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There is no ethical dilemma on the user side. No web user guarantees making any particular request, and no one is owed the viability of a business model. The e

There is no ethical dilemma on the user side. No web user guarantees making any particular request, and no one is owed the viability of a business model. The ethics of defending the descent of the ad system into such destructive behavior is an interesting discussion, perhaps.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mangeletti 11y ago
Exactly. They (the media companies that took ads too far and ruined the experience for us) did this to themselves. Ad blockers would have never proliferated, had the web not come to a state where 25% of web requests were ads and tracking requests.
- justaman 11y ago
  I'm reminded of the ads that had audio. These were the worst! Imagine an adblocker that blocks what we know are the worst. Then, implement an upvote/downvote overlay system to the ads and if downvoted, dynamically remove them from the page and future requests on a per user basis. The votes are tallied and if beyond a certain threshold, global block. Then, sell this information back to the advertisement agencies.
  - GavinMcG 11y ago
    I wish they were a thing of the past. I don't always use an ad blocker, and I was surprised by having a video advertisement start playing automatically, broadcasting “Don’t take painful sex lying down!” to the entire room, and continuing with information about vaginal tearing. This was on the New York Times website, of all places.
  - muddi900 11y ago
    Autoplaying videos. They are the worst. Especially of you have metered internet, which a sizable population does.
    - gherkin0 11y ago
      They're annoying even if they're legitimate, like CNN having an auto-play video (even on mobile) at the top of every news article. I use firefox, so I disabled them all using media.autoplay.enabled = false. That solved it, but it made Youtube embeds and a few other things work a little funny.
srameshc 11y ago
The very incentive of web advertising has incentivized creation of massive knowledge content and created platforms to do so, for example Stackoverflow. To totally disregard it will be a bad decision and it would eventually drive everyone to pay per view/create way.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > it would eventually drive everyone to ... ... a new business model. I have no problem with that.
  - srameshc 11y ago
    But I have a problem with that. I don't want to live in a walled garden.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      Then you are free to subject yourself to ads. If I don't feel I owe these companies a successful business model, then I certainly don't feel I owe you successful companies using that model.
      - srameshc 11y ago
        And I am. I am rooting for the existing, the new and unknown who are adding value to the internet and who are helping give voices to many in the world.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      And I don't want to shop at {Insert Store Here}. If other people's patronage is required to keep your favorite store open, that is none of their concern.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I disagree. The will to push the programming industry forward is what created SO. Web advertising is what created all the sites that scrap and repackage content from SO.
hackuser 11y ago
> no one is owed the viability of a business model I'd like to emphasize this. Somehow there is a sense of entitlement. Many businesses got where they are today by driving competition out of business, preventing new entrants in their market, and/or 'disrupting' entire industries.
rrego 11y ago
Well, the majority of users are pro status-quo. Most people want their content (their facebook, youtube, and links stemming from) to be free in cost, and are ignorant/unconcerned about tracking. The ethical dilemma I see is whether users should have tracking disabled by default. These users do subsidize much of the content on the internet; is it wrong to leave them be.
specialist 11y ago
This is an arms race, not a dilemma. "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it." -- John Gilmore The advertisers will just inline the ads, changing content sites from redirectors to proxies. Rock, paper, scissors.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  That in itself is a win, as it relieves the user from third party trackers. It also raises the barrier to integration, potentially causing ad-including web developers to pay a little more attention to the hell they are foisting on their users.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mangeletti 11y ago

Exactly. They (the media companies that took ads too far and ruined the experience for us) did this to themselves. Ad blockers would have never proliferated, had the web not come to a state where 25% of web requests were ads and tracking requests.

justaman 11y ago
I'm reminded of the ads that had audio. These were the worst! Imagine an adblocker that blocks what we know are the worst. Then, implement an upvote/downvote overlay system to the ads and if downvoted, dynamically remove them from the page and future requests on a per user basis. The votes are tallied and if beyond a certain threshold, global block. Then, sell this information back to the advertisement agencies.
- GavinMcG 11y ago
  I wish they were a thing of the past. I don't always use an ad blocker, and I was surprised by having a video advertisement start playing automatically, broadcasting “Don’t take painful sex lying down!” to the entire room, and continuing with information about vaginal tearing. This was on the New York Times website, of all places.
- muddi900 11y ago
  Autoplaying videos. They are the worst. Especially of you have metered internet, which a sizable population does.
  - gherkin0 11y ago
    They're annoying even if they're legitimate, like CNN having an auto-play video (even on mobile) at the top of every news article. I use firefox, so I disabled them all using media.autoplay.enabled = false. That solved it, but it made Youtube embeds and a few other things work a little funny.

srameshc 11y ago

The very incentive of web advertising has incentivized creation of massive knowledge content and created platforms to do so, for example Stackoverflow. To totally disregard it will be a bad decision and it would eventually drive everyone to pay per view/create way.

hackuser 11y ago
> it would eventually drive everyone to ... ... a new business model. I have no problem with that.
- srameshc 11y ago
  But I have a problem with that. I don't want to live in a walled garden.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    Then you are free to subject yourself to ads. If I don't feel I owe these companies a successful business model, then I certainly don't feel I owe you successful companies using that model.
    - srameshc 11y ago
      And I am. I am rooting for the existing, the new and unknown who are adding value to the internet and who are helping give voices to many in the world.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    And I don't want to shop at {Insert Store Here}. If other people's patronage is required to keep your favorite store open, that is none of their concern.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I disagree. The will to push the programming industry forward is what created SO. Web advertising is what created all the sites that scrap and repackage content from SO.

hackuser 11y ago

> no one is owed the viability of a business model I'd like to emphasize this. Somehow there is a sense of entitlement. Many businesses got where they are today by driving competition out of business, preventing new entrants in their market, and/or 'disrupting' entire industries.

rrego 11y ago

Well, the majority of users are pro status-quo. Most people want their content (their facebook, youtube, and links stemming from) to be free in cost, and are ignorant/unconcerned about tracking. The ethical dilemma I see is whether users should have tracking disabled by default. These users do subsidize much of the content on the internet; is it wrong to leave them be.

specialist 11y ago

This is an arms race, not a dilemma. "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it." -- John Gilmore The advertisers will just inline the ads, changing content sites from redirectors to proxies. Rock, paper, scissors.

oldmanjay 11y ago
That in itself is a win, as it relieves the user from third party trackers. It also raises the barrier to integration, potentially causing ad-including web developers to pay a little more attention to the hell they are foisting on their users.