13 ms·

Why It’s OK to Block Ads (2015)

91 points by timokoesters 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago
I block all advertisement, and go out of my way to ignore it and scroll right past it.
- irfwashere 4y ago
  You really just closed that overton window didn't you
  - irfwashere 4y ago
    Tongue in cheek joke went over most people's heads
- spicybright 4y ago
  Same. Spam, page loads, and aesthetics aside: I'll never click an ad out of principal. So why load it? I wish there was some kind of Netflix for site supporting. I admittedly don't donate because of how awful some payment systems are. I'd rather log into a site and tick a few boxes to pay.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    Micro-payments never really came to pass is the sad thing - except where they just increased in size enough to become "payments". Though I suspect the answer is closer to the ugly truth: whatever you think you're worth, you're not really worth it unless it's through ads. If people had to think about how they allocate resources, then they'd inevitably decide they can do without in most cases.
simion314 4y ago
A women told in a comment that after around 13 years old she would get ads on Facebook to become a cam girl. So FB with all the data they have on their user still pushed such a fucking ad to a child. I am expecting an ashole to respond and tell me that FB can\t afford to validate the ads they put in front of children and my premtive response is "Don't fucking put ads in fron of children, or at least put only the ones you validated" but Mark and his army of cool FB devs need a raise and new toys. My conclusion, block ads, block ads on your family and friends devices, the companies will screw you and the poor bastard that payed for the ad to be placed in front of some relevant target.
- tartoran 4y ago
  In the current form ads are cancer to the world.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  These things are only profitable at scale which is why humans will never be part of the process. With that said- it's not our problem that it doesn't scale. As it exists it is hurting people so something obviously needs to change. Platforms have a duty to uphold and shouldn't exist if they cannot even protect children from sex worker ads.
  - simion314 4y ago
    It hurts the companies that pay for placing the ads if FB or other giant does not give a shit that they target the wrong people. Putting some toy ads would maybe make more money but when you are a giant and have no competition your developers spend their time on shitty projects that improve their CV.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- concinds 4y ago
  I wonder if she lied about her age when signing up to FB. I know I did, and most people I know did too (back when we actually used FB). I don't believe FB ever allowed users younger than 13 due to COPPA (passed in 2000) and she clearly used it before turning 13. For context FB always asked for users' birthday during signup.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Am I the only one who thinks FB would easily: a) "implement" COPPA by using the sign-up form b) don't care that the profiling of a user leads to showing ads that would fit a 10-year old c) don't care when other ads clash with the profile consistent of a 10-year old d) plausible deniability Q.E.D
_ZeD_ 4y ago
madsbuch 4y ago
https://archive.ph/WCLxr https://archive.ph/WCLxr
sushibowl 4y ago
I feel like any argument that starts with the idea that blocking ads is unethical would inevitably lead to that black mirror episode where the ad pauses if you close your eyes or look away, and you must pay to skip it. Closing your eyes is just another ad blocking measure, and the idea that that would be unethical ought to be utterly preposterous.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  No, just the idea that you can close your eyes will lead to it, because advertisers want you to look at ads for commercial reasons. Doesn't require an ethical argument.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Just as blocking them as an ethical issue fundamentally commercial: you're accessing content paid for by adverts, but you aren't contributing to that payment. The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site.
    - phoe-krk 4y ago
      >The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site. Maybe unrelated, but I always think of this when I pay for a ticket and go to the cinema, so I can watch fifteen minutes of trailers and commercials before the actual movie begins.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        The economics of cinemas are such that they make no money on ticket sales (that money goes to the film distribution company) and they only really make money on drinks, snacks, and ads.
    - horsawlarway 4y ago
      > The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site. But this isn't the fucking model. The model is: We created compelling content that draws lots of views, and companies will pay us to plaster their name/products on it. There is literally zero contract with the person being shown the ads at all. They can do as they please. If companies don't like that... move to a different model - stop showing your stuff for free.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
amelius 4y ago
> Besides, they say, users who block ads wouldn’t have bought the advertisers’ products anyway. Even if you bought the product, you can still hate the ad for making you do so, e.g. by inducing FOMO and by causing more overconsumption, of which you are now a part.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
twirlock 4y ago
lapser 4y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971443 I'm surprised Oxford University is unable to handle the load from HN. Someone already posted the archive.is link.
float_laugh 4y ago
