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Even if they were legally forbidden from tracking people, ad blocking would still be necessary. Untargeted ads are only marginally less unethical than targeted
by catalogia 7y ago
Even if they were legally forbidden from tracking people, ad blocking would still be necessary. Untargeted ads are only marginally less unethical than targeted ads. Even untargetted ads exploit peoples insecurities to sell them things they're better off without. (e.g. cola advertisements that depict young attractive socially active people drinking their product.) That's no less manipulative on a billboard on the side of the road than it is on your personalized facebook feed.
- matheusmoreira 7y agoEven if there were no ethical problems with ads, they should still be blocked anyway simply because they're a waste of people's time, bandwidth and attention span.
- eru 7y agoAre you sure you are not proving too much here?
- catalogia 7y agoCan you rephrase that question? I did not set out to prove anything, so I'm not sure what you mean.
- eru 7y agoSorry for the technical jargon, I was referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_too_much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_too_much Basically, your argument seems fully generalized: > Even untargetted ads exploit peoples insecurities to sell them things they're better off without. Eg I assume you do not want to demonize bakers selling bread to hungry people? Or more generally, anyone selling any product you do not agree with to someone who has a need you don't like? So where do we draw the line, and why?