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Unpopular take. Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? Instead of removing the source of their income while still c

Unpopular take. Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? Instead of removing the source of their income while still consuming their content? Someone should make an extension "SiteBlock Origin": Everytime it detects the presence of an ad, the whole website gets blocked, not just the ad. That would be ethically consistent.

nottorp 3y ago
I'll be ethical about ads when the ads are ethical about me :)
kbrosnan 3y ago
I ran without an adblocker for a long time with a similar sort of reasoning. What got me to finally install an adblocker is an increase in malvertising. Going to legitimate sites with third party ads resulted in drive by downloads, fake update warnings, fake AV warnings, attempts to get you to install shady extensions, etc. I disable the adblocker for websites that use better ad sourcing methods. Ex. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/i-found-fake-firefox-update https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/i-found-fake-firefox-up...
- qrio2 3y ago
  I think this is a key to the argument for ad-block. If it was literally just banner ads without tracking, sure, go right ahead. Modern web advertising is so much more than that (aggressive tracking, data collection without consent, or worse). I miss getting those banner ads for decreasing my mortgage rates as a 14 year old who doesn't even pay rent yet
- lobsterthief 3y ago
  Unfortunately “better ad sourcing methods” require a lot of human capital to support (direct-sold ads, constant monitoring of inventory, being able to afford higher bid floors, etc.) or ultimately access to better advertisers by having a large amount of traffic. All of these are features of larger publishers, unfortunately, which means that smaller publishers suffer more malvertising. So you’re basically just supporting large publishers. Which is definitely better than supporting none, so I still commend you :)
  - wredue 3y ago
    Yeah. Why would we ever want people to have jobs when the executive branch can just pocket those wages for themselves instead.
qrio2 3y ago
This is an interesting argument. I own my computer and network, should I not be allowed to control what content is or is not allowed in my network? I guess the corollary that would follow from MY argument is that they should be permitted to block me from accessing their site if they see I'm not permitting ads
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >I guess the corollary that would follow from MY argument is that they should be permitted to block me from accessing their site if they see I'm not permitting ads That's pretty much what Medium and many general news sites are doing. I haven't paid for one yet, but I can respect the move if it means they don't need to rely on clickbait to build a customer base.
  - mcfedr 3y ago
    Judging by all the titles on medium, click bait is still an important part of revenue, it's just not driving ads consumption but subscriptions
- eipi10_hn 3y ago
  Exactly, users are the ones who should allow and block what contents to be served to their devices, NOT the websites. > 2.12 People should be able to render web content as they want > People must be able to change web pages according to their needs. For example, people should be able to install style sheets, assistive browser extensions, and blockers of unwanted content or scripts or auto-played videos. We will build features and write specifications that respect peoples' agency, and will create user agents to represent those preferences on the web user's behalf. https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render Don't fall for what ads companies/corporations are trying to shape users' thoughts.
Benjamin_Dobell 3y ago
If the site offers an ad-free paid subscription model, that's reasonable. I mean, it'd be much better just to redirect to the sign-up page. However, if the site is so user hostile that they think bombarding users with invasive ads is the only way to monetise, well that's on them.
- L3viathan 3y ago
  Even better: if it offers a way to pay a few cents to read _this one article_. I don't want to subscribe to hundreds of websites for reading a single article every so often.
akincisor 3y ago
The contract of the web is: - I ask for a resource - you give it to me - any linked resources (stylesheets, scripts, images etc) are up to me to request Therefore there is no "ethical" conundrum in blocking ads. The ad industry brought this on themselves by trying to push malware, spam and actively trying to make the web worse.
- HeckFeck 3y ago
  Agreed. Advert blocking wasn’t a necessity until adverts became intrusive, tracking and targeting became pervasive, and every site flooded with cookie banners. I remember when AdWords was just a humble bar of contextual text links, absolutely manageable. Not so much the case now.
jayd16 3y ago
Oh no. He caught us. Oh well...
meristohm 3y ago