I have a degree in marketing, took a vow never to work in it, and use these words to describe advertisements - Motivated deception, manipulation, mind control, inauthentic, inorganic, insincere, a betrayal by your peers. They're using your own mind against you with psycological techniques you're blind to. Behind every advertisement is a group of real life people working hard to find new ways to control and manipulate YOUR mind and the people you love. They'll lie to your face as long as it "increases brand awareness in our target demographic". Why on Earth wouldn't you do everything in your power to block these people?
- Tenoke 4y ago
  > Why on Earth wouldn't you do everything in your power to block these people? I block ads myself, but if I didn't it'd be because it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from.
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    Taxes are another.
  - commmentator 4y ago
    > it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from. To see the absurdity of this position just replace "view ads" with the following: I would stop content creators from breaking into my home and taking money from my wallet in the middle of the night, but I don't because it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from. It is not the responsibility of consumer to accept harmful practices because they're the only practices in broad use.
  - phh 4y ago
    Yup. That's the reason I kept 2011-2021 without ad blockers. But yeah I could no longer live in that hell. Fwiw ads have more properties than just being micro payments. Another property is that the price is a monotonic growing function of your revenues, so """every viewer contribute with how much they can"""
ltr_ 4y ago
when you have no money, all ads are irrelevant. it made me be ad blind, so I block them all.
paulcole 4y ago
I don’t block ads. If I hate the ads more than I like the site, I stop going to that site. It’s not that hard of a choice for me. Personally, I don’t subscribe to the But-My-HTTP-Requests defense and understand that ads and tracking are the trade I make for reading/watching/enjoying content without getting my wallet out. I also personally enjoy learning about new products and buying things I might like. Why do I earn money if not to buy things?
- commmentator 4y ago
  > Why do I earn money if not to buy things? To create a safety net for yourself (and perhaps your family)? So that if you were to incur unexpected catastrophic expenses, or lose your job, you would still be able to sustain yourself?
  - paulcole 4y ago
    That’s a fair point, but the amount of money needed for those things isn’t insanely high for me. I don’t have kids, don’t own a car, and have pretty low living expenses. There’s always another job to get. I can always spend less. If something’s truly catastrophic (like healthcare), I just wouldn’t pay the bill. I rent (not interested in owning property) so my exposure there is pretty limited. I have a pretty big stack of credit cards and would just use those if I absolutely had to. I don’t carry a balance on them now so that’s a lot of freedom in a truly worse-case-scenario. Plus, I have a chronic illness so I tend to not be too worried about long-long-term. How long do I really want/need to sustain myself for?
- rglullis 4y ago
  Congratulations on being such a happy cog in the machine.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    Thanks!
RajT88 4y ago
As long as malvertising campaigns are a thing, you should block ads. The online ad industry AFAIK still has not got their shit together.
- mojzu 4y ago
  Agreed, in addition the amount of personal information advertising companies collect is staggering and incredibly creepy. I believe an exposed API link was posted to HN some time back that allowed you to query your data from one of the big ones, I like to think I take some care with who I give that data to, but they had almost every phone number, home/work address, email address, social media profile, etc. I'd used over the past 15 years. Until the advertising industry cleans house and abides to some level of standards and ethics I have no qualms blocking every advert I possibly can
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  This is a good enough reason on it’s own, ads are literally dangerous.
- IvanK_net 4y ago
  I guess you always pay in cash. The amount of information which banks and card issuers collect about you is just tremendous. And unlike web ads, they know your real name, your address, your age ...
  - mmcgaha 4y ago
    Credit/debit card companies have more of some information but they know less about my psyche. They may know that I buy guns but they don't know that I like single action revolvers. They may know that I eat out but they don't know that I am allergic to shellfish. They may know that I went to the doctor but they don't know that I have some weird pimple on my butt. They may know that I watch porn but they don't know that I am into pygmy doggy style. The web trackers know all of this about me and probably some weird stuff that I am too ashamed to share.
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    Those institutions are a fair bit more regulated than 'big ad tech'. It's a good point though, and to add to it: mobile comms companies' ability to track device, and therefore individual locations.
bumblebritches5 4y ago
user_named 4y ago
They can choose to display ads. I can choose not to display ads. That's all.
IvanK_net 4y ago
It is okay because website creators tolerate it. Once all website owners stop tolerating it, everybody would have to watch ads. Just like if at the grocery store, you could choose to pay or not pay. It would be totally okay not to pay. But if the number of non-paying customers grew too much, the owners would make it mandatory to pay. This did not happen to the web yet.
- chii 4y ago
