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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

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.
    - chii 4y ago
      > move to a different model - stop showing your stuff for free. what if that model was a contract to the viewer, wherein the viewer agrees to see all adverts? Currently this contract is assumed, or implied, but not enforced. What if it changes in the future? For example, youtube could require that you have a webcam, and run a trusted-computing-module DRM code which forces your webcam to be on and recording your face to view their videos?
      - mcv 4y ago
        It's not assumed or implied at all. Nobody has any inherent right to my attention. If a content producer gets advertisers to pay them, good for them, but that doesn't mean I have to look at those ads. > youtube could require that you have a webcam That would be the end of Youtube. But I'm pretty sure someone will write a plugin to work around that piece of dystopian hell.
        blooalien 4y ago
        > "Nobody has any inherent right to my attention." Nor to your Internet bandwidth which you pay for and which on some providers is a (artificially) limited "resource" they'll charge you extra for if you use "too much" of it (unless they're like NetZero back in the day, delivering you free Internet in trade for forced adverts)… Nor to potentially compromise the security of your network (as has happened in the past due to some "shady" advertising networks delivering malware)… Nor to interfere with paid content (as happens on some streaming services which still show ads despite you paying to view the content).
  - harry8 4y ago
    Oh to HELL with that garbage. I don't get paid for 99.9% of the ads that infest my daily life. I get no say in it at all. There is no off switch. There is no block. There is no avoiding it. The logos are everywhere. The posters. The visual and audible noise. Advertising has infested my childhood memories FFS. I can recite more goddamn jingles from when I was under 10 than I can remember my friends and classmates names. I got no say in it then and none now. The idea that it is unethical to block when having punches thrown at you as we are is just so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to see it other than facebrick google paid propaganda that you've taken to heart somehow. Bit tobacco sponsor your nation's culture so it's unethical not to smoke a pack a day at least. But sure google and facebook are super-duper-ethical so doing an endrun around some part of their business plan (a tiny part of what they're selling of you) is so much worse than their endrun around the GPL license by distributing access to the software but not the actual binaries. Legally fine, ethically, well they don't have a problem with it, should we? Meanwhile those writing, creating, and having their work infested with ads aren't getting rich like Larry, Sergei & Mark, are they? Stick up for those who have made more money screwing the public and the commons than their great grandchildren can possibly ever spend because if they don't get their money it's unethical due to argument they refute with ever fiber of their being and a bajillion bucks in PR. I tend libertarian adjacent but this stuff makes as communist sympathetic as I'm ever likely to be.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      > The idea that it is unethical to block when having punches thrown at you as we are is just so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to see it other than facebrick google paid propaganda that you've taken to heart somehow. As I say, it doesn't need to be ethical. On your comment: of course, no one is throwing punches at you. It's just advertising. You don't have to go to the website that has it on.
      - harry8 4y ago
        You're actually serious? Advertising is designed to make you feel shit (inadequate) and does it so effectively people kill themselves with anorexia over it to cite but one example. It's like a prostitute saying their pimp doesn't /really/ hurt them when they get a beating. Your other option is not to just "not go to _the_ website" because you have no choice other than to unplug and live in a cave. Defending yourself and your family as best you can from the onslaught isn't just ethical it's actually a duty to your family and fellow humans. Do it. Any way you can manage. Every way.
  - commmentator 4y ago
    > you're accessing content paid for by adverts, but you aren't contributing to that payment. If the content is paid for by adverts, then of course I am not contributing to that payment. Because I am not an advertising company, so by your own logic I didn't pay for the content. What's the problem?
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Online advertising works based on number of impressions/views/clicks. If you're blocking that mechanism then the site doesn't get paid.
    - colejohnson66 4y ago
      You are paying for it. Just not directly. You’re paying the advertiser with your attention, who then pays the website for the privilege to do so. Whether you think that’s OK or not is a different issue, but you are paying, even if you’re not the customer. Just because you don’t directly pay for something doesn’t mean you don’t do so indirectly. For example, Facebook makes almost all their revenue from ads, but advertisers won’t pay them if users don’t visit. So by visiting Facebook (if you do), you’re keeping them afloat.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        Which is exactly why I take great issue with calling ad-supported websites (or anything) "free". They're not free at all. They're very expensive.
  - Drakim 4y ago
    Then make me sign a contract that exchanges the service for my action of viewing the ads. Make it an official transaction. Right now they want it both ways where the content is "free" but I'm also stealing it by not paying.
    - blooalien 4y ago
      Sure, but if there's a contract like that, then I insist that I be paid for my time and bandwidth in addition to the content I'm being interrupted/distracted from viewing. My time and bandwidth are both valuable, and can be far better used than viewing ads for products or services I guarantee I won't buy just because of some shitty advert.
blibble 4y ago
> that black mirror episode where the ad pauses if you close your eyes or look away, and you must pay to skip it. if you have sky TV it has a DVR that lets you record programmes but if you want to fast forward through the ads in programmes you have recorded you have to pay a monthly fee https://www.sky.com/help/articles/ad-skipping https://www.sky.com/help/articles/ad-skipping I expect the camera that tracks you leaving the room will be in the next generation
- mormegil 4y ago
  Watch out for patented technology! https://gizmodo.com/sony-wants-to-let-you-skip-commercials-but-only-if-youl-5937810 https://gizmodo.com/sony-wants-to-let-you-skip-commercials-b...
blooalien 4y ago
Rest assured that if advertisers could display ads on the inside of your eyelids and charge you a fee to open your eyes, they absolutely would not hesitate for even one single second over "ethical issues" before implementing it world-wide. If there's an actual literal Hell, then Lucifer surely has an extra cushy corner of it set aside for advertisers, and he'll force the rest of us to march through it with our eyes open wide several times daily between our other tortures…
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  Yes, that's why I consider it not only okay to block ads, but unethical not to. If you look at ads, you are funding advertisers' mission to create hell on earth.
naravara 4y ago
Somewhere amid all the layers of abstraction people have forgotten that a browser is running code on my machine. And the implication that I have a moral obligation to run whatever arbitrary code you want to throw my way in exactly the way you specify is absurd. It's not even like being mad at someone for paging past an ad in a magazine. It's like being mad at someone for driving their car along a route that doesn't have billboards on it.

