8 ms·

Well, the royal "we", perhaps :-) I started blocking ads because they dramatically slowed down my browsing experience. But I keep blocking ads because, fundame

• k-mcgrady 10y ago
  >> "I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me." And you have no right to the content you're viewing but blocking ads on. If you really consider ads 'poison' surely boycotting sites that use ads is the solution or offering an alternative solution this is actually viable.
  • denom 10y ago
    This is an ad-blocking arms race for sure, but sites like the Washington Post and NYtimes have done a good job dealing with the new ad-blocking 'normal'. The point is that there _are_ things sites can do to deal with this situation. However, the status-quo is not an option.
    • k-mcgrady 10y ago
      >> "The point is that there _are_ things sites can do to deal with this situation." I agree. But that's no excuse for someone getting on their high horse but not offering an alternative and still accessing the content.
  • bonoboTP 10y ago
    When watching TV, I often switch away when the ads come. Then after a few minutes I switch back to continue watching the program. Do you think this behavior is also unacceptable? Or how do you feel about people who throw away promotional stuff found in magazines and newspapers?
    • balabaster 10y ago
      On U.S. TV you can pretty much watch the first 5 minutes of the show and come back and watch the last 5 minutes without missing anything of consequence... everything you missed was flashbacks, bullshit and advertising. This describes 90% of all American TV content. Edit: I guess the truth hurts. Thanks for the downvotes. Whatever, I stand by my observation as a foreigner having watched TV in many other countries and I can tell you from first hand experience that U.S. TV is the worst offender by a HUGE margin.
      • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Ok I know that's meant cynically, but watching is about more than determining 'who-done-it'? The journey is supposed to be enjoyable.
        • balabaster 10y ago
          Which it totally would be if it didn't get interrupted for ads every 10 minutes and then have flashbacks to remind you what you were already told before the commercial break.
          • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
            Yeah this recap dialog fad is going way too far.
      • burkaman 10y ago
        Have you ever watched American TV? This reads like someone who turned on Bravo at 2PM one time and decided all TV must be like that.
        • balabaster 10y ago
          I have lived (and still do) in Canada and spent the past 18 years with access to the full suite of channels that American TV has to offer. It is largely the only TV I have access to (though not solely because I still have the internet after all). In the past couple of years I've limited my consumption to the point of avoiding it because it has become so bad.
  • Fifer82 10y ago
    It is not up to us to solve that problem.
  • chris_7 10y ago
    Stop responding with 200 OK then. Remote servers don't get to configure my user-agent, they can only control their response.
    • jfoster 10y ago
      How do you feel if they respond 200 OK the first time, and then when the code detects that you are blocking ads, returns 402 the next time?
      • Grishnakh 10y ago
        If they want to resort to that, they're entirely within their rights to do so. I have no right to demand they serve me their content. However, I have every right to make a polite request, and to download the response they send to me. They, however, have no right to tell me what to do with that response. If they want to give me a content-free response (your 402), they can do that. But no one does (the closest is sites like Forbes which use JS to block the content if you're blocking ads; personally I just don't go to Forbes any more).
  • stincity 10y ago
    And I respectfully disagree. I don't enjoy ads, I never click on them even if the item is something I'd use at the time, I will not click on it. I'll just go to amazon or whatever and get it there. I will never, ever click on an ad. So I'd rather not even see them.
    • manigandham 10y ago
      Clicking on ads isnt necessary. A vast amount of ads are paid on an impression basis and I can guarantee that you've been affected by the advertising you've come across in your life. This is one of the most data-driven industries on the planet and there are petabytes of data generated every day showing how well it works.
      • moovacha 10y ago
        oh really? there are petabytes of data proving ads work?
        • manigandham 10y ago
          Yes...
      • stincity 10y ago
        That's cool. I never said I wasn't affected. Just that I don't click on them. Ever. Like I said, I'd go to amazon or drive somewhere before I click ANY internet ad. And thus far, I have never clicked on one... willingly.
        • Grishnakh 10y ago
          I have. Back in the days when Google had those little unobtrusive text-only ads to the right of the search results, I clicked on those once in a while, and they were actually really useful! If advertising were all like that, we wouldn't be having these arguments.
  • pmoriarty 10y ago
    That's not how we usually deal with a public health hazard. Usually the government steps in and forces the company to stop the harmful activity (or even shut down), and then face criminal charges.
• Fifer82 10y ago
  I agree! I appear to have formed selective blindness from long term exposure which is quite useful! My eye appears to skip over anything considered an ad on most static mediums. I just don't notice them and if I do, my brain appears to discard it.
  • dhimes 10y ago
    Funny story about this: I was traveling back in February and returned home after about two weeks, during which my local Dunkin Donuts re-arranged their menu. I came in for my extra-large coffee but couldn't find it on the menu. I ordered a large, and mentioned that I used to order extra-large but it wasn't on the menu any more. The server pointed out that it was on the menu. I was bewildered for several seconds until I realized that the entire right-most column of the menu (the up-sell stuff) had a full-color background and different font. They did this in order to stand out, but now my eyes naturally skip over any such elements of a layout, apparently.