  > you could choose to pay or not pay. It would be totally okay not to pay it was never OK to never pay at a grocery store. But some stores don't want the cost of enforcement, so accept some losses from stealing. Whether this argument applies to web based ads is difficult to say. I don't agree - but there's valid viewpoints out there do agree.
  - IvanK_net 4y ago
    I said IF you could choose not to pay (if it was legal, the owner did not mind it), it WOULD make more sense not to pay (as you would save your money). That is how it is with websites today, the owners let you do it, even though they could prevent you from accessing their content.
- mcv 4y ago
  > Once all website owners stop tolerating it, everybody would have to watch ads. Or everybody would stop visiting corporate websites and we'd go back to the user-generated web of old, where people created stuff out of love, instead of to get views and sell ads.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    > "Or everybody would stop visiting corporate websites and we'd go back to the user-generated web of old, where people created stuff out of love, instead of to get views and sell ads." Oh how I miss those days. Back then, the advertising industry literally scoffed at the idea of advertising on the "It's just a passing fad" early web [1], and most of the people online at that time were "content creators" of one kind or another, just looking to share what they were passionate about with others around the world. [1] Source: I used to run a small printing business back in the day, and tried for years to convince advertisers of the value of advertising on the Internet and was literally laughed at…
throwaway22032 4y ago
I find the idea that anyone, a single person, could consider blocking ads to be wrong to be hilarious. I've never met such a person. I can only imagine them to be barely human. What other bizarre opinions, internal or external, would they have? I don't think that I could trust them with literally anything.
- jefftk 4y ago
  I think running an ad blocker is freeloading, the same as using paywall-bypassing software. There are worse things people regularly do, but I do think it's minorly wrong and I don't run an ad blocker. I would be fine with ad blockers that only blocked ads, as long as publishers could chose to refuse service to users running ad blockers or ask them to turn their ad blocker off. But uBlock Origin etc don't just block ads, they also pretend to the site that the ads aren't blocked. (I used to work in ads)
  - krageon 4y ago
    > I used to work in ads The fact that you admit to working in an industry that actively tries to take as much agency away from others as it can without (apparently) feeling bad about it is really terrible.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      I don't think advertising is harmful in general, and I think an ad-funded web is likely much better than a paywall-funded web. More: https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads
      - mojzu 4y ago
        In theory, ads are great, I'd like to hear about products and services that can solve problems or improve my quality of life. In practice, my experience of ads on the web is to degrade the user experience of the page I came to see and to build intrusive personal profiles on what my interests are believed to be (which often seems to result in being repeatedly fed the same ads for products I've already purchased) Anecdotally the best advertising I have engaged with and bought the most as a result of is content based, not personalised for me in any way (i.e. podcasts before dynamic ads became a thing)
jefftk 4y ago
If enough of us used ad blockers, it could help force a systemic shift away from the attention economy altogether It's worth putting serious thought into whether this would actually be a better web; I think it would likely be worse. Most sites today are supported by ads, and if that weren't an option we'd see some combination of paywalls, sponsored content, and sites shutting down. (I used to work on ads)
- jgilias 4y ago
  I really like the solution put forth by Brave. Basically reify the attention economy and make it explicit so that you, as the producer of your attention get a say and a monetary stake in it.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    If you think the attention economy is legitimate, a browser that removes the ads publishers have put on their sites and instead serves different ads to the users is pretty shady.
    - jgilias 4y ago
      I was referring more to the mechanism of paying content providers directly in proportion to the time I spend on their site. Without getting tracked all over the place and being shown intrusive ads. And without an opaque middleman taking most of the cut.
      - jefftk 4y ago
        Content providers would push back pretty hard on the idea that a second on every site is worth the same. A high quality news article and a listicle cost very different amounts to produce, and we don't want even more of a race to the bottom here.
- timokoesters 4y ago
  Paywalls are annoying because it forces you onto the few websites you pay for. Maybe we need a platform where you pay some fixed amount of money per month and get access to many websites. At the end of the month you can decide how to split your money among the websites you used, defaulting to proportional to the amount of time you spent on the site. The platform should be open so that anyone can add their website.
BwackNinja 4y ago
On an ad-supported site, you're not the customer. The advertiser is the customer, you're the product. Making that even worse is social media, where being good on a technical level is only meaningful when we're talking about handling scale -- the rest is if people you care about are using the platform. If you want to see how bad it gets, look at how Facebook abuses CSS in order to have sponsored posts say "Sponsored" at the top while avoiding a straightforward place in the generated html that says "Sponsored" and could be matched by adblockers. It's nightmarish.
