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Just doesn’t feel good
21–30 of 315 posts
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#22Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…
It's really disappointing that all those the-sky-is-falling articles from tech journalists have apparently caused this.
Nothing has changed, no new issues were raised. Marco has talked about and basically supported ad blocking in the past. I guess he just doesn't feel like being the focus of their ire right now.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#23If you are getting money from a legal activity you consider morally unsound, consider donating the profits to a charity GiveWell recommends. Some other service will pick up the slack, so throwing in the towel and your profits is a very inefficient means of stopping that act you consider to be morally unsound. In fact, you're subsidizing those without moral scruples. Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Dona…
If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. I'm guess Marco is acting on principal here, and not on greatest good for the cause.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#24[deleted]
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Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#25A little off topic, but I'd love to chat with anyone who has a significant percentage (leaning towards a majority) of their revenue generated from ads served on the mobile web – shoot me an email.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recommending them means nothing at all. That is practically the status quo when breaking up with another business, employee or whatever when it is done publicly. (and this obviously had to be public)
Right...but nothing about Marco's statement suggests anything besides, "It turns out I feel really weird about making an ad blocker, and there isn't any way I can make an ad blocker that works in a way that doesn't make me feel weird with the iOS framework, so I'm not going to make one anymore." Why not take his statement at face value? He's personally reliant on ad income from his site, as are several of his friends…
Just one clarification, and it will seem picky, but while Marco's site does have ads, Marco-the-person is in no sense "reliant" on ad income, as an early Tumblr employee who did well in the IPO and then didn't blow it on yachts and helicopters. In addition to IAP money from his podcast app, selling Instapaper, etc.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#27If you are getting money from a legal activity you consider morally unsound, consider donating the profits to a charity GiveWell recommends. Some other service will pick up the slack, so throwing in the towel and your profits is a very inefficient means of stopping that act you consider to be morally unsound. In fact, you're subsidizing those without moral scruples. Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Dona…
Do what you feel is morally wrong, and give away the profits? That's... bad ethics.
"It's wrong, but it's for the greater good, so it's OK!" should be a major red flag. It says that what you're doing is wrong, you know it's wrong, and you're rationalizing. What lies down that road is the destruction of such morals as you currently have. Don't go there.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#28If you are getting money from a legal activity you consider morally unsound, consider donating the profits to a charity GiveWell recommends. Some other service will pick up the slack, so throwing in the towel and your profits is a very inefficient means of stopping that act you consider to be morally unsound. In fact, you're subsidizing those without moral scruples. Stopping this because it "feels wrong" is odd. Dona…
If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other. I'm guess Marco is acting on principal here, and not on greatest good for the cause.
> If utilitarian ethics are better than deontological ethics, then you're right. But it's hard to value one system over the other.
No, its not. Its quite easy to do so, and people do it all the time without any particular effort.
Its impossible, not merely hard, to argue that someone else should value one over the other, without first choosing some from of one or the other as the basis for the argument, since you can't get a value conclusion without a value premise.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#29Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…
Alternatively: I am seeing a lot of angry articles by journalists who see adblockers as an existential threat to them, and Marco also developed Instapaper. He's almost certainly already getting hate mail from content sites who don't like the way that Instapaper renders their content readable without allowing annoying intrusions. Releasing Peace on top of Instapaper set him up as a high-profile target -- even higher w…
I'd urge you to medidate on what the constant complaints about paywalls imply about the public's appetite for non-advertising revenue streams.
Journalists have to eat.
Re: Just doesn’t feel good
#30Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.
Agreed - I think the key point is where he says he's fortunate enough to be able to do this (sacrifice the possible income of this app).
Why bother with all of the political mess (much of it from "the internet" I'm sure) when you could just apply your effort elsewhere and avoid a ton of physical and emotional stress? Focusing on Overcast sounds just fine.