Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web | Hacker News Reader

Ad Blockers and the Nuisance at the Heart of the Modern Web

nytimes.com

39 pointsdenzil_correa64 comments

As is typical, this doesn't address my biggest concern, which is that I absolutely don't want any ads alongside my content, ever.

Now and forever, I reserve the right to read documents that I'm interested in, without any ads visible. If the web economy cannot exist without this, then I want to find another way. I don't have the answer.

Yes, I'll pay for subscriptions, but this obviously doesn't solve the whole problem. Until then, I'll use adblockers until I'm forced not to or they are out-maneuvered (presumably pretty soon).

We need to stop taking it for granted that the future of the internet is one in which ads are always visible.

It will be interesting to see the arms race once HTTP/2 becomes widespread. Then the server might have a better idea if you refused data it pushed, though to be fair, I suppose things like that are already detectable somehow.

Part of the problem is that it's hard to secure a reasonable flow of good content. I've watched the papers race to the bottom in attention-grabbing (but wildly wrong) clickbait for some time now and it's depressing, but the web is utterly painful to use, as I've found out on occasion when starting out with a new browser that doesn't have the right extensions installed. Some of the big download sites that used to be okay bundle crapware or else make a fake download button pop and the blend the real download button with the background so you don't even download what you thought you were getting.

    Now and forever, I reserve the right to read documents that I'm
    interested in, without any ads visible. If the web economy
    cannot exist without this, then I want to find another way.

Out of curiosity - and as a software engineer who makes his living partially from the intellectual property he creates - why do you feel entitled to arbitrary content on your terms?

Do we all have a moral right to unencumbered and payment-less access to the new Britney Spears album?

Wouldn't it make more sense to only consume media that's legitimately available in a way that you find acceptable? That's one way to steer content creators towards that world, right?

Because content requires attention, and the right to distribute your attention as desired coupled with the right to carefully investigate publicly available information imply it. We are entitled to our culture. And we are entitled to our attempts to control our thoughts and attentions.

It may not be compatible with our current economic system, but that system isn't a law of nature that can't be contradicted. Just because people make money producing culture doesn't mean they can lord over it and dictate how it is consumed and used with absolute authority.

>Wouldn't it make more sense to only consume media that's legitimately available in a way that you find acceptable? That's one way to steer content creators towards that world, right?

No, that's just voting on the issue. If a great majority disagrees with you, you won't get what you want. You could argue then that we have a responsibility to convince that majority, but that's pushing a responsibility onto someone who's already taken it.

In other words, by reserving this right, OP is taking a stand in a socially visible way with the intent of convincing more people to follow suit. That action will steer the world in that direction if it succeeds. So they are already doing what you're asking them to do.

--- EDIT ---

Here's a better way of thinking about it:

You "earn a living" producing content. So you say "because other people want to see my content, I have a right to my lifestyle (of getting paid.)"

And I say "because other people want my attention, I have a right to my lifestyle (of choosing exactly what to see.)"

And if you weren't being paid to take a side, or indoctrinated into a certain bias there, I don't see how you can reason that one is somehow more just than the other. Especially since the rewards are pretty much commensurate with the value produced.

(For people following this thread, the above response isn't from the person I originally replied to.)

    You "earn a living" producing content. So you say "because other
    people want to see my content, I have a right to my lifestyle (of
    getting paid.)"

Except I don't. I don't feel entitled to get paid in some arbitrary way that's convenient for me. I'm happy that I can produce software and content and be paid for it - but I don't feel that I have a right to that by virtue of being born. It just so happens that the IP laws in my country of residence allow me to do so.

Which perhaps is why I'm a bit puzzled as to why people would feel entitled to what I - and others - produce and make available under certain terms that they might not be happy with, simply because they were born and want the content. I just don't get the sense of entitlement.

But I acknowledge that this isn't something we're going to resolve in the HN comments section.

EDIT: Followup questions:

It seems like preventing someone from accessing something that they have a right to is immoral.

Consider that I have a website with content that I've created. If I work to hide that content from visitors who have an ad-blocker enabled, am I behaving in an immoral way?

If that site had its content behind a paywall and I actively disable accounts when I detect that they're being shared, am I behaving in an immoral way?

If the site has its content behind a paywall and I actively serve DMCA requests when I find that content published elsewhere without my consent, am I behaving in an immoral way?

If people are entitled to "culture", as you state, if the content from that site were instead a physical book, and I owned a book store that sold copies of the book, and I called the police when people were shoplifting the book, would I be behaving in an immoral way?

What if that was the only book that I carried at the store and I locked the door to the store at night. Is that immoral?

