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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

by 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.
  - ksangeelee 10y ago
    In my opinion, there is no ethical question to answer regarding general content I receive via an HTTP request. There's no expectation on my part other than the server provide me a valid response, which I will make use of as I choose (within the law, of course). The technology to implement a paywall is well established, and while it may be annoying to have wasted time making the request, I'd simply learn to ignore certain domains. If that becomes unmanageable, I'd look for, or write, something to filter the blacklisted domains. I already do this for forbes.com and Wired, among a few others, and my life is not measurably poorer as a result. It's a slight annoyance that Google, for example, returns these sites in my search results. Perhaps I should campaign the major search engines to implement custom filters for me. Really, I don't care much if the current ad-fueled ecosystem of adutorial content and click-bait thrives on the Internet, as long as I don't have to see it.

by hsod 10y ago

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.
- ksangeelee 10y ago
  In my opinion, there is no ethical question to answer regarding general content I receive via an HTTP request. There's no expectation on my part other than the server provide me a valid response, which I will make use of as I choose (within the law, of course). The technology to implement a paywall is well established, and while it may be annoying to have wasted time making the request, I'd simply learn to ignore certain domains. If that becomes unmanageable, I'd look for, or write, something to filter the blacklisted domains. I already do this for forbes.com and Wired, among a few others, and my life is not measurably poorer as a result. It's a slight annoyance that Google, for example, returns these sites in my search results. Perhaps I should campaign the major search engines to implement custom filters for me. Really, I don't care much if the current ad-fueled ecosystem of adutorial content and click-bait thrives on the Internet, as long as I don't have to see it.