
Advertising is devastating to my well-being - kunley
http://briancarper.net/blog/523/advertising-is-devastating-to-my-well-being
======
petercooper
Dupe. This was discussed at length (144 comments!) back in March. I remember
because a) I mocked the pathetic _"It so happens that advertisements are
devastating to my well-being."_ statement and got voted up, and b) a swarm of
pro and anti ad blocker posts hit HN over the following 24 hours. It was
almost as fun as the iPad launch.

Added: Aha, here it is: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1172302>

~~~
petercooper
Does flagging even work on HN? This seems a prime candidate so I'd have
assumed it'd have picked up a fair number by now. We're seeing not only a dupe
link, but a dupe discussion too!

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edw519
_Businesses exist to milk you of as much of your money as possible._

How sad. I wonder if OP actually believes this or if it was just part of his
rant. Or maybe he didn't get enough hugs from his first boss.

I'd like to think that there are still many of us who need to earn enough to
insure continuation of business without sacrificing our souls or the original
purpose of all our hard work.

~~~
sbierwagen
Are you perhaps unfamiliar with capitalism?

I do not think it is somehow a controversial statement that employees of a
corporation have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit. He
may have stated it in a controversial or misleading way, but it is not untrue.

Additionally, it seems you have interpreted it as some sort of polemic
regarding work/life balance, an interpretation which I do not believe is
supported by the text.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Capitalism is not about "milk(ing) you of as much of your money as possible."
Yes, maximize revenue _within the context of the law and ethics_. His comment
about milking people of all possible is the hallmark of charlatans and con
men.

~~~
r0s
Well, "maximize revenue within the context of the law and ethics." leads to a
standard of manipulating legal policy however possible and defining subjective
values like "ethics" in the a context favorable to an organizations motives.

Any company that can't or won't do these things is at a severe disadvantage to
the competition.

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davidw
Hrm. Not voting this one up.

His suggestion (don't know if it's facetious or not) of requiring a 'contract'
is obviously a non-starter. Any site that tried that would lose visitors to
non-contract sites, and since most people don't block ads, the contract site
would simply be losing revenue.

> I run my own website(s) at a loss specifically because I'd rather pay out of
> my own pocket than force people to look at ads. Admittedly my sites are so
> small that it's not much money. But there you have it. If I had to generate
> revenue to keep my sites going, I would find a way other than advertising to
> do it. Or I'd shut them down.

"Find another way". Uh-huh. Like? And, if you think the content is good,
wouldn't shutting them down be a loss for the world?

To hijack the thread for something more useful, a concrete example I'm
wrestling with is <http://langpop.com> \- people like it a lot, but
programmers are also adept at ignoring advertisements, so it doesn't get much
revenue. Now, it's mostly a fun project - it wasn't something I ever created
to make money on, but I'm getting to a point in my life where it's time to do
more things to make money and do fewer "let's see where it'll go" fun
projects. (This saddens me, because I love to explore and play and create, but
c'est la vie). In any case, people like it, so there must be some value in it,
and I've certainly invested some time in creating it, but so far I have not
really found a way to _capture_ some of the created value for myself.

~~~
Goladus
I don't think he intended the suggestion of requiring a contract to be a
"starter." Although he'd love internet content providers to take a realistic
assessment of what their content is really worth (My favorite movie critic put
ads on his site a few years ago and I read it much less frequently now, even
with adblock) what he reasonably expects is for companies to stop whining
about adblock.

~~~
davidw
I'm not too worked up about adblock - the people who use it likely dont' click
anyway. However, were the internet to move to an equilibrium with adblock as
the norm because of massive adoption, it would cause serious problems for many
content providers.

------
RyanMcGreal
>(By contrast, books (for example) are awesome. I pay for a book, and then I
read the book start-to-finish with no ads, no distractions. A few pages at the
back maybe, but I can ignore those. Books are nice.)

This reminded me of a line from Neil Postman's book _Amusing Ourselves to
Death_ :

>Imagine what you would think of me, and this book, if I were to pause
here...and then proceed to write a few words in behalf of United Airlines or
the Chase Manhattan Bank. You would rightly think that I had no respect for
you.

~~~
mfukar
That sums up my opinion about the article as well. What I wonder though, is
why people don't relate their distaste for online advertising to ads via
conventional media. Advertisements are equally frustrating regardless of
medium, and are by definition disrespectful to any half-educated person (ie.
not a "consumer").

~~~
RyanMcGreal
It sounds like the author _does_ relate his distaste for online advertising to
ads on conventional media. He notes that he doesn't listen to commercial radio
or watch commercial television.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes, by grossly overestimating the ratio of content to ads, and ignoring the
fact that they can be ignored in those media too. My newspaper ads can be
removed and thrown away - the first thing I do. My radio station is 50 minutes
of music per hour (or 100% if I listen to public radio). Tivo solves the
television problem.

He's a precious fusspot.

------
nkohari
If you don't want to look at ads, just be prepared to pay subscription fees
for everything.

~~~
DropkickM16
If only this were an option!

------
michael_dorfman
Wow, an entire blog post dedicated to a straw man argument.

The opening sentences of the linked article:

 _There's an interesting article on Ars Technica about how blocking ads is
somehow unethical, and "devastating to the sites you love". The idea that I
have a moral obligation to stare at an advertisment, the thought I have an
ethical obligation to voluntarily annoy myself for the sake of a company's
profits... it would be hilarious if it wasn't so repugnant._

Now, from the Ars Technica article referred to:

 _My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you
love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or
is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil._

~~~
kunley
Whether OP's response was emotional or not, it touches the matter.

Note it's very easy to look for fallacies when you are detached from the
subject. The question is if the person doing this wants to make the world a
better place in his way or is just a policeman for the sake of verbal purity..

