7 ms·

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as m

by kevinh 17y ago

As naive as this may make me sound, I think this attitude is hurting society. The idea that everyone is and should be trying to screw everyone else out of as much pleasure and profit as legal is, in my opinion, detrimental to society. When we stop doing things that don't negatively affect us much and help others, we've lost the benefits of altruism that helped our species evolve beyond the rest.

lotharbot 17y ago
Perhaps a better way to phrase it: you should expect your customers to act in accordance with their best interests (as they understand them.) They aren't trying to "screw" you so much as trying to get the best value they can. Not viewing annoying ads is of value to people, which is why they go to the trouble of running adblock or paying for ad-free premium pages. It's up to content providers to figure out how to get paid. Guilt-tripping readers into viewing ads is one approach; running skeezy ads is another; paywalls or premium content is another; merchandising yet another. Each of those affects the value your readers get from your site. Given that, how can content providers best align their interest (getting paid) with their readers' interests (getting good content cheap/free)? I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock.
- rick888 17y ago
  "I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock." How do you know if the site has changed if you are using adblock? If they do decide to change ads, it won't really matter because they are already blocked. What about people that are using a computer with adblock already installed? They never saw the ads on the blocked site. Adblock doesn't just block one site's ads. It blocks entire networks of ads, which hurts innocent sites that may or may not have intrusive ads. This is why I can't support its usage.
  - doron 17y ago
    I consider ads that are served from many well known ad services intrusive to my experience, they dramatically slow the rendering of pages, often block content, or have such jarring graphics or color themes it is almost impossible to read the document. Ads are blocked for me by default, and i choose to unblock them in websites that generate repeated value for me. this includes the content of the website, but also the speed and how the ads complement the design of the website itself. I will consider paying website to get content completely ad free. I would like to also have the option to get a discount for just clicking on the Ad from the vendor, if you want my attention offer me an incentive.
    - ash 17y ago
      > I would like to also have the option to get a discount for just clicking on the Ad from the vendor, if you want my attention offer me an incentive. AdSense doesn't allow sites to do this. I don't know about other services.
  - lotharbot 17y ago
    I'm speaking more generally, and more long-term. If the average content model on the web was "carefully vetted ads, of legitimate interest, not annoying, not privacy-compromising" then far fewer people would opt to use adblock in the first place. For an individual site to get users who are already using adblock to stop, they may have to resort to the type of pleading or content-blocking Ars Technia did.
  - bd 17y ago
    How do you know if the site has changed if you are using adblock? What about people that are using a computer with adblock already installed? If, for example, your site has a community and ads are indeed "of legitimate interest", your community will discuss interesting ads. I have seen this happening on MetaFilter and Reddit.
    - DennisP 17y ago
      The trouble might be that if your advertising message really is all that interesting, you can just submit it like any other story and people will vote it up. Every now and then, an advertiser will make a mistake and pay for attention he could have gotten for free. But I don't think we can expect them to do that all the time. The only way to make money from advertising is to accept money from people who can't get attention otherwise.
jrockway 17y ago
Your argument, while emotional, leads nowhere. So not viewing ads hurts society; why should I care whether or not I hurt society? Now we are right back where we started.
- kevinh 17y ago
  If people don't view the ads, the site shuts down. Maybe you don't like that site all that much, so it's fine. However, more and more sites would shut down due to lack of funding. Or, perhaps, they find different manners of obtaining money. Maybe they enforce pay walls, maybe they have product placement in their articles. The fact is, most advertising is not obtrusive. Despite the problems that Google Ads has, it is not visually obtrusive. Hell, half of the time I don't even notice them. Does it hurt me? No. Does it help the site sustain itself? Yes. Would I notice a pay wall or product placement? Yes. Would it obstruct my enjoyment of the website? Yes. To directly answer your question: you should care if you hurt society. If people stop being altruistic altogether, politeness and civility go out the window. An Ayn Rand style system pops up, with people being concerned how to give themselves the most power and goods while screwing others over the most. Maybe you're fine with that; I'm not.
  - el_dot 17y ago
    While I am in agreement with the sentiment, these "its good for society" arguments don't really move anybody. Just look at the music industry and it's pleas against piracy. Most people don't view their actions at such a global level; they do what's best for them and those close to them. If ads disturb them, then guess what? Ars technica will be releasing a few more staff. And most people won't care either, they'll just move on to the next thing. Thats just nature my friend. A taste of natural selection: adapt or die. It would be much more practical to create things that boost advertising's strengths, but mute the weaknesses, rather than trying to convince people that current ads are good/tolerable. Like you pointed out, Google Ads are a step in the right direction, but obviously still lacking. The market always points you in the right direction, better to listen than to fight it.
scott_s 17y ago
My reaction, which I think has similar meaning to what you said but doesn't contain the same subtly of your comment, is: This is not sustainable.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  My feeling is exactly the opposite. Sustainable is coming up with business models where you provide something of value that people are willing to pay for. OTOH, steadily cranking up the quantity of advertising (already at the point where many newspapers and magazines are over 50% ads, TV is 1/3 ads, and many movies are little more than a continuous string of product placements) is _not_ sustainable.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I suppose "this" is ambiguous, but I was thinking about the whole situation.