noasaservice 4y ago
My machine, my rules. I don't need a justification.
bdefore 4y ago
Aside from the well written article itself, it's remarkable the thought and time put into the commentary that follows. This reminds me how much the quality of commentary has reduced on most places that use them. As well as how much effort I put in to contribute. Valuable discussion used to be scattered across various blogs and HN is in some ways the last vestiges of it.
travisgriggs 4y ago
I’m just grateful we don’t yet live in a world, where to proceed incrementally with content, I not only have to watch ads, but have to endure some sort of interaction on my part to make sure I understood what I just watched.
beej71 4y ago
Yes. When you use ads, you naturally tune your site to maximize profit from those ads. If that's your goal, great, but that's not the web I want to use. And maybe, thinking about it, it's not the web you want to create, either. I've made a lot of content. It's available for free with no ads. I subsidize that work with other work. If you offer me a way to see the content without ads, I'll go for it. I've bought a lot of content. If the choice is $5 for a movie without ads or a $0 movie with ads, I'll pay every time. Otherwise, it's the ad blocker for you. Ads are mental poison. And they greedily use my CPU and battery. :) Want a turbo button for the web? Turn on ad blocking. I was just thinking the other day that I'd probably tolerate black-and-white static ads on a site, like in [paper] newspapers. But these attention-sucking brainwashing CPU-hogging things... Forget them.
s_ting765 4y ago
To me ads seem only to negatively UX more than anything. Case in point, I have began noticing a more than usual amount of ads on Twitter recently. I now get a sponsored ad after very 3 tweets compared to the one or two quick ones on every homepage load, sometimes none at all. This has put me off the platform until they either A) Shift back to the previous acceptable amount of ads. B) Show a negligible amount of ads am willing to compromise on. C) Go out of my way to bypass the ads using a controlled client. Only reasonable option left here would be C meaning using 3rd party clients that are limited feature-wise and give a worse UX experience than not using Twitter at all. This route in the long run hampers my Twitter experience to the extent that I would rather go back to square one and avoid using Twitter altogether.
meter 4y ago
I have a friend that intentionally disables Adblock on YouTube in order to support the creators that he likes. He feels that, if he disables Adblock, the creators will get less money. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m very curious to hear other opinions.
- HungSu 4y ago
  A long term consequence of using an ad blocker is that ad networks only show ads to people who don't use ad blockers, who generally speaking are less tech savvy. The ad networks respond by tailoring to them, and writers who are funded by ads shift their writing towards that audience. Matthew Butterick describes the effect much better here: https://practicaltypography.com/vote-with-your-wallet.html https://practicaltypography.com/vote-with-your-wallet.html
JohnFen 4y ago
It's OK to block ads because it's my computer and I get to decide what it will and won't do. Period. That said, I don't block ads. I block trackers and JS, which happens to have the side-effect of blocking almost all ads. If ads appear that don't track me or use JS, I will totally see them. I won't even mind too much.
perryizgr8 4y ago
The most basic argument for online ad blocking is that I should be in control of my own equipment. It's my phone, my computer, an internet connection I pay for. Why shouldn't I do whatever I want with it. Websites should consider themselves lucky I let them run their stupid inefficient scripts on my machine.
alkonaut 4y ago
We should call it tracker blocking, anti targeting or something. I don’t block ads because they are annoying (although they can be). I block ads because of privacy. Seeing an ad for something I searched for on an unrelated site is creepy and unnerving. Serve ethical ads: use the page content as the only targeting, don’t use third party ad networks. Just show a damn banner. Does this not pay the bills enough? Is it more work to chase sponsors instead of just linking in an andnet ad? Started a paid subscription but not enough people pay for the subscriptions and with Adblockers more and more pervasive it’s getting hard to keep the lights on? Then here is my advice: don’t keep the lights on. Your site doesn’t seem needed if the only way to sustain it was using tracking ads.
sershe 4y ago
There are many contrived examples here about closing eyes and refusing to eat lettuce, but why not take one directly from software? Let's say I publish code on the internet and put praise to my coding skills in the comments. A publisher publishes an article with ads. You read the article with ads removed, and take my code to use in your closed-source commercial product, ripping out the comments. So far so good. Now let's say instead I publish my code under GPL. And the publisher puts a big disclaimer on the website that you must turn off ad-blocker to view content. Is it still ethical to block ads and ignore the disclaimer? Note I'm saying "ethical", not "legal". How is that any different from ignoring the LICENSE file and profiting from the GPL code in a closed-source commercial product? Mental gymnastics about what is "really a contract" aside. To be sure, I block ads, but like other such things, e.g. speeding, I recognize it's a moral compromise I make with myself.

