8 ms·

A small minority of users believe that they are entitled to all the resources on the internet for free.

Pharmakon 8y ago
Maybe, but that’s not even orthogonal to my point, and unrelated to my post or this topic. I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders” and I talk about the right to fast forward through ads, or turn down the volume on the radio during ads. Instead I’ll just say that a majority of users believe that their computers are their property, and have the right to control what runs on them. This is especially true when advertisers have shown contempt for user privacy and even whether or not they deliver malware. Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate.
- falcor84 8y ago
  >not even orthogonal Sorry for nitpicking, but I just couldn't get this to leave my mind. I understand that you were going for a wordplay with "not even wrong", but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this. Would this imply that the angle between the two things cannot be defined? If so, what would be a possible situation here?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this. Well, I suppose there's a framework in which orthogonal could imply coplanar and so skew lines would.be “not even orthogonal”; particularly they'd have no contact at all irrespective of relative alignment.
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    I have to admit that it was just a play on words, and except for dragonwriter’s formulation I have nothing to offer on this one. On the other hand I enjoyed your comment, and didn’t find it nitpicky at all.
  - zenpeace 8y ago
    This is actually quite possible in non-Euclidean geometries even for things that usually have angles in real world [1]. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  People who block ads aren't freeloaders. I have seen this argument before. We are all paying for those marketing budgets- its included in the price of everything we buy. Paying for our own brainwashing.
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    Whether people who block ads on advertiser-supported websites are "freeloaders" is a worthwhile question, but "we live in a consumer-driven society buying products from companies that use part of their revenue to advertise more products to us, ergo you should not object to me blocking ads on your website" strikes me as a bit of a shaky argument.
- atomical 8y ago
  > I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders” You must have me mistaken for another commenter. I never said the word "freeloaders." Perhaps are you projecting? Turning down the volume on the radio doesn't involve hijacking any DRM or ad tech. It's built into the hardware. To wit: The analogy is bogus. Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no. The copyright owner decides that. You can opt out by not visiting your favorite sites in the future. Please take a stand and do not visit them. > Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate. I continue to do that sir.
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no. This is factually incorrect, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread. You can do whatever you like with what’s runs on your computer, assuming that you legally acquired it. Feel free to levy a moral objection if you like, but don’t pretend that your personal hangups are reflected in law. Your right to play with something on your computer is the same as your right to remix music you own; it only ends if you try to distribute it.
krapp 8y ago
Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request. I know businesses want to pretend the web works like television, or radio, or newspapers, but it doesn't. Whatever a site sends me as a response to a request is mine. It's mine. The transaction is completed, the response belongs to me and I can do whatever I want with it. I can not run the javascript. I can run my own javascript. I can mess with the HTML and CSS. I can choose not to view the ads. Hell, Brave is based on and works on this premise, it injects its own ads. They can do that. I can do that. I have no reason to do that, but I could. That's the way the web works, has always worked, and will always work. And it's the reason ads on the internet were doomed from the start. The only reason they worked, at all, to begin with is that the public wasn't aware that ad blocking was possible, and browsers weren't capable of it, but the underlying capability was always there, it was always implicit to the way the request/response model of the web worked. The only group acting entitled are businesses. They feel entitled to more control over the end user's experience than they have. If they want that kind of control, they can put up a paywall. Or go back to old media. Or accept the true nature of the field they're playing on, that they cannot have complete control over the end state of their content on the web. They cannot force the end user to endure their advertising if they don't want to.
- fouric 8y ago
  > Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request. This is legally false. If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours. The artist retains the copyright to the work, and not only is it illegal for you to then sell prints of it, but a violation of ethics, to boot.
  - krapp 8y ago
    >If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours. Of course the image is mine, just as an image of the painting in a newspaper or brochure would be mine, it's a copy freely distributed by the copyright owner. I'm perfectly within my legal rights to do whatever I want with it, within the confines of the browser. I'm not claiming i have the right to sell it or anything, but I absolutely do have the right to decide whether or not it shows up.
axaxs 8y ago
I think this may be a little dismissive. I use adblockers, but it has nothing to do with revenue streams or philosophical reasons. Ad companies have time and again shown they cannot be trusted with my machine. Whether it's sticking me in a redirect loops, telling me I have a virus, redirecting and disabling the back button, vibrating my phone, making loud noises, etc etc. I'm done giving them chances until I know these problems have been solved. I understand this may harm the good actors, which is why I'm surprised these issues still exist.
- flumberbug 8y ago
  > redirecting and disabling the back button I haven't heard of this before. How does it work? Do you know of any examples?
  - rubyn00bie 8y ago
    You perform like fifty redirects in a row, and when you try to go ”back” it just redirects you forward to where you were. Eventually the browser hangs as you mash the back button, and the redirect chain fires off again. It’s a fucking shitty practice.
  - baldomo 8y ago
    tl;dr: you can insert whatever page into the browser's history so when you click the back button the browser navigates to that specific page. Google is working on preventing it in Chromium [1] [1] https://fossbytes.com/google-chrome-is-working-to-prevent-back-button-hijacking-in-browser/ https://fossbytes.com/google-chrome-is-working-to-prevent-ba...
AlexandrB 8y ago
The vast majority of internet advertising firms believe they are entitled to all my personal information without sufficient notice or consent.
p1necone 8y ago
I don't believe I'm entitled to anything for free, I believe that I'm entitled to companies not using hostile, dishonest revenue gathering methods.
OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago
Hey, watch it! Webmasters would be nothing without the eyeballs and clicks of web users. You are nothing, NOTHING, without us! You would be gassing into the ether without the reader! Either learn your proper place and stay there, or stop being a webmaster. To do otherwise is akin to squaring the circle!
ngold 8y ago
Information is free. The person using it has the obligation to be a good steward of humanity and it's use. We're getting better at it, but throwing up walled gardens is not the answer.

