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> Publishers are offering their content for free No, they are offering their content in the expectation that they will be rewarded for producing it, via ads. I

by phpnode 11y ago

> Publishers are offering their content for free No, they are offering their content in the expectation that they will be rewarded for producing it, via ads. It isn't free. Are you saying it's moral for you to read their content but circumvent their business model?

vlucas 11y ago
> There is no contract or promise between me and the website that I am visiting that I will be captive to their ads or behavior tracking, implied or otherwise If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. Some even advertise and market that enthusiastically. A visit still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to sell ads), and I am exposed to their brand, which is a large part of what marketing is all about. There are also other forms of advertising which are not blocked - things like sponsored posts, guest posts, mailing list opt-in forms, referral links, etc. You also conveniently ignored my question on whether or not forcing me to watch an ad or forcing me to accept behavior tracking is moral on their part. This is not a one-sided equation.
- phpnode 11y ago
  > A visit still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to sell ads This is totally nonsensical. If they have no prospect of recouping the expense they incurred from your visit then you are not helping them, you are worse than worthless to them, you simply cost them money. > Are you saying it is moral for publishers to track my usage behavior, and to force me to watch any ad they want me to? You aren't being forced to watch anything. You have the option of leaving their site and living without their content. Your attitude is the definition of entitlement.
  - vlucas 11y ago
    > You aren't being forced to watch anything. You have the option of leaving their site and living without their content. > Your attitude is the definition of entitlement. I also have the option of completely ignoring the ads or covering them up, which is essentially the same thing as blocking with a plugin. This is not a binary equation. This is the essence of my very first comment here. There is nothing morally wrong about not paying attention to an ad, zooming in so you don't see it, covering it up, not watching a video, muting commercials, etc. No publisher or advertiser has the expectation that 100% of people will pay attention to their ad. The ratios are closer to 1%. Nobody has that expectation expect the people trying to make this into a moral argument.
- malchow 11y ago
  "If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. " Come on. No they don't, vlucas. They say "welcome, enjoy, support our sponsors." They do not say "it's free; do whatever you want with our content now that the packets have been transferred."
  - vlucas 11y ago
    They do indeed say the content is free. Of _course_ they are not going to say "do whatever you want with our content". That's not what I said or implied at all.
pit 11y ago
> Are you saying it's moral for you to read their content but circumvent their business model? This is the best argument I've heard so far for not blocking ads. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
imgabe 11y ago
Their business model is between the publishers and the advertisers. Advertisers know when they buy an ad that most people are not going to pay much attention to it. An expectation on the publisher's part does not create an obligation on my part.
brownbat 11y ago
This is an interesting categorical imperative. "If no one saw ads content would die, you want content to live, you should act in the way you want everyone to act, therefore watch ads." It's usually straightforward and reliable moral reasoning. But the implications of that approach have weird results here. If we were really serious about improving how lucrative ads were, we wouldn't just have to watch them, we'd actually have to spend money on their products. As far as the books are concerned, a lost purchase from a blocked ad counts the same as a lost purchase from a disinterested customer. But it feels really weird to say people are morally obligated to buy something when they watch free content. Maybe something's fishy with the categorical imperative here because marketers are specifically playing the odds. They're hoping to motivate behavior in just 1/10,000 viewers. Advertisers know it's a long shot and that people might defeat their efforts, using technology, heading to the kitchen during TV commercials, or just training themselves to recognize manipulation and sales pitches to harden themselves against sales. They'd be silly to take umbrage anytime fewer than 100% of eyeballs bought their product. Or maybe the moral problem goes beyond ad blockers, and we're all destroying the web by being terrible consumers. I don't actually know, but it's a weird moral problem, something feels not quite settled about the two typical responses on this topic...
- phpnode 11y ago
  > I don't actually know, but it's a weird moral problem, something feels not quite settled about the two typical responses on this topic... I totally agree with you, this is an awkward topic because advertising itself raises moral questions. The problem is exactly what you said, we're all destroying the web by being terrible consumers. We're used to an internet where we do not generally have to pay for content, and that has led to a culture where paying for online content is almost unthinkable. This is a problem of our own making, but here we are. People pretty much universally hate ads, but almost no one hates them enough to actually hand over money instead. We know this because of the failure of things like flattr and the experiences of developers on app stores - if you offer a free ad-supported version of an app, and a paid version which removes the ads, only a tiny, tiny percentage of users are going to choose the paid version. And this is in an ecosystem where products usually cost less than a cup of tea and you can pay with almost no effort - it's literally easier than finding the equivalent cash amount in your pocket. People just don't do it. I don't have an answer to this. What I do know is that quality content costs money to produce and therefore we need a way for content producers to be rewarded for their work. Right now just about the only way that works on a large scale is with ads, and even that works poorly for most cases. Some people reading this will say to themselves "well, I'd pay for content". Congratulations on being an outlier, most people are not like you. Some people reading this will say to themselves "well, the free market will solve this problem", and that might be the case in the long term, but it will have terrible consequences for content producers in the short term and will fundamentally change the web. You might hate ads, but do we really want the series of walled gardens that an ad-less internet would necessarily devolve into? If everyone blocked ads, things like Google would have to become paid services. What kind of social inequality would that lead to in the long term? Obviously this is related to game theory. Blocking ads makes sense on an individual level, but if everyone does it we're all screwed. It's not a solution to the problem, it's going to cause more problems, and that's why I don't do it.
drdaeman 11y ago
Is it moral for you to be forced to read/view something? You're a skipping a chapter in some author's book. If that ruins author's business model - bad for the author.
- phpnode 11y ago
  That comparison is flawed, the author has already been compensated because you (or a library) bought the book, but virtually no one pays for content online. It's quite simple. If there is no way to get paid for producing quality content, no one is going to produce quality content. I don't like the ad-riddled web any more than you, but it allows billions of people access to content they would not otherwise have access to. If the online ad business goes away, what fills that gap? Please don't suggest micropayments, people don't want to pay anything to read a website.
  - drdaeman 11y ago
    > That comparison is flawed, the author has already been compensated because you (or a library) bought the book And if I got the book as PDF/EPUB and without paying anything (but legally)? Would it be moral for someone to force me to read because their business model says so?
    - phpnode 11y ago
      This is a pointless distraction from the issue at hand but most free e-books are thinly veiled ads themselves. Their objective is to get you to pay for the author's products or seminars or whatever. It's quite different from the discussion here.
      - drdaeman 11y ago
        Not really. I've read some fiction ebooks that were self-published by authors and some were good. None had advertising (at least I haven't noticed), some had a suggestion to donate, but that's another story. Also, if we can say the comparison with software is valid, there is a lot of software (of various quality from a total trash to exceptionally good stuff) that comes gratis and doesn't try to sell you anything.

