Third party ad networks are one of the biggest vectors for exploit kits and malware on the Internet. That alone is a good enough reason to block any and all adverts, IMO.
It would be great that the people that promote blocking ads would also promote sponsoring the websites that they frequent somehow. There is a real problem out there for all sorts of websites trying to survive and their problems are at least as great as the privacy concerns the ads introduce. Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.
Regardless of promotion, ad blocking is inevitable on the web. Imagine if your TV could distinguish a sporting event from the ads and logos displayed on the field, and automatically hide (in real time) everything but the game you want to watch? Advertisers would lose their minds... but this is exactly how the web works and always has. The site delivers instructions for drawing its parts, and my browser can choose how/if to render that content. The business model has always been tenuous, and that's not my problem, because it's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter.
ReplayTV back in the day. Man, was that an awesome, if underappreciated, product for its time. Seriously loved the upgrade capability and user-centric features (like commercial-skipping, until litigation came along).
"When I shoot you, you might be dead. It's not even a problem, it's just the fact of the matter"
Calling that line of reasoning tenuous would give it too much credit. I'm not surprised to hear it - it's a fairly common approach in the tech world. We only stop to think if we can do it, not if we should do it.
Which has landed us where we are, in an arms race around ads, where everybody mostly only cares about their personal interests and technological feasibility. It's time we started talking about ethics. And if you open up that dialog, what you're doing is deeply problematic - you deliberately violate an unspoken assumption, that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work.
It is, in the limit, giving up on the social compact in favor of pure individualism. It's never worked out in human history, and it won't work out this time, either. We can either all return to the table and try to find solutions that respect everybody, or we can devolve into individual greed followed by social chaos.
Um, did you actually read the article? It's precisely about the ethics of ad blocking.
There is no "unspoken assumption." If content creators deserve renumeration for their work, there are plenty of systems they can use to generate it. Display advertising based on third party serving/tracking technology is proving to be a bad one. Ad blocking is merely the signal to let content creators know they should look for better options.
Kindly note that I'm replying to GPs assertion that it's not their problem, and ad-blocking is simply "just a fact" - not the article itself.
This absolutist view - "ad blocking is always OK, because you can do it" - is what I take issue with, because it has ethical problems. It's wildly different from the article's stance that it is an ethical responsibility to use adblockers to cause a systemic shift away from the attention economy.
And yes, there is an unspoken assumption that work deserves to be remunerated. It underpins our society. There is also an unspoken assumption that in that interaction, there has to be respect for the consumers attention, resources, and desires. The ad industry is often violating that part of the equation.
If you use an ad-blocker as a tool to force the other side to rethink their approach, based on the stance that there's an ethical violation on their part, I fully respect that. I'm not certain it is a good solution, but at the very least, it is rooted in an ethical foundation, with an ethical goal.
"I'll always block it, just because I can" has no such foundation whatsoever, even if the actual effect is currently the same as the principled stand.
I appreciate the serious answer, and I suspect we don't disagree all that much.
I actively want a "systemic shift way from the attention economy" and believe that ad blocking is, somewhat bizarrely, the best practical tool to achieve that end. If there are some people who ad block for reasons I don't endorse, that is up to them.
I actually think ad blocking should be seen as, on balance, a powerfully good force for beneficial change. It's easy, it works, it makes the individual user experience better and has the ultimate effect of encouraging a better web generally. Doc Searls calls it the biggest boycott in history. He's not wrong.
I can't say I'm entirely unsympathetic to the view. I'm concerned that after everything settles, the floor will be littered with the bodies of ad-dependent companies, many of them actually a net positive for society before their demise.
One of the bigger categories here is journalism. Newspapers made - in hindsight - a giant mistake when they bet on advertising instead of subscriptions. The house is already rapidly collapsing around them. I'd like them to get out before the place gets levelled, so to speak. Because functioning journalism is absolutely crucial to a democratic society.
There's also the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising per se. It's how it's done that truly matters. Respect for privacy and attention is crucial here.
It's a large set of problems, and it affects a tremendous number of people. Which is why I think it matters to question our motives for anything we do there - and hence my objection to "because I can". That's the same attitude that got us here.
There is no unspoken assumption that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work at any and all cost to consumers of the work. The current methods go to far and deserve all the backlash they get.
That's why web advertisers are pushing publishers to create more video content. Ads inserted at the beginning of a video can't be blocked with current tools.
What service exactly are these web developers even providing in the first place? The site is built. The servers are running. Any technical upgrades are almost certainly to the advertising machinery, and if you want to make back your server costs, you probably already manage that with donations. The internet is cheap as dirt.
If you are trying to make more than that, beyond of course the actual work that you put in, the reason you want to do so is because of the massive capital investment that you have to justify. Capital investment that was attracted because of the promise of advertising revenue.
You obviously have no clue, nor respect, of what efforts go into substantive websites that create original content. Just because you found a technical way to avoid advertising doesn't mean that you morally deserve to receive free content. All you're doing is killing the Internet so that all you'll end up with is Facebook where you can't get rid of the ads and small, irrelevant websites that resemble what existed in the 1990's. Enjoy.
