Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like when the book store asks you for your phone number, home address, and driver's license before they will accept your credit card, and so you simply pay them with cash.
After giving them a fake phone number that costs $5.99 per minute, a home address on the top of Mt. Everest where shipping ads to costs them hundreds of dollars, and a fake credit card numbers. And yes, this cost is one that they should simply accept, if they want to ship malware. You try to destroy my system, I’ll try to destroy yours.
Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
251–260 of 263 posts
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? What happens next? Do I have to ask every creator of ad attacks extensions like AdNauseam if the ad network I wanna use fits in their definition of "good" before adding it to my site? Do I have to ask them for permission about what HTML/JavaScript can I place in my website? Worse, what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil? Then what? I still need to make ends meet so should I…
What's good and bad is decided by each individual user, not AdNauseam. They chose AdNauseam because they agree with whatever it does and whatever kinds of ads it targets. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, or even if it's hard for you to figure out what "color of water" they don't like. That's what market research is for. So if all your users decide you're doing something bad, and that puts you out of bus…
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? What happens next? Do I have to ask every creator of ad attacks extensions like AdNauseam if the ad network I wanna use fits in their definition of "good" before adding it to my site? Do I have to ask them for permission about what HTML/JavaScript can I place in my website? Worse, what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil? Then what? I still need to make ends meet so should I…
I don't even use Adnauseam, but I find it a bit depressing that you don't see the flaw in that argument. Let's leave ads aside and think of something else. Say businesses were dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, and activists were plugging those pipes. Would "I still need to make ends meet" be a valid excuse for those businesses? Now, I'm sure you don't consider online advertising to be the same as dumping toxic che…
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? What happens next? Do I have to ask every creator of ad attacks extensions like AdNauseam if the ad network I wanna use fits in their definition of "good" before adding it to my site? Do I have to ask them for permission about what HTML/JavaScript can I place in my website? Worse, what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil? Then what? I still need to make ends meet so should I…
AdNauseam has a clear definition of "good" ad networks [1]: with default settings it allows ads that obey do-not-track headers, as tracked by the EFF. Of course in theory they could become some kind of evil authoritarian censor board. But that would cause a lot of users to jump to the next best extension. It's not really a big threat. >what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil? That s…
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#255That AdNauseam causes potential damage to people running ads and generating revenue from ads by devaluing clicks is a feature, not a bug. My understanding of the plugin is that it views advertising as universally bad, and that if a site cannot survive without ads, it must not be worth much at all, and deserves to die. I wholeheartedly agree with this view.
So Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat have no value? Because those aren't just little sites, but entire companies that have value solely because of ads. Take away ads and they don't exist.
I don't see anything wrong with this statement.
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I do run a content blocker on macos/IOS which turns off all comments on all websites, but that's a trifle limiting. What annoys me about reddit comments are the pun "trains," endless reruns of old reddit jokes. Every conversation is swamped with these comments, perhaps deliberately, to drown out unpopular opinions. No wait, the Pao era introduced mass deletions instead.
the general consensus nowdays is that it was Pao being used as a scapegoat more than anything (I think knothing also straight-up admitted to scapegoating too? I can't remember off the top of my head) https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/conte...
I wouldn't be surprised that happened ultimately, but I really don't think that she was hired with that role/goal in mind. No one could be that evil. Could they?
If you look at the history of reddit over the years, they've always lurched from one crisis to another. An absence of adult supervision. Reactive solutions.
I would bet that reddit was under pressure to monetize somehow and ads (a la Facebook) on that "community" wouldn't cut it. I believe that they had an influx of funds around the same time, and the investors were looking to start getting some returns.
Their various stealth marketing schemes were suffering at the hands of the entrenched trolls. The unsavory subreddits were probably putting off established customers.
Maybe Pao just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
yishan's comment is interesting, thanks for linking to it. I didn't follow the whole Pao affair, but I do remember someone telling me that yishan might have been trolling reddit.
One thing jumps out at me from his comment. He calls Pao "the only technology executive anywhere who had the chops and experience to manage a startup of this size, AND who understood what reddit was all about."
Technology executive? Really? That's news to me. I thought she had spent her pre-reddit days in finance.
And she definitely did not understand reddit.
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't even use Adnauseam, but I find it a bit depressing that you don't see the flaw in that argument. Let's leave ads aside and think of something else. Say businesses were dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, and activists were plugging those pipes. Would "I still need to make ends meet" be a valid excuse for those businesses? Now, I'm sure you don't consider online advertising to be the same as dumping toxic che…
It's way more like, what if I'm pouring red colorant to the rivers, and I know the colorants make absolutely no damage to the river but activists still try to destroy my business because they strongly believe so. So yeah, I find your counter-argument depressing as well; because its not about who is right or wrong but the one who believes themselves in control to determine being both the judge and the executioner.
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's way more like, what if I'm pouring red colorant to the rivers, and I know the colorants make absolutely no damage to the river but activists still try to destroy my business because they strongly believe so. So yeah, I find your counter-argument depressing as well; because its not about who is right or wrong but the one who believes themselves in control to determine being both the judge and the executioner.
Well, I'm not going to argue the merits of civil disobedience here. I'll just point out that while "innocent" ad networks might be affected, it's factually indisputable that the vast majority heavily spy on their users and occasionally serve them malware, and that there has been zero legal consequences for that. It's easier to convince people to not be "both the judge and the executioner" if the actual judges and exe…
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is "modify about:config" not having it "your way"?
Personally I can't tolerate for too long a software that I have to fight with everyday to make it work the way I want. With Firefox it started with a few small changes but in the end I have found myself working on an userPrefs.js with hunders of lines, compiling the source with custom build flags and patches just to have a browser that doesn't spy actively on me. I really hope it won't happen with PaleMoon too but th…
Re: Pale Moon blocks AdNauseam extension
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's good and bad is decided by each individual user, not AdNauseam. They chose AdNauseam because they agree with whatever it does and whatever kinds of ads it targets. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, or even if it's hard for you to figure out what "color of water" they don't like. That's what market research is for. So if all your users decide you're doing something bad, and that puts you out of bus…
No; this is like stealing the product. If you don't like a product you just don't buy it (meaning, don't go to their website), you don't go to the their publishing agency and throw rocks at their windows just because you don't agree with their profiting methods, it's really simple.
It all boils down to control - you (and people like you) want all of it, and other people have other ideas contrary to your own (and are willing to do whatever they feel works to achieve what they want).