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.
  - chii 4y ago
    > move to a different model - stop showing your stuff for free. what if that model was a contract to the viewer, wherein the viewer agrees to see all adverts? Currently this contract is assumed, or implied, but not enforced. What if it changes in the future? For example, youtube could require that you have a webcam, and run a trusted-computing-module DRM code which forces your webcam to be on and recording your face to view their videos?
    - mcv 4y ago
      It's not assumed or implied at all. Nobody has any inherent right to my attention. If a content producer gets advertisers to pay them, good for them, but that doesn't mean I have to look at those ads. > youtube could require that you have a webcam That would be the end of Youtube. But I'm pretty sure someone will write a plugin to work around that piece of dystopian hell.
      - blooalien 4y ago
        > "Nobody has any inherent right to my attention." Nor to your Internet bandwidth which you pay for and which on some providers is a (artificially) limited "resource" they'll charge you extra for if you use "too much" of it (unless they're like NetZero back in the day, delivering you free Internet in trade for forced adverts)… Nor to potentially compromise the security of your network (as has happened in the past due to some "shady" advertising networks delivering malware)… Nor to interfere with paid content (as happens on some streaming services which still show ads despite you paying to view the content).
- harry8 4y ago
  Oh to HELL with that garbage. I don't get paid for 99.9% of the ads that infest my daily life. I get no say in it at all. There is no off switch. There is no block. There is no avoiding it. The logos are everywhere. The posters. The visual and audible noise. Advertising has infested my childhood memories FFS. I can recite more goddamn jingles from when I was under 10 than I can remember my friends and classmates names. I got no say in it then and none now. The idea that it is unethical to block when having punches thrown at you as we are is just so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to see it other than facebrick google paid propaganda that you've taken to heart somehow. Bit tobacco sponsor your nation's culture so it's unethical not to smoke a pack a day at least. But sure google and facebook are super-duper-ethical so doing an endrun around some part of their business plan (a tiny part of what they're selling of you) is so much worse than their endrun around the GPL license by distributing access to the software but not the actual binaries. Legally fine, ethically, well they don't have a problem with it, should we? Meanwhile those writing, creating, and having their work infested with ads aren't getting rich like Larry, Sergei & Mark, are they? Stick up for those who have made more money screwing the public and the commons than their great grandchildren can possibly ever spend because if they don't get their money it's unethical due to argument they refute with ever fiber of their being and a bajillion bucks in PR. I tend libertarian adjacent but this stuff makes as communist sympathetic as I'm ever likely to be.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > The idea that it is unethical to block when having punches thrown at you as we are is just so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to see it other than facebrick google paid propaganda that you've taken to heart somehow. As I say, it doesn't need to be ethical. On your comment: of course, no one is throwing punches at you. It's just advertising. You don't have to go to the website that has it on.
    - harry8 4y ago
      You're actually serious? Advertising is designed to make you feel shit (inadequate) and does it so effectively people kill themselves with anorexia over it to cite but one example. It's like a prostitute saying their pimp doesn't /really/ hurt them when they get a beating. Your other option is not to just "not go to _the_ website" because you have no choice other than to unplug and live in a cave. Defending yourself and your family as best you can from the onslaught isn't just ethical it's actually a duty to your family and fellow humans. Do it. Any way you can manage. Every way.
- commmentator 4y ago
  > you're accessing content paid for by adverts, but you aren't contributing to that payment. If the content is paid for by adverts, then of course I am not contributing to that payment. Because I am not an advertising company, so by your own logic I didn't pay for the content. What's the problem?
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Online advertising works based on number of impressions/views/clicks. If you're blocking that mechanism then the site doesn't get paid.
  - colejohnson66 4y ago
    You are paying for it. Just not directly. You’re paying the advertiser with your attention, who then pays the website for the privilege to do so. Whether you think that’s OK or not is a different issue, but you are paying, even if you’re not the customer. Just because you don’t directly pay for something doesn’t mean you don’t do so indirectly. For example, Facebook makes almost all their revenue from ads, but advertisers won’t pay them if users don’t visit. So by visiting Facebook (if you do), you’re keeping them afloat.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Which is exactly why I take great issue with calling ad-supported websites (or anything) "free". They're not free at all. They're very expensive.
- Drakim 4y ago
  Then make me sign a contract that exchanges the service for my action of viewing the ads. Make it an official transaction. Right now they want it both ways where the content is "free" but I'm also stealing it by not paying.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    Sure, but if there's a contract like that, then I insist that I be paid for my time and bandwidth in addition to the content I'm being interrupted/distracted from viewing. My time and bandwidth are both valuable, and can be far better used than viewing ads for products or services I guarantee I won't buy just because of some shitty advert.