Advertisers and their morality.. It's not less moral for me to get you're content for free as it is for you to create content to get my attention, and potentially my money. Just as you have right to do everything in your power to make money on your content, I have a right to do with that content whatever I want, and that includes stripping it from any and all ads.. If you don't like it you can hide it behind a paywall, DRM it, or get out of business.
Thanks for providing a recipe of a society where everybody hates each other because everybody is trying to "make money" off of each other. In reality, you're getting free content for which you're "paying" with having your attention bothered for a microsecond by an ad that's barely in your field of view. The horror is unprecedented and that is why this is what you give your attention and emotion to, not all those other horrible things that the world lives with. You're spoiled and you have no real worries, so you create a boogie man that you fight because it gives life meaning. That's my impression of this topic.
>small, irrelevant websites that resemble what existed in the 1990s.
I take issue with this statement. The websites back then were small but they were not irrelevant. If anything they featured more relevant and original content than the majority of sites today. Combined with the tech of today like free CDNs I don't think we'd be much worse off.
I would enjoy it. I doubt you would enjoy one day getting some random malware through your ads that you leave unblocked.
And stuff like Wikipedia which runs ad free off donations.
Honestly, I'm okay with that, most info I get is from Wikipedia, scientific papers or tiny random blogs. What sites are you afraid of it killing? Junk news sites? Reddit? I can live without them. I struggle to think of any with significant value.
Mostly HTML, what little java or flash there was was usually trash video games sites.
You'd search (Lycos!) for content and what you got was raw data from crazies all over the world. Not the curated "don't hurt yourself" BS hits you get in the first 100 !g results. Or 100 sites trying to sell you trash.
The 90s internet was many the best of an otherwise weak decade! (and Seinfeld, of course)
EDIT: And the content was avilable with 28k to 56k modem. Today I can't even check my email (why not??? grrr) with that.
Wikipedia survives without advertising and has some of the best content available anywhere. Some sites paywall, and for specialist content that’s actually valuable, that will continue to be a viable model. And static sites are cheaper than ever, keeping plenty of niche content available. Affiliate advertising is still a viable model and there are even more ways to monetize content that don’t require display advertising. Clickbait might die a miserable death, and thank God for that. Valuable content will survive.
We don’t live in a world of Faustian bargains where we have to put up with excessive pollution—either of the informational or physical sort—as an unavoidable byproduct of value. There are better solutions out there, and all it takes to realize them is to take the minds that are wasted on tricking people into seeing or clicking on ads and put them to work on more useful endeavors.
That sounds great! The truly useful sites will survive with various combinations of subscriptions, donations, affiliate links, and micropayments. The rest can go away and nothing of value will be lost.
I remember back when hosting a website was orders of magnitudes more expensive than today, and how many hosted their own website, about something they had a passion about.
If all those who make websites to peddle ads were forced of the net, maybe there would be a space for those who have a passion and love to create.
If we cut down all these pesky trees we'll be able to enjoy the beautiful flowers of the forest. Where does that leave the forest though? The net has a problem with noise, not space.
You are right - harddrives are so cheap today that we can trivially host all the text anybody cares to write.
On the other hand, for any given query there is only 10 spots on the first page of google, and I really rather not have any of them taken over by spammers.
Affiliate links via standard anchor tags. Self hosted images if an image is needed. The targeting thing is such a waste of effort, everyone needs light bulbs, batteries, etc. Put a link up that says "If you need AAA batteries and you'd like to support our site click here". Batteries alone would probably work on me once a month "Thanks for the reminder, I will click that link with a smile."
Put up a paywall and charge for your service. If your service is not one that people will pay you actual money for, reconsider whether it's actually all that valuable.
How does a lack of advertising revenue kill off independent publishers? Anyone can get a VPS for $5 / month and host whatever they want. 99.9% of them will never achieve a level of traffic that would either require additional investment or produce any significant advertising revenue anyway.
> Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.
Where do I sign up for that?
The web was never a platform for publishers, it was a platform for users (some of them publishers). Big publishers never wanted it and hated it but were forced to use it or face irrelevance. Now they act like they own the place and are entitled to their business model.
If you don't want your readers to be able to triage content and data once they receive it, go build your own network and publish on there.
Using advertisement blockers is not only not an unethical thing to do, it is the right to do to force back those who seek to usurp and abuse a popular commons that was build to serve all equally.
Well, I couldn't agree more. The concept that ad-blocking is bad is right up there with the content industry thinking, believing that the Internet couldn't, wouldn't exist without them. Rubbish.
The Internet was not a platform for users. It was a platform for nuclear weapons, therefore by your logic anything that's been done to it since the 1960s must simply be wrong. Why don't you go and start your own network where you can read and write, post videos, and exchange other information?
TL;DR: Marketing ("The large-scale effort to .. capture and exploit your attention") is bad.
OP should look inward. Him writing a blog post was an effort to capture and exploit my attention. He wants more views on his post. What an immoral thing to do.