I'd use that. As it is, I often back out from sites that ask me to disable my adblocker, and often do the same when the cookie-choice pop-up is present; it's a helpful check on how I'm spending my time. I'm absolutely spoiled for choice there, and as with a meal of mostly minimally-processed plants, I feel best after reading a book. Which is not to say I never eat/read the snack/article that is quickly but momentarily diverting.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
Running ublock is like not looking at ad. Would you support TV that requires you to focus on ad while it's running?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I don't think it's quite the same because ads don't care if you are "focusing on the ad". Well, they kinda do, but not by any useful metric (idling on a computer =/= engaging with the ad). It's more equivalent to changing the channel during a commercial, which seems to be what the GP is implying as an action.
  - SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
    Which works great until most channels conveniently have commercials running at the same times
tekeous 3y ago
Not visiting cost them nothing. No serve, no cost. Viewing the ad made them money. Visiting and not viewing the ad lost them money. They paid for the server but made no money. Only one of these three options is painful enough for them to get the point. It’s harsh i know, writers need to eat, but they need to understand I won’t “pay” them with my eyeballs unless the site is usable in return at a bare minimum.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Fair point and I do pay for ad free browsing in a few sites. But consider 1. sites that don't have any other model. e.g. my favorite game news website is Gematsu, but holy heck is the ads crazy intrusive. On mobile we are talking full screen video ads that have a tiny X to remove... for maybe 1 minute. I've expressed interest multiple times to donate or otherwise do something to directly fund the site but nothing has come up. And even if I did move on to make a point, this model isn't something that has spread to many, if any, modern gaming news site (and I've long since left Reddit, a topic in and of itself). Do I just give up on gaming news and let clickbait Youtubers inform me instead of written articles? 2. Exploratory purposes. I'm not going to know which and what websites do or do not have ad support, and most of my browsing when searching is very casual. I wouldn't feel too compelled to neither turn off my ad block nor pay a sub for some place I googled up once 3 months ago for a quick answer. I don't quite have an answer for this one. 3. ublock isn't simply blocking ads. trackers, certain cookies, overly large media elements, java script, remote fonts, even individual pieces of HTML elements you specify in a CSS manner. It's so much more powerful and privacy-oriented than a simple ad blocker. If it closed off any site with any of these issues there simply wouldn't be an interet to browse. It's a compromise at the end of the day, and I can only look out for myself at some point. I'm not necessarily trying to teach websites a lesson per se.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > If it closed off any site with any of these issues there simply wouldn't be an internet to browse. That's actually not true. It's just that it's much harder to find that internet, because search engines are controlled by advertisers.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Well sure, it's not going to literally block every single website (to my surprise, HN on fact seems to lack all of the above factors. Or at least UBlock cannot trace them. Kudos). But so much of the internet is closed down that I essentially cannot rely on anything that isn't a small personal blog (that is NOT hosted by any of the major web deployment platforms. e.g. WordPress). I'd need to roll my own email provider (and deal with that fallout since I'm now "spam". Ironic), cannot apply to 99% of job portals (employer nor job boards), cannot use most of my productivity apps on the web, and I still can't access most major news, subscription or not.If I was still in school there's a non-zero chance I can access my class portals. I can replace most of these, but not all.
eipi10_hn 3y ago
No. The ethical principles written clearly by World Wide Web Consortium are for users, NOT for websites: > 2.12 People should be able to render web content as they want > People must be able to change web pages according to their needs. For example, people should be able to install style sheets, assistive browser extensions, and blockers of unwanted content or scripts or auto-played videos. We will build features and write specifications that respect peoples' agency, and will create user agents to represent those preferences on the web user's behalf. https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render --- > Everytime it detects the presence of an ad, the whole website gets blocked, not just the ad. That would be ethically consistent. By the time the extension knows if there's ads or nots, the trackers/fingerprinting connections are already loaded to users' machines. Written in literature, it sounds awesome. In practice with real programming, it's awful.
- nhinck2 3y ago
  Despite being called an ethical web principle, that really doesn't make it ethical.
  - eipi10_hn 3y ago
    What is "it" here?
    - nhinck2 3y ago
      That blocking ads is ethical.
  - eipi10_hn 3y ago
