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And there are many that are. For those that are you really have two or three options morally: 1) Don't visit the site 2) Visit the site and don't use an ad blo

by deelowe 11y ago

And there are many that are. For those that are you really have two or three options morally: 1) Don't visit the site 2) Visit the site and don't use an ad blocker 3) Pay for premium service (e.g. youtube red) wherever it's available I refuse to accept that there's some moral high ground to using an ad blocking service. Especially for people like us (I assume you work in tech) where a huge percentage of our salaries is paid for by these ad systems.

pixl97 11y ago
I work in tech and I am not supported by ads. If you are in tech and are supported by ads, find a different line of work in tech. If you work in tech the first thing you should do is take the moral argument and throw it out the window. Moral systems of obligation do not work well on the net. You run into one of two conditions quickly. The first is immoral operators/providers will push moral operators out of business (free services where you are spied on by unknown agents, but the spies pay for your usage, such as free email has been for years). Or, immoral users sharing other people's work for free. Some of them want to share everything freely. Other just want to share work that is difficult to find legally. Paid services don't work well because they quickly become fragmented leaving the user to buy Youtube Red, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc because each content producer wants to maximize their profits. Digital piracy succeeded because of its utility. There is low to no cost to the end user and the end product had more utility than the paid product. Pirated movies didn't have ads. They could be played on more players. They didn't have country content restrictions. DRM didn't randomly fail. They by definition are a product of a free market competing with other piracy groups. Of course Hollywood has a huge amount of power and has the FBI as their lapdog to prevent their product from being infringed. The ad industry does not. You will see more of a push for them to push ad blocking as a type of legal infringement.
- kasey_junk 11y ago
  If you don't mind my asking, what industry are you in? It is very hard in the modern economy to find things not supported or at least augmented by advertising (or at least marketing). I'm a touch reminded of the Lloyd Dobbler buy/sell/process monologue from "Say Anything". Full disclosure I we work in ads...
tracker1 11y ago
I say fuck the ad services... yesterday I made the mistake of researching something on my phone, half the results were content stuffed, worthless and so many ads it brought my phone to a crawl. If websites weren't putting 6+ ads on a page, each with iframes in iframes several layers deep, it wouldn't be so bad... and you know what else... if the ads were delivered first party, then the ad blockers wouldn't be able to know the difference.
- deelowe 11y ago
  To be clear, I pay for youtube red so that I don't have to deal with ads. Same goes for netflix and several other services. My point isn't that I think ads are awesome, but that doesn't make ad blocking OK.
  - 1stop 11y ago
    You are saying it isn't my right to consume what I choose? Like is lynx an ad blocker, because it's text based? What is the difference between lynx and an ad blocker?
    - laotzu 11y ago
      >You are saying it isn't my right to consume what I choose? That's what the law says actually. Not trying to be snide here but unfortunately the law does not allow for sovereign domain over one's own body (at least in the US -- and elsewhere) in many cases. Though I realize you are asking in regards to advertisements.
      - 1stop 11y ago
        Which law are you referring to?
        laotzu 11y ago
        Vice laws
unclebucknasty 11y ago
But, can it go too far in the other direction? Can ads be abusive or is anything a content publisher does to monetize fair game? For instance, apps that use dark patterns that make it difficult to dismiss an ad without "accidentally" clicking through the ad...are these cool? Or would you say that one simply should not use the app?
- kazinator 11y ago
  > apps that ... An app is not analogous to a junk page with no useful content. You installed and use it repeatedly in spite of the ads because it provides some sort of benefit. Any app which contains a clickable element which leads to malware infestation, or shows children inappropriate content, is malware. Regardless of whether that button is on an ad or elsewhere, and regardless of whether it is contrived to make it easy to press by "accident" or not. An ad that constantly interposes itself to be clicked by accident is merely annoying, and probably counterproductive (users will give the program a bad rating). To annoyed users, I would say "don't use the app". To malware purveyors, I'd ideally like to say, "3 to 5 years".
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    Junk pages with no useful content do not tend to survive, hence that is not a valid comparison. Just as you "install and use repeatedly" apps that are useful, you only revisit pages that are useful. So, the relevant analogy is between a page of some value and an app of some value. If ads weren't a problem on pages that fit this description, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Annoyance is annoyance in any context, even if it stops short of outright malice.
lelandbatey 11y ago
I'm confused. Both I and my computer just send a request "may I have this article/video", and the server responds "yes" and sends the data. However, it also sends along a bunch of other stuff (advertising). At no point in this did I ever agree to have anything other than the requested data sent to me. And at no point did I see a screen that said "please watch this ad to view this content." The ad was just sent anyway. If you need me to pay money to consume some content, then why aren't you asking me for money? Or if I'm "supposed" to view an ad, why isn't that agreement formalized? Basically, it's my computer, and I'm not restricted by any kind of agreement to watch ads. So why should I? What possible moral grounds are there that says I have to allow you to serve me extra garbage data that I never consented to receiving, and even more extreme, that I am somehow obligated to consume the advertising that I never consented to receiving?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by deelowe 11y ago

