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While I agree on on "it isn't Google", I totally disagree on "it's advertising". No, that is too easy. There is a good reason to sell ads on your website to fi

by y42 3y ago

While I agree on on "it isn't Google", I totally disagree on "it's advertising". No, that is too easy. There is a good reason to sell ads on your website to finance your project. This is totally okay. I'm happy to "consume" ads to finance a news site for example. I would even share some personal data to help the website to target the ads. Why not? Why should I rather give away "real money"? You cannot demand free stuff without giving something back. I mean, you can, maybe. But not every consumer can. And ads or online marketing in general, offers a good option to consume stuff that costs money. The problem is that the whole system somehow perverted over the time, because everyone was trying to make money. The advertising system got sick and everything around polluted. And the real root cause is... et voila, applause, applause... some capitalistic process or at least the current human economic behavior. The internet offers good ways to earn money, so people will exploit this feature.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
> Why not? Because my attention belongs to me. It's not yours to sell to the highest advertising bidder. It's not currency to pay for services with. You're not entitled to it no matter how much free stuff you send me. My attention is part of my cognitive functions and it is literally inalienable. If you try to take it as payment by advertising to me, it will be self defense when I stop you. > Why should I rather give away "real money"? You shouldn't. That's why I block ads unconditionally. I know there's absolutely no reason for you or anyone else to leave money on the table by not advertising to people. I also know that paying you not to advertise to me just drives the value of my attention up and makes you want to advertise to me more. There's absolutely no situation in which advertisers would not want to advertise to me. The only possible course of action is to unconditionally and preemptively block them all. > You cannot demand free stuff without giving something back. Who's "demanding" anything? You're the one sending people free stuff while hoping they'll look at the ads. There's any number of things they could do, including discarding your ads. You're the one taking on that risk. When it inevitably doesn't work out, it's on you. Don't give away free stuff if you want people to pay for stuff. Have your server return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free webpage. > The advertising system got sick and everything around polluted. No, advertising is inherently sick and unethical. Why would you ever listen to anyone trying to sell you anything? They have every incentive in the world to lie to you, manipulate you, overstate the pros and hide the cons. Anything an advertiser says should be doubted based purely on the unresolvable and inherent conflicts of interest associated with them. Advertising should be literally illegal. It's nothing but noise, audiovisual pollution. There are cities in my country that banned it and the results were great, I want to figure out how to propose similar laws in my own city.

by y42 3y ago

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> Why not? Because my attention belongs to me. It's not yours to sell to the highest advertising bidder. It's not currency to pay for services with. You're not entitled to it no matter how much free stuff you send me. My attention is part of my cognitive functions and it is literally inalienable. If you try to take it as payment by advertising to me, it will be self defense when I stop you. > Why should I rather give away "real money"? You shouldn't. That's why I block ads unconditionally. I know there's absolutely no reason for you or anyone else to leave money on the table by not advertising to people. I also know that paying you not to advertise to me just drives the value of my attention up and makes you want to advertise to me more. There's absolutely no situation in which advertisers would not want to advertise to me. The only possible course of action is to unconditionally and preemptively block them all. > You cannot demand free stuff without giving something back. Who's "demanding" anything? You're the one sending people free stuff while hoping they'll look at the ads. There's any number of things they could do, including discarding your ads. You're the one taking on that risk. When it inevitably doesn't work out, it's on you. Don't give away free stuff if you want people to pay for stuff. Have your server return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free webpage. > The advertising system got sick and everything around polluted. No, advertising is inherently sick and unethical. Why would you ever listen to anyone trying to sell you anything? They have every incentive in the world to lie to you, manipulate you, overstate the pros and hide the cons. Anything an advertiser says should be doubted based purely on the unresolvable and inherent conflicts of interest associated with them. Advertising should be literally illegal. It's nothing but noise, audiovisual pollution. There are cities in my country that banned it and the results were great, I want to figure out how to propose similar laws in my own city.