I do not use ad blockers because I want to see how the owners of a website I'm interacting with really treat their users. I do not want to help some crappy web site to look better and more trustable to me than it really is. Don't like ads on a website — just go elsewhere.
Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
531–540 of 580 posts
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, do it for real. Paywall completely. Keep the Googlebot out too. If people want to read a newspaper, they'll have to hear from their friends how great it is.
I agree, and you know what? I think online newspapers could be so much better. Imagine an online paper where, instead of just mimicking a real newspaper with story after story, a site that collects facts, history as it happens, and weaves them together to form a cohesive stream that a reader can explore in all kinds of innovative ways. You can still have he said / she said news. Still make it dramatic, but allow the…
> Imagine an online paper where, instead of just mimicking a real newspaper with story after story, a site that collects facts, history as it happens, and weaves them together to form a cohesive stream that a reader can explore in all kinds of innovative ways.
This is very much what I've been thinking about. I also feel that news misses a lot of metadata and context most of the time and if parts of it are there it often feels ad hoc and is not easily computer readable. With the right tools professional journalists could become more like data curators, linking different sources of data together as they become available.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
> judicial activism That's disingenuous bullshit. The spirit of the constitution protects individual rights, and there is no constitutional reason why an arbitrary religious definition of marriage should be respected over the rights of individuals. It's not activism to say that discrimination based on sexual orientation is unconstitutional. Any feelings you have about the definition of marriage based on culture, trad…
The spirit of the constitution protects individual rights Do you support polygamous marriage? It's not activism to say that discrimination based on sexual orientation is unconstitutional. It's not bigotry to say that marriage is a societal institution and society can define it. Any feelings you have about the definition of marriage based on culture, tradition, or god's divine law are irreverent to the legal instituti…
> In states where marriage was redefined legislatively, there was nothing like Proposition 8. Haven't you wondered why that is?
Yes there was. Slovenia, within the last month.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. Interesting. I'm the opposite. I've yet to encounter an ad that has a hope in hell of manipulating me at all. I couldn't be more dismissive of them. And if I encounter one too often my dislike of the company starts to grow. "It's show time, and you've b…
> I've yet to encounter an ad that has a hope in hell of manipulating me at all. If you know what "just do it", "the happiest place on Earth", "think different", or "the world's most advanced operating system" refer to, you've already been manipulated. A lot of ads are just about making sure you have a particular brand in mind and you're keenly aware of that brand's existence. Then, when time comes around to actually…
The only thing that kind of advertising does is make me actively avoid that brand in the future out of sheer spite.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#535I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…
The point of ads isn't actually to get you to go out and buy their goods. It's to get you to remember their name, so when you are buying goods and looking at that product range you're more likely to buy their goods. Because you know the name that some how that makes you more likely to buy it. So ads are all about getting you to know the name.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you. An ad may make me aware of a product of which I had not previously been but it's not going to induce me to buy something in which I had no previous interest. If I'm thinking of Widget Class X Brand A, an ad might make me aware of Brand B and I may eventually purchase the Brand B but I was going to purchase Widget Class X anyway. If I had no interest in Widget Class Z, it doesn't matter how many ads…
What if the ad makes you aware of a "problem" that you didn't know you had that they have a product that can address. Think for example an ad reinforces the underlying fear that you are not social enough because you enjoy programming by yourself. It explains that a pill to help "anxiety" is what you need to be healthy or maybe a class to help you become better spoken will change your life for the better. Many people…
That's called psychological manipulation and exploitation.
When you understand and come to terms with the fact that that's what pretty much all ads are doing, it becomes much simpler to view the ads only with disgust and avoid the brands they are peddling in future.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
Freeloading? You're missing the point; we're not catering to your sense of entitlement.
So where is your magical solution that puts food on the table of the content creators but doesn't rely on selling user data or displaying ads?
We don't owe struggling creatives a living.
If your business model fails without ads, I'd suggest you have no business model at all.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#538I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…
In the end, I get to decide what the browser on my machine renders and displays to me. It's a piece of software under my control, and I am configuring it to avoid annoyances and manipulations.
If advertisers don't like that then I'm not sure what I can say to assuage their concerns.
Tough shit?
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#539I will repeat this one more time, because Eich seems to be missing the point.[1] I don't adblock for privacy, security, or speed. Those are just nice-side effects. I adblock because I do not want to be manipulated into buying things I do not need. I wonder what would happen if, as a society, we said, "enough, no more ads". Would it really be the capitalist apocalypse that the ad industry is trying to make us believe…
In the end, I get to decide what the browser on my machine renders and displays to me. It's a piece of software under my control, and I am configuring it to avoid annoyances and manipulations. If advertisers don't like that then I'm not sure what I can say to assuage their concerns. Tough shit?
In the next 3 years websites will increasingly block users with adblock. So the future is less tough shit and more total war.
Re: Brave: Brendan Eich's clean-ads browser startup
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diversity, I think, is really important. Diversity of thought as well as all the other kinds of diversity. It's important to be able to work with people who come from different backgrounds, who have different beliefs. I see this on both sides (I see it more often on the left, but that's just because my filter bubble is a somewhat leftish one.. when I step out of that bubble, I see plenty examples of people on the rig…
It's not true that all diversity of thought is good or acceptable. As obvious examples, the idea that people with black skin should be slaves, or that people who believe in Judaism should be rounded up and exterminated. Saying that gay people should be denied the right to marry is not much different in my mind than advocating segregation for blacks, or denying Muslims various rights. (However, as long as Eich is no l…
You're in good company in your well thought out justification of not tolerating intolerance. Religious groups who themselves benefit from tolerance yet preach intolerance don't need to change their bigoted beliefs -- they are free believe anything they want, right or wrong. They only need to behave as if they were tolerant (by not actively trying to strip away the existing rights of others, like Brendan did), to get along in a tolerant society that has the right self preservation and the right to defend itself from those who would destroy its tolerance and institutions of liberty (like gay marriage).
Paradox of Tolerance [1]:
Philosopher Karl Popper defined the paradox in 1945 in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1.
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
He concluded that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance: "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
In 1971, philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
In a 1997 work, Michael Walzer asked "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue".