8 ms·

Why It’s OK to Block Ads (2015)

62 points by adwhit 9y ago

deadmetheny 9y ago
Third party ad networks are one of the biggest vectors for exploit kits and malware on the Internet. That alone is a good enough reason to block any and all adverts, IMO.
adwhit 9y ago
Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U2IFYJ:blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U...
yostrovs 9y ago
It would be great that the people that promote blocking ads would also promote sponsoring the websites that they frequent somehow. There is a real problem out there for all sorts of websites trying to survive and their problems are at least as great as the privacy concerns the ads introduce. Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.
- victormours 9y ago
  That's exactly the problem the Brave browser is trying to solve, I highly recommend checking it out: https://brave.com https://brave.com.
  - jkeat 9y ago
    Flattr is another option: https://flattr.com https://flattr.com
    - geekamongus 9y ago
      Sounds like there are too many options.
      - _eht 9y ago
        Ajit? Is that you?
- iaabtpbtpnn 9y ago
  Regardless of promotion, ad blocking is inevitable on the web. Imagine if your TV could distinguish a sporting event from the ads and logos displayed on the field, and automatically hide (in real time) everything but the game you want to watch? Advertisers would lose their minds... but this is exactly how the web works and always has. The site delivers instructions for drawing its parts, and my browser can choose how/if to render that content. The business model has always been tenuous, and that's not my problem, because it's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter.
  - geekamongus 9y ago
    Yes. The Internet wasn't created to support someone's ad network.
  - Arcsech 9y ago
    There have been lawsuits over exactly that, I think - specifically about ad-skipping DVRs.
    - vanadium 9y ago
      ReplayTV back in the day. Man, was that an awesome, if underappreciated, product for its time. Seriously loved the upgrade capability and user-centric features (like commercial-skipping, until litigation came along).
  - syphilis2 9y ago
    The example of automatically removing logos from video seems like a great computer vision project.
  - groby_b 9y ago
    "When I shoot you, you might be dead. It's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter" Calling that line of reasoning tenuous would give it too much credit. I'm not surprised to hear it - it's a fairly common approach in the tech world. We only stop to think if we can do it, not if we should do it. Which has landed us where we are, in an arms race around ads, where everybody mostly only cares about their personal interests and technological feasibility. It's time we started talking about ethics. And if you open up that dialog, what you're doing is deeply problematic - you deliberately violate an unspoken assumption, that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work. It is, in the limit, giving up on the social compact in favor of pure individualism. It's never worked out in human history, and it won't work out this time, either. We can either all return to the table and try to find solutions that respect everybody, or we can devolve into individual greed followed by social chaos. It's just the fact of the matter.
- ouid 9y ago
  What service exactly are these web developers even providing in the first place? The site is built. The servers are running. Any technical upgrades are almost certainly to the advertising machinery, and if you want to make back your server costs, you probably already manage that with donations. The internet is cheap as dirt. If you are trying to make more than that, beyond of course the actual work that you put in, the reason you want to do so is because of the massive capital investment that you have to justify. Capital investment that was attracted because of the promise of advertising revenue.
  - yostrovs 9y ago
    You obviously have no clue, nor respect, of what efforts go into substantive websites that create original content. Just because you found a technical way to avoid advertising doesn't mean that you morally deserve to receive free content. All you're doing is killing the Internet so that all you'll end up with is Facebook where you can't get rid of the ads and small, irrelevant websites that resemble what existed in the 1990's. Enjoy.
    - ouid 9y ago
      A webservice is not "content".
      - yostrovs 9y ago
        Do you even know what you're arguing about?
      - _eht 9y ago
        Ajit? Is that you?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6d6b73 9y ago
      Advertisers and their morality.. It's not less moral for me to get you're content for free as it is for you to create content to get my attention, and potentially my money. Just as you have right to do everything in your power to make money on your content, I have a right to do with that content whatever I want, and that includes stripping it from any and all ads.. If you don't like it you can hide it behind a paywall, DRM it, or get out of business.
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  Capitalism works in both ways.. I don't buy stuff I can't afford, and businesses don't have to produce content that is not profitable for them.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  I remember back when hosting a website was orders of magnitudes more expensive than today, and how many hosted their own website, about something they had a passion about. If all those who make websites to peddle ads were forced of the net, maybe there would be a space for those who have a passion and love to create.