    Don't know why there's no reply button under your other reply. (Ah ok, I see it now, looks like HN needs to wait a bit before that button appears). For me, it's ethical. Loading trackers/malicious connections/contents on my own machine is unethical. That's it. I don't run those on your server, why do you run them on my devices? What I said is simple: there's ethical pricinples standing by users' sides, and nothing for websites. If you think it's unethical, you do you. I won't participate in arguing about your personal preferences.
deleted 3y ago
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Prickle 3y ago
I don't think it is that unpopular of a take. Generally speaking, Ads and subscriptions pay for the website. The issue I personally have is: 1) When the Ads themselves contain malware. 2) Eat up all your bandwidth/mobile data. 2.1) Have auto-playing videos / popups. 1) is somewhat rare. But it is something that has happened multiple times with major websites and services. If I remember correctly, the Washington Post and Yahoo have previously had this issue. Google's Advertisement platform has repeatedly allowed malware to spread via their advertisement system. (Both on Mobile devices, and desktop devices, but usually more focused on mobile devices.) 2) is something I have to deal with everyday on the phone. When on a train filled to the brim, a lot of times the connection speed drops precipitously. In short, I don't have bandwidth to spend on an Ad, especially a video Ad. So I block them all, and usually try not to browse any image or video heavy sites. 2.1) is really just a quality of life thing.
josefx 3y ago
> Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? There is a negative feedback loop where most third party content is only published on the most popular sites, so it becomes impossible to entirely avoid these sites even if the companies behind them are cancer. > That would be ethically consistent. Don't drag ethics into a mud fight with billion dollar companies. I lived through ads that faked download buttons, faked virus alerts, provided links to fake "official" download sites with malware or directly tried to infect your computer. The only ethical thing you can do with the ad industry is rob those rotten sociopaths blind.
klabb3 3y ago
It’s an arms race. The utopian hyper-civilized ethics are replaced when your adversary are doing everything possible to turn you into a product. Tracking, fingerprinting, creating shadow profiles for you, etc etc, etc without any meaningful consent. If the adversaries followed idealized ethics, they would respect DNT header, for one. That said, actively avoiding those actors who are unethical is commendable. It’s just very difficult to do in practice, since basic communication with eg neighbors, parents, friends are mainly through these channels.
zarzavat 3y ago
People don’t block ads because they want to deprive websites of income. They block ads because they have been driven to it, by the ads themselves. This could be avoided if websites served ads responsibly: no JS, no animations, no video, no audio, no tracking, no scam merchants, no tricks, no manipulation, no unskippable ads, no dishonesty. Almost no websites do this, so I have no ethical qualms giving of the ads the banhammer. Once websites start respecting their users, then we can have this conversation about ethics, but not a second before.
- oneshtein 3y ago
  Why some sites are blocked from net due to having just a link to a «bad» website, while many other sites and ad networks receive zero punishes for their active attempts to scam victims or harm victim computers?
  - eipi10_hn 3y ago
    Examples?
    - oneshtein 3y ago
      Google «Copyright liability for hyperlinking».
      - eipi10_hn 3y ago
        Ah, I thought it's related to uBO.
flangola7 3y ago
As my hair grays I have reached the determination that for-profit advertising itself is systematically unethical. Maybe it was ethical many, many decades ago; here today any moral values it once had are long gone. To that end any mechanism that reduces the presence and effect of advertising is a moral imperative.
- richard_cory 3y ago
  > for-profit advertising itself is systematically unethical Very interesting. Can you please expand a bit more on why do you think this is the case?
  - magic_hamster 3y ago
    Not oc, but I share some of this sentiment. Modern advertising is heavily based on behavioral science, psychological and especially emotional manipulation. This is on top of extreme methods to hijack your attention at all cost. It might sound like hyperbole but if you read marketing case studies you realize this isn't only the norm, it's something they take pride in, especially when it appears to work (which it does). In my view, blocking this isn't just morally just, it's absolutely necessary. I deliberately choose not to partake in this and not be a target for manipulation to the best of my ability. Maybe there was a time when advertising was more about creating awareness instead of feeling and making you want the product, but advertising changed dramatically over the 20th century. There's quite a lot of reading material out there if you're interested.
  - barnabee 3y ago