justinph 17y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, that's a whole heck of a love of evolution to work against. Nature (think of life on the Serengeti) is all about screwing over one creature for the benefit of another.
- fexl 17y ago
  Human survival and wealth depend on voluntary production and trade. That is already baked into the evolutionary cake. If human behavior ever became "all about screwing over" other people, initiating force, and taking property without consent, then the human race would die out. Of course, a small portion of humans can and do live that way, but that is an aberration. If it ever becomes the norm, misery, illness, poverty, and death will prevail. [Ed. note: As expected, "red in tooth and claw" is voted up, and "people need to cooperate" is voted down. If that's karma then I'll have no part of it.]
  - zaphar 17y ago
    While cooperation makes logical sense. The statistics and study of human behaviour indicate that far from being an aberration "red in tooth and claw" is far more the norm. Don't mistake culture and societal norms for the norms of natrual human behavior.
    - fexl 17y ago
      What statistics? Why do you differentiate between "cultural and societal norms" and "natural human behavior?" Cultural and societal norms are natural human behaviors.
    - skmurphy 17y ago
      One good book length counter-argument to "red in tooth and claw" is Robin Wright's "NonZero" (see summary site at http://www.nonzero.org/ http://www.nonzero.org/ for excerpts) that argues life's arrow is toward more complexity based on cooperation and that it's not a "zero sum game" where every gain is someone else's loss. Wright's thesis for humanity is that people cooperate far more in the context of society than they did even 20,000 years ago, allowing for much larger populations. This larger population enables more diversity and further complexity.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
njharman 17y ago
Realize that that idea is capitalism* or at least the inevitable side-effect of capitalism. And that the altrusim idea is socialism. * as practiced in real life not some wanker's theoretical definition. PS it was probably selfishness and greed (combined with tribal "us vs them" so that (generally) you'll steal from the fuckers in next valley over but not your children) that helped our species destroy and/or exceed our competition.
- jwhite 17y ago
  I highly recommend "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley for a really interesting look at what might have caused our species to develop this way. It is not as simple as one might think.
Tichy 17y ago
This is a little bit silly. By not watching ads, I am screwing somebody? How about by watching ads I screw the people who paid for the ads, as there is no way those ads would affect me in a positive way? I don't see how one is worse than the other. If a web site asks people who hate ads to watch ads, they are screwing the people who pay for the ads. They should be thankful for ad blockers, because at least they prevent me from getting negative emotions towards the advertised stuff. If I block ads, the site should have a higher conversion rate, so they should be able to ask for more money for the ad impressions.
- dandelany 17y ago
  > This is a little bit silly. By not watching ads, I am screwing somebody? Yes. As Ars said explicitly in their post, every time you choose to block the rendering of an ad on their page, their ad provider does not count the impression, and they do not get paid anything. So yes, you're directly screwing Ars by costing them money, denying them revenue, and nullifying their business model. > If a web site asks people who hate ads to watch ads, they are screwing the people who pay for the ads. In the first instance, "screwing" means "putting out of business". In the second, it means "mildly inconveniencing". > If I block ads, the site should have a higher conversion rate Again, if you'd read Ars' post, you would know that they are paid on impressions, not conversion rate.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    "Again, if you'd read Ars' post, you would know that they are paid on impressions, not conversion rate." I read that, but as I said, if they have a higher conversion rate, they should be able to negotiate a higher fee for the ads anyway. On the other aspects, I guess we just disagree (why is it worse to screw advertisers than ad pushing people)?
    - doron 17y ago
      revenue from impressions is a speculative hogwash remnant of the print medium and needs to go The idea one makes money from ads simply by having it displayed is copying a highly speculative advertising model of print (where the effect can hardly be measured) to the web (where you can measure it be by actual clicks) put simply its vaporware of the worst kind, and a business that hedges its revenue on this model is hedging its existence on speculation alone. The premise of advertising on the web is highly informed by age old print models that have failed that industry and put into doubt the efficacy of anything that is uttered in them. users have a choice. You want effective Ads on the web, offer the users something,so they wont block you. or go away. effective Ads on the web are to be about incentive. I own the delivery device, i can manipulate it as i will. This is not a newspaper, i control it, not the vendor. i will do what i want with it. the business owner need to give me a an incentive.
barrkel 17y ago
As many people love to point out, it's companies' fiduciary duty to screw people, impersonally, as much as possible. The distance and amenability to machine automation that technology adds makes it easier for customers to treat companies in a similar way. What if the technology wasn't visible, wasn't in browsers, but instead was in our heads? What if we had a perfect ability to selectively filter out what we see and not let it affect us consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously? What if our awarenesses were so under our control that advertising could be scientifically proven to be useless? Would this ability to focus our minds, free ourselves from distractions and pay deliberate attention only to what we willed, be morally or ethically wrong?
philk 17y ago
I'm not sure it's a particularly new development. People have been acting in their own self-interest for time immemorial. (And indeed economic models which work on the basis of enlightened self interest have been the most successful and delivered the most good to their adherents).