  • pmoriarty 10y ago
    A lot of people think they can just ignore ads and that ads don't work on them. But there are a lot of very talented and creative people, a ton of research, and a whole industry, really, fighting hard against people's conscious or unconscious attempts to ignore ads, and they can be very effective, even if you don't consciously realize it. There's a lot of research showing that advertisement is effective. The point of advertisement isn't always to directly make you rush out and buy a particular product right away. So just because you don't do that doesn't mean the ad wasn't effective. Many times the point of the ad is to make you have a positive association with a brand, or to make you remember (even merely subconsciously) the brand so that you recognize it among a lot of other brands you see in a store -- and thus be more likely to buy a product of that brand rather than that of a brand you've never seen an ad for before.
    • Fifer82 10y ago
      They don't work on me though. I cannot be sold unless I go looking and then it becomes about quality, and then it becomes about price.
• agumonkey 10y ago
  That fits my definition of acceptable. I, we, aren't blind to people's need to make money for the time and effort. But we don't want 50% clickbait video poppin up randomly. Same for battery life, etc etc. No JS. With some fixed not too screamy image smartly positionned, I'd never block ads. I don't get the logic behind these ads. They really think that shouting red stuff at my face will make me spend time and money ? If someone is looking for something he'll react to subtler cues. If the ad is really relevant (not just word match) to the content, it's even better. But that's a rare oddity.
  • yann63 10y ago
    > They really think that shouting red stuff at my face will make me spend time and money ? Actually, yes, they do. And it scares me that they may be right. Ads are toxic. Why don't we ban them? I've yet to hear a sensible argument to keep ads.
    • Intermernet 10y ago
      The "sensible argument" is that ads allow small "content creators" to "monetize" their content. I think this is mostly a fallacy. I know of many developers, bloggers, musicians, film makers, etc who put their content out into the public domain because that's what they want to do. There are "monetizing" opportunities above and beyond advertising that seem to work well, but the lowest common denominator, and by inference, the lowest form of media, are generally ad-driven. People argue with "yeah, but what about game of thrones and silicon valley". I reply with "yeah, but what about keeping up with the kardashians, jersey shore and the latest CSI franchise". The gold / dross ration is 1 / 99. We can easily lose most of the ad driven content in the world without losing entertaining content. I may be a statistical aberration though. I'm obviously not the "target audience".
      • chris_7 10y ago
        > "yeah, but what about game of thrones and silicon valley" But these are subscription-driven? The Americans would be a better example. I get shows like that on iTunes, because if a show is good enough to watch, it's too good to watch with commercial breaks.
• balabaster 10y ago
  I'm pretty much in agreement with this. I don't want to be advertised to unless I'm specifically looking for something and the ad is relevant to exactly that for exactly the time I'm looking for it. At all other times, I don't want companies constantly telling me what they can offer me. If I wanted that, I'd go to the mall.
• itchynosedev 10y ago
  It's ironic since I can't escape ads promoting Banksy exposition in one of the hgih porifle expo houses.
• bargl 10y ago
  I just want to go out there and say, they don't have the right to poison you, but you don't have the right to their content... I fall in this weird spot with ads. I don't like them, they slow down the experience, they can have PORN on them (this happened to my brother the other day), they have little oversight and track you. Many things I do not approve of. What I DO approve of is paying content creators. And unless you are paying to remove ads through google or something else then you aren't paying the content creators and this is how we get paywalls. Which I personally don't like and even worse, plagiarized articles from pay-walled articles so that we can see them on sites where we can just block ads. I'm not saying I think ad blockers are bad. I just think we shouldn't feel that we have a right to content without ads if they are done properly. I.E. Not tracking, no malware in ads, etc. etc. If we get ads that server all 3 parties (consumer, ad companies, and content creators) so that consumers don't have to pay then I think we should be ready to get back on board.
  • chii 10y ago
    > you don't have the right to their content... if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed. There's ways to block people from viewing content if ads are blocked - but a lot of sites don't do that, because they deem the traffic more important.
    • themartorana 10y ago
      "...if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed..." You could not be more wrong. I am having a hard time imagining any art installation, public park, etc., that does not have rules about how you use and consume it. Offering something to the public does not mean the method of consumption is suddenly a free-for-all. This is a ridiculous assumption that gets played out here a lot. There is an agreed-upon trade taking place - you get to consume content, they get to advertise to you. If you don't like the terms, you should avoid engaging in the transaction. I do believe that tracking your activity borders on an illegal invasion of privacy, and so I support blocking trackers. If trackers come disguised as ads, they should be blocked. That said, trackers are most often invisible, and a person is unable to make a decision about the agreement at hand. There, the transaction is unfair. Ads however, are immediately clear, and make the value proposition very easy to understand. Take movies, for example. You used to buy a ticket, and watch a movie. Then theaters started running commercials (not previews) before a film. I stopped going to theaters that run commercials. I understand that previews are also commercials, but I've made an informed decision about which types of transactions I'm willing to engage in with theaters. The same should go for websites. I'm very happy to be passively advertised to in exchange for content. (Same happens on TV while watching football on the weekends - I've accepted the transaction.) Ads that auto-play videos with audio turned on? Absolutely not. And so sites that do that have become sites I don't visit. So, I am all for sites refusing to provide content without a value exchange. I remain against illicit collection of private information without consent. Edit: the down-votes are silly. Try engaging in conversation instead.