Is it not immoral for me to publish it in book form to begin with? If you're entitled to culture, shouldn't culture-creators make the culture available in the easiest form for you to get at it? Making the culture available as a physical object - with all that entails - probably isn't the easiest way for you to get access to it.

If you don't "feel entitled to get paid," then what do you really have to complain about when someone wants it for free? And don't you think it's a little unfair that you'd attribute to others a "sense of entitlement" and to you a "virtue of good fortune" for participating in comparable behavior?

I recommend you stop using the phrase "sense of entitlement" to describe how other people come to conclusions about what they would like the world to be. Because unless you are doing the exact same thing, you have no grounds to object. (I.e., it is your "sense of entitlement" that causes you to want things to work the way you want them to.)

>It seems like preventing someone from accessing something that they have a right to is immoral.

No, it doesn't "seem" like it. That's what it means to have a right.

Everything else you're asking is a matter of social bargaining. You are entitled to payment for your work. Others are entitled to culture and attention management. You give some of yours, others give some of theirs. And everybody argues that they are giving more than the other, so as to get the best deal they can get for what they offer.

At the end of the day, what is right is what benefits our collective ability to make decisions in the long run. And people are pretty fed up with ads that do nothing but offend their peace of mind. It doesn't benefit them, it only benefits those who sell the ads. Which means those who give their attention are not bargaining well enough to get what they want. Hence this whole discussion.

   If you don't "feel entitled to get paid," then what do you really
   have to complain about when someone wants it for free?

I'm not complaining. I'm trying to understand a perspective that I'm having a hard time empathizing with.

   And don't you think it's a little unfair that you'd attribute to
   others a "sense of entitlement" and to you a "virtue of good fortune"
   for participating in comparable behavior?

Not in the slightest, since as I said above I don't feel entitled to payment for it. But I'm certainly happy that I can support myself via the creation of non-physical works.

   I recommend you stop using the phrase "sense of entitlement"

What would you prefer that I use? I'm not going to call it the "right" to the free, unfettered access to the non-physical creations of others, because I don't believe it is a right.

   You are entitled to payment for your work. Others are entitled to
   culture and attention management. You give some of yours, others give
   some of theirs. And everybody argues that they are giving more than the
   other, so as to get the best deal they can get for what they offer.

That seems like a good summary of the perspective. Thanks.

Those are his terms of service and by responding to his web browser's request, web servers are implicitly agreeing to it.

I'm not making an ethical claim here.

I'm simply saying that I'm not interested in there being ads in my field of view, ever. This is my own personal point of view. I consider them to be toxic, sort of like secondhand smoke.

I don't feel entitled, I just really hate ads. Make me pay some other way.

Right? Only in your own content.

Internet won't die without ads (or money), maybe big content providers will, and that's ok to me.

The point of internet advertising is that paradoxically we have to pay to make advertisers not work. If I pay, the adv gets removed, hence the adv is not displayed, hence the advertiser real job right now is to create something that make us think that paying to not to see that shit, is actually acceptable.

Ads are so terrible right now that people are gradually accepting the idea of paying for a - sometimes expensive - subscription because advertisers created the false dichotomy that the internet should be free and run by ads, or ads free but the users will have to pay for it.

It is the same model of the Italian mob: if you pay, I don't burn your shop to the ground. As Italian I know this model generate lots of revenues, but it's not exactly fair.

I think there is a better model, the content providers should reward with a small fee (a tiny percentage of their ads revenues) those users who are willing to watch the ads in exchange for some - small but real - money (it could even be something completely different from money, the idea is to reward who watch the ads).

This way we could put things back in balance: pay advertisers to actually do their job, not to scare people into buying subscriptions to services that once were free.

A thing about ads is: I actually like them. One of the reasons I used to buy magazines was to read the ads. It gave me a really good idea about the different types of tech that were available in whatever industry I was curious about at that time.

My problem with most web ads is that they just feel like scams. The barrier to entry for web ads is so low, that anybody can take out any ad for any thing, and there really is no filter.

Sure there were always ads for penis pills (or a speaker that makes your car sound like it has a turbo!) in the back of the magazine, but now those ads are showing up for me right in the metaphorical front.

Here's what I really wish existed: an opt-in ad network. You agree to have ads shown to you, and you tell the advertisers what you are interested in, then they show you ads for things you care about.

For instance: I'm leaving for burning man this weekend. I would LOVE to see ads about headlamps, or cheap EL wire, or a deal on Cliff Bars; stuff like that.

Or usually: I would love to see [curated] ads for web hosting, new restaurants in Phoenix, or cheap airfair to SF.

Maybe that should be my next project: a curated ad network.

There's already a curated ad network in The Deck: http://decknetwork.net/

Daring Fireball uses it, among others.