  - ogdoad 9y ago
    If we cut down all these pesky trees we'll be able to enjoy the beautiful flowers of the forest. Where does that leave the forest though? The net has a problem with noise, not space.
    - tomjen3 9y ago
      You are right - harddrives are so cheap today that we can trivially host all the text anybody cares to write. On the other hand, for any given query there is only 10 spots on the first page of google, and I really rather not have any of them taken over by spammers.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  Affiliate links via standard anchor tags. Self hosted images if an image is needed. The targeting thing is such a waste of effort, everyone needs light bulbs, batteries, etc. Put a link up that says "If you need AAA batteries and you'd like to support our site click here". Batteries alone would probably work on me once a month "Thanks for the reminder, I will click that link with a smile."
- imgabe 9y ago
  Put up a paywall and charge for your service. If your service is not one that people will pay you actual money for, reconsider whether it's actually all that valuable. How does a lack of advertising revenue kill off independent publishers? Anyone can get a VPS for $5 / month and host whatever they want. 99.9% of them will never achieve a level of traffic that would either require additional investment or produce any significant advertising revenue anyway.
- craigsmansion 9y ago
  A noble thought, but > Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet. Where do I sign up for that? The web was never a platform for publishers, it was a platform for users (some of them publishers). Big publishers never wanted it and hated it but were forced to use it or face irrelevance. Now they act like they own the place and are entitled to their business model. If you don't want your readers to be able to triage content and data once they receive it, go build your own network and publish on there. Using advertisement blockers is not only not an unethical thing to do, it is the right to do to force back those who seek to usurp and abuse a popular commons that was build to serve all equally.
  - seorphates 9y ago
    Well, I couldn't agree more. The concept that ad-blocking is bad is right up there with the content industry thinking, believing that the Internet couldn't, wouldn't exist without them. Rubbish.
  - yostrovs 9y ago
    The Internet was not a platform for users. It was a platform for nuclear weapons, therefore by your logic anything that's been done to it since the 1960s must simply be wrong. Why don't you go and start your own network where you can read and write, post videos, and exchange other information?
- OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago
  The 'morality card' pulled for... ads? Sorry, the ad companies never gave a shit about those poor ole websites. Stop trying to pull on our 'oh those guys, they're just hosting little sites that NEED the revenue from the scumbag departments'. If you live with worms, you get eaten by them.
soared 9y ago
TL;DR: Marketing ("The large-scale effort to .. capture and exploit your attention") is bad. OP should look inward. Him writing a blog post was an effort to capture and exploit my attention. He wants more views on his post. What an immoral thing to do.
- LesZedCB 9y ago
  the exploitation is the critical element the author won't ever take your money. the ads will
- pmyteh 9y ago
  Cute, but no. The blog post writer isn't doing it on a large scale, so isn't caught by their own definition. They're arguably not exploiting it, either (no return to them if you read it or not).
  - soared 9y ago
    Scale isn't truly relevant.. a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one? And I'd argue him checking the number of views on his post and chasing higher numbers is exploiting my attention.
    - mistercow 9y ago
      Why wouldn't scale be relevant? The harm that a tiny ad network causes is obviously smaller than the harm that a large ad network causes, so... yes, a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one.
- theonemind 9y ago
  I’d differentiate between trying to deliver value vs trying to extract value. Additionally, I’d differentiate between delivering information (like this article) and direct attempts at appealing to the “reptilian brain” and trying to bypass rational analysis. The latter, in each case, gets on shakier ethical ground, in my opinion.
arise 9y ago
It's my computer, my web browser, my time, and my mind. (Nice article and all, but the implicit question posed by the headline is a no-brainer.)
- dumbfounder 9y ago
  Then keep your mind off MY website! You are using YOUR mind and YOUR body and YOUR time and YOUR gun when you rob a bank too.
  - nostromo123 9y ago
    If you want people off your website, why do you make it publicly available on the net? ;-)
  - brucelidl 9y ago
    Put it behind a pay wall if you think it has so much economic value.
    - dumbfounder 9y ago
      See my other comment. I don't care if people use adblock, I just hate the argument people some use to justify it. I believe there are good arguments, but not the "it's my browser" argument. It's self righteous to the extreme.
      - brucelidl 9y ago
        I don't understand what you are saying. Can I go to the bathroom during the commercial break while watching a football game? Do I have to scroll to the bottom of a page if I look at a headline? No, of course I don't. If you demand a particular behavior from a reader, then enforce it. Otherwise, don't complain if it's ignored.
        dumbfounder 9y ago
        They can not look at the ads on the website, or go to the bathroom too. I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with the argument that it's "because it's mine".
mysterypie 9y ago
> I often hear people say, “I use AdBlock, so the ads don’t affect me at all.” How head-smackingly wrong they are. Even if you don’t see the ads, you still see the ad for the ad (i.e. the product itself). You still get design that exploits your non-rational psychological biases in ways that work against you. I don't understand how the website design manipulates you even when you've blocked the ad. I need an example here please.
- rjbwork 9y ago
  I believe he speaks of things like buzzfeed or other clickbait sites that are designed to keep you surfing and clicking, in chase of ever higher view counts.
  - jasonkostempski 9y ago
    I have a personal list of domains I consider useless. Accidentally visiting one was annoying enough to me that I made an FF extension to hide any links to those sites on every page of the internet. I've been wishing uBlock Origin had this feature built in, I haven't found a way to do this if they do. They advertise as a general-purpose blocker and I think this falls under that category. I know I could add any domain I want and it will prevent the page from loading but that still leaves me vulnerable to the click-bait titles and wasting time clicking.
- scoggs 9y ago
  I think it means that even if you don't have Adblock Software installed and you are the type to ignore all ads anyway those ads are technically succeeding. I'd imagine the thinking is that subconsciously you can't completely ignore an ad although the way this was worded is rather confusing and doesn't really make sense considering Adblock Software completely removes the entire ad.
- spiznnx 9y ago
  Building a paid product, you want engagement to be high so that our users get value out of it and keep paying for it. With advertising, you want engagement to be high so that users see more ads. The difference is subtle but means that you design a product differently.
brucelidl 9y ago
I doubt that anybody on HN is unfamiliar with the standard arguments for ad blocking. I find them persuasive, particularly the need to protect oneself from the security problems inherent in the third-party adtech system we have today. I would, however, like to add one more. In the absence of government intervention to curb the worst aspects of the Internet's "surveillance capitalism" model, the moral imperative to ad block is even greater. If everyone ad blocked, it would devastate the economic value of our tracked data. Would my data mean anything to you if you couldn't use it to market to me? (Yes, I'm sure it would still have some value, but much, much less I believe) Everybody should ad block as aggressively as they can.
- stasilo 9y ago
  ^-- This, a thousand times this. The ad revenue model is what's destroying the internet; creating walled gardens and attention feedback loops, furthering the commoditization of people, simply because, if you leave, they won't be able to serve you ads. I would argue that the only morally acceptable thing to do is to block ads, not the other way 'round. It's pure garbage, and the sooner it dies the better.
  - grzm 9y ago
    Sure. Are you willing to promote alternative models? Do you currently do so, such as paying subscriptions for news?
    - stasilo 9y ago
      Yes, I do. But I don't even consider that necessary for the "survival" of the net. There was an internet before google/fb established the current status quo for revenue, and there will be one after. Maybe (hopefully) with less attention grabbing, utter garbage.
      - grzm 9y ago
        Great! I'm glad you're supporting sites you use. And yes, there was an internet before the current ad-driven models promoted by Google and Facebook. However, the sites that were up were effectively subsidized by other business. I'm thinking primarily about media, here. Bloggers had other jobs and blogged on the side. Sites by established media were likewise side projects that were paid for by other divisions of their business, and a lot of that was income was from ads, either print or television. As those businesses have shrunk, and largely because people have been moving online for content, they no longer have the ability to pay for non-revenue generating web presences. Please don't mistake this as some apologia for ad-based revenue models. I think the current model is largely encouraging some of the worst behavior of human psychology, as well as serious privacy concerns. However, I do think it's important to understand the the economics at play here and not dismiss these economics out of hand and recognize that this needs to be paid for somehow. Many of the people putting Google Ads on their sites or posting on Facebook aren't doing so because they want people to be tracked, for example, but they don't think they have a choice if they want to be able to support what they want to do. I also think subscriptions do and will continue to play an important role in changing this, so I would encourage you not to dismiss them out of hand. One of the drivers for moving out of "yellow journalism" was the move from paying for each edition to the subscription model. We've seen the reverse of this with the rise of online, ad-based model. Each story has to sell itself and drive engagement, very similar to the edition-based models and tabloids.