    Also not oc, but… Without advertising, “content marketing”, and paid placements/reviews people would buy things when they desire or need them. They’d ask friends, compare specs, and read/watch reviews before determining what to buy. That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available. Advertising’s job is to subvert those rational choices and make people buy something, whether it’s the best option or not. In fact, even when they don’t actually want or need anything at all. It causes people exposed to it to spend money unnecessarily, and on the wrong products and downright bad products. Some are more susceptible than others, but in the end it’s an illegitimate tax levied every time you buy something. Even if you didn’t respond to advertising when making a purchase, advertising is so ubiquitous and necessary in most markets that the price you paid probably contributed to the advertising the manufacturer had to deploy to keep up with the arms race. There’s nothing ethical or necessary about any of this. Ideally there would be legislation that would force business models to change, but while there is not, ad blocking is absolutely an imperative.
bobro 3y ago
In the end I just dont care about being ethical to these companies. It’s like screwing over my drug dealer.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mr-pink 3y ago
no, the web wasn't intended to be such a commercial hellscape. if you want to make money ethically you should come up with your own way to reach people.
rodric 3y ago
The web is, in theory, an open venue, and somebody publishing on the web is not unlike somebody performing in the street. It is not your duty, as the consumer, to ensure the producer’s income—particularly not at the expense of your privacy. The producer has something to say, and you the consumer are willing to hear it: that may just as well be the extent of your relationship. How, or even whether, the producer monetizes this state of affairs is not the consumer’s responsibility, though some consumers (who can) may choose to patronize the producer.
kerkeslager 3y ago
> Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? Instead of removing the source of their income while still consuming their content? That's fundamentally not how the web works. If you want me to pay for content, you need to get me to agree to pay for content. Just requesting a page, which I have no way beforehand of knowing contains ads, is not me agreeing to pay for the content. If you didn't want me to view the content without paying for it, why did you send me the content? This is morally equivalent to the fake monk scam[1] in NYC where a fake Buddhist monk gives you a prayer bracelet and then demands that you pay them for it. You don't get to give people things and then demand that they pay for it when that was never agreed upon. Even if the payment is with their attention. This is all setting aside the ethical blight that advertising, by its very nature, poses in the first place. Advertising is just lying--either literally, or by omission through presenting a one-sided view of products. There is never a case where advertising is ethical. Note that the NYT has mostly stopped serving up content to people who haven't agreed to pay for it, and they're doing quite well financially lately. [1] https://tricycle.org/article/monk-scam/ https://tricycle.org/article/monk-scam/
jokoon 3y ago
That's already what I am somehow doing. I always think twice before opening a link. Reddit mastodon lemmy etc already sanitize websites I read, and often I just read the comments, not the article. Often people quote important parts of the article in the comments. Ad blockers is like an antibiotic, I use them but I also try to not expose myself to germs.
barnabee 3y ago
IMO showing advertising itself is unethical and there’s no right to force anyone to see an advertisement, no matter how much some companies would like there to be. Any content you make available publicly is fair game to be remixed, reformatted, summarised, and yes, ad-blocked. It’s not the user’s job to make someone’s business model work.
sensanaty 3y ago
I don't care about the ethics here because the ad companies, the parasites they are, don't give a shit about ethics. They track every single possible thing there is to track about a person and sell that information to anyone with a couple of bucks to spend. Funnily enough, of all websites out there one of the best is still 4chan when it comes to ads. They have 2 banners, one at the top of the page, one at the very bottom of the page. These are static banners, at most a gif, with no tracking pixels or fingerprinting capabilities or any other similar form of horrid, unethical behavior. No embedded ads masquerading as regular content, nothing that blocks interaction on the page, just simple banners that target the site's particular niche like anime or cheap junk from Japan. But as long as websites aren't using this model of ads and are instead opting for something disgusting like https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com then you won't see an iota of sympathy or care for "ethical" behavior from me.
93po 3y ago
Advertising is unethical. If you publicly provide data I have no ethical contract to be forced to use that data in a certain way. If you want to force ads then use a different delivery mechanism and at that point I will gladly entirely avoid it

