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Is it taken without consent? Don't you consent when you watch YouTube, or use some ad-funded site? Don't you get something (the content) in return? There are a

Is it taken without consent? Don't you consent when you watch YouTube, or use some ad-funded site? Don't you get something (the content) in return? There are alternatives, but most people choose to pay with attention, so that's where creators are being pulled to. But that doesn't mean that you're forced to consume it.

johannes1234321 2y ago
In practical terms there isn't an alternative. Sure there are websites without ads, but they won't tell me about what happens in my community. Sure, I could go to the town hall and watch sessions, but it's not practical. Also: Even alternatives to YouTube will end up in the ad market. Just see the different streaming services where one already pays and who are rolling out ads. And well, YouTube still is the central place with all the videos. The only choice I have is using an ad blocker, which could be seen as amoral.
- Nemi 2y ago
  I hate ads as much as anyone (full disclosure, I use an ad blocker), but with all due respect, the reason there is no “practical” alternative to a service displaying ads is – someone has to pay for it. And before you say “I am paying or I am willing to pay”, it often costs more than you are willing to pay to run these services. When you say it is “not practical” to go to the town hall, what you are really saying is “my time is valuable and I want someone else to expend their valuable time recording that information and disseminating it to me at low or no cost to me”. Believe me, I understand the desire. But if we were all honest, someone has to pay for this and capitalism has decided that this is the “best” way to do that.
  - johannes1234321 2y ago
    Of course, but there are other ways to finance the news site. But ads are easy and lucrative, thus nobody (with exceptions) bothers to implement them. It's even worse: I pay for my local newspaper subscription and they still serve tracking ads.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
bondarchuk 2y ago
It is taken without consent if you leave your house or use public transport, or use certain private sector services that are de facto required to live a normal life.
- luckylion 2y ago
  With that line of thought we'd quickly get into very strange territory. You can't use public transport without either standing or sitting on their chairs, even though you might prefer different chairs. Are they now forcing you to use their services without your consent?
  - Timon3 2y ago
    You said it yourself - you literally can't use public transport without either standing or sitting on their chairs. It's a physical limitation. But it's entirely possible to use public transport without having ads shoved into your face. It's even the default! If people didn't put up ads in/around public transport, you could use public transport without seeing any.
    - luckylion 2y ago
      They could simply put the chairs you like into their cars though, there's nothing stopping them from doing that. They just choose not to, much like they choose to put ads in the windows and on the door - for economical reasons.
      - Timon3 2y ago
        There's obviously one issue stopping them: there are far more people using public transportation than there are chairs in there, so it's once again physically impossible to accommodate everyones tastes. This is not the case with advertising. But you know that.
trinsic2 2y ago
I think the difference here is people don't really know what they're giving up psychologically. When you're manipulating someone to choose against their best interests, it's happening on an unconscious level and freedom of choice is completely removed from the picture. In these types of cases, no I don't believe there is consent involved.
- luckylion 2y ago
  Is that limited to ads? If someone buys a car because it looks sporty and powerful which speaks to his subconscious, was he not manipulated? Was he able to give consent to trade money for that car? I understand where you're coming from, but psychological manipulation is everywhere and committed by everyone all the time and defining its use as voiding consent seems very problematic.
  - trinsic2 2y ago
    Yes it is very problematic. Im more concerned about political and sociological manipulation where lies and deceit are used to convince people to support agendas which go against there own best interests.
    - luckylion 2y ago
      Protecting them from that possibility infantilizes them, and what their own interests are will often not be clear to others. It's easy to say what your best interests would be if you were in their situation, but they might assign very different values to certain outcomes.
      - trinsic2 2y ago
        I'm capable of understanding humanity shares best interests and using lies and deceit to manipulate is harmful to society. It sad you have chosen to believe otherwise. So no I don't agree.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
camgunz 2y ago
Would you support a regulation that all ads must offer a paid opt out?
- luckylion 2y ago
  How is the price determined?
  - camgunz 2y ago
    Fairly, as in if everyone opted out the amount of money the platform made is unchanged.
    - luckylion 2y ago
