4 ms·

Browsing the Web of 2021 with a mobile hotspot on a desktop is impossible without an ad blocker. There is so much shit on web pages now that: (a) site assume yo

Browsing the Web of 2021 with a mobile hotspot on a desktop is impossible without an ad blocker. There is so much shit on web pages now that: (a) site assume you're on a desktop and have infinite bandwidth, (b) on a mobile connection the pages take forever to complete, and (c) the pages use up all of your mobile data allowance. I'm ethically against taking money away from people who want to generate revenue through advertising, but I have no choice if I want to view the content at all.

lars_francke 5y ago
I'm with you on the last part. I've avoided using an Adblocker for years and finally caved in a few weeks ago. I've always wanted an opt-in blocker. One that is off by default but on the worst offender sites can be turned on by the click of a button. This has never been possible easily but I haven't looked in around five years.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I'm ethically against taking money away from people who want to generate revenue through advertising Why do you say that? They're the ones who sent you HTML for free. They assumed you'd look at the ads, but you have absolutely zero moral obligation to validate that assumption. If you have a magazine, you can totally rip out the ads and throw them in the trash. If you have a newspaper, you can cut out the articles you care about and discard everything else. Use the ad blocker and be proud. If anything, you're helping free the web from the scourge that is advertising. If they want money, they're totally free to return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of serving a free web page.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  The assumption is that most are not ripping the ads out of the magazine without seeing them at all. The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it. You can make all sorts of loose statements like this then draw the line where you feel it’s wrong. It will still be arbitrary. To continue stretching examples. Developers chose to release software as is. Through some combo of your reasoning above, is it okay to pirate/crack software? Most of the time HNers will be against software piracy but for blocking ads. I care more about the obvious social contracts in place and the obviousness of creators are supporting what they created by showing ads or charging for their software. Another example was people getting mad at someone for wanting to split a Stratchery subscription. One big point was it’s against the TOS. Some of those people surely block ads and would not care if TOSs say you can’t. I actually find the Stratchery situation sympathetic because I believe the person was unemployed. Similarly if you have a super old computer or limited data dude to financial constraints. Yeah, that is an exception where the morals make sense. However going against Stratchery, a pretty small time operation by splitting the cost amongst some people for one login is obviously not cool for the average middle class on up person. > If they want money, they're free to return HTTP 402 Payment Required. This is not true in the real world. The amount of backlash you can get for doing that will almost never be worth it. False positives are an issue as well. Similarly, software that requires you to always be online and aggressively verifies you have paid for said software which ends up creating some friction, is frowned upon too. Or Stratchery suspending you or sending similar headers for logging in via IPs far from one another. The false positives would be lead to a Streisand Effect
  - kreeben 5y ago
    >> The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it This is the antithesis of what I want the internet to be, so opt me out of that, please, because I'm going to come hither and taketh in that which I care to taketh in, that and nothing else.
    - account42 5y ago
      People forget that browsers are called user agents because they are supposed to operate on behalf of the user. That includes displaying the content how the user wants it and not how the server operator wants it.
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Exactly! The browser exists to serve us, not to enable some company's abusive business model.
        skinnymuch 5y ago
        I’d still be interested to know if you would be fine with pirating/getting around all paywalls and all SaaS app logins, and all other paid online things with the basis of the browser is there to serve us. Whenever this stuff comes up on HN. there’s the initial bits of anti ad self righteousness but never a continuation to see if the general ethos continues outside ads. My purpose of all this is to point out the inherent hypocrisy. Not every ad has spyware or adware. Are those ads unblocked? No. I understand it would take far too much time to unblock specific ads. Which doesn’t help the point of being morally in the right. Same with disagreeing with being able to crack/pirate all paywalls and SaaS subscriptions, et al. If the browser is to serve you.
        skinnymuch 5y ago
        Right. So if there comes a day soon where every single online subscription service and SaaS is able to be used for free, we should be able to use all of it for free. The browsers exist to serve us. Not what some view as abusive business models.
smoe 5y ago
I wouldn't mind ads if there was any resemblance of self-restraint what they put on there. But yes, the web has become absolutely unbearable without blockers. I guess some big sites were always bad, but now just everything is plastered. I recently used Youtube with all the ads for the first time in a long while and its just abhorrent. From extremely low quality minutes long text-to-speech ads, some that make questionable/dangerous (and in my country illegal) health claims, videos getting interrupted more often than in the old tv days to entire sponsored music videos played before the music I actually wanted to listen to. Maybe it is some wicked engagement strategy so people have to constantly pay attention and skip ads manually every few minutes instead of being able to just let YouTube run in the background on autoplay ...
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Two things about YouTube: (1) they are different to most sites in that they'll let you pay to remove the ads (which I do), but (2) for some reason all the ads they showed me I actually found very useful and were for products I genuinely wanted - if I had infinite time in my life I would have watched the ads, but I don't, so (1).
asiachick 5y ago
Would you be against using junk mail sent to your house as fuel, or padding in a box, any other use that's not "Reading the ad"? Is that different?