Cute, but no. The blog post writer isn't doing it on a large scale, so isn't caught by their own definition. They're arguably not exploiting it, either (no return to them if you read it or not).
Scale isn't truly relevant.. a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one? And I'd argue him checking the number of views on his post and chasing higher numbers is exploiting my attention.
Why wouldn't scale be relevant? The harm that a tiny ad network causes is obviously smaller than the harm that a large ad network causes, so... yes, a tiny ad network is less bad than a large one.
I’d differentiate between trying to deliver value vs trying to extract value. Additionally, I’d differentiate between delivering information (like this article) and direct attempts at appealing to the “reptilian brain” and trying to bypass rational analysis. The latter, in each case, gets on shakier ethical ground, in my opinion.
See my other comment. I don't care if people use adblock, I just hate the argument people some use to justify it. I believe there are good arguments, but not the "it's my browser" argument. It's self righteous to the extreme.
I don't understand what you are saying. Can I go to the bathroom during the commercial break while watching a football game? Do I have to scroll to the bottom of a page if I look at a headline?
No, of course I don't. If you demand a particular behavior from a reader, then enforce it. Otherwise, don't complain if it's ignored.
They can not look at the ads on the website, or go to the bathroom too. I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with the argument that it's "because it's mine".
When forbes infested its clients thanks to a third-party ad network that distributed malwares[1], i was smiling with shadenfreude. Maybe i'm self-righteous, but since 2005, blocking ads is for me a way to protect my computer.
There's a lot wrong with this analogy. Right off the bat, a gun is not typically involved with legitimate banking. Fundamentally, when you rob a bank, you're coercing someone into giving you something that doesn't belong to you. When you block ads, you're taking something that was offered freely, then choosing which parts of it you want.
I was illustrating how bad his point is with the "it's my BLANK" argument. Just because you are using something that belongs to you doesn't mean it doesn't affect other people.
When the mailman comes onto MY property to deliver the mail he has other people's mail in his bag on MY walkway! I don't want that to happen because it's mine!!!!
That is not supportive of the "it's mine therefore I'm right" argument it's just a solution to this particular problem. We can go on like this all day, but the argument is, just because it's yours does not mean you can do whatever you want with it. I am trying to show the error of the thinking with more erroneous thinking.
Ever walked through a tourist district and seen someone handing out freebies of some sort - palm readings, or flowers, or what have you?
Once in a while an inadequately wary tourist accepts the freebie, and then they’re accosted angrily for payment/gratuity.
I understand it’s not a perfect analogy, but the bottom line is largely the same: if you give your content away for free, you want payment, you aren’t owed payment. Giving stuff away for free and then crying about the payment you’re owed is a bait and switch.
The owner posted that content in a publicly accessible location. If the content is so valuable that nobody should be able to access it without paying for it, we have ways of achieving that. Publish it as a book, put it behind a paywall, etc.
1) I pay for free sites/services I routinely use (wikipedia, FSF)
2) They put content up for free on their sites. I put a regulator on the instructions my CPU runs. They're free to detect the ad blocker and block access.
That's similar to an outdoor concert venue trying to charge nearby residents for each show.
If websites don't like that users have the ability to block ads, then a new ad delivery mechanism is needed, or possibly a different revenue model. For example many youtubers now have sponsored sections directly in their video. The only way to avoid it is to fast forward through it.
People have every right to control their computer, their network, and what happens to data once it has arrived. Depending on something as squishy as ethics for your revenue is pretty risky.
And if you use your awesome painting skills to paint your house with some nice murals, will you charge me 5$ every time I pass by because I looked at something that was generated by you?
If you want people to pay for something, ask them upfront to pay or don't expose it to the public.
> I often hear people say, “I use AdBlock, so the ads don’t affect me at all.” How head-smackingly wrong they are. Even if you don’t see the ads, you still see the ad for the ad (i.e. the product itself). You still get design that exploits your non-rational psychological biases in ways that work against you.
I don't understand how the website design manipulates you even when you've blocked the ad. I need an example here please.
I believe he speaks of things like buzzfeed or other clickbait sites that are designed to keep you surfing and clicking, in chase of ever higher view counts.
I have a personal list of domains I consider useless. Accidentally visiting one was annoying enough to me that I made an FF extension to hide any links to those sites on every page of the internet. I've been wishing uBlock Origin had this feature built in, I haven't found a way to do this if they do. They advertise as a general-purpose blocker and I think this falls under that category. I know I could add any domain I want and it will prevent the page from loading but that still leaves me vulnerable to the click-bait titles and wasting time clicking.
I think it means that even if you don't have Adblock Software installed and you are the type to ignore all ads anyway those ads are technically succeeding. I'd imagine the thinking is that subconsciously you can't completely ignore an ad although the way this was worded is rather confusing and doesn't really make sense considering Adblock Software completely removes the entire ad.
Building a paid product, you want engagement to be high so that our users get value out of it and keep paying for it. With advertising, you want engagement to be high so that users see more ads. The difference is subtle but means that you design a product differently.
