5 ms·

Adblock isn’t immoral

12 points by anonyfox 11y ago

leejoramo 11y ago
The linked story doesn't even get into the security issues related to ads and phishing. And barely touches on the significant privacy issues.
- Zekio 11y ago
  i was thinking this aswell. but i was also thinking that, the story didn't go into the fact it is nearly impossible to block whitelisted ads.
ericmo 11y ago
Is this an answer to The Next Web? They dropped this a couple of days ago: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/17/adblockers-are-immoral-and-mobile-networks-should-know-better/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/17/adblockers-are-immo...
thomaskcr 11y ago
I know I'm cruisin' for a brusin' with the crowd here but this all just reeks of entitlement. If you don't like the ads on a site, don't go there. Problem solved. I stopped going to Slashdot when they added the IBM ads because for some reason it used a lot of CPU. I don't feel like I'm entitled to the content on that site -- they put the content up, pay for servers and in return if I want to read it I need to live with an ad on my screen. I guess you can argue semantics and how it's your bandwidth so you can decide (although, it's their bandwidth too...) -- but the reality is that by blocking the ads you're breaking a "gentleman's agreement" that someone is providing you something (that you clearly want if you're there) and in return you view the ads they have. If you want a "moral" way to block ads, blacklist sites with crappy/annoying ads. I'm over the overly dramatic obsession with ads people have. They really aren't that bad, get over yourself. > For every thousand people suffering from ads.. > It stresses the brain > exhausting for humans and machines. Many Website owners force all these negative implications eye roll My experience with zero adblock has been pretty good - I discovered Atlassian via ads and really like their products. I can't remember the last time I was more than slightly inconvenienced in any way by an ad. I get more annoyed with the thesaurus powered rants than I ever will from ads.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Ads on the site aren't blocked. Pieces of code that are executing on my machine against my will, and which are tracking me against my will, are. The entitlement is from those thinking they have a right to make my machine execute certain code that earns them money. If they don't like my stopping those connections, they are free to not include them.
  - thomaskcr 11y ago
    Are you not gaining something from the pieces of code executing on their side so you can view their content? If you didn't gain something from it, you wouldn't be there. > If they don't like my stopping those connections, they are free to not include them. Or if you don't like it, maybe just don't surf their pages. You're not entitled to everything in the world on your own terms -- if you don't like the terms, don't engage. It's just dishonest, ads are basically honor system. Of course you completely control your own machine and every single connection it makes -- no one can force that on you. But blocking ads is the digital equivalent of taking an egg and not leaving a quarter at the farm stand - at the end of the day they probably don't lose a sale because they throw out the extras (you didn't deprive anyone of an egg or them of a possible sale), but you benefited from someone else's time and work and refused to acknowledge it with a token amount. You're not doing anything wrong in the "universal net-total", you're just being a selfish member of society because you want to benefit from someone else's work/resources but refuse to give a little bit of screen real estate back.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      They are giving it to me in hopes that I will allow the unwanted code to execute. At not time are we in a contract that I will (though it would be possible for some sites to set up a registration that includes disabling adblock for their site as part of the terms of getting an account). Also, you probably want to not try to guess my motives. The screen real estate isn't the problem, the tracking and the resource consumption is. And ads as a honor system? With all the dishonest moves they pull? That is nonsensical to the point of being parody. >if you don't like the terms, don't engage. Exactly. If you don't like that I'm in control of my machine, don't send me content with the expectation of taking over my machine for your benefit.
anonred 11y ago
This is wrong on so many levels. The author assumes direct monetization strategies are viable for 100% of target demographics on the web. Not everyone has the ability or desire to pay for information. Take Google for example: the overwhelming majority of their income comes from ad revenue. While I don't dispute the horribleness of some ad implementations out there, ads represent a way to monetize off one's entire audience — an infinite increase in accessibility as compared to a paywall. Freedom of information is one of the core tenets of the web. I'd rather pay with my time than see a popup asking me to pay up. Although it might not be immoral to block ads (depending on your worldview,) the reverse is true as well. Webmasters aren't obligated to spend server resources on people who block ads. If the author is so adamant about all services having equal or better alternatives, I'd love to see his reaction if Google suddenly stopped serving requests to clients with ad blockers.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  > I'd love to see his reaction if Google suddenly stopped serving requests to clients with ad blockers. I personally wouldn't react at all other than simply laugh, seeing as how I switched to DuckDuckGo years ago, and how there are at least four other search engines out there that I could use (Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu; in order of preference). Google not serving requests to those who use ad-blockers (like myself) would just give me yet another reason to not use Google, and would do absolutely nothing to win me over or stop using ad-blockers. > Not everyone has the ability or desire to pay for information. He addressed this by mentioning Wikipedia, which is arguably one of the largest websites and yet is able to survive perfectly fine on donations and (maybe) merchandise sales alone.
CuriouslyC 11y ago
Honestly, I don't feel bad about running ad blocking software because having to look over advertisements for a product actually causes me to like the product LESS. This is because I view most advertising as an attempt at brainwashing, and I don't like when people try to manipulate me. If you want me to consider your product, there are a couple of techniques I'm receptive to: * focus on getting independent reviewers to show its superiority relative to competitive offerings. * provide relatively unbiased free content about ways to solve problem XYZ that your product solves, with honest pros and cons relative to other good solutions, so I can determine if the product is a good fit for my specific situation. * Make your product incredibly easy to try - provide something fully featured for free, with excellent documentation. Make your money on support and an enterprise version with turn key scalability/durability/recovery features.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Stopping my computer for making unwanted connections and executing unwanted code isn't immoral. That one would even have to defend the idea that my machine is my machine is preposterous.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Terr_ 11y ago
Forget the "do you have a product" economic argument, it's a simple matter of fairness/reciprocity: Does the site-owner take any responsibility (moral, legal, or social) for the performance/stability issues, privacy risks, or security threats they want to expose me to? No? Then the side-effects on their revenue model are not my (moral, legal, social) responsibility either, as I defend myself from those dangers that they have unilaterally introduced. If you believe we are in an "implicit contract" of view-ads-for-content, that can work... but both sides need to be legally liable for their half of the transaction.
- thomaskcr 11y ago
  > Forget the "do you have a product" economic argument, it's a simple matter of fairness/reciprocity: Do you gain anything from reading/viewing their content? Yes? (You wouldn't have requested their site if you didn't) Then why should they not gain something in return? > as I defend myself from those dangers that they have unilaterally introduced. You were "unilaterally introduced" to dangers from the site you specifically requested by either clicking the link or typing into your browser? This is all pretty dramatic - they're ads.
  - daviross 11y ago
    Considering how often ad networks are vectors for malware... that sounds like a pretty unilateral introduction of risk. If a site can prove itself to be a good Internet citizen and prove its value, I have no problems whitelisting it. (Or preferably, tossing a buck a month into their Patreon or so)
  - Terr_ 11y ago
    > should they not gain something in return? That's an completely separate argument from whether what they're actually trying to get is proportional, reasonable, and safe. I don't care how good your TV show is, if you insert commercials that advertise fraudulent products, try to hack my DVR with malformed data, or are even just ridiculously loud... you've already broken the "implicit contract" and I don't have to feel any guilt about defending myself. > You were "unilaterally introduced" to dangers from the site No I wasn't. Why? Because I disabled javascript, plugins, etc. before visiting. > This is all pretty dramatic - they're ads. First, it's no more dramatic than people talking about ad-blockers being immoral or "theft". Second, ad-networks are exploited to serve malware all the time.