91 points by timokoesters 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I block all advertisement, and go out of my way to ignore it and scroll right past it.

irfwashere 4y ago
You really just closed that overton window didn't you
- irfwashere 4y ago
  Tongue in cheek joke went over most people's heads
spicybright 4y ago
Same. Spam, page loads, and aesthetics aside: I'll never click an ad out of principal. So why load it? I wish there was some kind of Netflix for site supporting. I admittedly don't donate because of how awful some payment systems are. I'd rather log into a site and tick a few boxes to pay.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Micro-payments never really came to pass is the sad thing - except where they just increased in size enough to become "payments". Though I suspect the answer is closer to the ugly truth: whatever you think you're worth, you're not really worth it unless it's through ads. If people had to think about how they allocate resources, then they'd inevitably decide they can do without in most cases.

simion314 4y ago

A women told in a comment that after around 13 years old she would get ads on Facebook to become a cam girl. So FB with all the data they have on their user still pushed such a fucking ad to a child. I am expecting an ashole to respond and tell me that FB can\t afford to validate the ads they put in front of children and my premtive response is "Don't fucking put ads in fron of children, or at least put only the ones you validated" but Mark and his army of cool FB devs need a raise and new toys. My conclusion, block ads, block ads on your family and friends devices, the companies will screw you and the poor bastard that payed for the ad to be placed in front of some relevant target.

tartoran 4y ago
In the current form ads are cancer to the world.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
These things are only profitable at scale which is why humans will never be part of the process. With that said- it's not our problem that it doesn't scale. As it exists it is hurting people so something obviously needs to change. Platforms have a duty to uphold and shouldn't exist if they cannot even protect children from sex worker ads.
- simion314 4y ago
  It hurts the companies that pay for placing the ads if FB or other giant does not give a shit that they target the wrong people. Putting some toy ads would maybe make more money but when you are a giant and have no competition your developers spend their time on shitty projects that improve their CV.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
concinds 4y ago
I wonder if she lied about her age when signing up to FB. I know I did, and most people I know did too (back when we actually used FB). I don't believe FB ever allowed users younger than 13 due to COPPA (passed in 2000) and she clearly used it before turning 13. For context FB always asked for users' birthday during signup.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks FB would easily: a) "implement" COPPA by using the sign-up form b) don't care that the profiling of a user leads to showing ads that would fit a 10-year old c) don't care when other ads clash with the profile consistent of a 10-year old d) plausible deniability Q.E.D

_ZeD_ 4y ago

madsbuch 4y ago

https://archive.ph/WCLxr https://archive.ph/WCLxr

sushibowl 4y ago

I feel like any argument that starts with the idea that blocking ads is unethical would inevitably lead to that black mirror episode where the ad pauses if you close your eyes or look away, and you must pay to skip it. Closing your eyes is just another ad blocking measure, and the idea that that would be unethical ought to be utterly preposterous.

robertlagrant 4y ago
No, just the idea that you can close your eyes will lead to it, because advertisers want you to look at ads for commercial reasons. Doesn't require an ethical argument.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Just as blocking them as an ethical issue fundamentally commercial: you're accessing content paid for by adverts, but you aren't contributing to that payment. The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site.
  - phoe-krk 4y ago
    >The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site. Maybe unrelated, but I always think of this when I pay for a ticket and go to the cinema, so I can watch fifteen minutes of trailers and commercials before the actual movie begins.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      The economics of cinemas are such that they make no money on ticket sales (that money goes to the film distribution company) and they only really make money on drinks, snacks, and ads.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    > The quid pro quo of the site is you pay nothing to see this, but you look at the ads that pay for the site. But this isn't the fucking model. The model is: We created compelling content that draws lots of views, and companies will pay us to plaster their name/products on it. There is literally zero contract with the person being shown the ads at all. They can do as they please. If companies don't like that... move to a different model - stop showing your stuff for free.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

amelius 4y ago

> Besides, they say, users who block ads wouldn’t have bought the advertisers’ products anyway. Even if you bought the product, you can still hate the ad for making you do so, e.g. by inducing FOMO and by causing more overconsumption, of which you are now a part.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

twirlock 4y ago

lapser 4y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971443 I'm surprised Oxford University is unable to handle the load from HN. Someone already posted the archive.is link.

float_laugh 4y ago

I have a degree in marketing, took a vow never to work in it, and use these words to describe advertisements - Motivated deception, manipulation, mind control, inauthentic, inorganic, insincere, a betrayal by your peers. They're using your own mind against you with psycological techniques you're blind to. Behind every advertisement is a group of real life people working hard to find new ways to control and manipulate YOUR mind and the people you love. They'll lie to your face as long as it "increases brand awareness in our target demographic". Why on Earth wouldn't you do everything in your power to block these people?

