

Adblock isn’t immoral - anonyfox
http://blog.plague-dev.de/posts/Adblock-isnt-immoral

======
thomaskcr
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
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
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
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.

~~~
thomaskcr
> 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.

... but you're the one requesting the site...

Ignoring the drama of your comment (I've never had my "machine taken over") --
no one is sending you content you didn't request. The person providing you
that content would like it if you viewed an ad for them since you're gaining
something from their content (or you wouldn't be reading/viewing it). Refusing
to do that is dishonest -- it's not illegal, you're not stealing, you're just
being selfish and entitled.

> 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.

Yeah, you want to consume someone's content and you feel entitled to do it on
your own terms.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>no one is sending you content you didn't request.

Because no one in the history of the internet has ever dealt with a completely
inappropriate popup that they clearly would've never chosen to see.

------
anonred
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
> 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.

------
Lawtonfogle
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.

------
ericmo
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-
immo...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/17/adblockers-are-immoral-and-
mobile-networks-should-know-better/)

------
Terr_
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
> 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.

~~~
Terr_
> 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.

------
leejoramo
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
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.

------
CuriouslyC
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.