12 points by anonyfox 11y ago

The linked story doesn't even get into the security issues related to ads and phishing. And barely touches on the significant privacy issues.

Zekio 11y ago
i was thinking this aswell. but i was also thinking that, the story didn't go into the fact it is nearly impossible to block whitelisted ads.

ericmo 11y ago

Is this an answer to The Next Web? They dropped this a couple of days ago: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/17/adblockers-are-immoral-and-mobile-networks-should-know-better/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/17/adblockers-are-immo...

thomaskcr 11y ago

I know I'm cruisin' for a brusin' with the crowd here but this all just reeks of entitlement. If you don't like the ads on a site, don't go there. Problem solved. I stopped going to Slashdot when they added the IBM ads because for some reason it used a lot of CPU. I don't feel like I'm entitled to the content on that site -- they put the content up, pay for servers and in return if I want to read it I need to live with an ad on my screen. I guess you can argue semantics and how it's your bandwidth so you can decide (although, it's their bandwidth too...) -- but the reality is that by blocking the ads you're breaking a "gentleman's agreement" that someone is providing you something (that you clearly want if you're there) and in return you view the ads they have. If you want a "moral" way to block ads, blacklist sites with crappy/annoying ads. I'm over the overly dramatic obsession with ads people have. They really aren't that bad, get over yourself. > For every thousand people suffering from ads.. > It stresses the brain > exhausting for humans and machines. Many Website owners force all these negative implications eye roll My experience with zero adblock has been pretty good - I discovered Atlassian via ads and really like their products. I can't remember the last time I was more than slightly inconvenienced in any way by an ad. I get more annoyed with the thesaurus powered rants than I ever will from ads.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Ads on the site aren't blocked. Pieces of code that are executing on my machine against my will, and which are tracking me against my will, are. The entitlement is from those thinking they have a right to make my machine execute certain code that earns them money. If they don't like my stopping those connections, they are free to not include them.
- thomaskcr 11y ago
  Are you not gaining something from the pieces of code executing on their side so you can view their content? If you didn't gain something from it, you wouldn't be there. > If they don't like my stopping those connections, they are free to not include them. Or if you don't like it, maybe just don't surf their pages. You're not entitled to everything in the world on your own terms -- if you don't like the terms, don't engage. It's just dishonest, ads are basically honor system. Of course you completely control your own machine and every single connection it makes -- no one can force that on you. But blocking ads is the digital equivalent of taking an egg and not leaving a quarter at the farm stand - at the end of the day they probably don't lose a sale because they throw out the extras (you didn't deprive anyone of an egg or them of a possible sale), but you benefited from someone else's time and work and refused to acknowledge it with a token amount. You're not doing anything wrong in the "universal net-total", you're just being a selfish member of society because you want to benefit from someone else's work/resources but refuse to give a little bit of screen real estate back.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    They are giving it to me in hopes that I will allow the unwanted code to execute. At not time are we in a contract that I will (though it would be possible for some sites to set up a registration that includes disabling adblock for their site as part of the terms of getting an account). Also, you probably want to not try to guess my motives. The screen real estate isn't the problem, the tracking and the resource consumption is. And ads as a honor system? With all the dishonest moves they pull? That is nonsensical to the point of being parody. >if you don't like the terms, don't engage. Exactly. If you don't like that I'm in control of my machine, don't send me content with the expectation of taking over my machine for your benefit.

