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

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#191

Post by pdkl95 » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:00 PM UTC

netrus wrote: post #84

Spivak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it's my car so I can take off all the manufacturer and dealer badges.

Even if you got the car for free, because the manufacturer wants people to see you driving it? Sounds unethical to me.

How many car manufacturers do you know that give away cars for free - which are build pre-packaged with advertising - without fist getting you to sign a contract that stipulates the terms of that arrangement? Only with that contract can they prevent you from modifying the product they gave you.

That is the entire point of the "first-sale doctrine"[1]. You can only control your product up until the point you hand it over to the first customer, and what they do with it after that point - provided[2] they stay within the law - is up to them.

The big problem with "blocking ads is unethical" is that it presumes that the relationship between the website and client is covered by some sort of contract. It absolutely is not. Far too many people think they can unilaterally generate a contract of adhesion[3] and then proceed as if it was agreed to simply because they wish it was so or they listed some fine print in the ToS/etc.

Bonus: I don't think the people who push this kind of "pseudo-contract by ultimatum" have really thought about the full mutually-assured-destruction consequences of this kind of scam becoming acceptable to society. Imagine this HTTP header, which has the advantage of being presented before the transaction has been completed, which leaves the server free to decline the offer:

    X-CLIENT-ADVIEW-PRICES: each_image=0.05@USD each_video=5.00@USD:max_time=2m30s
    X-CLIENT-ADVIEW-PAYMENTS: some_type_of_payment_routing_number

Would the "content producers" like it if that was enforcable? How about the reverse: mandating zero-cost for a subscription site? If you think this is ridiculous: good - it is ridiculous. Just like when the advertisers do it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

[2] Other laws like copyright are, of course, still apply.

[3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_contract_o...

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#192

Post by pdkl95 » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

h3st wrote: post #182

bediger4000 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a bit different - there's probably a contractual (legal) obligation there. I use my bandwidth to retrieve the web page, and my CPU/GPU time to render it. Arguably, my computer is doing some of the work for the "content creator" in any case. If we're going the Car Analogy Route, then I think the situation is more like you've bought some blueprints and chunks of metal. You machined the chunks of metal into…

The assembly / bandwidth / cpu / etc argument really shines for limited platforms. E.g. if you're on metered internet, loading ads costs you money. If you're on a small device, playing ads costs you power, meaning you have to find a charger sooner. Computer ads aren't free for the people subjected to them, since we're the ones that have to do the work of displaying them. Compare that to paper / magazine ads add a few…

> paper / magazine ads add a few grams of weight and a bit of volume, but rarely in noticeable amounts

Have you even seen dead-tree magazines in the lase ~decade? They are often half (or more!) ads. I hardly call >50% of the volume/mass to be "rarely noticeable".

I'm sure there are counterexamples of saner magazines, but they are certainly not the common experience.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#193

Post by WaltPurvis » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:11 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…

What the internet has done is remove scarcity from the equation (to a large degree). Prior to the internet, when all we had was magazines and newspapers, there was actual value in providing what you and the previous poster consider "low quality" journalism. If some of the articles in a tech magazine were little more than slightly reworded press releases, those articles still had value to me because I had no other way (i.e., no medium) to ever see a press release. Similarly, when my local city newspaper published AP articles, that had value because that newspaper was the only place I could read those articles.

Now, however, press releases are published verbatim on countless sites, show up in google searches, etc., and AP articles are published on hundreds of sites, plus Google News, and so when any one particular news site publishes any of this stuff they are providing me with essentially zero value. (It makes me laugh when I click on a link at Google News and it takes me to some newspaper's web site like the Akron Beacon-Journal and then that newspaper throws up a paywall barrier preventing me from reading the article, yet I can see that the article is from Associated Press -- why would I pay money to access content that has nothing whatsoever to do specifically with Akron, that the Akron paper had no involvement in creating, when that content is freely available on a hundred other sites?)

The second way the internet has removed scarcity is the well-recognized fact that there's now far, far more high-quality content available than any human being could possibly read, and much of that is free. Which means a publisher better be offering something really spectacularly special and exclusive, because it makes no sense for me to pay money just to increase my list of stuff that I'll never have time to read. The New York Times is an example of a site I would pay for, if they charged a reasonable amount, instead of the completely ridiculous amount they're actually charging (several hundred dollars per year) -- there's so much other good stuff to read that I'm not going to suffer any pain from not being able to read a few NYT articles a week.

Of course, if there was a workable micropayment system in place, I'd probably pay for even mediocre content, I mean, if it was a penny or something to read an ephemeral opinion column about, say, a sports team I follow, I'd do that sometimes. I'd probably pay several dollars a month even for "low-quality" content, if it relieved me of intrusive craptastic ads, but I'd never pay a whole dollar to a single low-quality publisher, let alone the $5-20 per month that a lot of paywalled sites are trying to get.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#194

Post by MisterBastahrd » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #167

fweespeech wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which is why this will never be viable. Internet content providers are radio stations, not performers. They aren't going to Spotify themselves.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#195

Post by fweespeech » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #167

fweespeech wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

...and then its the same overhead because they are the ones collecting. You are just shifting who bears the cost of customer service.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#196

Post by saint_fiasco » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

savanaly wrote: post #168

eevilspock wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In this hypothetical, you have the superior product, so you would prefer to rely on honesty.

The alternative situation where everyone bullshits is one of the reasons people are using ad blockers.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#197

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

savanaly wrote: post #168

eevilspock wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#198

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #189

maxerickson wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why assume there would be less overhead without the ads? With ads, there is also probably less friction visiting unknown sites; clicking to a site with too many ads and then just closing it is probably a better experience than knowing you blew $0.05 on crap content (I'm not saying getting frustrated about $0.05 makes sense, I'm saying it will probably happen).

You and dragonwriter are missing my point about innovation, and also greatly underestimate the overhead cost of the advertising-publisher industrial complex.

I didn't make an estimate, I asked you to justify your assertion.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#199

Post by saint_fiasco » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #187

VLM wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. You can't possibly be equating the manufacture of a simple physical…

Don't just assert that.

I sincerely believe that most people overestimate (or pretend to overestimate) the value of journalism, and I'm curious about why you think it isn't so.

Re: The ethics of modern web ad-blocking

#200

Post by Merovius » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

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…

Your logic is flawed. Advertisers advertise to increase their share of the whole economy. Every single person could spend exactly the same amount of money and even on exactly the same kind of things as before and advertising would still make sense. I am not denying, that due to advertising we shift our buying habbits. But advertising is born out of competition, it is to take a share of the spending power of people away from other companies. Spending power is pretty much a constant (at least in regards to advertising, it increases as a function of the strength of the economy).

Seriously, think about it for a second: If advertising stopped today, completely. Would you spend less money? I don't think so.