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Should I Block Ads?

shouldiblockads.com

151–160 of 161 posts

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. A web without ads and ad companies is a freer, fairer, and more decentralized web.

How is it freer? Would you pay 10 cents every time you scrolled through your Twitter feed?

Freer as in freedom. There would be less incentive to build massive centralized surveillance networks to serve targeted ads if ads did not exist.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the "ads bad" arguments hold up to scrutiny as well, even though it's not what this site focused on.

It's an easier argument to reply to with "you're stealing the website's livelihood", which is why it's usually worth bringing up after you explain the many other problems ads have.

Yes, I'm not denying the significance of tact. But just because it may be tactfully or politically harder in some cases to focus on "ads bad", that doesn't make it wrong.

And how to fund creative work is indeed a complex question. However, "I won't support business model that is itself harmful" is a perfectly fair position. I can both want a website to get funded and also refuse to play along with funding it through third-party ads which are harmful even without the worst problems of deception and tacking etc.

In short, I think it's really important that we not forget that ads-bad is basically true and has been since at least the old penny-papers and yellow-journalism.

See for one good source Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants. A good intro is episode 16 at https://humanetech.com/podcast/

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblockers stop sites from making money from those third-party ads . They obviously don't stop a shopping site from selling products or from GitLab.com registering users for GitLab services etc. If the way a site makes money is by abusing the visitors, adblockers stop the abuse and the money from that * side of things, which may be all the income they get, but not necessarily. So, this is not a simple yes/no situatio…

So they need a set bushiness and tech teams to build an internal ad stack, and try to get advertisers... many who wont buy in without 3rd party tracking to mitigate fraud.

There's better and worse in advertising, sure. But third-party ads are a compromised business model even at their best. I'm not saying businesses don't involve compromise, but the goal should be to figure out how to have the most net benefit to the world (I don't think profit as an end in itself is a respectable goal). Thus, choose the compromises that are least detracting within the scope of real-world options.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblockers stop sites from making money from those third-party ads . They obviously don't stop a shopping site from selling products or from GitLab.com registering users for GitLab services etc. If the way a site makes money is by abusing the visitors, adblockers stop the abuse and the money from that * side of things, which may be all the income they get, but not necessarily. So, this is not a simple yes/no situatio…

It is quite simple and you said it yourself. > Adblockers stop sites from making money Stop right there. You don’t get to decide the site’s business model. They get to choose it, not you. And I mean duh, no kidding adblockers don’t stop online stores from letting people buy stuff. Thanks for the insight there.

> You don’t get to decide the site’s business model.

I didn't say I get to DECIDE the site's business model, I get to JUDGE it. Do you want to argue about my judgment that ad-based business models are harmful?

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#155
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to disable adblocker to view my old Yahoo mail inbox. I didn't find a way yet to safely switch from Yahoo to Gmail without potentially missing out on emails or lose access to sites registered using that email. I did disable it. I am not proud.

Really? I have an old Yahoo mail account I give out for companies I know will spam me. I use an ad blocker and have not had any problems with Yahoo mail. I don't use it daily, and it's not my main email client, but it works just fine. I'm on Safari with 1Blocker.

If you disable ad-blocker they force you to use an outdated interface where you can't even format the text. So they offered two options: disable ad-blocker or switch to the old interface. Yahoo mail keeps get worse and worse every year.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#156
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to disable adblocker to view my old Yahoo mail inbox. I didn't find a way yet to safely switch from Yahoo to Gmail without potentially missing out on emails or lose access to sites registered using that email. I did disable it. I am not proud.

Enable forwarding of your Yahoo inbox to Gmail, or enable Gmail's periodic fetching feature from the Yahoo mailbox.

On mobile I can use the Gmail app to add Yahoo accounts. It's possible to also have the same thing for the web app?

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#157
post #48
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably an important reason people would rather browse Facebook or Instagram on their phone. It's literally a much better experience.

Those are also full of unblockable ads, and spyware to boot. I don’t think that is a better experience at all.

I completely agree, but websites are even worse. At least the ads are super clearly marked and they're entirely unlikely to "trick" you or infect your phone with malware.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#158
post #157
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are also full of unblockable ads, and spyware to boot. I don’t think that is a better experience at all.

I completely agree, but websites are even worse. At least the ads are super clearly marked and they're entirely unlikely to "trick" you or infect your phone with malware.

The Facebook and Instagram apps are malware: spyware, specifically. The animals have left the barn at that point.

I firmly believe that if the users could see what these client apps are actually doing on their device, they would never use them.

Re: Should I Block Ads?

#160
post #158
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, but websites are even worse. At least the ads are super clearly marked and they're entirely unlikely to "trick" you or infect your phone with malware.

The Facebook and Instagram apps are malware: spyware, specifically. The animals have left the barn at that point. I firmly believe that if the users could see what these client apps are actually doing on their device, they would never use them.

No they're not.
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