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When there's a law that makes adblocking illegal. I will gladly leave the web behind forever. But to equate adblocking to stealing is hyperbolic nonsense. And t

When there's a law that makes adblocking illegal. I will gladly leave the web behind forever. But to equate adblocking to stealing is hyperbolic nonsense. And to out right call me a thief is insulting. Looks like I struck a nerve; or maybe this whole thread did. Maybe you're in ad tech? I hope you are. I hope you read through this entire thread and soak in just how rotten your industry is; so reviled even here on HN.

robomartin 5y ago
- commoner 5y ago
  It is not the responsibility of Internet users to ensure the jobs of people in the advertising industry. Compelling users to view ads (when they view other content) to protect those jobs would be an infringement on individual rights for a very poor reason. That's why ad blockers and DVRs are legal in every country that I'm aware of.
  - robomartin 5y ago
    So, you think that the only people who's jobs are affected by this theft are those in the advertising industry? I have news for you. Those jobs are not affected at all. Advertising isn't going away, ever. The channels change, but advertising survives. There's plenty pre-internet history on that. The jobs that are affected are those from the sites that rely on ad income to pay for salaries and their costs. If 100% of internet users used ad-blocking millions of jobs would evaporate almost overnight. I'll give you a simple example of this. A good friend of mine runs a nice little site where he and his wife provide valuable and well-researched nutritional information for pet owners. They work very hard to create their content. This site is their sole income. This is what they do to house and feed their kids, to have a life. Nearly 100% of their income is form advertising on their site. If they did not generate this income they would go bankrupt and likely lose everything. Why do people like you think it is OK to steal their work product? I don't get it. How can anyone rationalize that. Once you get down to ground reality, it's theft.
    - commoner 5y ago
      No business is entitled to survive eternally on its existing business model. Businesses must adapt to changing market conditions if they want to succeed in the long term. And every business owner goes in with the understanding that success is not guaranteed. Hopefully, your friend is keeping track of the increasing popularity of ad blocking and developing alternative sources of revenue to supplement their display ads. Affiliate links, sponsored articles, subscriptions for premium content, merchandise, and donations are common monetization pathways for websites. Reading a website without loading or viewing the ads is not "stealing" or "theft", since the site owner voluntarily provided the content free of charge. If the site owner doesn't want people to read their content for free, they should charge for it. No viewer is obligated to load or consume all of the content provided in any medium, and a site owner has no inherent right to compel a visitor to spend time or attention on any part of the site.
      - robomartin 5y ago
        > No business is entitled to survive eternally on its existing business model. Businesses must adapt to changing market conditions if they want to succeed in the long term. Typical totalitarian view coming from an artificially constructed moral high ground. Now you want to tell people how to create, finance and run a business. Most people who think this way have never run a non-trivial business in their lives and have no idea what it takes.
        commoner 5y ago
        Nope, defending the right to block ads is a libertarian position because it affirms the autonomy of individual internet users. No individual is obligated to go out of their way to enrich another person's business or support the viability of someone else's business model. Please don't make assumptions about my personal life, you have no idea who I am.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  > You think you are entitled to free pizza. When companies SEO-shove it in my face and almost literally beg me to take it.. oh I don't feel entitled but it's hard to avoid. Stop shoving it in my face and I won't take it. > And then reality hits: There was never any free pizza. And the pizza is gone. Along with the jobs and everything else it created. So clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash that scream "free pizza" and hand you a bag full of ads will be gone from the internet? This is like cure for cancer, I look forward to it!
  - robomartin 5y ago
    You are exaggerating, the vast majority of the ad-supported internet does not fit your "clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash" narrative. Once again, it is convenient to construct such a narrative to justify taking from truly useful sites. I must ask: Do you mean to say that you only visit "clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash" sites with your ad blockers? Likely not. What is a far more likely scenario is that you frequent sites that deliver you enough value that you choose to visit them. This is that context I am referring to when I speak of theft. Not the useless content-farm junk you seem to want to use as a means of justification for blocking ads on the sites you visit. If you don't like their use of advertising, don't visit the sites. Note that what we are discussing here isn't a requirement for you to CLICK on ads and make money for them. Not at all. All this boils down to is not interfering with these sites displaying their ads and engaging in marketing to you that might result in revenue. That's what you are objecting to. You want the people who create and manage the valuable content you provide to work for you for free. That is a remarkably shitty position to take, and I am being kind. Give me your valuable content or service --which I enjoy and want to consume, repeatedly-- and do it for nothing, while actively interfere with your ability to earn any money and promote others to do the same.
    - commoner 5y ago
      If a site owner doesn't want to provide content for free of charge, then they shouldn't do that. Nobody is forcing a site owner to provide free content. Site owners can charge for the content if they want to. But if a site owner does choose to provide their content for free, it is not the responsibility of the site visitor to ensure that such a business model is successful. Internet users do not have any legal or moral obligation to avoid consuming content that is provided free of charge. Internet users also do not have any legal or moral obligation to consume all of the content that is presented in one place.