blibble 4y ago

> that black mirror episode where the ad pauses if you close your eyes or look away, and you must pay to skip it. if you have sky TV it has a DVR that lets you record programmes but if you want to fast forward through the ads in programmes you have recorded you have to pay a monthly fee https://www.sky.com/help/articles/ad-skipping https://www.sky.com/help/articles/ad-skipping I expect the camera that tracks you leaving the room will be in the next generation

mormegil 4y ago
Watch out for patented technology! https://gizmodo.com/sony-wants-to-let-you-skip-commercials-but-only-if-youl-5937810 https://gizmodo.com/sony-wants-to-let-you-skip-commercials-b...

blooalien 4y ago

Rest assured that if advertisers could display ads on the inside of your eyelids and charge you a fee to open your eyes, they absolutely would not hesitate for even one single second over "ethical issues" before implementing it world-wide. If there's an actual literal Hell, then Lucifer surely has an extra cushy corner of it set aside for advertisers, and he'll force the rest of us to march through it with our eyes open wide several times daily between our other tortures…

TheCoelacanth 4y ago
Yes, that's why I consider it not only okay to block ads, but unethical not to. If you look at ads, you are funding advertisers' mission to create hell on earth.

naravara 4y ago

Somewhere amid all the layers of abstraction people have forgotten that a browser is running code on my machine. And the implication that I have a moral obligation to run whatever arbitrary code you want to throw my way in exactly the way you specify is absurd. It's not even like being mad at someone for paging past an ad in a magazine. It's like being mad at someone for driving their car along a route that doesn't have billboards on it.