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You send me some html, css and Javascript from YOUR domain to MY computer. I reserve the right to do what I want with it. YOU have NO right to determine what I

You send me some html, css and Javascript from YOUR domain to MY computer. I reserve the right to do what I want with it. YOU have NO right to determine what I do with it after you send it to me. It is pointless to think that rules regarding that can be enforced anyways. To me that is the reality of the situation, its like we are debating if gravity should pull us down or not. Edit: for civility (with lack of sleep as the excuse).

seibelj 10y ago
This person's phrasing of his / her sentiment is a tad off-putting, which is why I imagine people are downvoting, but honestly I see it as the same way: I made a TCP request and fetched your data. How my data display device (i.e. web browser) displays it is up to me. If I choose to alter it or enhance it, that's up to me. It was your decision to send me your data, not to tell me how to display it.
- hsod 10y ago
  This assumes that there is no implicit or explicit agreement between you and the content host. What if the site's TOS made you explicitly agree not to block ads (not in a hidden legalese way but with clear UX)? Would that change your calculus? What if the site owner was a friend of yours, and asked you personally not to block ads? Would that?
  - seibelj 10y ago
    Well, if they made me register an account and agree to a ToS, I think it changes things. I have now signed an agreement, and the data is only delivered through an authenticated manner. But if it's publicly available, like a blog post, I don't see how you can place any restrictions on me. I think you are speaking about ethics, and you can try to convince me that my ethics are inferior to your ethics, and I can try to convince you that my ethics are better than your ethics, but that becomes a parlor game. Surely, a blind person has a need to display the data retrieved differently? Perhaps your ethics change for the disabled? I've gone off topic, but the point is, if the ad-supported business model is failing, that's a problem for business to solve, not pleas to my "morality".
    - hsod 10y ago
      I'm solely challenging your assertion that you have zero ethical obligation to a content provider because of the mechanism by which they provided you content. I don't think your digression into meta-ethics is very interesting, so I'll focus what seems to be your concrete point. > Well, if they made me register an account and agree to a ToS, I think it changes things. [...] But if it's publicly available, like a blog post, I don't see how you can place any restrictions on me. What if there was no authentication mechanism, but just a heartfelt request in the text of the content which asked you kindly to whitelist that site in your ad blocker? What if they didn't explicitly request it, but you simply know that that's what they would want? What I'm trying to get at with these questions is this idea that web users are freed from the obligations of fairness and honest dealings due to the technical mechanisms of the internet.
      - seibelj 10y ago
        Let me shift the conversation, and say that by the time you are trying to save an industry by arguing about morals, it is effectively doomed. A simple technical fix (installing an adblocker), a fix which is not illegal and in fact hundreds of millions of people do, renders the whole discussion moot. I think what many adtech companies have done is immoral. Excessive data use, tracking, distraction, and so on. But that's my opinion. Whose really in the "right" here? Does it matter? A new model will have to emerge, or at least a tweaked one. The adtech industry destroyed trust and angered people, thus motivating people to find a solution. Now businesses are springing up, like Brave, to solve the issue. Can you outlaw ad blocking? No. Can you force me to use a certain web browser? No. So what are you going to do about it? Whine on HN about unethical assholes like me? I think innovation and creativity will have to crack the nut.
        hsod 10y ago
        I'm sure you make a lot of good points here, but I'm more interested in the ethical calculus of the individual ad block user than the market forces at play.
        10y ago
  - eric_h 10y ago
    There have been a number of sites that have popped up as submissions here on HN where the site rendered without an adblocker loaded so slowly as to be basically unusable. Rendered in lynx, however, it was both readable and extremely fast to load. Does that count as an adblocker, or a TOS violation? What about curl + an html viewer (without JS capability?)
    - hsod 10y ago
      The moral calculus is complex, I'm not drawing a bright line. I'm simply challenging the assertion that, because of the technical architecture of the internet, a person's interaction with a content provider is not subject to morality at all.
  - curioussavage 10y ago
    Implicit agreements for everything are a side effect of our idiotic and corrupt legal system. Imagine going to a car lot and having a salesman walk up and say "our TOS say by walking onto a lot you have to buy something, you owe us. Didn't you read them? they are behind that dumpster over there duh. Its on page 53 paragraph 10" Its really shady to link to some other resource on your domain in small print that is full of legal mumbo jumbo and pretend that constitutes any real agreement between you and somebody else. And yes I understand that all those Judges and lawyers who make a living off of making this crap up disagree with me. For what ifs - What if you sending me a document without charge or explicitly asking for payment first did not imply that I "have" to download some other document that will annoy me and possible infect my computer.
    - hsod 10y ago
      I think this is a red herring. Yes, there are a million absurd examples of "implicit agreements" that one can think of. There are also many legitimate examples-- for instance, you shouldn't go into a bookstore and take pictures of all the pages in a book even though you haven't explicitly agreed not to and the store owners allowed you onto their premises. So, is "if you're going to use my website, don't block ads" absurd? I don't think so, and if it's not then your comment is irrelevant to this discussion. I'm not trying to create a law, I'm trying to discuss whether the individual ad block user bears any moral or ethical responsibility to the content provider. The argument offered here implies their interaction with the content host exists in a completely neutral moral plane because it's mediated by technology. I'm not convinced.
st3v3r 10y ago
I'm sorry, but this argument still hinges on the idea that you are entitled to their content for free. By going to their site, you have agreed to pay them in the form of ads. If those terms are not amenable to you, that's fine, just don't go to their site. Don't pretend you're doing something just and noble by stiffing them on the bill.