jay-anderson 9y ago
Makes me think of the littering ads from the 70s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful). It focused on how littering was bad, but was led by many of the companies producing the stuff that was the litter. That is instead of them attempting to reduce the production of waste the ethical blame was moved people using their product. It's not a perfect comparison because litter still is bad and I don't think ads always have to be. However it is similar in that we generally believe the production of ads is the default therefore blocking ads is unethical. As opposed to giving users alternate methods of funding your work. (Feels like these are popping up more so maybe ad blockers are making a small difference.)
6d6b73 9y ago
It's very easy in my opinion - I pay for my internet, which has bandwidth caps, so I'm selective about what I want to download. - websites have right not to serve me their content, and so I have a right not to download what I don't like
- orwin 9y ago
  Exactly. I have nothing against adwalls or paywall, i might even pay to read the article if the quality is here (hello wsj). But i choose what's going onto my browser/computer. Someone remember this time when Forbes put an anti-adblock wall, then distributed malware-infested ads to some of its users? This is the reason why i use noscript: i don't trust all third party websites.
spodek 9y ago
Philosophers are weird. Why do they think we need their opinions on something being okay or not, or that their opinions are any more valid? I don't need them to decide if ad blocking is okay.
- typomatic 9y ago
  Philosophers believe that morality needs to proceed logically. Your attitude leads to people declaring that both morality and logic are worthless, and you should change.
- colorint 9y ago
  Keynes sort of sums up this sentiment, just replace economist with philosopher: >Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. The bottom line is, all "practical" viewpoints begin from some particular way of looking at the world, which usually gets hammered out in philosophy. In this sense, I find that pragmatism is usually just someone taking for granted the etiology of their own ideas, which makes pragmatism one of the least interesting positions. Obviously I don't know what you in particular believe, so I'm just talking about the kinds of people who I've personally seen advance these kinds of positions.
  - yesenadam 9y ago
    A good point. One thing: I've studied philosophy quite a lot, and even I don't know, or have forgotten, the meaning of 'etiology'. So I assume there's no chance the person you're responding to knows what it means. It's technical philosophy jargon.
basseq 9y ago
I've said this repeatedly[1], but I take the opportunity to say it every chance I get. Ad-blocking is about trust—or more accurately, lack thereof. I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm telling you I value your content (enough to view it, anyway), and to stop getting in my way. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. Or because I don't know you well enough to know your judgement, so my default assumption is that you're going to be a bad actor. I agree there has to be a better way to sponsor websites. And ads as a mechanism are a fine way to do that. So, content creators, I'm OK with popups asking me to un-block your ads. But you need to show me you deserve that trust: it's not that you need to keep the lights on. I get it. But that's your problem. That's why you want me to unblock, not why I will unblock. So tell me your ad network is trustworthy and be transparent about that commitment. Don't just ask me for my credit card number as an alternate form of sponsorship. I literally just told you I don't trust your infrastructure or your judgement, and your response is to ask for financial information? Nope. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910
- msla 9y ago
  More briefly: Since any ad network's incentives align more closely with malware authors' than my own, I'm blocking a channel which is a known malware distribution vector.
  - basseq 9y ago
    I'm not seriously concerned about malware. I trust Google (Chrome) and Microsoft (Windows) enough to protect me if someone does try to serve me malware. And on mobile, iOS malware really isn't a thing, and I trust Apple there, too. It's mainly about customer experience. On desktop, that's auto-playing videos and terrible "sponsored content". On mobile, it's malicious redirects to the app store that not only takes me away from your content, but my entire application. (And, also on mobile, a real cost: your 1MB tracking JS costs me a couple cents and counts towards my cap every time I load it. I hope your caching logic is sound.)
jandrese 9y ago
Personally I don't block ads, but I do block scripts from ad networks. There have been way too many drive by browser hijacks/bitcoin miners/etc... that come from shady third party networks. Unfortunately some sites detect ad blockers and it's considered the same thing.
thomas 9y ago
Great line: "You still get the flypaper even if you don’t get the swatter. A product or service does not magically redesign itself around your goals just because you block it from reaching its own."

