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Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

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Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#181

Post by thehooplehead »

joosters wrote: post #91
rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

Banksy says it best: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticat…

I like this quote, it's well laid-out, but I don't think the reasoning is sound. At heart, the argument it voices anger at advertisers for forcing you to see things you don't want to see and feel things you don't want to feel. That's exactly the reasoning used to limit individual freedom of expression in many places. It creates a victim (the passive observer) in order to vilify an otherwise victimless crime (the person expressing themselves).

For the record, I hate ads too, but I see it as a fair exchange.

Below, I've streamlined and abstracted the quote. If you stuck "women" where I say "insert target," this would mirror a lot of really repressive hate speech that's going on in many parts of the world.

>> People are taking the piss out of you everyday... [They] take a cheap shot at you and then disappear... [They] make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making [you] feel inadequate. They have access and they bully you with it. They are (insert target) and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head... You owe [them] nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#182

Post by EvanAnderson »

StavrosK wrote: post #180
EvanAnderson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A website displays on _my_ computer. I should have more control over that "space" than a "public space", for sure. There's nothing wrong with wanting complete control of how my computer is being used. If the business model of the advertisers requires that they trust that my computer displays their ads then I see it as their fault for misplacing their trust.

That's like saying "I should have a say of what you put in your house, because it's my eyes that see it when I come over". If you don't like my house, don't come over. If you don't like a website, don't visit it. It's not yours, any more than you can dictate what goes on a TV channel just because your TV shows it.

I don't see arguing about the "house" analogy could be productive. Viewing a website causes code to execute on my computer. Changing how that code executes on my computer doesn't change the website for the owner or for others visiting the site. Having a physical presence in someone's home arguably causes physical changes in the world for the owner of the house and for others visiting. It's not a useful analogy for this argument, to my mind.

I do like the television analogy, though. Presumably you'd argue that I shouldn't be permitted to mute the audio, change the channel, or skip ahead or back in the video stream when the "owner" of the video being displayed says I shouldn't. Does that "owner" have some kind of moral right in how I "consume" their content? Sounds like an argument for the "broadcast flag" and even more draconian restrictions to make the television that I paid for and own "belong" to someone else. Yikes! I wouldn't want to "consume" that content or buy a television that had that kind of functionality in it. (I'm already frustrated enough at DVDs with "unskippable" material that, effectively, punish me for using a legally-licensed media in a legally-licensed player.)

Arguing that I shouldn't be permitted to alter how a website displays on my computer is, effectively, arguing that I don't actually own my computer when a third-party says that I don't. "In consideration for viewing our website you agree that you don't own your computer." I definitely wouldn't visit that website. Nobody says that kind of thing out right, though. Website operators just require silly things like DRM-plugins (Silverlight for Netflix, for example) that erode my control of my owner computer. I don't partake of those kinds of "services", personally, and I definitely wouldn't recommend them to others.

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