Wait, my use of an ad blocker costs the industry $11,000?! Maybe I should use 2...

And, frankly, I have no problem paying a reasonable price for content. And the New York Times sets that bar: $40/mo is a little to high. I think they'd make 10x as much with a $5 or $10 rate.

Presumably that means they've calculated that every non-adblocking person generates almost $1,000 in ad views every month. I find that number ludicrous, and I even work in advertising.

tl;dr The NYT distills the adblocking zeitgeist into layman's terms. Standard quotes from ABP parent company CEO. And from an Irish startup called PageFair that reports on AdBlock use.

Dig this quote: >In a report last week, Adobe and PageFair, an Irish start-up that tracks ad-blocking, estimated that blockers will cost publishers nearly $22 billion in revenue this year.

I can't even wrap my mind around that $22 billion comment. What does it even mean? It seems...vacuous. It reminds me of the RIAA/MPAA propaganda of the aughts, even though movie/music pirates would never have bought at full retail price to begin with.

> I can't even wrap my mind around that $22 billion comment. What does it even mean?

It means that several thousand people will have to get real jobs.

Well, in the end that goes for advertisers and website makers both, I guess.

I think it is a pretty difficult conundrum, with stalking and annoying ads being unethical, but easy advertising services being a good thing for website producers.

I'm working on my first commercial site, but don't know how to go about funding it in a way that wouldn't bother me - not everyone is willing to pay for membership and I'd like to be able to use ads without being an douchebag.

I just don't know how yet.

That was a really nicely done piece, and captures the ethos nicely with that closing line ("For better ads tomorrow, block ads today").

So much of adblocker usage is because ads are ugly, intrusive, creepy (or conversely, pointless), and great vectors for malware, and thus, are bad UX. I'm very much hoping that increased prevalence of adblocking will make the content industry either come up with a way to serve ads without wrecking UX, or monetize differently.

> "For better ads tomorrow, block ads today"

The problem with ads and ad blockers is that if a significantly large percentage of sites have bad ads, people will install and use ad blockers. Ad blockers will by default block ads on the well behaved sites as well as the bad sites, effectively punishing the good and bad alike. I believe there is a term for this -- the market for lemons.

Adblock Plus tried to address this but was given a ton of grief for it. I thought the idea of having an acceptable ads filter was smart.

Maybe "display this resource text-only" rather than "hide this resource" would be a reasonable compromise.

An acceptable ads standard, in other words.

Adblock could be off by default and if enough people 'vote' a site as bad by activating it for that site, then it will become 'on' by default.

And the whole thing can be funded by selling lists of users who did/didn't disable the ads in cluster X, Y, Z...

It already has to a point. Native advertising. Content marketing. Sponsorships. Crowdfunding.

The problem is media businesses dealing in mass market dreck struggle to monetize those ways and instead rely on giant intrusive ad networks paying penny CPMs - but I think that's what "For better ads tomorrow, block ads today" is getting at :-)

The Internet is here to stay and somehow we need to figure out how to pay for it in a way that keeps good things available to the public. This means both finding a way to pay people providing good quality stuff and doing so in a way that doesn't shut folks not paying.

I have thought about this for a lot of years. When I was a homeschooling parent, there were a lot of good resources online that later disappeared for various reasons. One of those reasons was that the person publishing it took it offline to make it available to paying customers only.

People have decried the deterioration of the Internt for years. I think there is a lot of validity to those complaints, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you don't want ads, then you need to be willing to pay people some other way. Donate buttons seem to do poorly. I was glad to see Patreon come out. I hope we can make headway on this issue. To me, there is a clear connection between everyone wanting sites to remain free while they increasingly block ads and simultaneously decry the loss of so much good stuff.

Is there any way to impose a "progressive taxation" system? Presumably the wealthy are willing to cough up $40 per month for the New York Times. But if it's the poor and oppressed we want to take care of, how do you convince the wealthy to pitch in? Most studies I'm aware of indicate the wealthy are the least likely to be interested in progressive taxation schemes, even though they have historically created tides that lift all boats (rather than the current trend of financial schemes, which create tides that lift all yachts)

I am so tired of hearing this kind of framing. Good paradigms do not frame economic solutions in terms of rich vs poor. I am not interested in talking about how to soak the rich for the benefit of the poor. That framing only deepens the class divide.

We need a different mental model for this relatively new set of problems or the horrendous crisis we currently have will only get worse.

You cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.

-- Albert Einstein

I'm so tired of the frame too. So, how do you define the crisis?

People have inherent value. Their participation in the system has inherent value. Their ability to pay not only varies from person to person but also from time to time. We need to create paradigms that are inclusive of those who are less well off finanically not as charity but because their participation adds value.

