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The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

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Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#121

Post by alex_young »

darawk wrote: post #104
c22 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this point of view. Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? If I buy a newspaper, read it, and then give it to a friend, would that be a form of theft? Is using a Tivo to prerecord a show then fast-forwarding through…

> Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? Reading through the glass may be a bit different, because the glass is transparent on purpose to entice you to buy the paper, so they intend for you to do that. That is, it's part of the deal…

> The litmus test for stealing here is breaking an agreement.

This sounds fine, but how can you break an agreement you haven't conceded to? I cannot see how the simple fact that an ad was offered alongside other content constitutes any agreement from the receiving party.

No one owns your attention.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#122

Post by ngold »

koolba wrote: post #39

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. I've been using ad blockers and NoScript plugins for longer than I can remember. Before that I was using /etc/hosts file based blocking. I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. On the contrary, I've always felt that content to display, and in particular code to execute, on my device is…

Ads steal bandwidth and electricity. The same can be said of website coin miners. It's my choice to allow or deny anything that I pay for.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#123

Post by keldaris »

darawk wrote: post #104
c22 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this point of view. Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? If I buy a newspaper, read it, and then give it to a friend, would that be a form of theft? Is using a Tivo to prerecord a show then fast-forwarding through…

> Would you consider it stealing if you read the before-the-fold content of a newspaper through the glass of the dispenser and then didn't buy the newspaper? Would it be different if you did it at a newsstand? At a coffee shop? Reading through the glass may be a bit different, because the glass is transparent on purpose to entice you to buy the paper, so they intend for you to do that. That is, it's part of the deal…

> I believe fundamentally that any content creator has the right to specify the terms by which their content is consumed. If one of those terms is 'watch the ads', then you are morally obligated to watch the ads.

In addition to the counterarguments you've already received, I'd also like to note that the quote above is simply your personal opinion. Content creators often have specific, limited legal rights to specify how their content is consumed, none of which are absolute and most of which vary wildly between different jurisdictions. The same applies to moral obligations. If a content creator specified that you must kill yourself immediately after consuming their content, no reasonable person would interpret that as a legal or moral obligation. Clearly, there are limitations to the conditions content creators can impose, both legally, morally and as a matter of fact.

I'm not aware of any jurisdiction where content creators have the legal right to force you to watch advertisments (that is to say, avoiding watching ads is against the law). Personally, I feel no moral obligation to watch them either, but this is a matter of opinion and obviously you disagree, which is fine. I just don't see how you have any claim of obligation beyond a personal moral sense here.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#124

Post by alex_young »

darawk wrote: post #105
annabellish wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>TOS are enforceable to some degree You cannot state "by reading this notice you have accepted our terms and conditions". Maybe - _maybe_ - you could force people to register and explicitly agree to your terms which specify that you may not view the page without also loading the ads, though I think such a clause would be immoral. The ability to control what code executes on one's computer is a fundamental freedom of…

> Maybe - _maybe_ - you could force people to register and explicitly agree to your terms which specify that you may not view the page without also loading the ads, though I think such a clause would be immoral. What moral rule exactly does that contravene? You can simply not load their content. What gives you the right to load their content on terms other than theirs?

> What gives you the right to load their content on terms other than theirs?

robots.txt for one thing.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#125

Post by ngold »

darawk wrote: post #44
koolba wrote: post #39

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. I've been using ad blockers and NoScript plugins for longer than I can remember. Before that I was using /etc/hosts file based blocking. I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. On the contrary, I've always felt that content to display, and in particular code to execute, on my device is…

Do you not believe that content creators have the right to set the terms upon which their content may be consumed? In other words, if you write an article, you don't believe that you have the right to say "you may read this article, provided that you also display this ad"? If you don't want to see the ad, simply don't read the article. What makes you think you have the right to the content, without abiding its terms?…

How are ads not stealing bandwidth and electricity?

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#126

Post by annabellish »

darawk wrote: post #105
annabellish wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>TOS are enforceable to some degree You cannot state "by reading this notice you have accepted our terms and conditions". Maybe - _maybe_ - you could force people to register and explicitly agree to your terms which specify that you may not view the page without also loading the ads, though I think such a clause would be immoral. The ability to control what code executes on one's computer is a fundamental freedom of…

> Maybe - _maybe_ - you could force people to register and explicitly agree to your terms which specify that you may not view the page without also loading the ads, though I think such a clause would be immoral. What moral rule exactly does that contravene? You can simply not load their content. What gives you the right to load their content on terms other than theirs?

That is what the rest of my post goes on to discuss, I believe. _All_ content loaded onto somebody's general purpose computer is loaded on their own terms.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#127

Post by mozumder »

horsawlarway wrote: post #51
koolba wrote: post #39

> Only a few years ago, even people who hated ads saw ad-blocking software as akin to stealing. I've been using ad blockers and NoScript plugins for longer than I can remember. Before that I was using /etc/hosts file based blocking. I've never felt like I was stealing nor do I know anyone that feels that way. On the contrary, I've always felt that content to display, and in particular code to execute, on my device is…

Even worse, associating blocking ads as something akin to stealing is morally bankrupt. It's an incredibly slippery slope that leads to complete loss of autonomy for individuals. If I refuse to read roadside billboards, am I now stealing? If I tear up newspaper ads and throw them away, am I now stealing? If I turn off my tv during ads on a cable show, am I now stealing? I think any sane person would definitively say…

In all of those cases you're paying elsewhere for the service.

In the case of web ads, you're not usually paying for the content, and so they're expecting you to see the ads.

I don't know why people go to websites to read their content for free while block their ads. To me that just says "I am consuming too much shit."

You don't HAVE to go to these websites and consume everything in the world, you know? Life will go on without these sites.

Really, we need to get people to not consume so fucking much.

Just like TV, where the best thing is to not watch so much commercial TV.

If ads bother you, you're already doing way too much internet. And if you're going out-of-your way to block ads by setting up a network device, you're REALLY consuming too much internet.

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#128

Post by skate22 »

Jasber wrote: post #98
horsawlarway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, associating blocking ads as something akin to stealing is morally bankrupt. It's an incredibly slippery slope that leads to complete loss of autonomy for individuals. If I refuse to read roadside billboards, am I now stealing? If I tear up newspaper ads and throw them away, am I now stealing? If I turn off my tv during ads on a cable show, am I now stealing? I think any sane person would definitively say…

Didn't this come up with TiVo commercial skipping? The issue was with TiVo, the customer never even had a chance to see the ad, not that ads are mandatory to watch. Doesn't that apply here?

With some shows viewable with comcast they disable fast forward.

Ok that might be acceptable (even though the person was payin over 200 a month)

Heres whats really not ok:

I fat fingered the remote and pressed restart. Now i cant fast forward through any of the commercials OR the program i was 20 minutes into.

We shut the tv off

Re: The Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers

#129

Post by bglusman »

Jasber wrote: post #98
horsawlarway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, associating blocking ads as something akin to stealing is morally bankrupt. It's an incredibly slippery slope that leads to complete loss of autonomy for individuals. If I refuse to read roadside billboards, am I now stealing? If I tear up newspaper ads and throw them away, am I now stealing? If I turn off my tv during ads on a cable show, am I now stealing? I think any sane person would definitively say…

Didn't this come up with TiVo commercial skipping? The issue was with TiVo, the customer never even had a chance to see the ad, not that ads are mandatory to watch. Doesn't that apply here?

Do you mean ReplayTV? I owned a Tivo at some point but replayTV was great because it auto-detected ads and had an option (or default behavior?) of skipping them automatically. Tivo you had to manually push 30 second skip 6 times.
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