Tenoke 4y ago
> Why on Earth wouldn't you do everything in your power to block these people? I block ads myself, but if I didn't it'd be because it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  Taxes are another.
- commmentator 4y ago
  > it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from. To see the absurdity of this position just replace "view ads" with the following: I would stop content creators from breaking into my home and taking money from my wallet in the middle of the night, but I don't because it's the only wildly prevalent, fairly minimal hassle way to make micro-payments to a service/content I'm benefiting from. It is not the responsibility of consumer to accept harmful practices because they're the only practices in broad use.
- phh 4y ago
  Yup. That's the reason I kept 2011-2021 without ad blockers. But yeah I could no longer live in that hell. Fwiw ads have more properties than just being micro payments. Another property is that the price is a monotonic growing function of your revenues, so """every viewer contribute with how much they can"""

ltr_ 4y ago

when you have no money, all ads are irrelevant. it made me be ad blind, so I block them all.

paulcole 4y ago

I don’t block ads. If I hate the ads more than I like the site, I stop going to that site. It’s not that hard of a choice for me. Personally, I don’t subscribe to the But-My-HTTP-Requests defense and understand that ads and tracking are the trade I make for reading/watching/enjoying content without getting my wallet out. I also personally enjoy learning about new products and buying things I might like. Why do I earn money if not to buy things?

commmentator 4y ago
> Why do I earn money if not to buy things? To create a safety net for yourself (and perhaps your family)? So that if you were to incur unexpected catastrophic expenses, or lose your job, you would still be able to sustain yourself?
- paulcole 4y ago
  That’s a fair point, but the amount of money needed for those things isn’t insanely high for me. I don’t have kids, don’t own a car, and have pretty low living expenses. There’s always another job to get. I can always spend less. If something’s truly catastrophic (like healthcare), I just wouldn’t pay the bill. I rent (not interested in owning property) so my exposure there is pretty limited. I have a pretty big stack of credit cards and would just use those if I absolutely had to. I don’t carry a balance on them now so that’s a lot of freedom in a truly worse-case-scenario. Plus, I have a chronic illness so I tend to not be too worried about long-long-term. How long do I really want/need to sustain myself for?
rglullis 4y ago
Congratulations on being such a happy cog in the machine.
- paulcole 4y ago
  Thanks!

RajT88 4y ago

As long as malvertising campaigns are a thing, you should block ads. The online ad industry AFAIK still has not got their shit together.

mojzu 4y ago
Agreed, in addition the amount of personal information advertising companies collect is staggering and incredibly creepy. I believe an exposed API link was posted to HN some time back that allowed you to query your data from one of the big ones, I like to think I take some care with who I give that data to, but they had almost every phone number, home/work address, email address, social media profile, etc. I'd used over the past 15 years. Until the advertising industry cleans house and abides to some level of standards and ethics I have no qualms blocking every advert I possibly can
Godel_unicode 4y ago
This is a good enough reason on it’s own, ads are literally dangerous.
IvanK_net 4y ago
I guess you always pay in cash. The amount of information which banks and card issuers collect about you is just tremendous. And unlike web ads, they know your real name, your address, your age ...
- mmcgaha 4y ago
  Credit/debit card companies have more of some information but they know less about my psyche. They may know that I buy guns but they don't know that I like single action revolvers. They may know that I eat out but they don't know that I am allergic to shellfish. They may know that I went to the doctor but they don't know that I have some weird pimple on my butt. They may know that I watch porn but they don't know that I am into pygmy doggy style. The web trackers know all of this about me and probably some weird stuff that I am too ashamed to share.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Those institutions are a fair bit more regulated than 'big ad tech'. It's a good point though, and to add to it: mobile comms companies' ability to track device, and therefore individual locations.

bumblebritches5 4y ago

user_named 4y ago

They can choose to display ads. I can choose not to display ads. That's all.

