What we break when we fix ad blocking • Hacker News Board

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#111

Post by GhotiFish » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:07 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #86

GhotiFish wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm paying for creation, that is what is valuable, not content, content is worthless. Content has infinite supply. Creation is what is limited. This dissonance has been, and (it seems) will always be, the primary stumbling block in the discussion of the information economy. Why are pirates immoral? Why are they not immoral? Why is DRM immoral? Why is DRM not immoral? Who owns the copyright? what is fair use? All to d…

Now that's an interesting point. And it's one reason why I support Basic Income as an idea. I feel like the potential prevalence of creation is huge . But everybody is wasting away their life in "day jobs". It's interesting to consider in fact, that Patreon is kind of like a one-person basic income.

Well, day jobs create new content as well, right?

Really I'm not sure basic income enters into this. Patreon is a pretty aggressive arena, only the people that generate public interest get funded, that's not everyone.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#112

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:18 AM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #96

bradleyjg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had a plugin that simply blanked the entire page if it contained advertising you'd be acting in a principled fashion aligned with your preferences. As it is you want to have your cake and eat it too. It may be legal and technically possible, but isn't ethical. I'm reminded of the debates that raged on the internet when Napster was around. All the people downloading music strenuously claimed that the industry m…

> If you had a plugin that simply blanked the entire page if it contained advertising you'd be acting in a principled fashion aligned with your preferences. As it is you want to have your cake and eat it too. It may be legal and technically possible, but isn't ethical. What you're saying here is that, if you don't like advertising, your only ethical option is to never use the Web again. (Well, I suppose I can read th…

There were options. You could go to concerts, you could listen to the radio. You could go to free concerts in the park. What you couldn't do was listen to the latest Britney album when and wherever you wanted without going and buying the CD or unethically downloading it off of Napster.

You could tell yourself that you were perfectly justified in doing so. In fact it was Britney's fault for not coming up with easy way for you to pay her and get 128mbit mp3s from your pajamas in your room. But I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#113

Post by Snhr » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #49

Just like if 95% of my cable channels disappeared overnight, I'm actually pretty OK with a bunch of websites going out of business, and I end up paying for the few services I'm not already paying for but would wish to keep. It's sad that people lose their jobs, especially those that can no longer make a living doing what they love, but from a product standpoint: whatever. I was around before the commercialization of…

I kinda get the feeling a lot of the content on semi-large websites is curated to bring in more views, playing on their main demographic's idea of what they find interesting instead of what the author is actually interested in. I'd rather listen to someone talk about something that they love than something they think I should love. I feel like that all got lost in the rush to bring in a profit and websites that haven't updated to that style get pushed back because they don't artificially raise interest in what they have to say.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#114

Post by heroh » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:21 AM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #90

sambrand wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your ideals. And I'd love to hear about how you plan to move the Internet towards Utopia. But I'm not sure consuming without paying (attention to ads) is really the most respectful or effective way to get there.

Google contributor seems like a good plan.

being logged into Google while browsing around the web is stupid. It's a isht plan.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#115

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

rm999 wrote: post #17

jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

>everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms ... when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need ... I flat out refuse consumerist society whenever possible. I don't think this is a great way to frame the debate - we've been a consumerist society full of billboards and sales people for 100s of years before the internet was even invented. There has bee…

[deleted]

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#116

Post by nl » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:37 AM UTC

It's pretty clear to me that the endgame for this is ad-blocking-blockers: You run an ad blocker, then you either pay to visit my site or you disable your ad blocker for my site.

That's going to slow down sites even more, but that's the tragedy of the commons: some sites will be obnoxious in the ads they show it forces people to use ad-blockers. That destroys the livelihood of so many people that countermeasures will be developed.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#117

Post by dmayle » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:51 AM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

> I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms.

As it turns out, you're guilty of the same thing everyone else is, because you've absolutely missed the point of enabling ad blockers on iPhone

For Apple, it serves two purposes, both of which are hugely anti-competitive. They'll most likely get away with it, due to the fact that they have a minority share of the global smartphone market, but the effect on the marketplace will be drastic.

1) This is an attack on the open web. No matter what anyone says about minority report advertising, ad-supported content is a boon to the public good in that it encourages more sharing and more open sharing of information. Yes, you can go too far, but ad-blockers drastically change the market dynamic. Even the conscientious advertiser is punished by the extremes, which means that the market can not respond to user preferences for ads. In the app store, no such technology will exist, and as such it drives content creators into the walled garden of eden of monetization. There, the market will adapt, and you will be stuck with ads no matter what your preference is, and will have to support ads to the same level as the average user.

2) This is an attack on Google, in many ways. On the one hand it gives Apple an above-average position in the case of their ad network when on their platform (lock-in), on the other hand by starving the open web, they are ultimately starving the future of Google's search technology, helping to erase that advantage.

If we want to go down this route, everyone should be demanding that Apple enable content blockers in apps themselves.

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#118

Post by Khaine » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 3:58 AM UTC

dmayle wrote: post #117

jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

> I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. As it turns out, you're guilty of the same thing everyone else is, because you've absolutely missed the point of enabling ad blockers on iPhone For Apple, it serves two purposes, both of which are hugely anti-competitive. They'll most likely get away with it, due to the fact that they have a minority share of the global…

Android allows ad-blocking in its store, Chrome too. But now that apple is doing it, suddenly its anti-competitive.

Give me a break

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#119

Post by Khaine » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 4:01 AM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #19

jordigh wrote: post #4

I'm going to keep repeating this because everyone seems to frame the debate in the wrong terms. Ad blocking for me is not about speed or security. Those are just nice side effects. It is also not because I do not want to pay. I don't mind paying. It is because when I'm in the middle of something I do not want to be told to pay someone else for goods I do not need. I don't care how unobtrusive it is (well, if it's onl…

If you had a plugin that simply blanked the entire page if it contained advertising you'd be acting in a principled fashion aligned with your preferences. As it is you want to have your cake and eat it too. It may be legal and technically possible, but isn't ethical. I'm reminded of the debates that raged on the internet when Napster was around. All the people downloading music strenuously claimed that the industry m…

Do you watch ads when they are on the TV, you know to support the content, or do you go to the bathroom, surf the web etc?

Why is it suddenly different when its the web?

Re: What we break when we fix ad blocking

#120

Post by jlarocco » Sat, Sep 19, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

Mz wrote: post #87

itsybitsycoder wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But websites don't ask for my consent before they show me ads, and I have no idea what they expect the "price" of an article to be before I click on it, nor what I'll be getting in return. Why does the author of an article have a unilateral right to decide the terms of exchange? Websites are able to detect most ad-blockers these days. If they like, they're welcome to deny me access to their content if they see I've b…

I am not suggesting they should have a unilateral right. I am asking for suggestions on how to solve this so that content producers can get paid without posting ads, something no one has yet to really respond to. The Internet has created a situation that did not previously exist. It is natural that we don't automatically know what the solution is.

They can charge money, like people have been doing for thousands of years...

I post about this in every ad-block article. The reality that nobody wants to admit is that most web content isn't worth paying for. Web publishers know it, and they're scared of a web that isn't funded by advertisements, because they'll have to find new jobs.