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>It's not a contract to which I've agreed though. If they want me to get content in exchange for something, then they should make sure I do, otherwise, they are

>It's not a contract to which I've agreed though. If they want me to get content in exchange for something, then they should make sure I do, otherwise, they are putting things on an open server that I can easily read from. What I tell my browser to take from it is up to me, You are conflating the practical ability to do something with the moral right to do something. The fact that something cannot be enforced is a practical problem, not a moral one. A rural car-park owner may have no practical method to force people using his car park to leave money in an honesty box [1]. His request for payment may have no legal standing. Neither of these points has any influence on the moral value of not leaving the requested payment. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty_box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty_box

hxa7241 14y ago
What makes using an honesty-box moral? It is not that one side has dictated the terms. Imagine finding an empty car-park, parking your car, approaching the honesty-box and finding a note declaring the owner does not expect money but instead expects to be paid in teeth: and would the car-park users please pull-out a tooth and deposit it. Would that be moral? Yes, one could say it is moral to all follow a general rule of reciprocating, of giving something as well as receiving. But what and how much? The morality of cooperative interaction is not about what one person wants, it is about how all are affected. Saying what exact actions and amounts would be moral is in general an impossible calculation. But what would clearly not be moral is one party dictating to the other. Once you deliberately offer to engage in cooperative interaction you alone no longer set the rules.