nottorp 3y ago

I'll be ethical about ads when the ads are ethical about me :)

kbrosnan 3y ago

I ran without an adblocker for a long time with a similar sort of reasoning. What got me to finally install an adblocker is an increase in malvertising. Going to legitimate sites with third party ads resulted in drive by downloads, fake update warnings, fake AV warnings, attempts to get you to install shady extensions, etc. I disable the adblocker for websites that use better ad sourcing methods. Ex. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/i-found-fake-firefox-update https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/i-found-fake-firefox-up...

qrio2 3y ago
I think this is a key to the argument for ad-block. If it was literally just banner ads without tracking, sure, go right ahead. Modern web advertising is so much more than that (aggressive tracking, data collection without consent, or worse). I miss getting those banner ads for decreasing my mortgage rates as a 14 year old who doesn't even pay rent yet
lobsterthief 3y ago
Unfortunately “better ad sourcing methods” require a lot of human capital to support (direct-sold ads, constant monitoring of inventory, being able to afford higher bid floors, etc.) or ultimately access to better advertisers by having a large amount of traffic. All of these are features of larger publishers, unfortunately, which means that smaller publishers suffer more malvertising. So you’re basically just supporting large publishers. Which is definitely better than supporting none, so I still commend you :)
- wredue 3y ago
  Yeah. Why would we ever want people to have jobs when the executive branch can just pocket those wages for themselves instead.

qrio2 3y ago

This is an interesting argument. I own my computer and network, should I not be allowed to control what content is or is not allowed in my network? I guess the corollary that would follow from MY argument is that they should be permitted to block me from accessing their site if they see I'm not permitting ads

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I guess the corollary that would follow from MY argument is that they should be permitted to block me from accessing their site if they see I'm not permitting ads That's pretty much what Medium and many general news sites are doing. I haven't paid for one yet, but I can respect the move if it means they don't need to rely on clickbait to build a customer base.
- mcfedr 3y ago
  Judging by all the titles on medium, click bait is still an important part of revenue, it's just not driving ads consumption but subscriptions
eipi10_hn 3y ago
Exactly, users are the ones who should allow and block what contents to be served to their devices, NOT the websites. > 2.12 People should be able to render web content as they want > People must be able to change web pages according to their needs. For example, people should be able to install style sheets, assistive browser extensions, and blockers of unwanted content or scripts or auto-played videos. We will build features and write specifications that respect peoples' agency, and will create user agents to represent those preferences on the web user's behalf. https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render Don't fall for what ads companies/corporations are trying to shape users' thoughts.

Benjamin_Dobell 3y ago

If the site offers an ad-free paid subscription model, that's reasonable. I mean, it'd be much better just to redirect to the sign-up page. However, if the site is so user hostile that they think bombarding users with invasive ads is the only way to monetise, well that's on them.

L3viathan 3y ago
Even better: if it offers a way to pay a few cents to read _this one article_. I don't want to subscribe to hundreds of websites for reading a single article every so often.

akincisor 3y ago

The contract of the web is: - I ask for a resource - you give it to me - any linked resources (stylesheets, scripts, images etc) are up to me to request Therefore there is no "ethical" conundrum in blocking ads. The ad industry brought this on themselves by trying to push malware, spam and actively trying to make the web worse.

HeckFeck 3y ago
Agreed. Advert blocking wasn’t a necessity until adverts became intrusive, tracking and targeting became pervasive, and every site flooded with cookie banners. I remember when AdWords was just a humble bar of contextual text links, absolutely manageable. Not so much the case now.

jayd16 3y ago

Oh no. He caught us. Oh well...

meristohm 3y ago

I'd use that. As it is, I often back out from sites that ask me to disable my adblocker, and often do the same when the cookie-choice pop-up is present; it's a helpful check on how I'm spending my time. I'm absolutely spoiled for choice there, and as with a meal of mostly minimally-processed plants, I feel best after reading a book. Which is not to say I never eat/read the snack/article that is quickly but momentarily diverting.