HN actually does that. It is part of the YC business model. HN is noit directly monetized. There are no ads and there is no membership fee. But you cannot apply to YC without a handle on HN.

YC wants and needs HN members who are not currently wealthy. It invests in companies that are just starting out, that need seed money and other assistance. That is how YC makes money: by helping them grow and getting a cut of the action.

The more we exclude the have nots, the harder it gets for them to escape poverty and become one of the haves. Creating a permanent underclass hurts everyone.

I like the Patreon model and I am considering pursuing that for some of my projects. I also have tip jars on some sites. I need more traffic and some other pieces to come together. I am working on it.

I see no reason why we cannot have several different viable models that treat those who are not currently able to pay as valuable participants. Human society is deeply harmed by systems that boil everyone down to their current net worth. It actively undermines the creation of real value. We need to start actively discouraging that while grappling with how to pay the bills at the same time.

I'm a bit tired of the AD blocking debate. There will always be two camps in this; the tech savvy, and the web consumers who think Facebook is the Internet. Lumping people into these two categories only ever worked for computers and the web, because remember; a computer is unforgiving, the programs that execute on it are unforgiving, and a computer is only as smart as its user. With very fine grained precision I can allow what traffic I want to see on my network, and I do not apologize for that. In the end AD blocking is about control structures trickling down into the consumer web. If it is the case where I am paid better than stupid people because I know how to serve them ADs better, then I suppose I win on a hermetic level; I have recast the purpose of a computer; which is something to do my bidding, and made it a mere device and gimmick for my users.

If on the other hand users are in control and I try to seize back that control, then I am in a silly game of cat and mouse, and this becomes a game of who can devise the smartest way to outsmart smart people. Not the game I want to play. Money is about keeping the channels open to receive an exchange, and if there are hangups by web publishers about whether they should disband AD networks because of AD blockers, then the game is lost.

Just open up more channels. Seek out other ways to monetize: https://gist.github.com/ndarville/4295324

I looked up the Interactive Advertising Bureau cited towards the ends, and ended up on a document describing guidelines to detect Click Fraud[0].

How the hell did we ended up to this level of insanity?

[0]: http://www.iab.net/media/file/Click-measurement-guidelines20...

People who are blocking your ads aren't people who would have purchased a product because of your ad in the first place. So I find the act of "showing non-disruptive ads to ad blockers" to be strange.

>Some publishers and advertisers say ad blocking violates the implicit contract that girds the Internet — the idea that in return for free content, we all tolerate a constant barrage of ads.

There is no reason why the implicit contract can't be changed. That's why you get contracts in writing. :)

As far as any "moral" argument goes. Here's how I see it:

"Your neighbor asks if they can park in your driveway. You agree to it, you had space to spare for the neighbor's car anyway.

This went on fine for a few months, then your neighbor started parking two cars in your driveway. You had only agreed to having one car parked but you still had space to spare so you let them do it.

A few years later - your neighbor is now parking many cars in your driveway and even blocking your garage. To drive anywhere you need to move your neighbor's car out of the way. Being the nice guy he is, he gave you a spare key to move the car when needed."

Would it be "immoral" to ask your neighbor to stop parking cars in your driveway at this point? Is it immoral to ask your neighbor to stop parking cars in your driveway at any point?

I've decided to no longer let ads be parked in my browser. I don't see how that is immoral.

> PageFair’s canny strategy to mitigate users’ outrage is that it will only show ads that aren’t “intrusive,” Mr. Blanchfield said.

Sean Blanchfield, if you ever get to read this, you can go fuck yourself. How's that for "mitigated outrage"? You don't get to decide what is and isn't "intrusive" for me.

>People who are blocking your ads aren't people who would have purchased a product because of your ad in the first place.

Most advertising is just brand awareness. The days of e-advertising being about clicking the ad and buying on some webstore are long over.

They are just like commercials on TV or billboards.

You don't even realize the effect they have on you.

>I've decided to no longer let ads be parked in my browser. I don't see how that is immoral.

I totally agree. But I think it would also be fine if the content providers refused me service if I didn't let the ads through.

I'm surprised more sites don't do that. I have a blocker on (and I don't even let through intrusive ads, I block it all) and I think I've only run into problems on hulu or some other video website.

> I'm surprised more sites don't do that

I'm sure they would if they could. As far as I'm aware though, there isn't a good way to do it and still have your content indexed by google.

>They are just like commercials on TV or billboards. You don't even realize the effect they have on you.

I do. Which is why I haven't watched television/movies since I was 10 years old. Luckily I only see billboards when I'm on a freeway, which happens maybe once or twice a year at most.

I also keep an excel sheet where I blacklist companies whom I've seen advertisements from. So advertising to me has a net loss of -1 customer for life.

