Advertising is devastating to my well-being
briancarper.net
Advertising is devastating to my well-being
1–10 of 52 posts
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#2Wow, an entire blog post dedicated to a straw man argument.
The opening sentences of the linked article:
There's an interesting article on Ars Technica about how blocking ads is somehow unethical, and "devastating to the sites you love". The idea that I have a moral obligation to stare at an advertisment, the thought I have an ethical obligation to voluntarily annoy myself for the sake of a company's profits... it would be hilarious if it wasn't so repugnant.
Now, from the Ars Technica article referred to:
My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil.
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#3Wow, an entire blog post dedicated to a straw man argument. The opening sentences of the linked article: There's an interesting article on Ars Technica about how blocking ads is somehow unethical, and "devastating to the sites you love". The idea that I have a moral obligation to stare at an advertisment, the thought I have an ethical obligation to voluntarily annoy myself for the sake of a company's profits... it wo…
Whether OP's response was emotional or not, it touches the matter.
Note it's very easy to look for fallacies when you are detached from the subject. The question is if the person doing this wants to make the world a better place in his way or is just a policeman for the sake of verbal purity..
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#4Dupe. This was discussed at length (144 comments!) back in March. I remember because a) I mocked the pathetic "It so happens that advertisements are devastating to my well-being." statement and got voted up, and b) a swarm of pro and anti ad blocker posts hit HN over the following 24 hours. It was almost as fun as the iPad launch.
Added: Aha, here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1172302
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#5Hrm. Not voting this one up.
His suggestion (don't know if it's facetious or not) of requiring a 'contract' is obviously a non-starter. Any site that tried that would lose visitors to non-contract sites, and since most people don't block ads, the contract site would simply be losing revenue.
> I run my own website(s) at a loss specifically because I'd rather pay out of my own pocket than force people to look at ads. Admittedly my sites are so small that it's not much money. But there you have it. If I had to generate revenue to keep my sites going, I would find a way other than advertising to do it. Or I'd shut them down.
"Find another way". Uh-huh. Like? And, if you think the content is good, wouldn't shutting them down be a loss for the world?
To hijack the thread for something more useful, a concrete example I'm wrestling with is http://langpop.com - people like it a lot, but programmers are also adept at ignoring advertisements, so it doesn't get much revenue. Now, it's mostly a fun project - it wasn't something I ever created to make money on, but I'm getting to a point in my life where it's time to do more things to make money and do fewer "let's see where it'll go" fun projects. (This saddens me, because I love to explore and play and create, but c'est la vie). In any case, people like it, so there must be some value in it, and I've certainly invested some time in creating it, but so far I have not really found a way to capture some of the created value for myself.
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#6[deleted]
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#7In a twist that the author certainly did not intend to happen, his description of books as an ad-free medium led me to think of a model where out of copyright books are printed with in-page ads and distributed for free. Would that work? :)
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#8In a twist that the author certainly did not intend to happen, his description of books as an ad-free medium led me to think of a model where out of copyright books are printed with in-page ads and distributed for free. Would that work? :)
That's basically the model for magazines nowadays. Subscription fees pay shipping costs and not much else.
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#9In a twist that the author certainly did not intend to happen, his description of books as an ad-free medium led me to think of a model where out of copyright books are printed with in-page ads and distributed for free. Would that work? :)
I've actually seen books with ads before, it is not a new concept. Those were rather old books, too (pre-internet). Only very few ads, though, maybe three pages in the whole book.
I like your idea with the out of print books!
Re: Advertising is devastating to my well-being
#10Ridiculous, ignorant, and a repost from months ago.