KptMarchewa 3y ago

Running ublock is like not looking at ad. Would you support TV that requires you to focus on ad while it's running?

johnnyanmac 3y ago
I don't think it's quite the same because ads don't care if you are "focusing on the ad". Well, they kinda do, but not by any useful metric (idling on a computer =/= engaging with the ad). It's more equivalent to changing the channel during a commercial, which seems to be what the GP is implying as an action.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
  Which works great until most channels conveniently have commercials running at the same times

tekeous 3y ago

Not visiting cost them nothing. No serve, no cost. Viewing the ad made them money. Visiting and not viewing the ad lost them money. They paid for the server but made no money. Only one of these three options is painful enough for them to get the point. It’s harsh i know, writers need to eat, but they need to understand I won’t “pay” them with my eyeballs unless the site is usable in return at a bare minimum.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

johnnyanmac 3y ago

Fair point and I do pay for ad free browsing in a few sites. But consider 1. sites that don't have any other model. e.g. my favorite game news website is Gematsu, but holy heck is the ads crazy intrusive. On mobile we are talking full screen video ads that have a tiny X to remove... for maybe 1 minute. I've expressed interest multiple times to donate or otherwise do something to directly fund the site but nothing has come up. And even if I did move on to make a point, this model isn't something that has spread to many, if any, modern gaming news site (and I've long since left Reddit, a topic in and of itself). Do I just give up on gaming news and let clickbait Youtubers inform me instead of written articles? 2. Exploratory purposes. I'm not going to know which and what websites do or do not have ad support, and most of my browsing when searching is very casual. I wouldn't feel too compelled to neither turn off my ad block nor pay a sub for some place I googled up once 3 months ago for a quick answer. I don't quite have an answer for this one. 3. ublock isn't simply blocking ads. trackers, certain cookies, overly large media elements, java script, remote fonts, even individual pieces of HTML elements you specify in a CSS manner. It's so much more powerful and privacy-oriented than a simple ad blocker. If it closed off any site with any of these issues there simply wouldn't be an interet to browse. It's a compromise at the end of the day, and I can only look out for myself at some point. I'm not necessarily trying to teach websites a lesson per se.

kerkeslager 3y ago
> If it closed off any site with any of these issues there simply wouldn't be an internet to browse. That's actually not true. It's just that it's much harder to find that internet, because search engines are controlled by advertisers.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Well sure, it's not going to literally block every single website (to my surprise, HN on fact seems to lack all of the above factors. Or at least UBlock cannot trace them. Kudos). But so much of the internet is closed down that I essentially cannot rely on anything that isn't a small personal blog (that is NOT hosted by any of the major web deployment platforms. e.g. WordPress). I'd need to roll my own email provider (and deal with that fallout since I'm now "spam". Ironic), cannot apply to 99% of job portals (employer nor job boards), cannot use most of my productivity apps on the web, and I still can't access most major news, subscription or not.If I was still in school there's a non-zero chance I can access my class portals. I can replace most of these, but not all.

eipi10_hn 3y ago

No. The ethical principles written clearly by World Wide Web Consortium are for users, NOT for websites: > 2.12 People should be able to render web content as they want > People must be able to change web pages according to their needs. For example, people should be able to install style sheets, assistive browser extensions, and blockers of unwanted content or scripts or auto-played videos. We will build features and write specifications that respect peoples' agency, and will create user agents to represent those preferences on the web user's behalf. https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#render --- > Everytime it detects the presence of an ad, the whole website gets blocked, not just the ad. That would be ethically consistent. By the time the extension knows if there's ads or nots, the trackers/fingerprinting connections are already loaded to users' machines. Written in literature, it sounds awesome. In practice with real programming, it's awful.

nhinck2 3y ago
Despite being called an ethical web principle, that really doesn't make it ethical.
- eipi10_hn 3y ago
  What is "it" here?
  - nhinck2 3y ago
    That blocking ads is ethical.
- eipi10_hn 3y ago
  Don't know why there's no reply button under your other reply. (Ah ok, I see it now, looks like HN needs to wait a bit before that button appears). For me, it's ethical. Loading trackers/malicious connections/contents on my own machine is unethical. That's it. I don't run those on your server, why do you run them on my devices? What I said is simple: there's ethical pricinples standing by users' sides, and nothing for websites. If you think it's unethical, you do you. I won't participate in arguing about your personal preferences.