But I'll agree that most people don't realize how much advertisements influence their behavior. I find it disgusting and not something that should be accepted at all in any amount - but most people don't seem to mind it. (Ignoring privacy issues with online advertisements. I'm speaking more general here.)

>But I think it would also be fine if the content providers refused me service if I didn't let the ads through.

Oh, I agree. Of course - the provider will likely go out of business because that isn't a sustainable business model either - but I do agree. It also hurts their Google Ranking which is why Paywall sites let you read the article if you find it through Google.

Advertising is a broken business model. Once-upon-a-time it worked but it is breaking down. It's not the customer's job to keep watching advertisements. It's the providers job to find a better business model. Or go out of business.

I disagree that advertising itself is a broken model, but I like imagining that someone ruthlessly updates their excel spreadsheet of blacklisted companies every time they hear or see an advertisement for any company. You must only shop at flea markets!

I don't watch TV, rarely drive, don't watch movies, and use an ad blocker. It shouldn't be surprising that I see very few advertisements. To the tune of single-digits per year.

If a company is so intrusive that they still find a way to serve me an advertisement - they aren't a company I wish to support.

Billboards and bus stops are the worst offenders, but most of those I pass are advertising TV shows and movies. Which I already don't partake in.

I should be more specific: online advertising is a broken model. If it wasn't broken they wouldn't be trying to fix it. ;)

> I should be more specific: online advertising is a broken model. If it wasn't broken they wouldn't be trying to fix it. ;)

By that definition everything is broken.

If it was just brand awareness, the sites could quite easily show an image on the page, served as a static image. Same as it is in a newspaper.

From the little I know, that would bypass the ad blockers.

But then they cannot use flash, tracking cookies etc etc. So if they want to show just ads, they can already

Hello again, Nadya. It seems we are making a habit of disagreeing with each other. ;-)

Though I do entirely agree with the first sentence of your comment. It's the same reason why piracy isn't the dire issue the various media industries make it out to be. The vast majority of people who pirate content, were never going to pay for that content to begin with. So they're not actually losing those sales, because there was never a potential for a sale. I make no claims about this being moral behavior or otherwise, I'm just acknowledging that this is reality.

For the rest of your comment, however, I don't think the driveway analogy holds up. It may be your browser, but it is their content being served via their infrastructure. It costs them real money to create and host this content. Ignoring for a moment that some ads are obnoxious, do you genuinely believe that content creators should lose money for the "privilege" of having you consume their content? Because that seems rather silly to me.

The simple fact is that when you use an ad blocker, you are not just preventing a website from making money off obnoxious ads. You are actually costing the content creator money. Out of their own pocket. The same content creator whom you probably believe deserves money for providing you with that information or entertainment. How can you possibly reconcile these conflicting facts?

Pretending to be making a statement by boycotting all advertisement in an attempt to force the ad industry to change its ways, is no different from the extreme minority of pirates who insist that they are morally justified to never pay for anything, just because they don't like how the music industry operates. Regardless of whether any given industry conducts their business ethically, having a differing moral opinion does not automatically entitle you to everything for free. Or in the cast of ad blockers, entitling you to content at the quantifiable expense of its creator.

No - we seem to be at a misunderstanding here.

I believe content creators should not deliver their content to me at all if they feel that delivering content to me at a loss is not worth it. I have no privilege to receive their content and they are under no obligation to provide me with it.

The fact that they continue to deliver content to me at a loss shows that they value their Google Ranking and the possibility of me sharing the article to outweigh the cost of providing me with the content. They are making a cost-benefit analysis and deciding to show me the content anyways. The benefits of showing me the content, even at a loss, are superior to not showing me the content at all.

If they have an issue with that - they can bring it up with Google. It isn't my problem that they care about their Google ranking. It's their problem with Google.

I'm sorry, but it appears you are completely ignorant of the technological complexities involved in denying a user content based on whether or not you are blocking ads from a third party provider. It has nothing to do with search engine rankings or the trivial potential of "free promotion" by sharing the content. It has nothing to do with Google at all, in fact. I'm not sure where you're even coming from with that argument.

I think the previous poster might be referring to the fact that if you click on a result in a Google SERP (search engine results page), and then hit back and click on another result (e.g. due to the site not allowing you to view the content), in aggregate that site gets a severe ranking penalty.

Given the prevalence of adblock users, a site that implements this (which is not hard at all -- just check if `<div id='ad' style='height:1px'></div>` has a height of 1 or 0) will quickly drop off Google.

My point was that this has nothing to do with the morality of ads being delivered or blocked.

> It may be your browser, but it is their content being served via their infrastructure. It costs them real money to create and host this content.