62 points by adwhit 9y ago

Third party ad networks are one of the biggest vectors for exploit kits and malware on the Internet. That alone is a good enough reason to block any and all adverts, IMO.

adwhit 9y ago

Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U2IFYJ:blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lZFnD1U...

yostrovs 9y ago

It would be great that the people that promote blocking ads would also promote sponsoring the websites that they frequent somehow. There is a real problem out there for all sorts of websites trying to survive and their problems are at least as great as the privacy concerns the ads introduce. Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.

victormours 9y ago
That's exactly the problem the Brave browser is trying to solve, I highly recommend checking it out: https://brave.com https://brave.com.
- jkeat 9y ago
  Flattr is another option: https://flattr.com https://flattr.com
  - geekamongus 9y ago
    Sounds like there are too many options.
    - _eht 9y ago
      Ajit? Is that you?
iaabtpbtpnn 9y ago
Regardless of promotion, ad blocking is inevitable on the web. Imagine if your TV could distinguish a sporting event from the ads and logos displayed on the field, and automatically hide (in real time) everything but the game you want to watch? Advertisers would lose their minds... but this is exactly how the web works and always has. The site delivers instructions for drawing its parts, and my browser can choose how/if to render that content. The business model has always been tenuous, and that's not my problem, because it's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter.
- geekamongus 9y ago
  Yes. The Internet wasn't created to support someone's ad network.
- Arcsech 9y ago
  There have been lawsuits over exactly that, I think - specifically about ad-skipping DVRs.
  - vanadium 9y ago
    ReplayTV back in the day. Man, was that an awesome, if underappreciated, product for its time. Seriously loved the upgrade capability and user-centric features (like commercial-skipping, until litigation came along).
- syphilis2 9y ago
  The example of automatically removing logos from video seems like a great computer vision project.
- groby_b 9y ago
  "When I shoot you, you might be dead. It's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter" Calling that line of reasoning tenuous would give it too much credit. I'm not surprised to hear it - it's a fairly common approach in the tech world. We only stop to think if we can do it, not if we should do it. Which has landed us where we are, in an arms race around ads, where everybody mostly only cares about their personal interests and technological feasibility. It's time we started talking about ethics. And if you open up that dialog, what you're doing is deeply problematic - you deliberately violate an unspoken assumption, that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work. It is, in the limit, giving up on the social compact in favor of pure individualism. It's never worked out in human history, and it won't work out this time, either. We can either all return to the table and try to find solutions that respect everybody, or we can devolve into individual greed followed by social chaos. It's just the fact of the matter.
ouid 9y ago
What service exactly are these web developers even providing in the first place? The site is built. The servers are running. Any technical upgrades are almost certainly to the advertising machinery, and if you want to make back your server costs, you probably already manage that with donations. The internet is cheap as dirt. If you are trying to make more than that, beyond of course the actual work that you put in, the reason you want to do so is because of the massive capital investment that you have to justify. Capital investment that was attracted because of the promise of advertising revenue.
- yostrovs 9y ago
  You obviously have no clue, nor respect, of what efforts go into substantive websites that create original content. Just because you found a technical way to avoid advertising doesn't mean that you morally deserve to receive free content. All you're doing is killing the Internet so that all you'll end up with is Facebook where you can't get rid of the ads and small, irrelevant websites that resemble what existed in the 1990's. Enjoy.
  - ouid 9y ago
    A webservice is not "content".
    - yostrovs 9y ago
      Do you even know what you're arguing about?
    - _eht 9y ago
      Ajit? Is that you?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6d6b73 9y ago
    Advertisers and their morality.. It's not less moral for me to get you're content for free as it is for you to create content to get my attention, and potentially my money. Just as you have right to do everything in your power to make money on your content, I have a right to do with that content whatever I want, and that includes stripping it from any and all ads.. If you don't like it you can hide it behind a paywall, DRM it, or get out of business.
6d6b73 9y ago
Capitalism works in both ways.. I don't buy stuff I can't afford, and businesses don't have to produce content that is not profitable for them.
tomjen3 9y ago
I remember back when hosting a website was orders of magnitudes more expensive than today, and how many hosted their own website, about something they had a passion about. If all those who make websites to peddle ads were forced of the net, maybe there would be a space for those who have a passion and love to create.
- ogdoad 9y ago
  If we cut down all these pesky trees we'll be able to enjoy the beautiful flowers of the forest. Where does that leave the forest though? The net has a problem with noise, not space.
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    You are right - harddrives are so cheap today that we can trivially host all the text anybody cares to write. On the other hand, for any given query there is only 10 spots on the first page of google, and I really rather not have any of them taken over by spammers.
jasonkostempski 9y ago
Affiliate links via standard anchor tags. Self hosted images if an image is needed. The targeting thing is such a waste of effort, everyone needs light bulbs, batteries, etc. Put a link up that says "If you need AAA batteries and you'd like to support our site click here". Batteries alone would probably work on me once a month "Thanks for the reminder, I will click that link with a smile."
imgabe 9y ago
Put up a paywall and charge for your service. If your service is not one that people will pay you actual money for, reconsider whether it's actually all that valuable. How does a lack of advertising revenue kill off independent publishers? Anyone can get a VPS for $5 / month and host whatever they want. 99.9% of them will never achieve a level of traffic that would either require additional investment or produce any significant advertising revenue anyway.
craigsmansion 9y ago
A noble thought, but > Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet. Where do I sign up for that? The web was never a platform for publishers, it was a platform for users (some of them publishers). Big publishers never wanted it and hated it but were forced to use it or face irrelevance. Now they act like they own the place and are entitled to their business model. If you don't want your readers to be able to triage content and data once they receive it, go build your own network and publish on there. Using advertisement blockers is not only not an unethical thing to do, it is the right to do to force back those who seek to usurp and abuse a popular commons that was build to serve all equally.
- seorphates 9y ago
  Well, I couldn't agree more. The concept that ad-blocking is bad is right up there with the content industry thinking, believing that the Internet couldn't, wouldn't exist without them. Rubbish.
- yostrovs 9y ago
  The Internet was not a platform for users. It was a platform for nuclear weapons, therefore by your logic anything that's been done to it since the 1960s must simply be wrong. Why don't you go and start your own network where you can read and write, post videos, and exchange other information?
OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago
The 'morality card' pulled for... ads? Sorry, the ad companies never gave a shit about those poor ole websites. Stop trying to pull on our 'oh those guys, they're just hosting little sites that NEED the revenue from the scumbag departments'. If you live with worms, you get eaten by them.