by phpnode 11y ago

vlucas 11y ago

> There is no contract or promise between me and the website that I am visiting that I will be captive to their ads or behavior tracking, implied or otherwise If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. Some even advertise and market that enthusiastically. A visit still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to sell ads), and I am exposed to their brand, which is a large part of what marketing is all about. There are also other forms of advertising which are not blocked - things like sponsored posts, guest posts, mailing list opt-in forms, referral links, etc. You also conveniently ignored my question on whether or not forcing me to watch an ad or forcing me to accept behavior tracking is moral on their part. This is not a one-sided equation.

phpnode 11y ago
> A visit still helps them - it is still counted in server-side stats (which is used to sell ads This is totally nonsensical. If they have no prospect of recouping the expense they incurred from your visit then you are not helping them, you are worse than worthless to them, you simply cost them money. > Are you saying it is moral for publishers to track my usage behavior, and to force me to watch any ad they want me to? You aren't being forced to watch anything. You have the option of leaving their site and living without their content. Your attitude is the definition of entitlement.
- vlucas 11y ago
  > You aren't being forced to watch anything. You have the option of leaving their site and living without their content. > Your attitude is the definition of entitlement. I also have the option of completely ignoring the ads or covering them up, which is essentially the same thing as blocking with a plugin. This is not a binary equation. This is the essence of my very first comment here. There is nothing morally wrong about not paying attention to an ad, zooming in so you don't see it, covering it up, not watching a video, muting commercials, etc. No publisher or advertiser has the expectation that 100% of people will pay attention to their ad. The ratios are closer to 1%. Nobody has that expectation expect the people trying to make this into a moral argument.
malchow 11y ago
"If you ask any website without a paywall, they will almost ALL tell you their content is free. " Come on. No they don't, vlucas. They say "welcome, enjoy, support our sponsors." They do not say "it's free; do whatever you want with our content now that the packets have been transferred."
- vlucas 11y ago
  They do indeed say the content is free. Of _course_ they are not going to say "do whatever you want with our content". That's not what I said or implied at all.