Then they shouldn't send me that content if they don't want me to do whatever I want with it. Because that's my goddamn right.

Frankly, if ad revenue is the way they're funding the development of their content, then I want them to stop. Just stop. Find another way to fund it, or don't send it to my computer in the first place.

I own a physical store. It has a door. You walk through it. You then decide you don't like some aspect of my store. That doesn't entitle you to walk out with merchandise, declaring "well, you shouldn't have opened your door in the first place."

It is not your "goddamn right" to dictate how a business generates revenue, nor does it make any sense whatsoever to insist that the burden of denying content is the creator's. Your argument can easily be turned around on you. If you're not willing to pay for the content (via allowing ads, in this case), then you shouldn't be demanding the content in the first place.

I'm not "demanding" the content. You're choosing to send it to me. I'm not walking into your store, I'm surfing the web, you're throwing your "goods" (if you see them that way) into my home. My computer. Under my control. My computer will block ads if I want, mostly I don't even know if sites have ads or not. Not my problem.

I'm happy to pay for goods. I'm not happy to see ads -- I never want to see them, they are a menace. I pay for tons of ad-free content.

Sending an HTTP request to a server is no different than walking through the door of an establishment. You don't see the "content" of the store until you walk through the door.

Deciding afterwards that you don't agree with how the website is monetized but then consume the content anyway, is the same as deciding you don't like how the physical establishment operates, but you feel entitled to take something anyway.

There is no logical difference, and you are using a completely false justification.

> Sending an HTTP request to a server is no different than walking through the door of an establishment. You don't see the "content" of the store until you walk through the door

Walking through the door of an establishment also does not make the person obligated to pay for seeing the content.

Anyway, anyone who knows basics about how the www technology operates and its history knows that's false analogy. Sending an HTTP request to a web server makes no promises to the owner of the web page or other data the server sends. There is no human-level contract or trade in the sense "content for ads" implied. It may be how the operation is payed for by the owner, but nobody ever asked the consumer. For contract/trade to happen, both parties need to agree on terms and willingly enter it.

> is the same as deciding you don't like how the physical establishment operates, but you feel entitled to take something anyway.

It is not the same. Nobody takes a thing from the owner when using adblocking software.

> There is no logical difference, and you are using a completely false justification.

There is a physical difference. Donuts will be missed, copies of cat pictures will be not. Eventually, even logic must give way to physics.

Exactly zero of your arguments have a logical basis. Literally all of the things you just said are completely ignorant of reality. It is so far beyond mind boggling that anyone could genuinely believe any of that, and I can only assume you're just trolling.

Which reality is that? The one where people believe that just using a web page creates a contract with the website owner? Don't be ridiculous. This is not what most people subscribe to, even though big media corps and you would like them to. It is not the reality, it is a pipe dream. In reality, contract/trade happens by voluntary agreement on terms by both parties.

> "Sending an HTTP request to a server is no different than walking through the door of an establishment."

Of course it's different. It's not even close to being similar.

Sending an HTTP request is much more like asking sears to send you the catalogue for this season. It's a REQUEST, they can REFUSE.

If they do send me one, I can do whatever I want with it, including throwing it in the garbage or my fireplace.

They might include stuff you don't want in the catalogue, but you can just rip them out. And if, after dozens of issues you realize they always put the unwanted stuff every 10 pages, you could build a machine that rips out every 10th page before you even look at it.

Now, Sears could say they don't like that I'm doing that, but I don't care (nor should I). IF it really is annoying enough to them, they'll just stop sending me the catalogue.

And with HTTP requests, I'm even paying for the bandwidth via my ISP! When they answer to my request, they cost me money, just like I'm costing them money.

> Sending an HTTP request is much more like asking sears to send you the catalogue for this season. It's a REQUEST, they can REFUSE.

You're completely ignoring the technological factors in delivering content online. If you were arguing that your ad blocker made the server aware of its usage via the HTTP request's headers, and the server could use that information to deny a request, then you might have a legitimate basis for your argument. But it doesn't, and you don't.

> They might include stuff you don't want in the catalogue, but you can just rip them out.

Exactly. You just made my argument for me. You received the content, and decided to ignore other content which you didn't want to see after it has already been delivered. You have paid the price of admission by accepting the document as the creator intended. But when you prevent the other content from showing up in the first place, you have entered into the world of immorality. You're demanding content be delivered the way you want it, at the literal financial expense of its creator, which is absurd.

> And with HTTP requests, I'm even paying for the bandwidth via my ISP! When they answer to my request, they cost me money, just like I'm costing them money.