anonred 11y ago

This is wrong on so many levels. The author assumes direct monetization strategies are viable for 100% of target demographics on the web. Not everyone has the ability or desire to pay for information. Take Google for example: the overwhelming majority of their income comes from ad revenue. While I don't dispute the horribleness of some ad implementations out there, ads represent a way to monetize off one's entire audience — an infinite increase in accessibility as compared to a paywall. Freedom of information is one of the core tenets of the web. I'd rather pay with my time than see a popup asking me to pay up. Although it might not be immoral to block ads (depending on your worldview,) the reverse is true as well. Webmasters aren't obligated to spend server resources on people who block ads. If the author is so adamant about all services having equal or better alternatives, I'd love to see his reaction if Google suddenly stopped serving requests to clients with ad blockers.

yellowapple 11y ago
> I'd love to see his reaction if Google suddenly stopped serving requests to clients with ad blockers. I personally wouldn't react at all other than simply laugh, seeing as how I switched to DuckDuckGo years ago, and how there are at least four other search engines out there that I could use (Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu; in order of preference). Google not serving requests to those who use ad-blockers (like myself) would just give me yet another reason to not use Google, and would do absolutely nothing to win me over or stop using ad-blockers. > Not everyone has the ability or desire to pay for information. He addressed this by mentioning Wikipedia, which is arguably one of the largest websites and yet is able to survive perfectly fine on donations and (maybe) merchandise sales alone.

CuriouslyC 11y ago

Honestly, I don't feel bad about running ad blocking software because having to look over advertisements for a product actually causes me to like the product LESS. This is because I view most advertising as an attempt at brainwashing, and I don't like when people try to manipulate me. If you want me to consider your product, there are a couple of techniques I'm receptive to: * focus on getting independent reviewers to show its superiority relative to competitive offerings. * provide relatively unbiased free content about ways to solve problem XYZ that your product solves, with honest pros and cons relative to other good solutions, so I can determine if the product is a good fit for my specific situation. * Make your product incredibly easy to try - provide something fully featured for free, with excellent documentation. Make your money on support and an enterprise version with turn key scalability/durability/recovery features.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Stopping my computer for making unwanted connections and executing unwanted code isn't immoral. That one would even have to defend the idea that my machine is my machine is preposterous.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Terr_ 11y ago

Forget the "do you have a product" economic argument, it's a simple matter of fairness/reciprocity: Does the site-owner take any responsibility (moral, legal, or social) for the performance/stability issues, privacy risks, or security threats they want to expose me to? No? Then the side-effects on their revenue model are not my (moral, legal, social) responsibility either, as I defend myself from those dangers that they have unilaterally introduced. If you believe we are in an "implicit contract" of view-ads-for-content, that can work... but both sides need to be legally liable for their half of the transaction.

thomaskcr 11y ago
> Forget the "do you have a product" economic argument, it's a simple matter of fairness/reciprocity: Do you gain anything from reading/viewing their content? Yes? (You wouldn't have requested their site if you didn't) Then why should they not gain something in return? > as I defend myself from those dangers that they have unilaterally introduced. You were "unilaterally introduced" to dangers from the site you specifically requested by either clicking the link or typing into your browser? This is all pretty dramatic - they're ads.
- daviross 11y ago
  Considering how often ad networks are vectors for malware... that sounds like a pretty unilateral introduction of risk. If a site can prove itself to be a good Internet citizen and prove its value, I have no problems whitelisting it. (Or preferably, tossing a buck a month into their Patreon or so)
- Terr_ 11y ago
  > should they not gain something in return? That's an completely separate argument from whether what they're actually trying to get is proportional, reasonable, and safe. I don't care how good your TV show is, if you insert commercials that advertise fraudulent products, try to hack my DVR with malformed data, or are even just ridiculously loud... you've already broken the "implicit contract" and I don't have to feel any guilt about defending myself. > You were "unilaterally introduced" to dangers from the site No I wasn't. Why? Because I disabled javascript, plugins, etc. before visiting. > This is all pretty dramatic - they're ads. First, it's no more dramatic than people talking about ad-blockers being immoral or "theft". Second, ad-networks are exploited to serve malware all the time.