IvanK_net 4y ago

It is okay because website creators tolerate it. Once all website owners stop tolerating it, everybody would have to watch ads. Just like if at the grocery store, you could choose to pay or not pay. It would be totally okay not to pay. But if the number of non-paying customers grew too much, the owners would make it mandatory to pay. This did not happen to the web yet.

chii 4y ago
> you could choose to pay or not pay. It would be totally okay not to pay it was never OK to never pay at a grocery store. But some stores don't want the cost of enforcement, so accept some losses from stealing. Whether this argument applies to web based ads is difficult to say. I don't agree - but there's valid viewpoints out there do agree.
- IvanK_net 4y ago
  I said IF you could choose not to pay (if it was legal, the owner did not mind it), it WOULD make more sense not to pay (as you would save your money). That is how it is with websites today, the owners let you do it, even though they could prevent you from accessing their content.
mcv 4y ago
> Once all website owners stop tolerating it, everybody would have to watch ads. Or everybody would stop visiting corporate websites and we'd go back to the user-generated web of old, where people created stuff out of love, instead of to get views and sell ads.
- blooalien 4y ago
  > "Or everybody would stop visiting corporate websites and we'd go back to the user-generated web of old, where people created stuff out of love, instead of to get views and sell ads." Oh how I miss those days. Back then, the advertising industry literally scoffed at the idea of advertising on the "It's just a passing fad" early web [1], and most of the people online at that time were "content creators" of one kind or another, just looking to share what they were passionate about with others around the world. [1] Source: I used to run a small printing business back in the day, and tried for years to convince advertisers of the value of advertising on the Internet and was literally laughed at…

throwaway22032 4y ago

I find the idea that anyone, a single person, could consider blocking ads to be wrong to be hilarious. I've never met such a person. I can only imagine them to be barely human. What other bizarre opinions, internal or external, would they have? I don't think that I could trust them with literally anything.

jefftk 4y ago
I think running an ad blocker is freeloading, the same as using paywall-bypassing software. There are worse things people regularly do, but I do think it's minorly wrong and I don't run an ad blocker. I would be fine with ad blockers that only blocked ads, as long as publishers could chose to refuse service to users running ad blockers or ask them to turn their ad blocker off. But uBlock Origin etc don't just block ads, they also pretend to the site that the ads aren't blocked. (I used to work in ads)
- krageon 4y ago
  > I used to work in ads The fact that you admit to working in an industry that actively tries to take as much agency away from others as it can without (apparently) feeling bad about it is really terrible.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I don't think advertising is harmful in general, and I think an ad-funded web is likely much better than a paywall-funded web. More: https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads
    - mojzu 4y ago
      In theory, ads are great, I'd like to hear about products and services that can solve problems or improve my quality of life. In practice, my experience of ads on the web is to degrade the user experience of the page I came to see and to build intrusive personal profiles on what my interests are believed to be (which often seems to result in being repeatedly fed the same ads for products I've already purchased) Anecdotally the best advertising I have engaged with and bought the most as a result of is content based, not personalised for me in any way (i.e. podcasts before dynamic ads became a thing)

jefftk 4y ago

If enough of us used ad blockers, it could help force a systemic shift away from the attention economy altogether It's worth putting serious thought into whether this would actually be a better web; I think it would likely be worse. Most sites today are supported by ads, and if that weren't an option we'd see some combination of paywalls, sponsored content, and sites shutting down. (I used to work on ads)

jgilias 4y ago
I really like the solution put forth by Brave. Basically reify the attention economy and make it explicit so that you, as the producer of your attention get a say and a monetary stake in it.
- jefftk 4y ago
  If you think the attention economy is legitimate, a browser that removes the ads publishers have put on their sites and instead serves different ads to the users is pretty shady.
  - jgilias 4y ago
    I was referring more to the mechanism of paying content providers directly in proportion to the time I spend on their site. Without getting tracked all over the place and being shown intrusive ads. And without an opaque middleman taking most of the cut.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Content providers would push back pretty hard on the idea that a second on every site is worth the same. A high quality news article and a listicle cost very different amounts to produce, and we don't want even more of a race to the bottom here.
timokoesters 4y ago
Paywalls are annoying because it forces you onto the few websites you pay for. Maybe we need a platform where you pay some fixed amount of money per month and get access to many websites. At the end of the month you can decide how to split your money among the websites you used, defaulting to proportional to the amount of time you spent on the site. The platform should be open so that anyone can add their website.