      I believe that would be very difficult, it would likely create some additional interesting cases (are adblockers now fraud?), I'd be somewhat concerned of forcing that upon companies (would benefit larger companies by making the barrier to entry higher), but I don't see it causing problems at the same scale of banning all advertising.
      - camgunz 2y ago
        (First, I appreciate you engaging!) > I believe that would be very difficult, it would likely create some additional interesting cases (are adblockers now fraud?) I don't know if companies consider it fraud, but for example Telly is giving away a TV as long as you let it eat your data and serve you ads, and if they figure out you're preventing that somehow they want the TV back [0]. So models like this countenance some kind of evasion at least a little. I've asked other people this same question because most of the time platforms don't make advertising opt-in/out, basically for any amount of money. The best answer I've gotten--which I buy--is that the value in ads/marketing/data isn't 1 person, it's the aggregate. So like, if you have 1M users generating $100k, but then 500k of those users opt-out each for a dollar, ostensibly it seems like this is equivalent but the value of data on 500k users isn't $500k, it's substantially less, so the opt-out isn't a dollar, it's more like $5 or something, which makes this a non-option. So conceiving of this business model as a kind of "advertising lets you have this 'for free'" is only true in the most literal sense, as long as you don't think your individual data or privacy has any value or you ignore the implication that you could opt-out for whatever that value is. Beyond that, it creates perverse incentives. We don't think that advertising benefits people, we have a whole other category called "Public Service Announcements" that kind of benefits people, and represents a sliver of actual "advertising". Say what you want about ads for diabetes meds or whatever, but they're not PSAs. The value to the consumer isn't the ad but what the ad funds, which makes platforms (tv stations, social media network, whatever) very interested in finding the exact line where you have both maximum advertising revenue and maximum engagement... which is a euphemistic way of saying "we want to trap you in our platform for as long as possible so we can make as many ad dollars on you as possible". That's bad! Even the value you're supposedly getting--the content--is now geared towards making you watch more ads instead of whatever you thought you were getting (sober political commentary, funny dance videos, makeup tips, whatever). This perfectly diagnoses the slop of media these days; I think there's no real disagreement here. Finally, I think advertising is just 100% weird on its own. It sounds innocuous, but the business of advertising is persuasion: fine at the "marketing grad out of uni" level, real terrifying at the "billions of dollars convincing people to buy things they don't need and feel things they wouldn't otherwise feel about 'brands' or issues" level. There is no real regulation of this either; companies can spend as much money as they want literally blanketing our buildings, skies, cars, and media broadly with their message, which can be things like, "Happy Mother's Day" or "don't be a sucker: buy Bitcoin". This is also pretty bad. Maybe jumping right to "let's ban all advertising" isn't the right way to start this conversation. Fair enough. But I do think we're starting to come around to the notion that advertising as we know it today isn't a good idea and we should do something about it. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910631/telly-free-tv-ads-ilya-pozin-vergecast https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910631/telly-free-tv-a...
chongli 2y ago
Is it taken without consent? There's no clearer lack of consent than attempts by advertisers to circumvent, block, or ban ad-blockers. These advertisers could choose to put up paywalls but that would harm their search rankings, so they don't. Instead, they play games with cloaking [1] and other SEO techniques in order to bypass the user's wishes and show them ads (or even ads + cloaked paywalls). At least YouTube offers a paid premium service which remains ad-free. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking
- luckylion 2y ago
  > There's no clearer lack of consent than attempts by advertisers to circumvent, block, or ban ad-blockers. There is consent (otherwise you wouldn't visit the website in the first place), users with adblock are just trying to minimize their exposure. Totally reasonable (I do it too), but nobody is forcing them. That may be true for e.g. a malicious software on your computer that force-redirects your regular browsing activity to some evil site, but that's not what we're discussing.
  - chongli 2y ago
    There is consent (otherwise you wouldn't visit the website in the first place) Clicking a link is not consent. I have no idea what I am going to see until I reach the website. My browser has rendered the website and executed their JavaScript long before I've had any chance to even process what I'm seeing, let alone consent to it. Clicking a link is equivalent to walking into a tattoo parlour. We don't infer that I consent to receiving a tattoo just by walking through the doorway. Stealing my attention with ads is less extreme of an intrusion onto my person than a tattoo, obviously, but it is still an intrusion.
    - luckylion 2y ago
      I'd say the intrusion is similar to you seeing tattoo designs after walking into a tattoo studio - it's expected and accepted, you consent by entering.