Facebook is a highly addictive attention machine. It is designed that way to serve you ads. Even if you block the ads, you can still get hooked on the machine.
Maybe you think that is the same thing as enjoying yourself as you wish. But the OP argues that just because something exploits our psychological biases, does not mean it is good for us in any deeper or longer-term sense.
e.g. plenty of evidence that Facebook is actively harmful for it's users.
Think of a high-end clothing store where they offer you a cocktail while you shop. Now imagine you have an ad blocker that prevents you from seeing the clothes. You just walk in and they're happy to hand you a cocktail and you stand in an empty-looking room with a friend enjoying your free cocktails. You're still getting manipulated because the free cocktail brought you into the store. Without it you would have chosen to go somewhere else.
Or imagine you don't drink, and you go to a tapas place and buy some loss-leader food items and a water. You were manipulated by the loss leaders. They manipulated you into the place.
Of course what that comment is referring to is sites where the content is harmful, but no matter how sites sustain themselves, it's up to you to choose content that benefits you rather than harms you.
I doubt that anybody on HN is unfamiliar with the standard arguments for ad blocking. I find them persuasive, particularly the need to protect oneself from the security problems inherent in the third-party adtech system we have today.
I would, however, like to add one more. In the absence of government intervention to curb the worst aspects of the Internet's "surveillance capitalism" model, the moral imperative to ad block is even greater. If everyone ad blocked, it would devastate the economic value of our tracked data. Would my data mean anything to you if you couldn't use it to market to me? (Yes, I'm sure it would still have some value, but much, much less I believe)
Everybody should ad block as aggressively as they can.
^-- This, a thousand times this. The ad revenue model is what's destroying the internet; creating walled gardens and attention feedback loops, furthering the commoditization of people, simply because, if you leave, they won't be able to serve you ads. I would argue that the only morally acceptable thing to do is to block ads, not the other way 'round.
It's pure garbage, and the sooner it dies the better.
Yes, I do. But I don't even consider that necessary for the "survival" of the net.
There was an internet before google/fb established the current status quo for revenue, and there will be one after. Maybe (hopefully) with less attention grabbing, utter garbage.
And yes, there was an internet before the current ad-driven models promoted by Google and Facebook. However, the sites that were up were effectively subsidized by other business. I'm thinking primarily about media, here. Bloggers had other jobs and blogged on the side. Sites by established media were likewise side projects that were paid for by other divisions of their business, and a lot of that was income was from ads, either print or television. As those businesses have shrunk, and largely because people have been moving online for content, they no longer have the ability to pay for non-revenue generating web presences.
Please don't mistake this as some apologia for ad-based revenue models. I think the current model is largely encouraging some of the worst behavior of human psychology, as well as serious privacy concerns. However, I do think it's important to understand the the economics at play here and not dismiss these economics out of hand and recognize that this needs to be paid for somehow. Many of the people putting Google Ads on their sites or posting on Facebook aren't doing so because they want people to be tracked, for example, but they don't think they have a choice if they want to be able to support what they want to do.
I also think subscriptions do and will continue to play an important role in changing this, so I would encourage you not to dismiss them out of hand. One of the drivers for moving out of "yellow journalism" was the move from paying for each edition to the subscription model. We've seen the reverse of this with the rise of online, ad-based model. Each story has to sell itself and drive engagement, very similar to the edition-based models and tabloids.
I do understand the economics at play, and I haven't dismissed the subscription model. My point of view is simply this: if you're a media outlet producing content and you can't survive on a subscription based model (or any other model) alone, and have to revert to ads (malicious, annoying ads - I'll admit there are reasonable ways to advertise, but that's not what we're talking about here) to make ends meet, then your content isn't good enough.
That's like making a terrible burger and complaining you're going out of business because people aren't buying it. Tough luck, but that's capitalism.
Great! I do, too. I agree with your thoughtful comment above, particularly as it focuses on the issues of tracking with respect to the majority of advertising on the web. There have been some attempts to decouple these two, such as the Deck: http://decknetwork.net, but they've clearly not been as successful as Google and Facebook.
It's not the public's concern to promote alternative revenue models on behalf of businesses in return for blocking their ads - it's those business' concern to convince people to pay for their content.
They have every right to try to make money on the web, but they're trying to do so on a platform which was designed to be stateless, and which gives users arbitrary power to filter or block content and alter responses. The only reason ads on the web worked at all was that browser technology and ad blockers hadn't yet matured, and people weren't aware that blocking ads was possible. Businesses thought the web would behave like old media, only cheaper, but that's not really the nature of it.
> "It's not the public's concern to promote alternative revenue models on behalf of businesses in return for blocking their ads - it's those business' concern to convince people to peay for their content."
I completely agree. What I'm was pushing back at is the blanket "ad revenue model is bad and ruining the net" espoused by my parent, as opposed to the more nuanced view presented by the article and their parent. And this is an arms race: the only reason adblocking works now is that it's relatively easy to recognize what payloads are ads and which are content. Once it's more feasible for sites to load ads "natively" mixed with their own content, that will become more widespread and harder to block.