lars_francke 5y ago

I'm with you on the last part. I've avoided using an Adblocker for years and finally caved in a few weeks ago. I've always wanted an opt-in blocker. One that is off by default but on the worst offender sites can be turned on by the click of a button. This has never been possible easily but I haven't looked in around five years.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> I'm ethically against taking money away from people who want to generate revenue through advertising Why do you say that? They're the ones who sent you HTML for free. They assumed you'd look at the ads, but you have absolutely zero moral obligation to validate that assumption. If you have a magazine, you can totally rip out the ads and throw them in the trash. If you have a newspaper, you can cut out the articles you care about and discard everything else. Use the ad blocker and be proud. If anything, you're helping free the web from the scourge that is advertising. If they want money, they're totally free to return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of serving a free web page.

skinnymuch 5y ago
The assumption is that most are not ripping the ads out of the magazine without seeing them at all. The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it. You can make all sorts of loose statements like this then draw the line where you feel it’s wrong. It will still be arbitrary. To continue stretching examples. Developers chose to release software as is. Through some combo of your reasoning above, is it okay to pirate/crack software? Most of the time HNers will be against software piracy but for blocking ads. I care more about the obvious social contracts in place and the obviousness of creators are supporting what they created by showing ads or charging for their software. Another example was people getting mad at someone for wanting to split a Stratchery subscription. One big point was it’s against the TOS. Some of those people surely block ads and would not care if TOSs say you can’t. I actually find the Stratchery situation sympathetic because I believe the person was unemployed. Similarly if you have a super old computer or limited data dude to financial constraints. Yeah, that is an exception where the morals make sense. However going against Stratchery, a pretty small time operation by splitting the cost amongst some people for one login is obviously not cool for the average middle class on up person. > If they want money, they're free to return HTTP 402 Payment Required. This is not true in the real world. The amount of backlash you can get for doing that will almost never be worth it. False positives are an issue as well. Similarly, software that requires you to always be online and aggressively verifies you have paid for said software which ends up creating some friction, is frowned upon too. Or Stratchery suspending you or sending similar headers for logging in via IPs far from one another. The false positives would be lead to a Streisand Effect
- kreeben 5y ago
  >> The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it This is the antithesis of what I want the internet to be, so opt me out of that, please, because I'm going to come hither and taketh in that which I care to taketh in, that and nothing else.
  - account42 5y ago
    People forget that browsers are called user agents because they are supposed to operate on behalf of the user. That includes displaying the content how the user wants it and not how the server operator wants it.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Exactly! The browser exists to serve us, not to enable some company's abusive business model.
      - skinnymuch 5y ago
        I’d still be interested to know if you would be fine with pirating/getting around all paywalls and all SaaS app logins, and all other paid online things with the basis of the browser is there to serve us. Whenever this stuff comes up on HN. there’s the initial bits of anti ad self righteousness but never a continuation to see if the general ethos continues outside ads. My purpose of all this is to point out the inherent hypocrisy. Not every ad has spyware or adware. Are those ads unblocked? No. I understand it would take far too much time to unblock specific ads. Which doesn’t help the point of being morally in the right. Same with disagreeing with being able to crack/pirate all paywalls and SaaS subscriptions, et al. If the browser is to serve you.
      - skinnymuch 5y ago
        Right. So if there comes a day soon where every single online subscription service and SaaS is able to be used for free, we should be able to use all of it for free. The browsers exist to serve us. Not what some view as abusive business models.

smoe 5y ago

I wouldn't mind ads if there was any resemblance of self-restraint what they put on there. But yes, the web has become absolutely unbearable without blockers. I guess some big sites were always bad, but now just everything is plastered. I recently used Youtube with all the ads for the first time in a long while and its just abhorrent. From extremely low quality minutes long text-to-speech ads, some that make questionable/dangerous (and in my country illegal) health claims, videos getting interrupted more often than in the old tv days to entire sponsored music videos played before the music I actually wanted to listen to. Maybe it is some wicked engagement strategy so people have to constantly pay attention and skip ads manually every few minutes instead of being able to just let YouTube run in the background on autoplay ...

kingcharles 5y ago
Two things about YouTube: (1) they are different to most sites in that they'll let you pay to remove the ads (which I do), but (2) for some reason all the ads they showed me I actually found very useful and were for products I genuinely wanted - if I had infinite time in my life I would have watched the ads, but I don't, so (1).

asiachick 5y ago

Would you be against using junk mail sent to your house as fuel, or padding in a box, any other use that's not "Reading the ad"? Is that different?