soared 9y ago

TL;DR: Marketing ("The large-scale effort to .. capture and exploit your attention") is bad. OP should look inward. Him writing a blog post was an effort to capture and exploit my attention. He wants more views on his post. What an immoral thing to do.

LesZedCB 9y ago
the exploitation is the critical element the author won't ever take your money. the ads will
pmyteh 9y ago
Cute, but no. The blog post writer isn't doing it on a large scale, so isn't caught by their own definition. They're arguably not exploiting it, either (no return to them if you read it or not).
- soared 9y ago
  Scale isn't truly relevant.. a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one? And I'd argue him checking the number of views on his post and chasing higher numbers is exploiting my attention.
  - mistercow 9y ago
    Why wouldn't scale be relevant? The harm that a tiny ad network causes is obviously smaller than the harm that a large ad network causes, so... yes, a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one.
theonemind 9y ago
I’d differentiate between trying to deliver value vs trying to extract value. Additionally, I’d differentiate between delivering information (like this article) and direct attempts at appealing to the “reptilian brain” and trying to bypass rational analysis. The latter, in each case, gets on shakier ethical ground, in my opinion.

arise 9y ago

It's my computer, my web browser, my time, and my mind. (Nice article and all, but the implicit question posed by the headline is a no-brainer.)

dumbfounder 9y ago
Then keep your mind off MY website! You are using YOUR mind and YOUR body and YOUR time and YOUR gun when you rob a bank too.
- nostromo123 9y ago
  If you want people off your website, why do you make it publicly available on the net? ;-)
- brucelidl 9y ago
  Put it behind a pay wall if you think it has so much economic value.
  - dumbfounder 9y ago
    See my other comment. I don't care if people use adblock, I just hate the argument people some use to justify it. I believe there are good arguments, but not the "it's my browser" argument. It's self righteous to the extreme.
    - brucelidl 9y ago
      I don't understand what you are saying. Can I go to the bathroom during the commercial break while watching a football game? Do I have to scroll to the bottom of a page if I look at a headline? No, of course I don't. If you demand a particular behavior from a reader, then enforce it. Otherwise, don't complain if it's ignored.
      - dumbfounder 9y ago
        They can not look at the ads on the website, or go to the bathroom too. I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with the argument that it's "because it's mine".