- discardedrefuse 5y ago
  > And, yes, I use various advertising channels to find customers. Money well spent, I'm sure. https://gizmodo.com/facebook-announces-its-fake-ad-numbers-are-going-to-get-1847886359 https://gizmodo.com/facebook-announces-its-fake-ad-numbers-a... > It is nothing less than delusional to convince yourself that you are entitled to the entire web without paying for any of it. I never said I'm entitled to the entire web for free. Don't try to make it seem like I'm brazenly pirating my way across the internet. There are plenty of services behind paywalls and subscriptions that I choose to support with my actual dollars. > Do you know what happens at this end of the scale when your 100% ad-blocked utopia becomes reality? Do you have any clue? Yes. Actually I do. I'm old enough to know what life was like before the internet. We all got along just fine back then. One could argue we were better off than we are now. For a brief shining period the internet was a blank canvas, full of actual wonder and discovery. Seriously, it felt amazing to connect and just explore. But look at what it has become; a wasteland where 2 advertising giants waged a war of psychological manipulation. > Along with the jobs and everything else it created. Eyeballs for dollars. Its a grotesque machine. If it all burned down tomorrow, nothing of value would be lost. Not even the jobs you claim. (Except, of course, the ad networks, the PII data miners, the blog spammers, and the rest of the seedy by products that sprout from these networks...so, like I said, nothing of value lost.)
  - robomartin 5y ago
    > I never said I'm entitled to the entire web for free. Don't try to make it seem like I'm brazenly pirating my way across the internet. There are plenty of services behind paywalls and subscriptions that I choose to support with my actual dollars. Great. Then, if you are a principled person and do not agree with the way advertising is being used on the 'net, don't use anything other than what you pay for. That's the morally and ethically correct stance to take. What ad-blocker users are saying is: I don't like advertising. I am still going to use your work product and I am not going to pay you a dime for any of it. Well, that's wrong. > If it all burned down tomorrow, nothing of value would be lost. I don't think you have a good sense of the scale and breath of what online marketing supports. Simple example: https://www.webmd.com/ https://www.webmd.com/ They have ads. Blocking them would mean the service would suffer and maybe even shutdown. There are millions of sites like that, where valuable content or services are offered. I belong to several manufacturing related forums that would not exist were it not for their ability to monetize the hard work required to keep them going. I personally know a couple of people running these sites. They work 16 hour days, seven days a week, to keep their communities going. It's very hard work and it is very, very far from "nothing of value".

robomartin 5y ago

commoner 5y ago
It is not the responsibility of Internet users to ensure the jobs of people in the advertising industry. Compelling users to view ads (when they view other content) to protect those jobs would be an infringement on individual rights for a very poor reason. That's why ad blockers and DVRs are legal in every country that I'm aware of.
- robomartin 5y ago
  So, you think that the only people who's jobs are affected by this theft are those in the advertising industry? I have news for you. Those jobs are not affected at all. Advertising isn't going away, ever. The channels change, but advertising survives. There's plenty pre-internet history on that. The jobs that are affected are those from the sites that rely on ad income to pay for salaries and their costs. If 100% of internet users used ad-blocking millions of jobs would evaporate almost overnight. I'll give you a simple example of this. A good friend of mine runs a nice little site where he and his wife provide valuable and well-researched nutritional information for pet owners. They work very hard to create their content. This site is their sole income. This is what they do to house and feed their kids, to have a life. Nearly 100% of their income is form advertising on their site. If they did not generate this income they would go bankrupt and likely lose everything. Why do people like you think it is OK to steal their work product? I don't get it. How can anyone rationalize that. Once you get down to ground reality, it's theft.
  - commoner 5y ago
    No business is entitled to survive eternally on its existing business model. Businesses must adapt to changing market conditions if they want to succeed in the long term. And every business owner goes in with the understanding that success is not guaranteed. Hopefully, your friend is keeping track of the increasing popularity of ad blocking and developing alternative sources of revenue to supplement their display ads. Affiliate links, sponsored articles, subscriptions for premium content, merchandise, and donations are common monetization pathways for websites. Reading a website without loading or viewing the ads is not "stealing" or "theft", since the site owner voluntarily provided the content free of charge. If the site owner doesn't want people to read their content for free, they should charge for it. No viewer is obligated to load or consume all of the content provided in any medium, and a site owner has no inherent right to compel a visitor to spend time or attention on any part of the site.
    - robomartin 5y ago
      > No business is entitled to survive eternally on its existing business model. Businesses must adapt to changing market conditions if they want to succeed in the long term. Typical totalitarian view coming from an artificially constructed moral high ground. Now you want to tell people how to create, finance and run a business. Most people who think this way have never run a non-trivial business in their lives and have no idea what it takes.