BwackNinja 4y ago

On an ad-supported site, you're not the customer. The advertiser is the customer, you're the product. Making that even worse is social media, where being good on a technical level is only meaningful when we're talking about handling scale -- the rest is if people you care about are using the platform. If you want to see how bad it gets, look at how Facebook abuses CSS in order to have sponsored posts say "Sponsored" at the top while avoiding a straightforward place in the generated html that says "Sponsored" and could be matched by adblockers. It's nightmarish.

noasaservice 4y ago

My machine, my rules. I don't need a justification.

bdefore 4y ago

Aside from the well written article itself, it's remarkable the thought and time put into the commentary that follows. This reminds me how much the quality of commentary has reduced on most places that use them. As well as how much effort I put in to contribute. Valuable discussion used to be scattered across various blogs and HN is in some ways the last vestiges of it.

travisgriggs 4y ago

I’m just grateful we don’t yet live in a world, where to proceed incrementally with content, I not only have to watch ads, but have to endure some sort of interaction on my part to make sure I understood what I just watched.

beej71 4y ago

Yes. When you use ads, you naturally tune your site to maximize profit from those ads. If that's your goal, great, but that's not the web I want to use. And maybe, thinking about it, it's not the web you want to create, either. I've made a lot of content. It's available for free with no ads. I subsidize that work with other work. If you offer me a way to see the content without ads, I'll go for it. I've bought a lot of content. If the choice is $5 for a movie without ads or a $0 movie with ads, I'll pay every time. Otherwise, it's the ad blocker for you. Ads are mental poison. And they greedily use my CPU and battery. :) Want a turbo button for the web? Turn on ad blocking. I was just thinking the other day that I'd probably tolerate black-and-white static ads on a site, like in [paper] newspapers. But these attention-sucking brainwashing CPU-hogging things... Forget them.

s_ting765 4y ago

To me ads seem only to negatively UX more than anything. Case in point, I have began noticing a more than usual amount of ads on Twitter recently. I now get a sponsored ad after very 3 tweets compared to the one or two quick ones on every homepage load, sometimes none at all. This has put me off the platform until they either A) Shift back to the previous acceptable amount of ads. B) Show a negligible amount of ads am willing to compromise on. C) Go out of my way to bypass the ads using a controlled client. Only reasonable option left here would be C meaning using 3rd party clients that are limited feature-wise and give a worse UX experience than not using Twitter at all. This route in the long run hampers my Twitter experience to the extent that I would rather go back to square one and avoid using Twitter altogether.

meter 4y ago

I have a friend that intentionally disables Adblock on YouTube in order to support the creators that he likes. He feels that, if he disables Adblock, the creators will get less money. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m very curious to hear other opinions.

HungSu 4y ago
A long term consequence of using an ad blocker is that ad networks only show ads to people who don't use ad blockers, who generally speaking are less tech savvy. The ad networks respond by tailoring to them, and writers who are funded by ads shift their writing towards that audience. Matthew Butterick describes the effect much better here: https://practicaltypography.com/vote-with-your-wallet.html https://practicaltypography.com/vote-with-your-wallet.html

JohnFen 4y ago

It's OK to block ads because it's my computer and I get to decide what it will and won't do. Period. That said, I don't block ads. I block trackers and JS, which happens to have the side-effect of blocking almost all ads. If ads appear that don't track me or use JS, I will totally see them. I won't even mind too much.

perryizgr8 4y ago

The most basic argument for online ad blocking is that I should be in control of my own equipment. It's my phone, my computer, an internet connection I pay for. Why shouldn't I do whatever I want with it. Websites should consider themselves lucky I let them run their stupid inefficient scripts on my machine.

alkonaut 4y ago

We should call it tracker blocking, anti targeting or something. I don’t block ads because they are annoying (although they can be). I block ads because of privacy. Seeing an ad for something I searched for on an unrelated site is creepy and unnerving. Serve ethical ads: use the page content as the only targeting, don’t use third party ad networks. Just show a damn banner. Does this not pay the bills enough? Is it more work to chase sponsors instead of just linking in an andnet ad? Started a paid subscription but not enough people pay for the subscriptions and with Adblockers more and more pervasive it’s getting hard to keep the lights on? Then here is my advice: don’t keep the lights on. Your site doesn’t seem needed if the only way to sustain it was using tracking ads.

sershe 4y ago

There are many contrived examples here about closing eyes and refusing to eat lettuce, but why not take one directly from software? Let's say I publish code on the internet and put praise to my coding skills in the comments. A publisher publishes an article with ads. You read the article with ads removed, and take my code to use in your closed-source commercial product, ripping out the comments. So far so good. Now let's say instead I publish my code under GPL. And the publisher puts a big disclaimer on the website that you must turn off ad-blocker to view content. Is it still ethical to block ads and ignore the disclaimer? Note I'm saying "ethical", not "legal". How is that any different from ignoring the LICENSE file and profiting from the GPL code in a closed-source commercial product? Mental gymnastics about what is "really a contract" aside. To be sure, I block ads, but like other such things, e.g. speeding, I recognize it's a moral compromise I make with myself.