by kevinh 17y ago

lotharbot 17y ago

Perhaps a better way to phrase it: you should expect your customers to act in accordance with their best interests (as they understand them.) They aren't trying to "screw" you so much as trying to get the best value they can. Not viewing annoying ads is of value to people, which is why they go to the trouble of running adblock or paying for ad-free premium pages. It's up to content providers to figure out how to get paid. Guilt-tripping readers into viewing ads is one approach; running skeezy ads is another; paywalls or premium content is another; merchandising yet another. Each of those affects the value your readers get from your site. Given that, how can content providers best align their interest (getting paid) with their readers' interests (getting good content cheap/free)? I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock.

rick888 17y ago
"I submit that, if sites ran carefully-vetted ads that were of legitimate interest to their readers, were not annoying, and did not compromise user privacy, far fewer of us would use adblock." How do you know if the site has changed if you are using adblock? If they do decide to change ads, it won't really matter because they are already blocked. What about people that are using a computer with adblock already installed? They never saw the ads on the blocked site. Adblock doesn't just block one site's ads. It blocks entire networks of ads, which hurts innocent sites that may or may not have intrusive ads. This is why I can't support its usage.
- doron 17y ago
  I consider ads that are served from many well known ad services intrusive to my experience, they dramatically slow the rendering of pages, often block content, or have such jarring graphics or color themes it is almost impossible to read the document. Ads are blocked for me by default, and i choose to unblock them in websites that generate repeated value for me. this includes the content of the website, but also the speed and how the ads complement the design of the website itself. I will consider paying website to get content completely ad free. I would like to also have the option to get a discount for just clicking on the Ad from the vendor, if you want my attention offer me an incentive.
  - ash 17y ago
    > I would like to also have the option to get a discount for just clicking on the Ad from the vendor, if you want my attention offer me an incentive. AdSense doesn't allow sites to do this. I don't know about other services.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  I'm speaking more generally, and more long-term. If the average content model on the web was "carefully vetted ads, of legitimate interest, not annoying, not privacy-compromising" then far fewer people would opt to use adblock in the first place. For an individual site to get users who are already using adblock to stop, they may have to resort to the type of pleading or content-blocking Ars Technia did.
- bd 17y ago
  How do you know if the site has changed if you are using adblock? What about people that are using a computer with adblock already installed? If, for example, your site has a community and ads are indeed "of legitimate interest", your community will discuss interesting ads. I have seen this happening on MetaFilter and Reddit.
  - DennisP 17y ago
    The trouble might be that if your advertising message really is all that interesting, you can just submit it like any other story and people will vote it up. Every now and then, an advertiser will make a mistake and pay for attention he could have gotten for free. But I don't think we can expect them to do that all the time. The only way to make money from advertising is to accept money from people who can't get attention otherwise.

