (in Swedish markets) compare to American content in America? BTW: I should be clear that I am not advocating any particular type of welfare system. It does not even have to be govern…

The profit motive exists just as much in Sweden as in the US. Welfare acts as a safety net for individuals, not companies.

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#124

Post by vacri » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:22 AM UTC

rosser wrote: post #79

vacri wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that your argument is ludicrous. "What, these people that have been promoting their stuff everywhere have advertising on their site?". It's not like it's unexpected. The idea that each website would have to get your consent to show you ads is outright silly. I don't have a problem with people using adblockers (I use NoScript myself, which has a similar effect), but let's not pretend that it's some kind of…

I'm not a party to the contract between the advertiser and the content provider. In principle, I don't necessarily even have an expectation that a given content provider uses advertising revenue to support the provision of their content — they may use a subscription-based revenue model, and offer some number of "free" page views per day/week/month/whatever, as a teaser to encourage new subscriptions. They may just ha…

> I'm not a party to the contract between the advertiser and the content provider. > ... an agreement between two other parties

It's irrelevant what the behind-the-scenes relations are. The party you are engaging is providing the webpage with all it's content; that some of it is outsourced doesn't matter. Using your rationale, you should also be blocking any work done by freelance journalists.

If a company outsources it's billing, does this now mean that you can ethically access their services for free? After all, if a different company is the one posting you the bill, "I didn't agree to anything with them", so you don't need to pay up. It doesn't work that way. If you've ever been chased by a debt collection agency, you'll know that argument is no defence.

Perhaps walk into a diner and have a big meal. Then refuse to pay because you don't have an existing contract with any of the point-of-sale EFT providers or the manufacturer of the cash register. Those are contracts that the diner has with other parties and you have not consented to a contract with them, so you are within your rights to ignore them.

> I somehow also chose to see a specific dude taking a specific dump.

If you know a street is extremely likely to have a dude take a dump, then yes, choosing to walk down that street is accepting that you're also going to see a dude taking a dump.

Regarding your edit, I really don't care. I just think that talking about blocking ads as some sort of morally pure action is nonsense. It's not. You're consuming the content without the full bundle that the content provider put together - if you want to see the article, you're expected to see the ads along with it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't block ads, I'm just saying that if you do, don't pretend like it's actually an ethical action. If you want to be ethical, then don't use the site at all.

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#125

Post by billwilliams » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:24 AM UTC

billwilliams wrote: post #61

How is this a new point? This is literally why everybody uses adblockers.

Also, am I the only person in this thread who actually works in ads? Ctrl + F did nothing to answer this question

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#126

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #91

BrainInAJar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So find a better business model. If it's not paywalls, and it's not ads, figure it out.

If you want to smarm about a better business model, I invite you to find it yourself. It's much easier to perform that smarm than find one, but I guess if you have to rationalize free ridership it's a good line. And it means you don't have to come to grips with the idea that it's a social problem instead of a free-market-hallowed-be-thy-name problem; it does mean you can mostly wave away that the money needs to come…

[deleted]

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#127

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #91

BrainInAJar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So find a better business model. If it's not paywalls, and it's not ads, figure it out.

If you want to smarm about a better business model, I invite you to find it yourself. It's much easier to perform that smarm than find one, but I guess if you have to rationalize free ridership it's a good line. And it means you don't have to come to grips with the idea that it's a social problem instead of a free-market-hallowed-be-thy-name problem; it does mean you can mostly wave away that the money needs to come…

[deleted]

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#128

Post by alexashka » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #6

I envision a future where the default mode is silence, and all advertising is opt-in. If I need to buy a t-shirt, I press a button that temporarily subscribes me to a "channel" of advertisements from t-shirt brands, along with whatever relevant preferences I decide to filter the ads by. In other words, I give companies explicit permission to advertise to me. Once I buy a t-shirt and fulfill the need, I unsubscribe fr…

Advertising for a loooot of products works based on CREATING demand that was not intrinsically there. Would we really know who Justin Bieber and what his mediocre music is if it wasn't for advertising? Who'd opt in to discover Kim Kardashian? It'd be status-suicide to admit you are looking for stupidity. But when it's spontaneously there, well then...

That's what TV advertising banging you over the head over and over again is meant to do. Sure you don't consciously go 'oh nice chicks X brand of beer' but when you're awkwardly standing at a bar, you'll recall that maybe if you get that X brand of beer, it'll be more like that party in the tv ad instead. This is of course not conscious.

If western society ceased creating unnecessary demand (apple watch anyone?), we'd live in a very different world. So yeah, not happening. They want to show you ads even if you hate it and they will, because you can't do anything about it. Ad blockers are allowed only because they largely hurt the folks without any power, the small timers.

All big companies are interested in forcing ads on you, make no mistake about it.

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#129

Post by josephagoss » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

alecdbrooks wrote: post #60

pudquick wrote: post #27

People are publishing content on the internet without putting it behind a login/password/restricted access. Not only are they publishing it, they're announcing its presence on social media, performing "search engine optimizations", and cross-promoting it on other non-web technologies (radio, tv, printed media, etc.). ... At no point, as a consumer of this content, did I get presented with so much as a simple "In retu…

>... At no point, as a consumer of this content, did I get presented with so much as a simple "In return for consuming this content, you agree that you will look at the ads being shown here". Isn't it common knowledge that many sites rely on ads for their revenue? Sit-down restaurants in the U.S. don't tell you as you walk in that you're expected to tip, but it's common knowledge that wait staff aren't paid minimum w…

Every cafe and restaurant in Australia is upfront about the cost of their service and food. I don't think that your example of tipping is a very good one because the rest of the world doesn't operate like that, it's a very American centric view.

I agree with the OP. The content creator was not upfront about wanting money and used adverts, and we are within our right to say no, I'm not lowering myself to watch this advert.

It's time we accept that adverts are not the solution.

In addition, is it just me or are most adverts just crap and garbage that lower the overall experience every time?

Re: A note on the argument about the 'morality' of adblockers

#130

Post by vacri » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

rosser wrote: post #99

cdcarter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I don't think it's a fair point to say that "I chose to view the ads on that page" is specious and unsupported at all. Those ads are part of the markup and makeup of that page.

But that's exactly my point: without loading an arbitrary page, I can't know whether or not there are ads embedded in its markup. If a page's headers could somehow tell me, "Hey! This page has ads! Do you still want to load it?", and I choose to continue viewing the page, then I've consented. Absent that kind of exchange, I am in principle being involuntarily subject to unwanted content.

The same is true of every element on the page, from the menu system to the related articles box. Shall we have headers for every single element on a page?