Maybe, but that’s not even orthogonal to my point, and unrelated to my post or this topic. I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders” and I talk about the right to fast forward through ads, or turn down the volume on the radio during ads. Instead I’ll just say that a majority of users believe that their computers are their property, and have the right to control what runs on them. This is especially true when advertisers have shown contempt for user privacy and even whether or not they deliver malware. Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate.

falcor84 8y ago
>not even orthogonal Sorry for nitpicking, but I just couldn't get this to leave my mind. I understand that you were going for a wordplay with "not even wrong", but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this. Would this imply that the angle between the two things cannot be defined? If so, what would be a possible situation here?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > but I'm still trying to imagine whether there's a geometric interpretation to make sense of this. Well, I suppose there's a framework in which orthogonal could imply coplanar and so skew lines would.be “not even orthogonal”; particularly they'd have no contact at all irrespective of relative alignment.
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  I have to admit that it was just a play on words, and except for dragonwriter’s formulation I have nothing to offer on this one. On the other hand I enjoyed your comment, and didn’t find it nitpicky at all.
- zenpeace 8y ago
  This is actually quite possible in non-Euclidean geometries even for things that usually have angles in real world [1]. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_geometry
Tsubasachan 8y ago
People who block ads aren't freeloaders. I have seen this argument before. We are all paying for those marketing budgets- its included in the price of everything we buy. Paying for our own brainwashing.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  Whether people who block ads on advertiser-supported websites are "freeloaders" is a worthwhile question, but "we live in a consumer-driven society buying products from companies that use part of their revenue to advertise more products to us, ergo you should not object to me blocking ads on your website" strikes me as a bit of a shaky argument.
atomical 8y ago
> I’m not going to engage in a trite debate over well-worn ideological ground in which you scream “freeloaders” You must have me mistaken for another commenter. I never said the word "freeloaders." Perhaps are you projecting? Turning down the volume on the radio doesn't involve hijacking any DRM or ad tech. It's built into the hardware. To wit: The analogy is bogus. Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no. The copyright owner decides that. You can opt out by not visiting your favorite sites in the future. Please take a stand and do not visit them. > Beyond that, I hope that you can start responding to things I’ve actually said, instead of just responding with “pithy” and tangential one-liners. I’m not interested in an intellectually bankrupt form of posturing in place of real debate. I continue to do that sir.
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  Do you have the right to control what runs on your computer when you don't own the copyright? The answer to that is no. This is factually incorrect, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread. You can do whatever you like with what’s runs on your computer, assuming that you legally acquired it. Feel free to levy a moral objection if you like, but don’t pretend that your personal hangups are reflected in law. Your right to play with something on your computer is the same as your right to remix music you own; it only ends if you try to distribute it.

