3 ms·

Nobody is getting tricked by ABP. I'd be surprised to learn most users ever even touch the homepage, rather than the plugin installation mechanism for their re

Nobody is getting tricked by ABP. I'd be surprised to learn most users ever even touch the homepage, rather than the plugin installation mechanism for their respective web browsers. Result #1 on Google for me goes straight to the Chrome store. The immorality comes in when the program actively subverts its own purpose for existing... imagine an antivirus with "acceptable viruses" allowed out of the box. They don't steal your info, or ruin your computer, but its authors gave the company a backhander to leave them unblocked by default. This is directly analogous to ads. It's also a conflict of interest, and gives the developer a perverse incentive to allow more ads, since they charge ad publishers actual money to be on the whitelist. ABP's customers are the ad companies, not its users. (Something something if you're not the customer...) And "hating capitalism" is such a ridiculous strawman that it deserves no further comment.

Johnny555 11y ago
_ The immorality comes in when the program actively subverts its own purpose for existing_ Depends on what you think its purpose is -- I don't block ads because I have a moral problem with advertising revenue paying for content I view -- I block ads because I'm tired of overly disruptive ads that interfere with my web browsing experience. I really don't mind if there are some unobtrusive ads and I might even click on them if they are particularly relevant (i.e. Google ads tend to be relevant enough that I click on them). _ It's also a conflict of interest, and gives the developer a perverse incentive to allow more ads,_ But AdBlock devs have a strong incentive to not piss off users so much that they'll stop running the software or will click the button that says "block all ads". If developers remove that button, then users will move to different software. I don't care how much money ABP makes from publisher payouts, I just care that my browser no longer freezes while I wait for a 2MB pop-over to load as it chews up my limited bandwidth.

Johnny555 11y ago

_ The immorality comes in when the program actively subverts its own purpose for existing_ Depends on what you think its purpose is -- I don't block ads because I have a moral problem with advertising revenue paying for content I view -- I block ads because I'm tired of overly disruptive ads that interfere with my web browsing experience. I really don't mind if there are some unobtrusive ads and I might even click on them if they are particularly relevant (i.e. Google ads tend to be relevant enough that I click on them). _ It's also a conflict of interest, and gives the developer a perverse incentive to allow more ads,_ But AdBlock devs have a strong incentive to not piss off users so much that they'll stop running the software or will click the button that says "block all ads". If developers remove that button, then users will move to different software. I don't care how much money ABP makes from publisher payouts, I just care that my browser no longer freezes while I wait for a 2MB pop-over to load as it chews up my limited bandwidth.