It is the public's/individual's concern to support businesses that are providing a service they provide balanced with them doing so in a way that they agree with, and also to recognize where they're receiving value whether or not they're paying for it. If people aren't willing to support subscriptions or other revenue models, they're going to get ads or nothing, either because the content is going to be paywalled or the content providers are going to be out of business. There are those that complain about paywalls, and others that complain about ads.
>I completely agree. What I'm was pushing back at is the blanket "ad revenue model is bad and ruining the net" espoused by my parent, as opposed to the more nuanced view presented by the article and their parent.
They're not entirely wrong, though. The ad revenue model is infeasible in my opinion first because the web doesn't provide a stable platform for it (can't guarantee viewership, can't reliably track engagement) and second because businesses approached the web unwilling or unable to apply any ethical standards to their advertising (as exist in other media) to the point that their ads are now often indistinguishable from malware.
Ad blocking on the web is really not much different than DVRs, or turning the radio volume down during ads, or any number of other ways users can avoid advertising by old media which don't directly affect revenue. But those media determine the value of advertising based on extrapolation by survey, using companies like Arbitron and Nielsen, so people tuning away don't actually matter. AFAIK, on the web, every impression matters and margins are razor thin, so the old media model breaks down when people choose to block ads, as they do in droves.
>Once it's more feasible for sites to load ads "natively" mixed with their own content, that will become more widespread and harder to block.
I think I've started to see this on Youtube. As a response to their widespread demonetization policies, content creators are starting to do more stand-up ads directly in their video, like the early days of television when they would sometimes just turn the camera around and talk about the sponsors for a few minutes. Oddly, I find that less annoying than commercial-style ads. It's often less intrusive, and can even be entertaining. As long as there's no deception involved, then I don't think it's a problem.
But most of the web isn't video, so I think paywalls or some kind of subscription service will probably work, although I suspect a lot of sites dying for lack of revenue is going to be inevitable. Of course, companies could always just see the web as one more media format and not put all of their eggs in that particular basket.
Makes me think of the littering ads from the 70s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful). It focused on how littering was bad, but was led by many of the companies producing the stuff that was the litter. That is instead of them attempting to reduce the production of waste the ethical blame was moved people using their product.
It's not a perfect comparison because litter still is bad and I don't think ads always have to be. However it is similar in that we generally believe the production of ads is the default therefore blocking ads is unethical. As opposed to giving users alternate methods of funding your work. (Feels like these are popping up more so maybe ad blockers are making a small difference.)
Exactly. I have nothing against adwalls or paywall, i might even pay to read the article if the quality is here (hello wsj). But i choose what's going onto my browser/computer. Someone remember this time when Forbes put an anti-adblock wall, then distributed malware-infested ads to some of its users? This is the reason why i use noscript: i don't trust all third party websites.
Philosophers believe that morality needs to proceed logically. Your attitude leads to people declaring that both morality and logic are worthless, and you should change.
Keynes sort of sums up this sentiment, just replace economist with philosopher:
>Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
The bottom line is, all "practical" viewpoints begin from some particular way of looking at the world, which usually gets hammered out in philosophy. In this sense, I find that pragmatism is usually just someone taking for granted the etiology of their own ideas, which makes pragmatism one of the least interesting positions.
Obviously I don't know what you in particular believe, so I'm just talking about the kinds of people who I've personally seen advance these kinds of positions.
A good point. One thing: I've studied philosophy quite a lot, and even I don't know, or have forgotten, the meaning of 'etiology'. So I assume there's no chance the person you're responding to knows what it means. It's technical philosophy jargon.
I've said this repeatedly[1], but I take the opportunity to say it every chance I get.
Ad-blocking is about trust—or more accurately, lack thereof.
I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm telling you I value your content (enough to view it, anyway), and to stop getting in my way. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. Or because I don't know you well enough to know your judgement, so my default assumption is that you're going to be a bad actor.
I agree there has to be a better way to sponsor websites. And ads as a mechanism are a fine way to do that. So, content creators, I'm OK with popups asking me to un-block your ads. But you need to show me you deserve that trust: it's not that you need to keep the lights on. I get it. But that's your problem. That's why you want me to unblock, not why I will unblock. So tell me your ad network is trustworthy and be transparent about that commitment.
Don't just ask me for my credit card number as an alternate form of sponsorship. I literally just told you I don't trust your infrastructure or your judgement, and your response is to ask for financial information? Nope.
More briefly: Since any ad network's incentives align more closely with malware authors' than my own, I'm blocking a channel which is a known malware distribution vector.
I'm not seriously concerned about malware. I trust Google (Chrome) and Microsoft (Windows) enough to protect me if someone does try to serve me malware. And on mobile, iOS malware really isn't a thing, and I trust Apple there, too.
It's mainly about customer experience. On desktop, that's auto-playing videos and terrible "sponsored content". On mobile, it's malicious redirects to the app store that not only takes me away from your content, but my entire application. (And, also on mobile, a real cost: your 1MB tracking JS costs me a couple cents and counts towards my cap every time I load it. I hope your caching logic is sound.)
