The ethics of modern web ad-blocking • Hacker News Board

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#141

Post by minimaxir » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #125

RodericDay wrote: post #7

What I really can't understand, that permeates this whole discussion, is plenty of people that try to sell the idea that ads let us have content "for free", and that all we have to tolerate is "a little annoyance". It's insane. If companies are buying ad-space, it's because they expect to get more business in return. This means that someone out there is being influenced by said ads, so that if the content cost X to p…

Dude, I've been trying to spread this exact understanding on HN for years[1]. You would think that this crowd would get that there is no free lunch. But cognitive dissonance is powerful: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair I've been tracking this debate (or, until recently, lack thereof) for years and no one is articulating thi…

On HN, I've recently seen less "complaining about ads" and more "complaining about hostile UX modals and popovers to force ad clicking." Which is fair.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#142

Post by stevesearer » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

unprepare wrote: post #109

reasonishy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is the method most people use to discover new products/services. Of course these days the line is often blurred. So half the posts on HN could be adverts, and you wouldn't really know about it. In fact lots of them are adverts. But just think about how the world would work without advertising. How would you know there's a star wars movie coming out? How would you know about new products and services you m…

>Advertising is the method most people use to discover new products/services. Do you have a source for that? >How would you know there's a star wars movie coming out? By being interested in science fiction movies, being part of a community of people with like interests, theater showtimes, etc. Why do i need to know 6 months beforehand that a star wars movie will eventually come out? Why would i need to know any soone…

In my industry advertising is indeed a key way in which office designers find out about new products.

One form of advertising which is commonly utilized is a yearly trade show where manufacturers rent showroom space to show off their products to prospective buyers. This model makes sense because it gets 60,000 people with purchasing power into the same building to see what products are new and what the latest design ideas are. There is no hidden agenda here and everyone knows what is going on.

This is the same basic concept as a magazine or website advertisement where you try to get a bunch of likeminded people in one industry with purchasing power to subscribe and read the magazine or website. The advertisements (paper showrooms space) are used to show cool pictures of new products companies are selling and now one is fooled by that.

In this industry, manufacturers have brand recognition and a reputation so seeing an ad for a new office chair by X company is an effective way to announce to people who already know of and like your brand that you have a new product.

Hacker News leverages its niche audience to 'advertise' job listings for Y Combinator funded companies. I could probably find out about those jobs elsewhere if I were currently looking for a job, but I'm willing to trade seeing them for using this site. I expect many other people don't mind advertising when it is tastefully done and on-topic with the website or magazine they read or are subscribed to.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#143

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

unprepare wrote: post #109

reasonishy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is the method most people use to discover new products/services. Of course these days the line is often blurred. So half the posts on HN could be adverts, and you wouldn't really know about it. In fact lots of them are adverts. But just think about how the world would work without advertising. How would you know there's a star wars movie coming out? How would you know about new products and services you m…

>Advertising is the method most people use to discover new products/services. Do you have a source for that? >How would you know there's a star wars movie coming out? By being interested in science fiction movies, being part of a community of people with like interests, theater showtimes, etc. Why do i need to know 6 months beforehand that a star wars movie will eventually come out? Why would i need to know any soone…

[deleted]

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#144

Post by bediger4000 » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #100

bediger4000 wrote: post #5

How is ad blocking an ethical issue? I get to control my computer, at least until some legislation passes that says I don't. Even if I don't control my computer entirely, how about my DNS? I have a lot of the more intrusive domains (tynt, doubleclick, etc) set up as 127.0.0.1 in my dnsmasq config. The "whose computer is it anyway" question seems key here. In order to make advertising possible, we have to take control…

You're making the wrong argument. You get to control what you are subjected to. If you don't want to be bombarded by psychologically manipulative propaganda, it is just, correct, ethical, and legal(for now) not to be. If you produce ad burdened content hoping that I will allow myself to be advertised to. I'm glad to crush that hope. You can charge for your content, stop producing it, etc. What you can't do is demand…

Thank you. I was indeed making the wrong argument. Your argument is much better, and takes the ethical high ground.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#145

Post by VLM » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #119

VLM wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something rarely discussed is how the cost of publishing the content is imploding. A generation ago it took a real company with full time employees to run Slashdot. In 2014 it took some volunteers and some linode instances to run SoylentNews using slashcode. In another decade you'll have people running things like /. and HN on the equivalent of a raspberry pi drawing 5 watts. A generation ago some cool sites started…

Something rarely discussed is how the cost of publishing the content is imploding. You are aware that content generation isn't, in fact, a technological problem, right? You still need folks to write the copy, edit, research and fact check, moderate discussion forums, etc. Yes, the cost of the actual physical act of publishing copy has gotten cheaper. But high quality journalism costs money. That's unavoidable. I'm no…

I don't disagree with anything you write in detail, in fact I think we agree that due to a massive mismatch in supply and demand, until about 99% of existing journalism is culled, nobody is going to make any money in journalism.