deleted 3y ago

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Prickle 3y ago

I don't think it is that unpopular of a take. Generally speaking, Ads and subscriptions pay for the website. The issue I personally have is: 1) When the Ads themselves contain malware. 2) Eat up all your bandwidth/mobile data. 2.1) Have auto-playing videos / popups. 1) is somewhat rare. But it is something that has happened multiple times with major websites and services. If I remember correctly, the Washington Post and Yahoo have previously had this issue. Google's Advertisement platform has repeatedly allowed malware to spread via their advertisement system. (Both on Mobile devices, and desktop devices, but usually more focused on mobile devices.) 2) is something I have to deal with everyday on the phone. When on a train filled to the brim, a lot of times the connection speed drops precipitously. In short, I don't have bandwidth to spend on an Ad, especially a video Ad. So I block them all, and usually try not to browse any image or video heavy sites. 2.1) is really just a quality of life thing.

josefx 3y ago

> Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? There is a negative feedback loop where most third party content is only published on the most popular sites, so it becomes impossible to entirely avoid these sites even if the companies behind them are cancer. > That would be ethically consistent. Don't drag ethics into a mud fight with billion dollar companies. I lived through ads that faked download buttons, faked virus alerts, provided links to fake "official" download sites with malware or directly tried to infect your computer. The only ethical thing you can do with the ad industry is rob those rotten sociopaths blind.

klabb3 3y ago

It’s an arms race. The utopian hyper-civilized ethics are replaced when your adversary are doing everything possible to turn you into a product. Tracking, fingerprinting, creating shadow profiles for you, etc etc, etc without any meaningful consent. If the adversaries followed idealized ethics, they would respect DNT header, for one. That said, actively avoiding those actors who are unethical is commendable. It’s just very difficult to do in practice, since basic communication with eg neighbors, parents, friends are mainly through these channels.

zarzavat 3y ago

People don’t block ads because they want to deprive websites of income. They block ads because they have been driven to it, by the ads themselves. This could be avoided if websites served ads responsibly: no JS, no animations, no video, no audio, no tracking, no scam merchants, no tricks, no manipulation, no unskippable ads, no dishonesty. Almost no websites do this, so I have no ethical qualms giving of the ads the banhammer. Once websites start respecting their users, then we can have this conversation about ethics, but not a second before.

oneshtein 3y ago
Why some sites are blocked from net due to having just a link to a «bad» website, while many other sites and ad networks receive zero punishes for their active attempts to scam victims or harm victim computers?
- eipi10_hn 3y ago
  Examples?
  - oneshtein 3y ago
    Google «Copyright liability for hyperlinking».
    - eipi10_hn 3y ago
      Ah, I thought it's related to uBO.

flangola7 3y ago

As my hair grays I have reached the determination that for-profit advertising itself is systematically unethical. Maybe it was ethical many, many decades ago; here today any moral values it once had are long gone. To that end any mechanism that reduces the presence and effect of advertising is a moral imperative.

richard_cory 3y ago
> for-profit advertising itself is systematically unethical Very interesting. Can you please expand a bit more on why do you think this is the case?
- magic_hamster 3y ago
  Not oc, but I share some of this sentiment. Modern advertising is heavily based on behavioral science, psychological and especially emotional manipulation. This is on top of extreme methods to hijack your attention at all cost. It might sound like hyperbole but if you read marketing case studies you realize this isn't only the norm, it's something they take pride in, especially when it appears to work (which it does). In my view, blocking this isn't just morally just, it's absolutely necessary. I deliberately choose not to partake in this and not be a target for manipulation to the best of my ability. Maybe there was a time when advertising was more about creating awareness instead of feeling and making you want the product, but advertising changed dramatically over the 20th century. There's quite a lot of reading material out there if you're interested.
- barnabee 3y ago
  Also not oc, but… Without advertising, “content marketing”, and paid placements/reviews people would buy things when they desire or need them. They’d ask friends, compare specs, and read/watch reviews before determining what to buy. That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available. Advertising’s job is to subvert those rational choices and make people buy something, whether it’s the best option or not. In fact, even when they don’t actually want or need anything at all. It causes people exposed to it to spend money unnecessarily, and on the wrong products and downright bad products. Some are more susceptible than others, but in the end it’s an illegitimate tax levied every time you buy something. Even if you didn’t respond to advertising when making a purchase, advertising is so ubiquitous and necessary in most markets that the price you paid probably contributed to the advertising the manufacturer had to deploy to keep up with the arms race. There’s nothing ethical or necessary about any of this. Ideally there would be legislation that would force business models to change, but while there is not, ad blocking is absolutely an imperative.