      - commoner 5y ago
        Nope, defending the right to block ads is a libertarian position because it affirms the autonomy of individual internet users. No individual is obligated to go out of their way to enrich another person's business or support the viability of someone else's business model. Please don't make assumptions about my personal life, you have no idea who I am.
foxfluff 5y ago
> You think you are entitled to free pizza. When companies SEO-shove it in my face and almost literally beg me to take it.. oh I don't feel entitled but it's hard to avoid. Stop shoving it in my face and I won't take it. > And then reality hits: There was never any free pizza. And the pizza is gone. Along with the jobs and everything else it created. So clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash that scream "free pizza" and hand you a bag full of ads will be gone from the internet? This is like cure for cancer, I look forward to it!
- robomartin 5y ago
  You are exaggerating, the vast majority of the ad-supported internet does not fit your "clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash" narrative. Once again, it is convenient to construct such a narrative to justify taking from truly useful sites. I must ask: Do you mean to say that you only visit "clickbait, SEO spam sites, content farms, and other trash" sites with your ad blockers? Likely not. What is a far more likely scenario is that you frequent sites that deliver you enough value that you choose to visit them. This is that context I am referring to when I speak of theft. Not the useless content-farm junk you seem to want to use as a means of justification for blocking ads on the sites you visit. If you don't like their use of advertising, don't visit the sites. Note that what we are discussing here isn't a requirement for you to CLICK on ads and make money for them. Not at all. All this boils down to is not interfering with these sites displaying their ads and engaging in marketing to you that might result in revenue. That's what you are objecting to. You want the people who create and manage the valuable content you provide to work for you for free. That is a remarkably shitty position to take, and I am being kind. Give me your valuable content or service --which I enjoy and want to consume, repeatedly-- and do it for nothing, while actively interfere with your ability to earn any money and promote others to do the same.
  - commoner 5y ago
    If a site owner doesn't want to provide content for free of charge, then they shouldn't do that. Nobody is forcing a site owner to provide free content. Site owners can charge for the content if they want to. But if a site owner does choose to provide their content for free, it is not the responsibility of the site visitor to ensure that such a business model is successful. Internet users do not have any legal or moral obligation to avoid consuming content that is provided free of charge. Internet users also do not have any legal or moral obligation to consume all of the content that is presented in one place.
discardedrefuse 5y ago
> And, yes, I use various advertising channels to find customers. Money well spent, I'm sure. https://gizmodo.com/facebook-announces-its-fake-ad-numbers-are-going-to-get-1847886359 https://gizmodo.com/facebook-announces-its-fake-ad-numbers-a... > It is nothing less than delusional to convince yourself that you are entitled to the entire web without paying for any of it. I never said I'm entitled to the entire web for free. Don't try to make it seem like I'm brazenly pirating my way across the internet. There are plenty of services behind paywalls and subscriptions that I choose to support with my actual dollars. > Do you know what happens at this end of the scale when your 100% ad-blocked utopia becomes reality? Do you have any clue? Yes. Actually I do. I'm old enough to know what life was like before the internet. We all got along just fine back then. One could argue we were better off than we are now. For a brief shining period the internet was a blank canvas, full of actual wonder and discovery. Seriously, it felt amazing to connect and just explore. But look at what it has become; a wasteland where 2 advertising giants waged a war of psychological manipulation. > Along with the jobs and everything else it created. Eyeballs for dollars. Its a grotesque machine. If it all burned down tomorrow, nothing of value would be lost. Not even the jobs you claim. (Except, of course, the ad networks, the PII data miners, the blog spammers, and the rest of the seedy by products that sprout from these networks...so, like I said, nothing of value lost.)
- robomartin 5y ago
  > I never said I'm entitled to the entire web for free. Don't try to make it seem like I'm brazenly pirating my way across the internet. There are plenty of services behind paywalls and subscriptions that I choose to support with my actual dollars. Great. Then, if you are a principled person and do not agree with the way advertising is being used on the 'net, don't use anything other than what you pay for. That's the morally and ethically correct stance to take. What ad-blocker users are saying is: I don't like advertising. I am still going to use your work product and I am not going to pay you a dime for any of it. Well, that's wrong. > If it all burned down tomorrow, nothing of value would be lost. I don't think you have a good sense of the scale and breath of what online marketing supports. Simple example: https://www.webmd.com/ https://www.webmd.com/ They have ads. Blocking them would mean the service would suffer and maybe even shutdown. There are millions of sites like that, where valuable content or services are offered. I belong to several manufacturing related forums that would not exist were it not for their ability to monetize the hard work required to keep them going. I personally know a couple of people running these sites. They work 16 hour days, seven days a week, to keep their communities going. It's very hard work and it is very, very far from "nothing of value".