5 ms·

Facebook's profitability is not your problem. It's their job to figure out how to get paid. It's your job to protect your mind. Targeted ads are worse than gam

by natrius 10y ago

Facebook's profitability is not your problem. It's their job to figure out how to get paid. It's your job to protect your mind. Targeted ads are worse than gambling. We made sure everyone's aware of the dangers of gambling, but everyone's in the dark about targeted ads. These companies know what they're doing. If people want to portray ad blocking as stealing, so be it. Steal from them. They deserve it.

hsod 10y ago
> Facebook's profitability is not your problem. No, but acting with honesty and fairness is. Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. I think it's obvious that the "right" thing to do is to respect their wishes, not sneeringly defy them while using their resources and giving nothing in return.
- _RPM 10y ago
  > Giving them nothing in return. You're giving them a lot, even if you don't click on ads or see ads. Is it not clear that your data is valuable? You're giving them personal information. Not that people that aren't developers care.
- facetube 10y ago
  There is absolutely nothing dishonest about only downloading and rendering the web content you want to view.
  - hsod 10y ago
    IMO, the technical mechanisms are irrelevant. the ethical questions easily map to a face-to-face interaction.
    - Nursie 10y ago
      I don't believe they do map that easily - in a face to face interaction I'm not enabling your advertising with my bandwidth and my rendering device.
    - Falkon1313 10y ago
      Yes. In a face-to-face interaction, if the other party is sneezing and coughing and spraying mucus on your face, it is not unethical to wear a surgical mask. There is no moral or ethical requirement to inhale someone else's possibly virus-laden mucus just because you want to have a conversation.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Facebook is a social-media advertising company. Their model, boiled down, is to extract the maximum possible value out of me in return for the minimum possible effort from them. Why shouldn't I approach them the same way? And given how often the above describes the way businesses will treat me, why shouldn't I generalize that position?
  - hsod 10y ago
    > Why shouldn't I approach them the same way? Practically: because it leads to a race to the bottom, lowering to their level, the world just gets worse and worse Philosophically: because ethics are a fundamental part of who you are, and strangers acting unethically does not relieve you of their burdens
    - ubernostrum 10y ago
      OK, so how far would you like to take that? Facebook will try to track me and my behavior, and tailor ads based on it, regardless of whether I'm a Facebook user and regardless of whether I'm logged in. In theory any link someone sends me might end up trying to connect to Facebook's advertising network and record information about my behavior. At what point do I "agree" to this? What do I get "in return" for this? What if it's a crappy article that I close right away? Or the page load takes too long and I close it before it finishes (but, in true form, the ad code would already have run)? Since I don't know until I've loaded the page -- at which point you think I have an ethical duty to let Facebook serve ads -- whether it will have ads at all, or whether they'll be Facebook ads, at what point do I find that out and have an opportunity, in your model, to decide I don't want to be a party to that? (in case you're wondering, the correct answer is "use an ad-blocker to pre-emptively ensure nobody can force ads on you without your agreement")
      - hsod 10y ago
        This is an overly specific distraction. Accidentally or unwillingly loading FB resources doesn't come with any ethical obligations, obviously. I'm talking about being a Facebook user, as in maintaining a profile and logging on and using the site. My contention is that by affirmatively choosing to use their resources, an ethical obligation is created.
- joosters 10y ago
  Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. No they aren't (at least, not yet). Where do you think it says this in their terms & conditions?
- Kalium 10y ago
  Facebook, in a spirit of honesty and fairness, asks me nicely to look at ads when they send me HTML. I, also in a spirit of honesty and fairness, have the option of deciding what of that HTML I want to look at. There is nothing honest or fair about dictating what happens on someone else's computer without user input. That's what malware does. Are you pro-malware?

by natrius 10y ago

hsod 10y ago

> Facebook's profitability is not your problem. No, but acting with honesty and fairness is. Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. I think it's obvious that the "right" thing to do is to respect their wishes, not sneeringly defy them while using their resources and giving nothing in return.

_RPM 10y ago
> Giving them nothing in return. You're giving them a lot, even if you don't click on ads or see ads. Is it not clear that your data is valuable? You're giving them personal information. Not that people that aren't developers care.
facetube 10y ago
There is absolutely nothing dishonest about only downloading and rendering the web content you want to view.
- hsod 10y ago
  IMO, the technical mechanisms are irrelevant. the ethical questions easily map to a face-to-face interaction.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    I don't believe they do map that easily - in a face to face interaction I'm not enabling your advertising with my bandwidth and my rendering device.
  - Falkon1313 10y ago
    Yes. In a face-to-face interaction, if the other party is sneezing and coughing and spraying mucus on your face, it is not unethical to wear a surgical mask. There is no moral or ethical requirement to inhale someone else's possibly virus-laden mucus just because you want to have a conversation.
ubernostrum 10y ago
Facebook is a social-media advertising company. Their model, boiled down, is to extract the maximum possible value out of me in return for the minimum possible effort from them. Why shouldn't I approach them the same way? And given how often the above describes the way businesses will treat me, why shouldn't I generalize that position?
- hsod 10y ago
  > Why shouldn't I approach them the same way? Practically: because it leads to a race to the bottom, lowering to their level, the world just gets worse and worse Philosophically: because ethics are a fundamental part of who you are, and strangers acting unethically does not relieve you of their burdens
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    OK, so how far would you like to take that? Facebook will try to track me and my behavior, and tailor ads based on it, regardless of whether I'm a Facebook user and regardless of whether I'm logged in. In theory any link someone sends me might end up trying to connect to Facebook's advertising network and record information about my behavior. At what point do I "agree" to this? What do I get "in return" for this? What if it's a crappy article that I close right away? Or the page load takes too long and I close it before it finishes (but, in true form, the ad code would already have run)? Since I don't know until I've loaded the page -- at which point you think I have an ethical duty to let Facebook serve ads -- whether it will have ads at all, or whether they'll be Facebook ads, at what point do I find that out and have an opportunity, in your model, to decide I don't want to be a party to that? (in case you're wondering, the correct answer is "use an ad-blocker to pre-emptively ensure nobody can force ads on you without your agreement")
    - hsod 10y ago
      This is an overly specific distraction. Accidentally or unwillingly loading FB resources doesn't come with any ethical obligations, obviously. I'm talking about being a Facebook user, as in maintaining a profile and logging on and using the site. My contention is that by affirmatively choosing to use their resources, an ethical obligation is created.
joosters 10y ago
Facebook is asking you not to use their service if you are going to block ads. No they aren't (at least, not yet). Where do you think it says this in their terms & conditions?
Kalium 10y ago
Facebook, in a spirit of honesty and fairness, asks me nicely to look at ads when they send me HTML. I, also in a spirit of honesty and fairness, have the option of deciding what of that HTML I want to look at. There is nothing honest or fair about dictating what happens on someone else's computer without user input. That's what malware does. Are you pro-malware?