Mate, you've had since 1995 to come up with a functioning micropayments system, and you're unhappy that I am not requesting every image referenced by your web page? I think that we are long past the point where we can safely say that this is a "you" problem.
It’s OK to block ads (2015)
41–50 of 114 posts
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#42Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel working on something that is zero-sum (does not produce positive value for society, only changes where the money goes)? Would you change jobs if a positive-sum job became available? And to risk being seen as preaching, have you read https://drewdevault.com/2025/04/20/2025-04-20-Tech-sector-re... ?
It produces a lot of value when products are actually used as opposed to unused
import more land fill
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much do you value your time? A lot of people think like this and I'm not judging you or saying this applies to you. But I find it kind of odd when people I know who earn hundreds to thousands of dollars an hour won't pay even $0.10 for something that took them say 15 minutes to read. If their own time is worth $200 / hr, they thought it was valuable enough to use up $50 of their time. If they refuse to pay anythi…
Back in the old days, people would share useful information in the internet of their own accord. That still happens a lot today, too! In my opinion, most of the stuff that's ad-supported is not worth my time, as the "content creator" is trying to sell something or otherwise has an angle they're pushing. How can I trust what they have to say when I know they're only doing it to make some money? They will be less inter…
> I think if you take ads away from the internet, you'll also take away a lot of the bullshit and inaccurate or misleading information
Just a gut feeling, but I doubt it. You'll still get a lot of bullshit inaccurate/misleading information, just only pushed by those with the budgets to keep pushing it.
Right-wing podcasters that take money from the Russian government to spread disinformation[0] will still get their checks even if their supplement sponsorships get outlawed.
You can take away all of Alex Jones' money and he'll still find some way to put his nonsense out there.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-rt-employees-ind...
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#45every website that stops me from viewing it because i am blocking ads will never get a visit from me again. i don't watch television because of unavoidable advertisements. i will never accept advertisements as anything other than deception.
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel working on something that is zero-sum (does not produce positive value for society, only changes where the money goes)? Would you change jobs if a positive-sum job became available? And to risk being seen as preaching, have you read https://drewdevault.com/2025/04/20/2025-04-20-Tech-sector-re... ?
It produces a lot of value when products are actually used as opposed to unused
No, it produces money, not value, and not for society but for the company which spends on advertising instead of spending on improving the product.
Meanwhile this forces other brands in the same category to also spend on advertising even if they have a better product, thus increasing the cost.
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#47> In the 1970’s, Herbert Simon pointed out that when information becomes abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource. Attention is scarce, but what makes it valuable?
It’s literally what you experience in your life. I’d say I value my life a lot, in the end it’s all I actually own.
On the other hand, others value my attention because they can make fractions of a cent by making me look at stuff, because there’s a minimal chance they’ll convince me to spend money on stuff of probably little value.
Seems to me they don’t value my attention a lot, and I don’t get much of value out of it.
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel working on something that is zero-sum (does not produce positive value for society, only changes where the money goes)? Would you change jobs if a positive-sum job became available? And to risk being seen as preaching, have you read https://drewdevault.com/2025/04/20/2025-04-20-Tech-sector-re... ?
Connecting people with goods or services they may find valuable provides a positive value to society.
Products should compete on their cost vs value for the customer, not on which is better known.
Yes, advertisements make customers aware of a particular category of product but by pushing one specific brand instead of the whole category. I would OK with advertisements which push the whole category, that is positive-sum.
But currently we have an arms race where you have to invest in ads to compete with other products of the same category and that is zero-sum. Inter-category competition should be based on quality/longevity/cost.
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in the old days, people would share useful information in the internet of their own accord. That still happens a lot today, too! In my opinion, most of the stuff that's ad-supported is not worth my time, as the "content creator" is trying to sell something or otherwise has an angle they're pushing. How can I trust what they have to say when I know they're only doing it to make some money? They will be less inter…
> I think if you take ads away from the internet, you'll also take away a lot of the bullshit and inaccurate or misleading information Just a gut feeling, but I doubt it. You'll still get a lot of bullshit inaccurate/misleading information, just only pushed by those with the budgets to keep pushing it. Right-wing podcasters that take money from the Russian government to spread disinformation[0] will still get their c…
Sure, you'll never get rid of all misleading information; however, without advertising the volume of shit will reduce radically, as much of the modern internet is built around profiteering and get rich quick schemes (influencers), which breed swathes of hopeful emulators.
I think most sensible people are quite competent at ignoring the bullshit, so I would love it if there was less bullshit to wade through to get to the nuggets of useful information which are out there. For those too stupid to look past misleading information, there's no helping them anyway.
Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems less evil, at least in the sense that it doesn’t require staking people and collecting dossiers about their personal information. I’m surprised your business model doesn’t completely dominate over the social media algorithmic nonsense. I’d expect people who searched for something to be actually interested in it.
It actually does, in a way. Amazon.com (not AWS) doesnt make any money on product sales - it makes almost all of its revenue from sponsored products. Walmart as well makes a huge percentage of its money from promoting products. My company operates only on small ecommerce sites. Because we have a huge catalog of products, advertisers can come to us and launch a campaign, and we can automatically deliver across dozens…
> Amazon.com (not AWS) doesnt make any money on product sales - it makes almost all of its revenue from sponsored products
So you see, it is exploitative. Amazon has an advantageous position thanks to its brand name and it allows it to extract money from companies who want their product sold which in turn is extracted from customers. Meanwhile if a better (in terms of quality/longevity/cost) product existed, it would be unable to compete without also being forced to advertise. It has to spend money on ads which would be better spent improving the product (or making it cheaper in the complete absence of advertising).
EDIT: Btw, I do appreciate the honesty. There are absolutely different levels of severity of anti-social / anti-consumer behavior - the exploitation I pointed out has lower severity but a higher scale/prevalence and your alcohol example is a good example of low scale/prevalence but high severity.