That's an entirely illogical comparison. You made the request with the complete understanding that when you navigate to a website, it will serve the content to you, and that the request for that content knowingly costs them money, and costs you money. But it's entirely at your request. You are paying your ISP for the capability to make that request, and nobody forced you to make it or pay for it. So when you do make the request but block the ads, you are forcing the content creator to pay for it, and then refusing them their ability to recoup that cost. You are not paying the content creator by paying your ISP. It's an illegitimate comparison.

Except that sending a HTTP request to a server you get copy or version of the content, which is no longer the property of the content creator. Physical store owners enjoy inherent DRM but your analogous physical store owner seems to wish for DMCA like control over digital content. What if lynx/links is used ? There are no legal or moral-rights 'physical store owners' have to decide how a URL is fetched and interpreted on the some one elses property.

As I've said a few times now in different ways, if you received the content as the creator intended and then removed the ads, you would have a perfectly legitimate argument. But that's not what you're doing. You're preventing them from being delivered at all, while still consuming the content at the direct financial expense of the content creator. You are taking advantage of the technological ability to access content without paying the price of admission. It is absolutely immoral behavior, no matter how you would like to spin it.

So what if I'm using Lynx as my browser? Or if I disable images/Javascript (broader scope than blocking ads specifically)?

What if I have a specific ad agency they happen to employ being blocked in my hosts file? Is it my fault they use Google AdSense instead of Yahoo Listings?

The crux of your argument rests on the user knowing what they are requesting before receiving it. The problem with that is they don't know what they are requesting until they have already obtained it. The page they are requesting could be 200kb of plaintext or it could be 26MB full of high-retina images and javascript.

Since they do not know what a page contains until after they download it - it's within their place to preemptively block things like images, javascript, and flash to save bandwidth or for security reasons.

Furthermore, ads are almost always hosted by a 3rd-party. When I visit example.com I am under no obligation to download anything that does not originate from example.com as my intention is to visit example.com not googles-invasive-ad-network.google.com. If I wanted to visit googles-invasive-ad-network.google.com, I'd enter that URL into my browser in place of example.com

I do have some issues with your reasoning for why a user is morally obligated to perform certain actions however.

>You have paid the price of admission by accepting the document as the creator intended. But when you prevent the other content from showing up in the first place, you have entered into the world of immorality.

If downloading what the content creator has on their site is my moral obligation; am I morally obligated to download malware/viruses if they are included on the page? If the answer is "no", why not? [0]

>if you received the content as the creator intended and then removed the ads, you would have a perfectly legitimate argument.

So if I wget/curl the page then remove the ads by editing the .html file before viewing the file, I'm morally in the clear? AFAIK wget/curl does not count as an ad impression for popular ad agencies. I am willing to accept that I could be wrong on this, as I couldn't find any information on it and am relying on years-old memory.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Are content consumers obligated to buy a certain amount of advertised goods per year in order to continue to have access to the content? No, of course not. Are people who read magazines obligated to spend as much time looking at ads as the content? Are people who watch over the air TV obligated to stay in the room while ads come on instead of making a snack or going to the bathroom?

Of. Course. Not.

There's something very puritanical about the idea that there is and should be a contract between content makers and content consumers whereby people "pay" for their content through suffering through ads. Would we see things any different if every site supported themselves through obnoxious spam email campaigns?

Content creators have no right to my eyeballs or my attention, they cannot simply sell it away to advertisers as a way to make money.

I appreciate that advertising has often been the easiest source of revenue for content sites, but it's a broken system and I never bought anything from ads anyway. I'm not going to suffer just so you can keep a broken system propped up for longer.

I pay for content. I support people on patreon, I support kickstarters, I buy merch, I buy books, movies, albums, yadda yadda yadda. I've probably spent mid five figures on content in my lifetime. No, I'm not going to feel even a little bad by blocking shitty ads. I'm sorry you've monetized making my content consuming experience shittier, find a better way.

> Are people who read magazines obligated to spend as much time looking at ads as the content? Are people who watch over the air TV obligated to stay in the room while ads come on instead of making a snack or going to the bathroom?

You have no obligation to acknowledge the ad. Nobody ever said you did. You are not required to read or click on any advertisement, ever. But you have to allow that advertisement to be served, otherwise you are not paying for the content. And that is the price of the content: having the ads served.

> Content creators have no right to my eyeballs or my attention, they cannot simply sell it away to advertisers as a way to make money.

This is such an illogical statement, that I'm nearly speechless. Nobody has ever made the claim that they possess ownership of your attention. Again, you are under no obligation to view or interact with an ad.

> ... I never bought anything from ads anyway. I'm not going to suffer just so you can keep a broken system propped up for longer.