mysterypie 9y ago

> I often hear people say, “I use AdBlock, so the ads don’t affect me at all.” How head-smackingly wrong they are. Even if you don’t see the ads, you still see the ad for the ad (i.e. the product itself). You still get design that exploits your non-rational psychological biases in ways that work against you. I don't understand how the website design manipulates you even when you've blocked the ad. I need an example here please.

rjbwork 9y ago
I believe he speaks of things like buzzfeed or other clickbait sites that are designed to keep you surfing and clicking, in chase of ever higher view counts.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  I have a personal list of domains I consider useless. Accidentally visiting one was annoying enough to me that I made an FF extension to hide any links to those sites on every page of the internet. I've been wishing uBlock Origin had this feature built in, I haven't found a way to do this if they do. They advertise as a general-purpose blocker and I think this falls under that category. I know I could add any domain I want and it will prevent the page from loading but that still leaves me vulnerable to the click-bait titles and wasting time clicking.
scoggs 9y ago
I think it means that even if you don't have Adblock Software installed and you are the type to ignore all ads anyway those ads are technically succeeding. I'd imagine the thinking is that subconsciously you can't completely ignore an ad although the way this was worded is rather confusing and doesn't really make sense considering Adblock Software completely removes the entire ad.
spiznnx 9y ago
Building a paid product, you want engagement to be high so that our users get value out of it and keep paying for it. With advertising, you want engagement to be high so that users see more ads. The difference is subtle but means that you design a product differently.

brucelidl 9y ago

I doubt that anybody on HN is unfamiliar with the standard arguments for ad blocking. I find them persuasive, particularly the need to protect oneself from the security problems inherent in the third-party adtech system we have today. I would, however, like to add one more. In the absence of government intervention to curb the worst aspects of the Internet's "surveillance capitalism" model, the moral imperative to ad block is even greater. If everyone ad blocked, it would devastate the economic value of our tracked data. Would my data mean anything to you if you couldn't use it to market to me? (Yes, I'm sure it would still have some value, but much, much less I believe) Everybody should ad block as aggressively as they can.

stasilo 9y ago
^-- This, a thousand times this. The ad revenue model is what's destroying the internet; creating walled gardens and attention feedback loops, furthering the commoditization of people, simply because, if you leave, they won't be able to serve you ads. I would argue that the only morally acceptable thing to do is to block ads, not the other way 'round. It's pure garbage, and the sooner it dies the better.
- grzm 9y ago
  Sure. Are you willing to promote alternative models? Do you currently do so, such as paying subscriptions for news?
  - stasilo 9y ago
    Yes, I do. But I don't even consider that necessary for the "survival" of the net. There was an internet before google/fb established the current status quo for revenue, and there will be one after. Maybe (hopefully) with less attention grabbing, utter garbage.
    - grzm 9y ago
      Great! I'm glad you're supporting sites you use. And yes, there was an internet before the current ad-driven models promoted by Google and Facebook. However, the sites that were up were effectively subsidized by other business. I'm thinking primarily about media, here. Bloggers had other jobs and blogged on the side. Sites by established media were likewise side projects that were paid for by other divisions of their business, and a lot of that was income was from ads, either print or television. As those businesses have shrunk, and largely because people have been moving online for content, they no longer have the ability to pay for non-revenue generating web presences. Please don't mistake this as some apologia for ad-based revenue models. I think the current model is largely encouraging some of the worst behavior of human psychology, as well as serious privacy concerns. However, I do think it's important to understand the the economics at play here and not dismiss these economics out of hand and recognize that this needs to be paid for somehow. Many of the people putting Google Ads on their sites or posting on Facebook aren't doing so because they want people to be tracked, for example, but they don't think they have a choice if they want to be able to support what they want to do. I also think subscriptions do and will continue to play an important role in changing this, so I would encourage you not to dismiss them out of hand. One of the drivers for moving out of "yellow journalism" was the move from paying for each edition to the subscription model. We've seen the reverse of this with the rise of online, ad-based model. Each story has to sell itself and drive engagement, very similar to the edition-based models and tabloids.