Personally I don't block ads, but I do block scripts from ad networks. There have been way too many drive by browser hijacks/bitcoin miners/etc... that come from shady third party networks.
Unfortunately some sites detect ad blockers and it's considered the same thing.
Great line: "You still get the flypaper even if you don’t get the swatter. A product or service does not magically redesign itself around your goals just because you block it from reaching its own."
109 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadCalling that line of reasoning tenuous would give it too much credit. I'm not surprised to hear it - it's a fairly common approach in the tech world. We only stop to think if we can do it, not if we should do it.
Which has landed us where we are, in an arms race around ads, where everybody mostly only cares about their personal interests and technological feasibility. It's time we started talking about ethics. And if you open up that dialog, what you're doing is deeply problematic - you deliberately violate an unspoken assumption, that content creators deserve some kind of remuneration for their work.
It is, in the limit, giving up on the social compact in favor of pure individualism. It's never worked out in human history, and it won't work out this time, either. We can either all return to the table and try to find solutions that respect everybody, or we can devolve into individual greed followed by social chaos.
It's just the fact of the matter.
There is no "unspoken assumption." If content creators deserve renumeration for their work, there are plenty of systems they can use to generate it. Display advertising based on third party serving/tracking technology is proving to be a bad one. Ad blocking is merely the signal to let content creators know they should look for better options.
This absolutist view - "ad blocking is always OK, because you can do it" - is what I take issue with, because it has ethical problems. It's wildly different from the article's stance that it is an ethical responsibility to use adblockers to cause a systemic shift away from the attention economy.
And yes, there is an unspoken assumption that work deserves to be remunerated. It underpins our society. There is also an unspoken assumption that in that interaction, there has to be respect for the consumers attention, resources, and desires. The ad industry is often violating that part of the equation.
If you use an ad-blocker as a tool to force the other side to rethink their approach, based on the stance that there's an ethical violation on their part, I fully respect that. I'm not certain it is a good solution, but at the very least, it is rooted in an ethical foundation, with an ethical goal.
"I'll always block it, just because I can" has no such foundation whatsoever, even if the actual effect is currently the same as the principled stand.
I actively want a "systemic shift way from the attention economy" and believe that ad blocking is, somewhat bizarrely, the best practical tool to achieve that end. If there are some people who ad block for reasons I don't endorse, that is up to them.
I actually think ad blocking should be seen as, on balance, a powerfully good force for beneficial change. It's easy, it works, it makes the individual user experience better and has the ultimate effect of encouraging a better web generally. Doc Searls calls it the biggest boycott in history. He's not wrong.
One of the bigger categories here is journalism. Newspapers made - in hindsight - a giant mistake when they bet on advertising instead of subscriptions. The house is already rapidly collapsing around them. I'd like them to get out before the place gets levelled, so to speak. Because functioning journalism is absolutely crucial to a democratic society.
There's also the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising per se. It's how it's done that truly matters. Respect for privacy and attention is crucial here.
It's a large set of problems, and it affects a tremendous number of people. Which is why I think it matters to question our motives for anything we do there - and hence my objection to "because I can". That's the same attitude that got us here.
Firefox has this already - don't think the others do though.
If you are trying to make more than that, beyond of course the actual work that you put in, the reason you want to do so is because of the massive capital investment that you have to justify. Capital investment that was attracted because of the promise of advertising revenue.
You don't know shit about me, about my worries and about what give my life meaning so gtfo.
I take issue with this statement. The websites back then were small but they were not irrelevant. If anything they featured more relevant and original content than the majority of sites today. Combined with the tech of today like free CDNs I don't think we'd be much worse off.
I would enjoy it. I doubt you would enjoy one day getting some random malware through your ads that you leave unblocked.
Honestly, I'm okay with that, most info I get is from Wikipedia, scientific papers or tiny random blogs. What sites are you afraid of it killing? Junk news sites? Reddit? I can live without them. I struggle to think of any with significant value.
If only one could use a normal news reader to access it.
Mostly HTML, what little java or flash there was was usually trash video games sites.
You'd search (Lycos!) for content and what you got was raw data from crazies all over the world. Not the curated "don't hurt yourself" BS hits you get in the first 100 !g results. Or 100 sites trying to sell you trash.
The 90s internet was many the best of an otherwise weak decade! (and Seinfeld, of course)
EDIT: And the content was avilable with 28k to 56k modem. Today I can't even check my email (why not??? grrr) with that.
We don’t live in a world of Faustian bargains where we have to put up with excessive pollution—either of the informational or physical sort—as an unavoidable byproduct of value. There are better solutions out there, and all it takes to realize them is to take the minds that are wasted on tricking people into seeing or clicking on ads and put them to work on more useful endeavors.
If all those who make websites to peddle ads were forced of the net, maybe there would be a space for those who have a passion and love to create.
On the other hand, for any given query there is only 10 spots on the first page of google, and I really rather not have any of them taken over by spammers.