johannes1234321 2y ago

In practical terms there isn't an alternative. Sure there are websites without ads, but they won't tell me about what happens in my community. Sure, I could go to the town hall and watch sessions, but it's not practical. Also: Even alternatives to YouTube will end up in the ad market. Just see the different streaming services where one already pays and who are rolling out ads. And well, YouTube still is the central place with all the videos. The only choice I have is using an ad blocker, which could be seen as amoral.

Nemi 2y ago
I hate ads as much as anyone (full disclosure, I use an ad blocker), but with all due respect, the reason there is no “practical” alternative to a service displaying ads is – someone has to pay for it. And before you say “I am paying or I am willing to pay”, it often costs more than you are willing to pay to run these services. When you say it is “not practical” to go to the town hall, what you are really saying is “my time is valuable and I want someone else to expend their valuable time recording that information and disseminating it to me at low or no cost to me”. Believe me, I understand the desire. But if we were all honest, someone has to pay for this and capitalism has decided that this is the “best” way to do that.
- johannes1234321 2y ago
  Of course, but there are other ways to finance the news site. But ads are easy and lucrative, thus nobody (with exceptions) bothers to implement them. It's even worse: I pay for my local newspaper subscription and they still serve tracking ads.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

bondarchuk 2y ago

It is taken without consent if you leave your house or use public transport, or use certain private sector services that are de facto required to live a normal life.

luckylion 2y ago
With that line of thought we'd quickly get into very strange territory. You can't use public transport without either standing or sitting on their chairs, even though you might prefer different chairs. Are they now forcing you to use their services without your consent?
- Timon3 2y ago
  You said it yourself - you literally can't use public transport without either standing or sitting on their chairs. It's a physical limitation. But it's entirely possible to use public transport without having ads shoved into your face. It's even the default! If people didn't put up ads in/around public transport, you could use public transport without seeing any.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    They could simply put the chairs you like into their cars though, there's nothing stopping them from doing that. They just choose not to, much like they choose to put ads in the windows and on the door - for economical reasons.
    - Timon3 2y ago
      There's obviously one issue stopping them: there are far more people using public transportation than there are chairs in there, so it's once again physically impossible to accommodate everyones tastes. This is not the case with advertising. But you know that.

trinsic2 2y ago

I think the difference here is people don't really know what they're giving up psychologically. When you're manipulating someone to choose against their best interests, it's happening on an unconscious level and freedom of choice is completely removed from the picture. In these types of cases, no I don't believe there is consent involved.

luckylion 2y ago
Is that limited to ads? If someone buys a car because it looks sporty and powerful which speaks to his subconscious, was he not manipulated? Was he able to give consent to trade money for that car? I understand where you're coming from, but psychological manipulation is everywhere and committed by everyone all the time and defining its use as voiding consent seems very problematic.
- trinsic2 2y ago
  Yes it is very problematic. Im more concerned about political and sociological manipulation where lies and deceit are used to convince people to support agendas which go against there own best interests.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    Protecting them from that possibility infantilizes them, and what their own interests are will often not be clear to others. It's easy to say what your best interests would be if you were in their situation, but they might assign very different values to certain outcomes.
    - trinsic2 2y ago
      I'm capable of understanding humanity shares best interests and using lies and deceit to manipulate is harmful to society. It sad you have chosen to believe otherwise. So no I don't agree.
_DeadFred_ 2y ago

camgunz 2y ago

Would you support a regulation that all ads must offer a paid opt out?