jay-anderson 9y ago

Makes me think of the littering ads from the 70s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful). It focused on how littering was bad, but was led by many of the companies producing the stuff that was the litter. That is instead of them attempting to reduce the production of waste the ethical blame was moved people using their product. It's not a perfect comparison because litter still is bad and I don't think ads always have to be. However it is similar in that we generally believe the production of ads is the default therefore blocking ads is unethical. As opposed to giving users alternate methods of funding your work. (Feels like these are popping up more so maybe ad blockers are making a small difference.)

6d6b73 9y ago

It's very easy in my opinion - I pay for my internet, which has bandwidth caps, so I'm selective about what I want to download. - websites have right not to serve me their content, and so I have a right not to download what I don't like

orwin 9y ago
Exactly. I have nothing against adwalls or paywall, i might even pay to read the article if the quality is here (hello wsj). But i choose what's going onto my browser/computer. Someone remember this time when Forbes put an anti-adblock wall, then distributed malware-infested ads to some of its users? This is the reason why i use noscript: i don't trust all third party websites.

spodek 9y ago

Philosophers are weird. Why do they think we need their opinions on something being okay or not, or that their opinions are any more valid? I don't need them to decide if ad blocking is okay.

typomatic 9y ago
Philosophers believe that morality needs to proceed logically. Your attitude leads to people declaring that both morality and logic are worthless, and you should change.
colorint 9y ago
Keynes sort of sums up this sentiment, just replace economist with philosopher: >Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. The bottom line is, all "practical" viewpoints begin from some particular way of looking at the world, which usually gets hammered out in philosophy. In this sense, I find that pragmatism is usually just someone taking for granted the etiology of their own ideas, which makes pragmatism one of the least interesting positions. Obviously I don't know what you in particular believe, so I'm just talking about the kinds of people who I've personally seen advance these kinds of positions.
- yesenadam 9y ago
  A good point. One thing: I've studied philosophy quite a lot, and even I don't know, or have forgotten, the meaning of 'etiology'. So I assume there's no chance the person you're responding to knows what it means. It's technical philosophy jargon.

basseq 9y ago

I've said this repeatedly[1], but I take the opportunity to say it every chance I get. Ad-blocking is about trust—or more accurately, lack thereof. I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm telling you I value your content (enough to view it, anyway), and to stop getting in my way. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. Or because I don't know you well enough to know your judgement, so my default assumption is that you're going to be a bad actor. I agree there has to be a better way to sponsor websites. And ads as a mechanism are a fine way to do that. So, content creators, I'm OK with popups asking me to un-block your ads. But you need to show me you deserve that trust: it's not that you need to keep the lights on. I get it. But that's your problem. That's why you want me to unblock, not why I will unblock. So tell me your ad network is trustworthy and be transparent about that commitment. Don't just ask me for my credit card number as an alternate form of sponsorship. I literally just told you I don't trust your infrastructure or your judgement, and your response is to ask for financial information? Nope. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910

msla 9y ago
More briefly: Since any ad network's incentives align more closely with malware authors' than my own, I'm blocking a channel which is a known malware distribution vector.
- basseq 9y ago
  I'm not seriously concerned about malware. I trust Google (Chrome) and Microsoft (Windows) enough to protect me if someone does try to serve me malware. And on mobile, iOS malware really isn't a thing, and I trust Apple there, too. It's mainly about customer experience. On desktop, that's auto-playing videos and terrible "sponsored content". On mobile, it's malicious redirects to the app store that not only takes me away from your content, but my entire application. (And, also on mobile, a real cost: your 1MB tracking JS costs me a couple cents and counts towards my cap every time I load it. I hope your caching logic is sound.)

jandrese 9y ago

Personally I don't block ads, but I do block scripts from ad networks. There have been way too many drive by browser hijacks/bitcoin miners/etc... that come from shady third party networks. Unfortunately some sites detect ad blockers and it's considered the same thing.

thomas 9y ago

Great line: "You still get the flypaper even if you don’t get the swatter. A product or service does not magically redesign itself around your goals just because you block it from reaching its own."