jrockway 17y ago

Your argument, while emotional, leads nowhere. So not viewing ads hurts society; why should I care whether or not I hurt society? Now we are right back where we started.

kevinh 17y ago
If people don't view the ads, the site shuts down. Maybe you don't like that site all that much, so it's fine. However, more and more sites would shut down due to lack of funding. Or, perhaps, they find different manners of obtaining money. Maybe they enforce pay walls, maybe they have product placement in their articles. The fact is, most advertising is not obtrusive. Despite the problems that Google Ads has, it is not visually obtrusive. Hell, half of the time I don't even notice them. Does it hurt me? No. Does it help the site sustain itself? Yes. Would I notice a pay wall or product placement? Yes. Would it obstruct my enjoyment of the website? Yes. To directly answer your question: you should care if you hurt society. If people stop being altruistic altogether, politeness and civility go out the window. An Ayn Rand style system pops up, with people being concerned how to give themselves the most power and goods while screwing others over the most. Maybe you're fine with that; I'm not.
- el_dot 17y ago
  While I am in agreement with the sentiment, these "its good for society" arguments don't really move anybody. Just look at the music industry and it's pleas against piracy. Most people don't view their actions at such a global level; they do what's best for them and those close to them. If ads disturb them, then guess what? Ars technica will be releasing a few more staff. And most people won't care either, they'll just move on to the next thing. Thats just nature my friend. A taste of natural selection: adapt or die. It would be much more practical to create things that boost advertising's strengths, but mute the weaknesses, rather than trying to convince people that current ads are good/tolerable. Like you pointed out, Google Ads are a step in the right direction, but obviously still lacking. The market always points you in the right direction, better to listen than to fight it.

scott_s 17y ago

My reaction, which I think has similar meaning to what you said but doesn't contain the same subtly of your comment, is: This is not sustainable.

kscaldef 17y ago
My feeling is exactly the opposite. Sustainable is coming up with business models where you provide something of value that people are willing to pay for. OTOH, steadily cranking up the quantity of advertising (already at the point where many newspapers and magazines are over 50% ads, TV is 1/3 ads, and many movies are little more than a continuous string of product placements) is _not_ sustainable.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I suppose "this" is ambiguous, but I was thinking about the whole situation.

justinph 17y ago

While I agree with the sentiment, that's a whole heck of a love of evolution to work against. Nature (think of life on the Serengeti) is all about screwing over one creature for the benefit of another.

fexl 17y ago
Human survival and wealth depend on voluntary production and trade. That is already baked into the evolutionary cake. If human behavior ever became "all about screwing over" other people, initiating force, and taking property without consent, then the human race would die out. Of course, a small portion of humans can and do live that way, but that is an aberration. If it ever becomes the norm, misery, illness, poverty, and death will prevail. [Ed. note: As expected, "red in tooth and claw" is voted up, and "people need to cooperate" is voted down. If that's karma then I'll have no part of it.]
- zaphar 17y ago
  While cooperation makes logical sense. The statistics and study of human behaviour indicate that far from being an aberration "red in tooth and claw" is far more the norm. Don't mistake culture and societal norms for the norms of natrual human behavior.
  - fexl 17y ago
    What statistics? Why do you differentiate between "cultural and societal norms" and "natural human behavior?" Cultural and societal norms are natural human behaviors.
  - skmurphy 17y ago
    One good book length counter-argument to "red in tooth and claw" is Robin Wright's "NonZero" (see summary site at http://www.nonzero.org/ http://www.nonzero.org/ for excerpts) that argues life's arrow is toward more complexity based on cooperation and that it's not a "zero sum game" where every gain is someone else's loss. Wright's thesis for humanity is that people cooperate far more in the context of society than they did even 20,000 years ago, allowing for much larger populations. This larger population enables more diversity and further complexity.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

