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The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

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Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#161

Post by JackC »

Balgair wrote: post #113
mikestew wrote: post #74

In my book, it's no longer a question of ethics, at least not directly. Way back when, we all agreed that if I look at some ads, a web site will let me view some content. Fair enough, it's a proven model and though I might not particularly like advertising, I'll trade some eyeballs for some content. Way back when, maybe it _was_ a question of ethics. But not anymore. What "we" didn't agree to was being tracked all ov…

http://www.artofmanliness.com/ This site is a great one to look at in terms of the ad ecosystem. The ads are (typically) not that bad and very targeted, and the content is fantastic to the sub-genre of people looking at it. The admin there uses, reviews, and runs give-aways for products he actually likes and wants to advocate for. True, the site is never going to make billions or even millioons, but it is enough for…

So, just for example, loading artofmanliness.com allows 14 different third-party companies to track your browsing history. There's more to fixing this than just putting in work to manage ad inventory -- we need a system that doesn't depend on broadcasting private information to dozens of anonymous companies.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#162

Post by candu »

reasonishy wrote: post #13
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…

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…

I'd...search for things I need? Or rely on word-of-mouth via people I actually care about? (Of course, you could argue that these are also forms of advertising, in which case this argument ultimately devolves to "people hear about things most often by hearing about them".)

Or: even though it might be possible to interest me in buying said products and services, maybe I don't need/want them enough to justify the purchase, and so reducing/eliminating pervasive psychological coercion is in fact helping me to act in my rational self-interest?

Also: "most businesses are supported by X, therefore X is good and/or there is no viable alternative to X" just doesn't hold water as an argument. For instance: "most businesses are supported by chattel slavery..."; "most businesses are supported by the local feudal warlord..."; "most businesses are supported by the infinite benevolence of the Church...", and so on - failure to imagine a different model is a failure of imagination and/or historical perspective, not of existence.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#163

Post by flavor8 »

hsod wrote: post #135
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…

The ethical argument, which is briefly considered in this article, is that by blocking ads you are violating an implied agreement with the site owners. Legality and technology are irrelevant, it's simply a question of whether or not such an implied agreement exists and whether or not it is ethical to break it. My opinion is that such an agreement does exist, and that it is a (very minor) unethical act to break it, an…

Are there any analagous "implied agreements" that lend weight to your opinion, or are we breaking new ground with this?

And as a counterpoint, I would suggest that the "implied agreement" respects the user to whom ads are being served. Sites like gawker, huffington, techcrunch who attempt to sell my behavior to 6-10 ad networks are stepping over that line.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#164

Post by flavor8 »

Balgair wrote: post #113
mikestew wrote: post #74

In my book, it's no longer a question of ethics, at least not directly. Way back when, we all agreed that if I look at some ads, a web site will let me view some content. Fair enough, it's a proven model and though I might not particularly like advertising, I'll trade some eyeballs for some content. Way back when, maybe it _was_ a question of ethics. But not anymore. What "we" didn't agree to was being tracked all ov…

http://www.artofmanliness.com/ This site is a great one to look at in terms of the ad ecosystem. The ads are (typically) not that bad and very targeted, and the content is fantastic to the sub-genre of people looking at it. The admin there uses, reviews, and runs give-aways for products he actually likes and wants to advocate for. True, the site is never going to make billions or even millioons, but it is enough for…

People subscribe to podcasts. Why couldn't people subscribe to his site (for a trivially small payment) and get access to one new article per week? (Or access to 50 articles for a set period of time.)

If the content is good, then people will be willing to pay for it. That's how books work. That's how, for example, wikipedia works. That's how newspapers work (although of course many have been failing).

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#165

Post by ryandvm »

RodericDay wrote: post #76
chatmasta wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If these costs are being borne evenly, then it's complete societal waste. That doesn't make sense. You are saying because User reads Content, Advertiser pays Content, and User pays Advertiser, that the middle step of Advertiser paying Content is unnecessary, because User could pay Content. Simple counterexample: I like reading techcrunch, but would never pay for it. But I might see an ad for a new device that I lik…

See, I really like markets, and I have a problem with phrases like: > I like reading techcrunch, but would never pay for it. Sounds to me a lot like Mitt Romney talking about how his wife has the most important job in the world, but she's essentially his unpaid housewife. Sounds hollow. You are paying for techcrunch, by buying products advertised on it. It would be good for the finances of everyone in society to know…

The problem is that nobody is asking the actual market value of their product. TechCrunch would probably want subscribers to pay north of $5/month. But the actual marketing value (in ad revenue) that they are currently able to extract from a single reader is probably closer to $0.50/year - if that.

You solve the micropayment problem and then we can talk about what I'm willing to pay for content.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#166

Post by redml »

tremon wrote: post #77
agd wrote: post #6

people aren’t agreeing to write a blank check and give up reasonable expectations of privacy by clicking a link. They can’t even know what the cost of visiting a page will be until they’ve already visited it and paid the price. This is the crucial point to me. How can I agree to a website's trackers before I know they exist?

This is also what the much-maligned EU cookiewall was intended to address: you inform visitors about your tracking /before/ you start tracking them. Though I don't know at which stage that incentive was bungled (other than: "doomed from the start, because people").

Correct me if I'm wrong (because I don't live in the EU and can't verify this), but to comply with the cookie law websites started just displaying "we use cookies" in the header somewhere and didn't actually change anything. Meaning its the same as browsing the internet everywhere else you just get told that this is happening.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#167

Post by blacksmith_tb »

fweespeech wrote: post #91
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…

> 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 put up online (hosting, funding its creation), someone is paying X+(ad company overhead) for it. Yes, and if you paid directly you'd have X+(B2C payment processing overhead) which is more than B2B. > We could pay X…

The micropayments could be handled via one of those 20 companies. For example, it would be fairly easy for Doubleclick to have users set up an account and fund it with a few bucks, and then they'd pay TechCrunch .01 USD when the user read an article. In effect it'd be a sort of protection racket, if you don't want see any ads, pay up.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#168

Post by savanaly »

eevilspock wrote: post #150
savanaly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>and raise insurmountable barriers to new competition.

Why do we assume that the dishonest and manipulative nature of advertising would be more effectively wielded by the companies already in the market than by new ones trying to break in to the market?

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#169

Post by pc86 »

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…

> some people are paying for the consumption of more disciplined people, it's probably contributing to terrible cycles of poverty

You are honestly suggesting that internet advertising is contributing to poverty?

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