How does a lack of advertising revenue kill off independent publishers? Anyone can get a VPS for $5 / month and host whatever they want. 99.9% of them will never achieve a level of traffic that would either require additional investment or produce any significant advertising revenue anyway.
> Do consider what killing off most of the independent professional info websites will do to the Internet.
Where do I sign up for that?
The web was never a platform for publishers, it was a platform for users (some of them publishers). Big publishers never wanted it and hated it but were forced to use it or face irrelevance. Now they act like they own the place and are entitled to their business model.
If you don't want your readers to be able to triage content and data once they receive it, go build your own network and publish on there.
Using advertisement blockers is not only not an unethical thing to do, it is the right to do to force back those who seek to usurp and abuse a popular commons that was build to serve all equally.
Sorry, the ad companies never gave a shit about those poor ole websites.
Stop trying to pull on our 'oh those guys, they're just hosting little sites that NEED the revenue from the scumbag departments'.
If you live with worms, you get eaten by them.
OP should look inward. Him writing a blog post was an effort to capture and exploit my attention. He wants more views on his post. What an immoral thing to do.
the author won't ever take your money. the ads will
(Nice article and all, but the implicit question posed by the headline is a no-brainer.)
No, of course I don't. If you demand a particular behavior from a reader, then enforce it. Otherwise, don't complain if it's ignored.
[1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...
When a website comes to your computer, and you choose to digest it in the manner you see fit, our using YOUR resources the way YOU see fit.
The content creator wants you to use your resources the way THEY see fit. They ... can’t really demand that.
As opposed to charging a subscription fee, in which you are aligned in wanting to use your resources in a way you both find satisfying.
Huh. Turns out you do have control over your property, after all.
Once in a while an inadequately wary tourist accepts the freebie, and then they’re accosted angrily for payment/gratuity.
I understand it’s not a perfect analogy, but the bottom line is largely the same: if you give your content away for free, you want payment, you aren’t owed payment. Giving stuff away for free and then crying about the payment you’re owed is a bait and switch.
2) They put content up for free on their sites. I put a regulator on the instructions my CPU runs. They're free to detect the ad blocker and block access.
3) copyright is BS.
If websites don't like that users have the ability to block ads, then a new ad delivery mechanism is needed, or possibly a different revenue model. For example many youtubers now have sponsored sections directly in their video. The only way to avoid it is to fast forward through it.
People have every right to control their computer, their network, and what happens to data once it has arrived. Depending on something as squishy as ethics for your revenue is pretty risky.
If you want people to pay for something, ask them upfront to pay or don't expose it to the public.
I don't understand how the website design manipulates you even when you've blocked the ad. I need an example here please.
Maybe you think that is the same thing as enjoying yourself as you wish. But the OP argues that just because something exploits our psychological biases, does not mean it is good for us in any deeper or longer-term sense.
e.g. plenty of evidence that Facebook is actively harmful for it's users.
Or imagine you don't drink, and you go to a tapas place and buy some loss-leader food items and a water. You were manipulated by the loss leaders. They manipulated you into the place.
Of course what that comment is referring to is sites where the content is harmful, but no matter how sites sustain themselves, it's up to you to choose content that benefits you rather than harms you.
I would, however, like to add one more. In the absence of government intervention to curb the worst aspects of the Internet's "surveillance capitalism" model, the moral imperative to ad block is even greater. If everyone ad blocked, it would devastate the economic value of our tracked data. Would my data mean anything to you if you couldn't use it to market to me? (Yes, I'm sure it would still have some value, but much, much less I believe)
Everybody should ad block as aggressively as they can.
It's pure garbage, and the sooner it dies the better.
There was an internet before google/fb established the current status quo for revenue, and there will be one after. Maybe (hopefully) with less attention grabbing, utter garbage.
And yes, there was an internet before the current ad-driven models promoted by Google and Facebook. However, the sites that were up were effectively subsidized by other business. I'm thinking primarily about media, here. Bloggers had other jobs and blogged on the side. Sites by established media were likewise side projects that were paid for by other divisions of their business, and a lot of that was income was from ads, either print or television. As those businesses have shrunk, and largely because people have been moving online for content, they no longer have the ability to pay for non-revenue generating web presences.
Please don't mistake this as some apologia for ad-based revenue models. I think the current model is largely encouraging some of the worst behavior of human psychology, as well as serious privacy concerns. However, I do think it's important to understand the the economics at play here and not dismiss these economics out of hand and recognize that this needs to be paid for somehow. Many of the people putting Google Ads on their sites or posting on Facebook aren't doing so because they want people to be tracked, for example, but they don't think they have a choice if they want to be able to support what they want to do.
I also think subscriptions do and will continue to play an important role in changing this, so I would encourage you not to dismiss them out of hand. One of the drivers for moving out of "yellow journalism" was the move from paying for each edition to the subscription model. We've seen the reverse of this with the rise of online, ad-based model. Each story has to sell itself and drive engagement, very similar to the edition-based models and tabloids.