seibelj 10y ago

This person's phrasing of his / her sentiment is a tad off-putting, which is why I imagine people are downvoting, but honestly I see it as the same way: I made a TCP request and fetched your data. How my data display device (i.e. web browser) displays it is up to me. If I choose to alter it or enhance it, that's up to me. It was your decision to send me your data, not to tell me how to display it.

hsod 10y ago
This assumes that there is no implicit or explicit agreement between you and the content host. What if the site's TOS made you explicitly agree not to block ads (not in a hidden legalese way but with clear UX)? Would that change your calculus? What if the site owner was a friend of yours, and asked you personally not to block ads? Would that?
- seibelj 10y ago
  Well, if they made me register an account and agree to a ToS, I think it changes things. I have now signed an agreement, and the data is only delivered through an authenticated manner. But if it's publicly available, like a blog post, I don't see how you can place any restrictions on me. I think you are speaking about ethics, and you can try to convince me that my ethics are inferior to your ethics, and I can try to convince you that my ethics are better than your ethics, but that becomes a parlor game. Surely, a blind person has a need to display the data retrieved differently? Perhaps your ethics change for the disabled? I've gone off topic, but the point is, if the ad-supported business model is failing, that's a problem for business to solve, not pleas to my "morality".
  - hsod 10y ago
    I'm solely challenging your assertion that you have zero ethical obligation to a content provider because of the mechanism by which they provided you content. I don't think your digression into meta-ethics is very interesting, so I'll focus what seems to be your concrete point. > Well, if they made me register an account and agree to a ToS, I think it changes things. [...] But if it's publicly available, like a blog post, I don't see how you can place any restrictions on me. What if there was no authentication mechanism, but just a heartfelt request in the text of the content which asked you kindly to whitelist that site in your ad blocker? What if they didn't explicitly request it, but you simply know that that's what they would want? What I'm trying to get at with these questions is this idea that web users are freed from the obligations of fairness and honest dealings due to the technical mechanisms of the internet.
    - seibelj 10y ago
      Let me shift the conversation, and say that by the time you are trying to save an industry by arguing about morals, it is effectively doomed. A simple technical fix (installing an adblocker), a fix which is not illegal and in fact hundreds of millions of people do, renders the whole discussion moot. I think what many adtech companies have done is immoral. Excessive data use, tracking, distraction, and so on. But that's my opinion. Whose really in the "right" here? Does it matter? A new model will have to emerge, or at least a tweaked one. The adtech industry destroyed trust and angered people, thus motivating people to find a solution. Now businesses are springing up, like Brave, to solve the issue. Can you outlaw ad blocking? No. Can you force me to use a certain web browser? No. So what are you going to do about it? Whine on HN about unethical assholes like me? I think innovation and creativity will have to crack the nut.
      - hsod 10y ago
        I'm sure you make a lot of good points here, but I'm more interested in the ethical calculus of the individual ad block user than the market forces at play.
        10y ago
- eric_h 10y ago
  There have been a number of sites that have popped up as submissions here on HN where the site rendered without an adblocker loaded so slowly as to be basically unusable. Rendered in lynx, however, it was both readable and extremely fast to load. Does that count as an adblocker, or a TOS violation? What about curl + an html viewer (without JS capability?)
  - hsod 10y ago
    The moral calculus is complex, I'm not drawing a bright line. I'm simply challenging the assertion that, because of the technical architecture of the internet, a person's interaction with a content provider is not subject to morality at all.
- curioussavage 10y ago
  Implicit agreements for everything are a side effect of our idiotic and corrupt legal system. Imagine going to a car lot and having a salesman walk up and say "our TOS say by walking onto a lot you have to buy something, you owe us. Didn't you read them? they are behind that dumpster over there duh. Its on page 53 paragraph 10" Its really shady to link to some other resource on your domain in small print that is full of legal mumbo jumbo and pretend that constitutes any real agreement between you and somebody else. And yes I understand that all those Judges and lawyers who make a living off of making this crap up disagree with me. For what ifs - What if you sending me a document without charge or explicitly asking for payment first did not imply that I "have" to download some other document that will annoy me and possible infect my computer.
  - hsod 10y ago
    I think this is a red herring. Yes, there are a million absurd examples of "implicit agreements" that one can think of. There are also many legitimate examples-- for instance, you shouldn't go into a bookstore and take pictures of all the pages in a book even though you haven't explicitly agreed not to and the store owners allowed you onto their premises. So, is "if you're going to use my website, don't block ads" absurd? I don't think so, and if it's not then your comment is irrelevant to this discussion. I'm not trying to create a law, I'm trying to discuss whether the individual ad block user bears any moral or ethical responsibility to the content provider. The argument offered here implies their interaction with the content host exists in a completely neutral moral plane because it's mediated by technology. I'm not convinced.

st3v3r 10y ago

I'm sorry, but this argument still hinges on the idea that you are entitled to their content for free. By going to their site, you have agreed to pay them in the form of ads. If those terms are not amenable to you, that's fine, just don't go to their site. Don't pretend you're doing something just and noble by stiffing them on the bill.