krapp 8y ago

Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request. I know businesses want to pretend the web works like television, or radio, or newspapers, but it doesn't. Whatever a site sends me as a response to a request is mine. It's mine. The transaction is completed, the response belongs to me and I can do whatever I want with it. I can not run the javascript. I can run my own javascript. I can mess with the HTML and CSS. I can choose not to view the ads. Hell, Brave is based on and works on this premise, it injects its own ads. They can do that. I can do that. I have no reason to do that, but I could. That's the way the web works, has always worked, and will always work. And it's the reason ads on the internet were doomed from the start. The only reason they worked, at all, to begin with is that the public wasn't aware that ad blocking was possible, and browsers weren't capable of it, but the underlying capability was always there, it was always implicit to the way the request/response model of the web worked. The only group acting entitled are businesses. They feel entitled to more control over the end user's experience than they have. If they want that kind of control, they can put up a paywall. Or go back to old media. Or accept the true nature of the field they're playing on, that they cannot have complete control over the end state of their content on the web. They cannot force the end user to endure their advertising if they don't want to.

fouric 8y ago
> Internet users are entitled to all resources returned to their user agent by a request. This is legally false. If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours. The artist retains the copyright to the work, and not only is it illegal for you to then sell prints of it, but a violation of ethics, to boot.
- krapp 8y ago
  >If a digital artist creates a painting and puts it up on their website, and you go view it, it does not become yours. Of course the image is mine, just as an image of the painting in a newspaper or brochure would be mine, it's a copy freely distributed by the copyright owner. I'm perfectly within my legal rights to do whatever I want with it, within the confines of the browser. I'm not claiming i have the right to sell it or anything, but I absolutely do have the right to decide whether or not it shows up.

axaxs 8y ago

I think this may be a little dismissive. I use adblockers, but it has nothing to do with revenue streams or philosophical reasons. Ad companies have time and again shown they cannot be trusted with my machine. Whether it's sticking me in a redirect loops, telling me I have a virus, redirecting and disabling the back button, vibrating my phone, making loud noises, etc etc. I'm done giving them chances until I know these problems have been solved. I understand this may harm the good actors, which is why I'm surprised these issues still exist.

flumberbug 8y ago
> redirecting and disabling the back button I haven't heard of this before. How does it work? Do you know of any examples?
- rubyn00bie 8y ago
  You perform like fifty redirects in a row, and when you try to go ”back” it just redirects you forward to where you were. Eventually the browser hangs as you mash the back button, and the redirect chain fires off again. It’s a fucking shitty practice.
- baldomo 8y ago
  tl;dr: you can insert whatever page into the browser's history so when you click the back button the browser navigates to that specific page. Google is working on preventing it in Chromium [1] [1] https://fossbytes.com/google-chrome-is-working-to-prevent-back-button-hijacking-in-browser/ https://fossbytes.com/google-chrome-is-working-to-prevent-ba...

AlexandrB 8y ago

The vast majority of internet advertising firms believe they are entitled to all my personal information without sufficient notice or consent.

p1necone 8y ago

I don't believe I'm entitled to anything for free, I believe that I'm entitled to companies not using hostile, dishonest revenue gathering methods.

OpenBSD-supreme 8y ago

Hey, watch it! Webmasters would be nothing without the eyeballs and clicks of web users. You are nothing, NOTHING, without us! You would be gassing into the ether without the reader! Either learn your proper place and stay there, or stop being a webmaster. To do otherwise is akin to squaring the circle!

ngold 8y ago

Information is free. The person using it has the obligation to be a good steward of humanity and it's use. We're getting better at it, but throwing up walled gardens is not the answer.