Really? Suffer? Is that the word you're going to use? Nobody is demanding you buy anything. I guess I'm sorry if you feel that ignoring ads is such a huge personal burden that it's having detrimental effects on your life. But that's a you problem.

> No, I'm not going to feel even a little bad by blocking shitty ads.

Ah, and here's the rub. You don't know if you're blocking shitty ads, because you're blocking all ads. You could be visiting a site which contains content that you appreciate, and only displays ads in a tasteful, non-shitty way. But you'll never know. And that's what makes you part of the problem, not the solution.

> But you have to allow that advertisement to be served, otherwise you are not paying for the content.

When is this contractual obligation established?

The first HTTP request goes to the host's server before I am even aware of whether they wish to send ads or not.

At that point neither party has agreed to any obligation.

"Have to"? That's a strong phrase. I don't have to do anything. I can filter the content delivered to me however I want. There's no EULA, no TOU, that lays down a quid pro quo of content for ads.

"Nobody has ever made the claim that they posses ownership of your attention." I think you misunderstand the entire advertising business then. It is the selling of "impressions" of some slice of "attention", else it would have no value. If I am under no obligation to view an ad then I am under no obligation to have an ad made viewable to me, period.

As for the term "suffering", way to derail an argument with semantics. That term was chosen because it fits in with the typical puritanical worldview of having to "earn" anything good by paying for it with toil. There's no value to me being even the slightest bit inconvenienced by an ad, zero. It's just an artifact of a broken accounting system and I refuse to let it rule over me like some bizarre kafkaesque daydream.

I support content creators. I pay for content. I do my part.

I spent 20 years looking at ads on the web. I'm done.

I remember back when I was younger I used to be active on a programming website (ok it was a game hacking website, but I was active in the programming sections mostly).

I wrote a number of tutorials, some of what I wrote was crap. I was 15/16 at the time, but other stuff was pretty useful.

The point being that all this content was shared for free, all the code was/is in the public domain, I know that some of my code made it into, ahem, commercial products. Turns out it was pretty productive for content that was generated without any compensation at all. I wasn't the only person doing this, most content is still available from others. Naturally the internet, most companies, cannot possibly run on goodwill and motivation alone. But for me it does show that in certain niches money is not an issue. As long as there is a platform there will always be hidden gems to be found.

I passed the threshold many years ago advertisers only have themselves to blame back in the late 90's early 00's the web used to be miserable popups everywhere ads disguised as content ads that served malware etc. Then they moved on to irritating flash ads - sometimes with sound...

Nowadays it's worse because they actively mine your personal information. I see things on Facebook like "31 years old and single? Meet women now." No thanks, talk about creepy and condescending.

I like the article, but I feel like there's an unquestioned premise everyone uses in these debates:

> Advertising sustains pretty much all the content you enjoy on the web,

Is that true?

There is definitely a lot of great ad supported stuff. No question. But does that mean that all great stuff is ad supported, or ad support is necessary for the web to function?

I'm not getting paid through advertising for this comment. It's still content I created that you're reading. (I know, you're probably thinking it's not that great a comment either!)

A lot of webmail is ad supported, but email wasn't always that way. We had several decades with usenet, user-side email servers, dial-up BBS's, early MUDs... in the late 90s there were a lot of early online multiplayer games. Now when a single player game (with a social layer!) fails, the servers die and it's not playable.[1] Back then when a near-MMO failed, the community just took over and hosted servers for free.[2] You basically just paid for a pipe and everyone tried to pitch in, contribute something interesting, or pile in with a little of their bandwidth.[3]

I don't remember society scoffing and thinking, "nah, Internet doesn't have YouTube, it's a fad." Well, except Newsweek.[4]

I think that if there were no ads, we would lose a lot of the great stuff online. But we'd have different cool stuff too, because there's always been some incentive to share interesting things with other people. Even if that only motivates one in a thousand people, turns out there are a lot of people online, and it fills up pretty quick.[5,6]

The different cool stuff might be "obviously worse" in your imagination, but I'm not sure. Some days I feel nostalgia for the web of decades past. Then I usually fire up an ad-supported video on YouTube to reminisce, and try to ignore the irony.[7]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_Online

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(video_game)

[3] There's a paradoxical aside in Cryptonomicon about how the cost of bandwidth approaches zero over time, so, in theory, it can be treated as costless and abundant. Unfortunately this is a very asymptotic trend, and the needs for bandwidth increase proportionately, so in practice it's a significant and ever-present cost.

[4] http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/02/27/newsweek-1995-bu...

[5] http://www.geek.com/news/youtube-hits-3-billion-views-per-da...

[6] Most the people uploading videos to youtube will never get paid. Just because they theoretically could be paid doesn't mean most of them will, or that's their driving motivation.

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvch3eIoKQQ

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