pixl97 11y ago

I work in tech and I am not supported by ads. If you are in tech and are supported by ads, find a different line of work in tech. If you work in tech the first thing you should do is take the moral argument and throw it out the window. Moral systems of obligation do not work well on the net. You run into one of two conditions quickly. The first is immoral operators/providers will push moral operators out of business (free services where you are spied on by unknown agents, but the spies pay for your usage, such as free email has been for years). Or, immoral users sharing other people's work for free. Some of them want to share everything freely. Other just want to share work that is difficult to find legally. Paid services don't work well because they quickly become fragmented leaving the user to buy Youtube Red, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc because each content producer wants to maximize their profits. Digital piracy succeeded because of its utility. There is low to no cost to the end user and the end product had more utility than the paid product. Pirated movies didn't have ads. They could be played on more players. They didn't have country content restrictions. DRM didn't randomly fail. They by definition are a product of a free market competing with other piracy groups. Of course Hollywood has a huge amount of power and has the FBI as their lapdog to prevent their product from being infringed. The ad industry does not. You will see more of a push for them to push ad blocking as a type of legal infringement.

kasey_junk 11y ago
If you don't mind my asking, what industry are you in? It is very hard in the modern economy to find things not supported or at least augmented by advertising (or at least marketing). I'm a touch reminded of the Lloyd Dobbler buy/sell/process monologue from "Say Anything". Full disclosure I we work in ads...

tracker1 11y ago

I say fuck the ad services... yesterday I made the mistake of researching something on my phone, half the results were content stuffed, worthless and so many ads it brought my phone to a crawl. If websites weren't putting 6+ ads on a page, each with iframes in iframes several layers deep, it wouldn't be so bad... and you know what else... if the ads were delivered first party, then the ad blockers wouldn't be able to know the difference.

deelowe 11y ago
To be clear, I pay for youtube red so that I don't have to deal with ads. Same goes for netflix and several other services. My point isn't that I think ads are awesome, but that doesn't make ad blocking OK.
- 1stop 11y ago
  You are saying it isn't my right to consume what I choose? Like is lynx an ad blocker, because it's text based? What is the difference between lynx and an ad blocker?
  - laotzu 11y ago
    >You are saying it isn't my right to consume what I choose? That's what the law says actually. Not trying to be snide here but unfortunately the law does not allow for sovereign domain over one's own body (at least in the US -- and elsewhere) in many cases. Though I realize you are asking in regards to advertisements.
    - 1stop 11y ago
      Which law are you referring to?
      - laotzu 11y ago
        Vice laws

unclebucknasty 11y ago

But, can it go too far in the other direction? Can ads be abusive or is anything a content publisher does to monetize fair game? For instance, apps that use dark patterns that make it difficult to dismiss an ad without "accidentally" clicking through the ad...are these cool? Or would you say that one simply should not use the app?

kazinator 11y ago
> apps that ... An app is not analogous to a junk page with no useful content. You installed and use it repeatedly in spite of the ads because it provides some sort of benefit. Any app which contains a clickable element which leads to malware infestation, or shows children inappropriate content, is malware. Regardless of whether that button is on an ad or elsewhere, and regardless of whether it is contrived to make it easy to press by "accident" or not. An ad that constantly interposes itself to be clicked by accident is merely annoying, and probably counterproductive (users will give the program a bad rating). To annoyed users, I would say "don't use the app". To malware purveyors, I'd ideally like to say, "3 to 5 years".
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  Junk pages with no useful content do not tend to survive, hence that is not a valid comparison. Just as you "install and use repeatedly" apps that are useful, you only revisit pages that are useful. So, the relevant analogy is between a page of some value and an app of some value. If ads weren't a problem on pages that fit this description, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Annoyance is annoyance in any context, even if it stops short of outright malice.

lelandbatey 11y ago

I'm confused. Both I and my computer just send a request "may I have this article/video", and the server responds "yes" and sends the data. However, it also sends along a bunch of other stuff (advertising). At no point in this did I ever agree to have anything other than the requested data sent to me. And at no point did I see a screen that said "please watch this ad to view this content." The ad was just sent anyway. If you need me to pay money to consume some content, then why aren't you asking me for money? Or if I'm "supposed" to view an ad, why isn't that agreement formalized? Basically, it's my computer, and I'm not restricted by any kind of agreement to watch ads. So why should I? What possible moral grounds are there that says I have to allow you to serve me extra garbage data that I never consented to receiving, and even more extreme, that I am somehow obligated to consume the advertising that I never consented to receiving?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]