~~~
michael_dorfman
It touches _a_ matter, but not the matter of the article he thinks he is
arguing against.

The OP is against advertising, on two grounds: 1) that he doesn't want to be
exposed to things against his will, and 2) that business is by its very nature
unethical.

You're right when you say that these are emotional arguments, and not logical
ones.

The fact that the OP "wants to make the world a better place in his way" isn't
comforting to me; as Shaw pointed out, the road to hell is paved with good
intentions.

My point isn't one of "verbal purity"; rather, I'm just trying to take the
words seriously enough to follow through their implications.

(I assume, by the way, that the OP would be upset to find that his post was
linked to on HN, because that link could be viewed as a form of advertising
for the piece, and we know how he feels about advertising....)

~~~
skorgu
> (I assume, by the way, that the OP would be upset to find that his post was
> linked to on HN, because that link could be viewed as a form of advertising
> for the piece, and we know how he feels about advertising....)

I'm not in love with the OP's piece myself but I think this is being unfair to
it. There's at least a quantitative if not a qualitative difference between
informally posting a link in a forum designed for it and the sort of
weaponized mass psychology modern day advertising has (d)evolved into.

The piece is wooly and rambling and not a particularly coherent argument,
please don't sink to its level when criticizing it.

------
mclin
Billboards actually break my train of thought when I'm walking around. I hate
that.

~~~
antidaily
I remember reading that they're illegal in some south american countries.

------
wildtreat

         Stop trying to track my every move online. How many    people understand tracking cookies? How many companies make it clear that every click is being recorded and data-mined? How is this ethical?  
    

This is ethical in same way that some one can record information about you
walking down a private street. There is nothing un ethical about data mining

------
motters
On the internet at least the solution is simple. It's called Ad-art
(<http://add-art.org/>). Advertisement elsewhere, such as on billboards is
more problematic to deal with, but if you are at the cutting edge of augmented
reality this is not necessarily a problem either.
[http://blognostic.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/what-augmented-
re...](http://blognostic.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/what-augmented-reality-can-
do-for-real-reality/)

------
ErrantX
This simply rehashes and old and badly made argument from months ago...

I mean, the Ars article was a bit "out there" but he clearly hasn't really
read it (e.g. _The idea that I have a moral obligation to stare at an
advertisment, the thought I have an ethical obligation to voluntarily annoy
myself for the sake of a company's profits... it would be hilarious if it
wasn't so repugnant._ )

~~~
petercooper
You realize this IS months old, dude? :-) It's a dupe, as is this discussion.

~~~
ErrantX
Heh, oops.

Oh well; I saw another post from this blog earlier in the day and never really
considered that it was an earlier entry :P

------
alexandros
In a twist that the author certainly did not intend to happen, his description
of books as an ad-free medium led me to think of a model where out of
copyright books are printed with in-page ads and distributed for free. Would
that work? :)

~~~
Tichy
I've actually seen books with ads before, it is not a new concept. Those were
rather old books, too (pre-internet). Only very few ads, though, maybe three
pages in the whole book.

I like your idea with the out of print books!

~~~
thingie
Filling covers of the books with ads is very common (I can find them in many
books printed in the last 100 years, mostly textbooks, technical manuals and
paperbacks, of course), but I haven't seen ads anywhere else, yet.

------
jasonlbaptiste
I disliked this article the first time and I still dislike. Tears from crying
don't solve problems, busting your ass and coming up with innovatives solution
do. I agree advertising sucks... a lot, but we can fix it. If there is
discussion here, I hope it's on how to fix the problem, not cry about it.

------
feint
I guess he doesn't use Google

------
Ardit20
The very big difference between buying a book and listening to a tv, radio
programme or reading a website is that for the former you actually pay about
£10 or £20, for the latter you do not.

As for the contract point, I think there is an implicit contract between the
publisher and the reader that they can access the content for free as long as
they are willing to accept the slight intrusion of the ads.

As for the ethical matter, I do think that he is being a free loader,
accessing content which is free only because of the many who do not use an ad
blocker. In one way therefore he is cheating and that is unethical. It is
perfectly fine, selfish and normal behaviour, but hardly angelic or ethical
simply because he is not fulfilling his part of the bargain.

If he hates adverts so much and a significant minority acts as he does then
publishers will either be forced to start charging for their content as Times
Online has began to do and as they do for books, or valuable information will
stop being generated, thus, making us all poorer.

Finally, this is capitalism, if you do not like it, you might be welcomed in
North Korea or at least in China.

~~~
Psyonic
Pretty sure I pay for my cable television, and for magazines, which are
nothing but ads. I'm aware of the business models behind these, but
unfortunately I'm not given a choice to pay more for completely ad free media.

~~~
Ardit20
Depends what magazine you read. Speaking of the ones I buy occasionally I
actually like their advertisement and in some way to me it is as valuable as
the content. How else would I find out of what to do on a Saturday night or
which firm to send an application to for a job, or which college is better, or
about the new cool car that has come on, or the very cool new iphone etc.

They do not annoy me. Adverts become annoying when they are repeated on and on
and besides adverts are easy to ignore in most cases.

~~~
mclin
Isn't the price of a magazine more a filter of intent than something to cover
costs? That's why if you cancel your subscription they'll offer to renew you
at a fraction of the advertised price.

------
markbao
Ridiculous, ignorant, and a repost from months ago.

