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Advertising is devastating to my well-being

briancarper.net

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Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#2

Post by kevinh »

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society.

When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#4

Post by zb »

Ars Technica: "I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical..."

This guy (first sentence, no less): "There's an interesting article on Ars Technica about how blocking ads is somehow unethical..."

Give me a break.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#5

Post by scott_s »

kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

My reaction, which I think has similar meaning to what you said but doesn't contain the same subtly of your comment, is: This is not sustainable.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#6

Post by lotharbot »

kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

Perhaps a better way to phrase it: you should expect your customers to act in accordance with their best interests (as they understand them.) They aren't trying to "screw" you so much as trying to get the best value they can. Not viewing annoying ads is of value to people, which is why they go to the trouble of running adblock or paying for ad-free premium pages.

It's up to content providers to figure out how to get paid. Guilt-tripping readers into viewing ads is one approach; running skeezy ads is another; paywalls or premium content is another; merchandising yet another. Each of those affects the value your readers get from your site. Given that, how can content providers best align their interest (getting paid) with their readers' interests (getting good content cheap/free)?

I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#7

Post by kscaldef »

scott_s wrote: post #5
kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

My reaction, which I think has similar meaning to what you said but doesn't contain the same subtly of your comment, is: This is not sustainable.

My feeling is exactly the opposite. Sustainable is coming up with business models where you provide something of value that people are willing to pay for. OTOH, steadily cranking up the quantity of advertising (already at the point where many newspapers and magazines are over 50% ads, TV is 1/3 ads, and many movies are little more than a continuous string of product placements) is _not_ sustainable.

Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being

#9

Post by jrockway »

kevinh wrote: post #2

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

Your argument, while emotional, leads nowhere. So not viewing ads hurts society; why should I care whether or not I hurt society? Now we are right back where we started.
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