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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 a

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.

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.