njharman 17y ago

Realize that that idea is capitalism* or at least the inevitable side-effect of capitalism. And that the altrusim idea is socialism. * as practiced in real life not some wanker's theoretical definition. PS it was probably selfishness and greed (combined with tribal "us vs them" so that (generally) you'll steal from the fuckers in next valley over but not your children) that helped our species destroy and/or exceed our competition.

jwhite 17y ago
I highly recommend "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley for a really interesting look at what might have caused our species to develop this way. It is not as simple as one might think.

Tichy 17y ago

This is a little bit silly. By not watching ads, I am screwing somebody? How about by watching ads I screw the people who paid for the ads, as there is no way those ads would affect me in a positive way? I don't see how one is worse than the other. If a web site asks people who hate ads to watch ads, they are screwing the people who pay for the ads. They should be thankful for ad blockers, because at least they prevent me from getting negative emotions towards the advertised stuff. If I block ads, the site should have a higher conversion rate, so they should be able to ask for more money for the ad impressions.

dandelany 17y ago
> This is a little bit silly. By not watching ads, I am screwing somebody? Yes. As Ars said explicitly in their post, every time you choose to block the rendering of an ad on their page, their ad provider does not count the impression, and they do not get paid anything. So yes, you're directly screwing Ars by costing them money, denying them revenue, and nullifying their business model. > If a web site asks people who hate ads to watch ads, they are screwing the people who pay for the ads. In the first instance, "screwing" means "putting out of business". In the second, it means "mildly inconveniencing". > If I block ads, the site should have a higher conversion rate Again, if you'd read Ars' post, you would know that they are paid on impressions, not conversion rate.
- Tichy 17y ago
  "Again, if you'd read Ars' post, you would know that they are paid on impressions, not conversion rate." I read that, but as I said, if they have a higher conversion rate, they should be able to negotiate a higher fee for the ads anyway. On the other aspects, I guess we just disagree (why is it worse to screw advertisers than ad pushing people)?
  - doron 17y ago
    revenue from impressions is a speculative hogwash remnant of the print medium and needs to go The idea one makes money from ads simply by having it displayed is copying a highly speculative advertising model of print (where the effect can hardly be measured) to the web (where you can measure it be by actual clicks) put simply its vaporware of the worst kind, and a business that hedges its revenue on this model is hedging its existence on speculation alone. The premise of advertising on the web is highly informed by age old print models that have failed that industry and put into doubt the efficacy of anything that is uttered in them. users have a choice. You want effective Ads on the web, offer the users something,so they wont block you. or go away. effective Ads on the web are to be about incentive. I own the delivery device, i can manipulate it as i will. This is not a newspaper, i control it, not the vendor. i will do what i want with it. the business owner need to give me a an incentive.

barrkel 17y ago

As many people love to point out, it's companies' fiduciary duty to screw people, impersonally, as much as possible. The distance and amenability to machine automation that technology adds makes it easier for customers to treat companies in a similar way. What if the technology wasn't visible, wasn't in browsers, but instead was in our heads? What if we had a perfect ability to selectively filter out what we see and not let it affect us consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously? What if our awarenesses were so under our control that advertising could be scientifically proven to be useless? Would this ability to focus our minds, free ourselves from distractions and pay deliberate attention only to what we willed, be morally or ethically wrong?

philk 17y ago

I'm not sure it's a particularly new development. People have been acting in their own self-interest for time immemorial. (And indeed economic models which work on the basis of enlightened self interest have been the most successful and delivered the most good to their adherents).