That's like making a terrible burger and complaining you're going out of business because people aren't buying it. Tough luck, but that's capitalism.
They have every right to try to make money on the web, but they're trying to do so on a platform which was designed to be stateless, and which gives users arbitrary power to filter or block content and alter responses. The only reason ads on the web worked at all was that browser technology and ad blockers hadn't yet matured, and people weren't aware that blocking ads was possible. Businesses thought the web would behave like old media, only cheaper, but that's not really the nature of it.
I completely agree. What I'm was pushing back at is the blanket "ad revenue model is bad and ruining the net" espoused by my parent, as opposed to the more nuanced view presented by the article and their parent. And this is an arms race: the only reason adblocking works now is that it's relatively easy to recognize what payloads are ads and which are content. Once it's more feasible for sites to load ads "natively" mixed with their own content, that will become more widespread and harder to block.
It is the public's/individual's concern to support businesses that are providing a service they provide balanced with them doing so in a way that they agree with, and also to recognize where they're receiving value whether or not they're paying for it. If people aren't willing to support subscriptions or other revenue models, they're going to get ads or nothing, either because the content is going to be paywalled or the content providers are going to be out of business. There are those that complain about paywalls, and others that complain about ads.
They're not entirely wrong, though. The ad revenue model is infeasible in my opinion first because the web doesn't provide a stable platform for it (can't guarantee viewership, can't reliably track engagement) and second because businesses approached the web unwilling or unable to apply any ethical standards to their advertising (as exist in other media) to the point that their ads are now often indistinguishable from malware.
Ad blocking on the web is really not much different than DVRs, or turning the radio volume down during ads, or any number of other ways users can avoid advertising by old media which don't directly affect revenue. But those media determine the value of advertising based on extrapolation by survey, using companies like Arbitron and Nielsen, so people tuning away don't actually matter. AFAIK, on the web, every impression matters and margins are razor thin, so the old media model breaks down when people choose to block ads, as they do in droves.
>Once it's more feasible for sites to load ads "natively" mixed with their own content, that will become more widespread and harder to block.
I think I've started to see this on Youtube. As a response to their widespread demonetization policies, content creators are starting to do more stand-up ads directly in their video, like the early days of television when they would sometimes just turn the camera around and talk about the sponsors for a few minutes. Oddly, I find that less annoying than commercial-style ads. It's often less intrusive, and can even be entertaining. As long as there's no deception involved, then I don't think it's a problem.
But most of the web isn't video, so I think paywalls or some kind of subscription service will probably work, although I suspect a lot of sites dying for lack of revenue is going to be inevitable. Of course, companies could always just see the web as one more media format and not put all of their eggs in that particular basket.
It's not a perfect comparison because litter still is bad and I don't think ads always have to be. However it is similar in that we generally believe the production of ads is the default therefore blocking ads is unethical. As opposed to giving users alternate methods of funding your work. (Feels like these are popping up more so maybe ad blockers are making a small difference.)
- I pay for my internet, which has bandwidth caps, so I'm selective about what I want to download.
- websites have right not to serve me their content, and so I have a right not to download what I don't like
Why do they think we need their opinions on something being okay or not, or that their opinions are any more valid?
I don't need them to decide if ad blocking is okay.
>Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
The bottom line is, all "practical" viewpoints begin from some particular way of looking at the world, which usually gets hammered out in philosophy. In this sense, I find that pragmatism is usually just someone taking for granted the etiology of their own ideas, which makes pragmatism one of the least interesting positions.
Obviously I don't know what you in particular believe, so I'm just talking about the kinds of people who I've personally seen advance these kinds of positions.
Ad-blocking is about trust—or more accurately, lack thereof.
I don't trust you not to show me scammy ads, load 2MB of tracking JS, maliciously redirect me, or generally ruin my overall user experience with your content you claim is so valuable. So I run an ad-blocker. I'm telling you I value your content (enough to view it, anyway), and to stop getting in my way. I'm blocking your infrastructure because I don't trust it and blocking your ads because I question your judgement. Or because I don't know you well enough to know your judgement, so my default assumption is that you're going to be a bad actor.
I agree there has to be a better way to sponsor websites. And ads as a mechanism are a fine way to do that. So, content creators, I'm OK with popups asking me to un-block your ads. But you need to show me you deserve that trust: it's not that you need to keep the lights on. I get it. But that's your problem. That's why you want me to unblock, not why I will unblock. So tell me your ad network is trustworthy and be transparent about that commitment.
Don't just ask me for my credit card number as an alternate form of sponsorship. I literally just told you I don't trust your infrastructure or your judgement, and your response is to ask for financial information? Nope.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137#14991910
It's mainly about customer experience. On desktop, that's auto-playing videos and terrible "sponsored content". On mobile, it's malicious redirects to the app store that not only takes me away from your content, but my entire application. (And, also on mobile, a real cost: your 1MB tracking JS costs me a couple cents and counts towards my cap every time I load it. I hope your caching logic is sound.)
Unfortunately some sites detect ad blockers and it's considered the same thing.