pit 11y ago

> Are you saying it's moral for you to read their content but circumvent their business model? This is the best argument I've heard so far for not blocking ads. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

imgabe 11y ago

Their business model is between the publishers and the advertisers. Advertisers know when they buy an ad that most people are not going to pay much attention to it. An expectation on the publisher's part does not create an obligation on my part.

brownbat 11y ago

This is an interesting categorical imperative. "If no one saw ads content would die, you want content to live, you should act in the way you want everyone to act, therefore watch ads." It's usually straightforward and reliable moral reasoning. But the implications of that approach have weird results here. If we were really serious about improving how lucrative ads were, we wouldn't just have to watch them, we'd actually have to spend money on their products. As far as the books are concerned, a lost purchase from a blocked ad counts the same as a lost purchase from a disinterested customer. But it feels really weird to say people are morally obligated to buy something when they watch free content. Maybe something's fishy with the categorical imperative here because marketers are specifically playing the odds. They're hoping to motivate behavior in just 1/10,000 viewers. Advertisers know it's a long shot and that people might defeat their efforts, using technology, heading to the kitchen during TV commercials, or just training themselves to recognize manipulation and sales pitches to harden themselves against sales. They'd be silly to take umbrage anytime fewer than 100% of eyeballs bought their product. Or maybe the moral problem goes beyond ad blockers, and we're all destroying the web by being terrible consumers. I don't actually know, but it's a weird moral problem, something feels not quite settled about the two typical responses on this topic...

phpnode 11y ago
> I don't actually know, but it's a weird moral problem, something feels not quite settled about the two typical responses on this topic... I totally agree with you, this is an awkward topic because advertising itself raises moral questions. The problem is exactly what you said, we're all destroying the web by being terrible consumers. We're used to an internet where we do not generally have to pay for content, and that has led to a culture where paying for online content is almost unthinkable. This is a problem of our own making, but here we are. People pretty much universally hate ads, but almost no one hates them enough to actually hand over money instead. We know this because of the failure of things like flattr and the experiences of developers on app stores - if you offer a free ad-supported version of an app, and a paid version which removes the ads, only a tiny, tiny percentage of users are going to choose the paid version. And this is in an ecosystem where products usually cost less than a cup of tea and you can pay with almost no effort - it's literally easier than finding the equivalent cash amount in your pocket. People just don't do it. I don't have an answer to this. What I do know is that quality content costs money to produce and therefore we need a way for content producers to be rewarded for their work. Right now just about the only way that works on a large scale is with ads, and even that works poorly for most cases. Some people reading this will say to themselves "well, I'd pay for content". Congratulations on being an outlier, most people are not like you. Some people reading this will say to themselves "well, the free market will solve this problem", and that might be the case in the long term, but it will have terrible consequences for content producers in the short term and will fundamentally change the web. You might hate ads, but do we really want the series of walled gardens that an ad-less internet would necessarily devolve into? If everyone blocked ads, things like Google would have to become paid services. What kind of social inequality would that lead to in the long term? Obviously this is related to game theory. Blocking ads makes sense on an individual level, but if everyone does it we're all screwed. It's not a solution to the problem, it's going to cause more problems, and that's why I don't do it.

drdaeman 11y ago

Is it moral for you to be forced to read/view something? You're a skipping a chapter in some author's book. If that ruins author's business model - bad for the author.

phpnode 11y ago
That comparison is flawed, the author has already been compensated because you (or a library) bought the book, but virtually no one pays for content online. It's quite simple. If there is no way to get paid for producing quality content, no one is going to produce quality content. I don't like the ad-riddled web any more than you, but it allows billions of people access to content they would not otherwise have access to. If the online ad business goes away, what fills that gap? Please don't suggest micropayments, people don't want to pay anything to read a website.
- drdaeman 11y ago
  > That comparison is flawed, the author has already been compensated because you (or a library) bought the book And if I got the book as PDF/EPUB and without paying anything (but legally)? Would it be moral for someone to force me to read because their business model says so?
  - phpnode 11y ago
    This is a pointless distraction from the issue at hand but most free e-books are thinly veiled ads themselves. Their objective is to get you to pay for the author's products or seminars or whatever. It's quite different from the discussion here.
    - drdaeman 11y ago
      Not really. I've read some fiction ebooks that were self-published by authors and some were good. None had advertising (at least I haven't noticed), some had a suggestion to donate, but that's another story. Also, if we can say the comparison with software is valid, there is a lot of software (of various quality from a total trash to exceptionally good stuff) that comes gratis and doesn't try to sell you anything.