luckylion 2y ago
How is the price determined?
- camgunz 2y ago
  Fairly, as in if everyone opted out the amount of money the platform made is unchanged.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    I believe that would be very difficult, it would likely create some additional interesting cases (are adblockers now fraud?), I'd be somewhat concerned of forcing that upon companies (would benefit larger companies by making the barrier to entry higher), but I don't see it causing problems at the same scale of banning all advertising.
    - camgunz 2y ago
      (First, I appreciate you engaging!) > I believe that would be very difficult, it would likely create some additional interesting cases (are adblockers now fraud?) I don't know if companies consider it fraud, but for example Telly is giving away a TV as long as you let it eat your data and serve you ads, and if they figure out you're preventing that somehow they want the TV back [0]. So models like this countenance some kind of evasion at least a little. I've asked other people this same question because most of the time platforms don't make advertising opt-in/out, basically for any amount of money. The best answer I've gotten--which I buy--is that the value in ads/marketing/data isn't 1 person, it's the aggregate. So like, if you have 1M users generating $100k, but then 500k of those users opt-out each for a dollar, ostensibly it seems like this is equivalent but the value of data on 500k users isn't $500k, it's substantially less, so the opt-out isn't a dollar, it's more like $5 or something, which makes this a non-option. So conceiving of this business model as a kind of "advertising lets you have this 'for free'" is only true in the most literal sense, as long as you don't think your individual data or privacy has any value or you ignore the implication that you could opt-out for whatever that value is. Beyond that, it creates perverse incentives. We don't think that advertising benefits people, we have a whole other category called "Public Service Announcements" that kind of benefits people, and represents a sliver of actual "advertising". Say what you want about ads for diabetes meds or whatever, but they're not PSAs. The value to the consumer isn't the ad but what the ad funds, which makes platforms (tv stations, social media network, whatever) very interested in finding the exact line where you have both maximum advertising revenue and maximum engagement... which is a euphemistic way of saying "we want to trap you in our platform for as long as possible so we can make as many ad dollars on you as possible". That's bad! Even the value you're supposedly getting--the content--is now geared towards making you watch more ads instead of whatever you thought you were getting (sober political commentary, funny dance videos, makeup tips, whatever). This perfectly diagnoses the slop of media these days; I think there's no real disagreement here. Finally, I think advertising is just 100% weird on its own. It sounds innocuous, but the business of advertising is persuasion: fine at the "marketing grad out of uni" level, real terrifying at the "billions of dollars convincing people to buy things they don't need and feel things they wouldn't otherwise feel about 'brands' or issues" level. There is no real regulation of this either; companies can spend as much money as they want literally blanketing our buildings, skies, cars, and media broadly with their message, which can be things like, "Happy Mother's Day" or "don't be a sucker: buy Bitcoin". This is also pretty bad. Maybe jumping right to "let's ban all advertising" isn't the right way to start this conversation. Fair enough. But I do think we're starting to come around to the notion that advertising as we know it today isn't a good idea and we should do something about it. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910631/telly-free-tv-ads-ilya-pozin-vergecast https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910631/telly-free-tv-a...

chongli 2y ago

Is it taken without consent? There's no clearer lack of consent than attempts by advertisers to circumvent, block, or ban ad-blockers. These advertisers could choose to put up paywalls but that would harm their search rankings, so they don't. Instead, they play games with cloaking [1] and other SEO techniques in order to bypass the user's wishes and show them ads (or even ads + cloaked paywalls). At least YouTube offers a paid premium service which remains ad-free. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking

luckylion 2y ago
> There's no clearer lack of consent than attempts by advertisers to circumvent, block, or ban ad-blockers. There is consent (otherwise you wouldn't visit the website in the first place), users with adblock are just trying to minimize their exposure. Totally reasonable (I do it too), but nobody is forcing them. That may be true for e.g. a malicious software on your computer that force-redirects your regular browsing activity to some evil site, but that's not what we're discussing.
- chongli 2y ago
  There is consent (otherwise you wouldn't visit the website in the first place) Clicking a link is not consent. I have no idea what I am going to see until I reach the website. My browser has rendered the website and executed their JavaScript long before I've had any chance to even process what I'm seeing, let alone consent to it. Clicking a link is equivalent to walking into a tattoo parlour. We don't infer that I consent to receiving a tattoo just by walking through the doorway. Stealing my attention with ads is less extreme of an intrusion onto my person than a tattoo, obviously, but it is still an intrusion.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    I'd say the intrusion is similar to you seeing tattoo designs after walking into a tattoo studio - it's expected and accepted, you consent by entering.