Maybe a good analogy is the village blacksmith is hurt and angry that he hung up advertisements on his shop wall, but nobody looks at them, and they're all going to be really sorry when there's nowhere left to put new horseshoes on because posting the spam was the only thing keeping the lights on in his shop. Meanwhile the general population drives by his shop in their cars not looking at his ads, and doesn't really care about horseshoes anyway beyond a general knowledge that everyone knows that everyone knows that horseshoes are really important culturally and a vital part of life in and of themselves, although individually no one actually likes it and no one is willing to pay for it.

And my point is something like if you "need" something horseshoe shaped for crafty project or whatever, now a days you download a .scad from thingiverse, run it thru openscad, run the .stl thru curaengine to get a .gcode, then feed the .gcode to octopi on your printer and pick up your shoe in a couple hours at a cost of about fifty cents of filament. I mean, sure, building a village size blacksmith shop to get my horseshoe would be difficult and expensive, but its unnecessary and practically no one wants horseshoes, so I'm not seeing much of a problem.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#146

Post by harryovers » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

People who support ad-blockers and support net neutrality don't seem to see the hypocrisy in their stance. If all net traffic should be treated equal then shouldn't advertising net traffic be treated with the same equality as content net traffic and not blocked by some software running somewhere on that network (even if it is running at your end of the network).

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#147

Post by guelo » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #133

guelo wrote: post #29

It would be great if the ad business model on the web died. Hopefully the new business models that would popup would be more upfront. People used to pay 25 cents to read a newspaper or a few bucks for a magazine.

>People used to pay 25 cents to read a newspaper When you didn't have a world wide internet there was a lot of friction meaning you end up with 5000 newspapers all publishing the same junk for 25 cents because on average any community only had 1 or 2 choices at most and the local oligopoly, not wanting to go out of business, agreed to charge 25 cents. You put all 5000 on the internet, you really need 4998 of them to…

I don't buy it because people are more addicted to content than ever. There is a huge demand for high quality content it's just a matter of figuring the business model to meet that demand. But once it's figured out there will be more journalists than ever. I can't imagine an info-starved internet future.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#148

Post by LesZedCB » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:12 PM UTC

harryovers wrote: post #146

People who support ad-blockers and support net neutrality don't seem to see the hypocrisy in their stance. If all net traffic should be treated equal then shouldn't advertising net traffic be treated with the same equality as content net traffic and not blocked by some software running somewhere on that network (even if it is running at your end of the network).

I'm not saying they can't serve it up. I'm saying I don't want to see it. I don't have control over the pipes as a last-mile provider, and if I did, I would let ad traffic through without being throttled. By that logic, running a firewall that blocks incoming ssh login requests from Asia should be a cognitive dissonance for us. I promise you it isn't.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#149

Post by npkarnik » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

harryovers wrote: post #146

People who support ad-blockers and support net neutrality don't seem to see the hypocrisy in their stance. If all net traffic should be treated equal then shouldn't advertising net traffic be treated with the same equality as content net traffic and not blocked by some software running somewhere on that network (even if it is running at your end of the network).

I don't buy the hypocrisy. Net neutrality requires ISP infrastructure companies to not artificially restrict end-users choice for legal content. Especially as ISP companies become coupled with content companies (Comcast/NBC Universal) and generate anti-trust concerns regarding throttling their competitors in the content vertical.

An end-user running an ad-blocker has literally nothing to do with the appropriate role of the infrastructure provider (which many argue should be an unbiased plumbing system).

I do think there are some ethical concerns for running an ad-blocker, but I don't think this is one of them.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#150

Post by eevilspock » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

savanaly wrote: post #25

RodericDay wrote: post #7

What I really can't understand, that permeates this whole discussion, is plenty of people that try to sell the idea that ads let us have content "for free", and that all we have to tolerate is "a little annoyance". It's insane. If companies are buying ad-space, it's because they expect to get more business in return. This means that someone out there is being influenced by said ads, so that if the content cost X to p…

>If these costs are being borne evenly, then it's complete societal waste. We could pay X for the content, and not incur the overhead. If these costs are not borne evenly, and some people are paying for the consumption of more disciplined people, it's probably contributing to terrible cycles of poverty (ie: some kid spending money on fancy new shoes he doesn't need and can't afford is paying for a well-paid tech-user…

Which do you think wins, low budget factually honest advertising or high budget advertising that builds consumer loyalty or craving using whatever psychological means necessary?

I'm pretty certain the latter wins far more often than the former, in which case advertising hurts healthy competition. You may in fact have the better or cheaper product, but the establish company has the huge advertising budget by virtue of being the established company. Advertising serves as a moat far more than it serves as a bridge.

So while the naive view is that advertising communicates the existence and benefits of products so that consumers can make informed choices, in reality it is more often and more successfully used to communicate lies and manipulation, and raise insurmountable barriers to new competition.