bobro 3y ago

In the end I just dont care about being ethical to these companies. It’s like screwing over my drug dealer.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mr-pink 3y ago

no, the web wasn't intended to be such a commercial hellscape. if you want to make money ethically you should come up with your own way to reach people.

rodric 3y ago

The web is, in theory, an open venue, and somebody publishing on the web is not unlike somebody performing in the street. It is not your duty, as the consumer, to ensure the producer’s income—particularly not at the expense of your privacy. The producer has something to say, and you the consumer are willing to hear it: that may just as well be the extent of your relationship. How, or even whether, the producer monetizes this state of affairs is not the consumer’s responsibility, though some consumers (who can) may choose to patronize the producer.

kerkeslager 3y ago

> Wouldn't it be more ethical to not visit ad supported websites in the first place? Instead of removing the source of their income while still consuming their content? That's fundamentally not how the web works. If you want me to pay for content, you need to get me to agree to pay for content. Just requesting a page, which I have no way beforehand of knowing contains ads, is not me agreeing to pay for the content. If you didn't want me to view the content without paying for it, why did you send me the content? This is morally equivalent to the fake monk scam[1] in NYC where a fake Buddhist monk gives you a prayer bracelet and then demands that you pay them for it. You don't get to give people things and then demand that they pay for it when that was never agreed upon. Even if the payment is with their attention. This is all setting aside the ethical blight that advertising, by its very nature, poses in the first place. Advertising is just lying--either literally, or by omission through presenting a one-sided view of products. There is never a case where advertising is ethical. Note that the NYT has mostly stopped serving up content to people who haven't agreed to pay for it, and they're doing quite well financially lately. [1] https://tricycle.org/article/monk-scam/ https://tricycle.org/article/monk-scam/

jokoon 3y ago

That's already what I am somehow doing. I always think twice before opening a link. Reddit mastodon lemmy etc already sanitize websites I read, and often I just read the comments, not the article. Often people quote important parts of the article in the comments. Ad blockers is like an antibiotic, I use them but I also try to not expose myself to germs.

barnabee 3y ago

IMO showing advertising itself is unethical and there’s no right to force anyone to see an advertisement, no matter how much some companies would like there to be. Any content you make available publicly is fair game to be remixed, reformatted, summarised, and yes, ad-blocked. It’s not the user’s job to make someone’s business model work.

sensanaty 3y ago

I don't care about the ethics here because the ad companies, the parasites they are, don't give a shit about ethics. They track every single possible thing there is to track about a person and sell that information to anyone with a couple of bucks to spend. Funnily enough, of all websites out there one of the best is still 4chan when it comes to ads. They have 2 banners, one at the top of the page, one at the very bottom of the page. These are static banners, at most a gif, with no tracking pixels or fingerprinting capabilities or any other similar form of horrid, unethical behavior. No embedded ads masquerading as regular content, nothing that blocks interaction on the page, just simple banners that target the site's particular niche like anime or cheap junk from Japan. But as long as websites aren't using this model of ads and are instead opting for something disgusting like https://fingerprint.com https://fingerprint.com then you won't see an iota of sympathy or care for "ethical" behavior from me.

93po 3y ago

Advertising is unethical. If you publicly provide data I have no ethical contract to be forced to use that data in a certain way. If you want to force ads then use a different delivery mechanism and at that point I will gladly entirely avoid it