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It’s OK to block ads (2015)

blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk

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Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#91

Post by akho »

yen223 wrote: post #21

> 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?

For a certain definition of information, its net volume and availability on the internet has been declining for quite a while. There is a growth of bytes with zero information content (ai slop, influencer video, ...), worse discovery tools (search is dead), and outright negative information (political disinformation, ads). Net value tends negative.

Attention is still being consumed.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#92

Post by martin-t »

charcircuit wrote: post #54
martin-t wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

>I would OK with advertisements which push the whole category, that is positive-sum. This doesn't get rid of people buying what is most well known. In fact without the possibility of being exposed to more niche options people will just go with the incumbents. Advertising allows new competitors in a space to be able to acquire customers based off their value for customers instead of being a wellknown thing.

They'd still be exposed to other options, through friends, reviewers, comparisons websites, etc.

Ads mean the brand with more money wins. It is completely orthogonal to value/cost.

You can in theory get investors to fund ads for a new brand but it just increases the upfront cost. Organic growth is no longer possible. And who benefits most are the already rich.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#93

Post by skeaker »

npc_anon wrote: post #71

People block ads and/or not pay for content because they can. Simply because it's possible. People have been conditioned to consider any and all digital content to be worth zero. Yet continue to consume it for hours on end every day. When not paying at all is an option people will reliably pick that option. They'll even go into extremes to avoid paying. I know somebody that plays a particular mobile game about an hou…

As they should. Never once have I seen any good outcome of ads on the web.

On the user end:

- People click scam download buttons or fake links and are blasted with scams or malware.

- Nobody I know has ever, not once, purchased something from an ad and been happy with it. The one person I know who did purchase something from a Facebook ad got scammed.

- The actual content people want to watch is delayed or interrupted by constant nonsense that they will never engage with.

So already there is absolutely no incentive as an end user to want ads. Then over on the content creator end:

- Because they work through clicks, ads generate a ton of bad incentives to make divisive content or just otherwise harmful content. See Elsagate for one way this manifests.

- For honest creators who make genuinely good and creative works, ads harm them by consistently underpaying them. Only the very absolute peak of content creators make a livable wage from ads alone. See the rise of Patreon and other such subscription methods that they have had to rely on to get away from ad revenue dependency.

- Ads also harm honest creators by incentivizing bad actors to steal their work, either by direct reuploads on various platforms or by simple plagiarism. See any Facebook page for stolen content or the whole James Somerton expose that happened a couple years ago for the plagiarism bit.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#94

Post by piperswe »

npc_anon wrote: post #71

People block ads and/or not pay for content because they can. Simply because it's possible. People have been conditioned to consider any and all digital content to be worth zero. Yet continue to consume it for hours on end every day. When not paying at all is an option people will reliably pick that option. They'll even go into extremes to avoid paying. I know somebody that plays a particular mobile game about an hou…

I pay quite a lot for digital content. I also run an ad blocker, because advertising as a whole is malicious and I consider my financial contributions to the digital creator economy to be sufficient.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#95

Post by cm2012 »

ndriscoll wrote: post #51
cm2012 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It produces a lot of value when products are actually used as opposed to unused

It's easy to find plenty of counterexamples: cigarettes, Teflon pans, soda, cheap children's clothing with elevated lead, etc. And that's before we get into crypto scams, MLM schemes, etc.

Sure, bad products are bad. So shouldn't promoting good products be good?

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#96

Post by cm2012 »

martin-t wrote: post #46
cm2012 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every single human endeavor since the beginning of time has had to balance making something vs selling it.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#97

Post by ndriscoll »

cm2012 wrote: post #95
ndriscoll wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to find plenty of counterexamples: cigarettes, Teflon pans, soda, cheap children's clothing with elevated lead, etc. And that's before we get into crypto scams, MLM schemes, etc.

Sure, bad products are bad. So shouldn't promoting good products be good?

Sure, but if you're taking kickbacks to promote something, it's a near certainty that's not what you're doing.

Like in this thread you have people asking what about retailers that take money for product placement, or how will people find products without ads? It's apparently inconceivable that retailers spotlight actual high quality products that they believe in and they do some industry research into what they should carry and actually stand by what they're selling instead of treating their customers like suckers to be sold.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#98

Post by maximus_01 »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #90
Dfiesl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a neat and rational way of looking at things but does it always make sense to give your time a monetary value?

Also, when I'm.. ehm.. accidentally reading blogspam in my spare time, who's reimbursing me? And if I'm actually reading instead of working, isn't the time I spend more of a debt than a declaration that I want to donate as much money as I wasted by not working for X minutes? Employers haven't paid me for spending a lot of time with them so far. But let's stick with the argument and claim that our time is worth the ho…

If you invert it, though, money is really compensation for time (directly or indirectly). Most of the things you pay money for are compensating someone for time spent (whether that time was spent in the past, present or future). Why is it so hard to go in the other direction? It doesn't mean that you think money is more important than time or anything. It's just that people trade one for the other. Even if you remove the money element altogether, you have a finite amount of time and should value it as such.

I also never said anything about equality or that an engineer or a scientists time is necessarily worth the same as other occupations. I was pointing to a very large disparity (paying a very small amount for content that one clearly values, if they value their time). You can put whatever numbers you want in my original comment and my point would stand.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#99

Post by maximus_01 »

ndriscoll wrote: post #25
maximus_01 wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

Not quite. Generally "content" from people trying to monetize their writing online (or who describe it as such) is not worth the time spent reading it, so in fact you're already in the hole before being asked to compensate them somehow. That I read/watched the stuff at all is often more a reflection of poor time management on my part than some high value of theirs (the OP essay mentions a similar point, and it's capt…

Sure but that's what happens when you cut distribution costs to zero (i.e. the internet). It's pretty indisputable that most content online is garbage. But there is also a lot of super high quality information out there in all sorts of fields, more than there was when distribution costs were high.

There is a prevailing attitude amongst some that they aren't willing to pay for any info - and they hold that as basically some sort of weird sacred belief. I think those people, even if they came across the best piece of content ever written, would be unwilling to pay 10c for it (pre or post). I'm just saying I find that odd.

Re: It’s OK to block ads (2015)

#100

Post by h4kunamata »

DanielHB wrote: post #63
h4kunamata wrote: post #62

It isn't just okay but mandatory! 2015, 10 years later things got so much worse, only know some minority are realising all the problems behind an AD. With the rise of privacy being breached by American companies and now AI, the way we deal with technology should change altogether. Basics first, if you only use your PC to access the internet, YouTube, office/excel(LibreOffice) and alike, Mint Cinnamon Linux to replace…

I has gotten better security-wise at least, malicious ads can't infect your OS anymore just by being loaded. The browser sandbox is much more secure these days.

I run Linux only at home and all my devices including WiFi6 router. That alone prevents you from getting malicious thing, you only get a Linux system infected if you have zero common sense.

The way how the permissions work on Linux prevents that from happening unless an user did an user thing.

With Windows, all you need to get malicious crappy is to use Windows. When the system itself is collecting sensitive information aka Microsoft Recall.

You cannot access the internet, have VIRTUALLY no problems with virus AND have privacy while using Windows. That is like saying you have an umbrella with a EF5 tornado passing by.

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