Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

it's kind of like what I do at my local bakery/patisserie. I hate that I have to ask for something from behind the counter, and the person wants to handle my extremely dirty cash with the same fingers that they use to take out and give me what I ask for. It's disgusting.

So I just reach behind the counter (technically quite easy) and take it out, without bringing cash into the equation. It's not my fault they make it so easy for me to leave without paying them. The fact that they have a broken business model isn't my fault!

How is it up to them to say "You can take this from behind the counter, but you have to let us take and handle your cash and then give you this dirty version" when I can just take the clean version myself!

In what way is it up to them to dictate what they will and won't serve me!

If they want me to stop taking their pastries without paying, they need to make it not technically possible.

/s

(how I feel people sound when they talk about their right to use ad blockers over the wishes of the people who the ads would be paying and whose servers are serving the content.)

An advertisement is not a transactional fee.

I don't have to look at your ads when you're giving away free pastries.

You're objectively mistaken that an advertisement is not a transactional fee. As in, you're wrong epistemically, and if you were to get a doctoral in whatever field it belongs to you would be more correct and would no longer believe what you do today.

But out of curiosity, given your belief today, what if the TOS of the site states that you agree to look at ads in exchange for requesting content from the server (which entails reproducing it, requiring a license), or there is a click-through stating that you agree to look at ads?

In your current (wrong) opinion, do you think it's still not transactional, and people still have the right to click "Yes, I agree to look at ads in exchange for requesting the content on this site" while after doing so, blocking ads?

Curious what you think today.

Given that's not what most sites' TOS say, viewing advertisements is not a transactional agreement in 99% of applicable cases.

again it's rather nuanced. (Personally, I think it is.) I mean, it's not "transactional" if you say to a person (of either gender, and you can be of either gender) at a bar "Hey can I buy you a drink?" and they say "sure", wait for you to buy them the drink, then take it walk away without another glance at you. Where is the TOS that they agreed to share at least a second or two of your company? That said, it's still transactional, just at a different level than you're playing on, and they're being dicks if they behave that way.

But you didn't answer my hypothetical:

Do people have a right to click a button on a blank page with nothing else that says "I agree to look at ads in exchange for loading the content on this site" that sets a cookie "I-agree-to-load-ads-in-exchange-for-requesting-content-from-this-site", if, after doing so, they actually block ads?

(Or more likely, do they have the right to run a plug-in that clicks that agreement for them, while afterward blocking the ads anyway)?

This is a yes-or-no question about your world view.

There is no such agreement to click. If there were, then yes you'd be breaking an agreement. But there isn't, so it's not part of the transaction.

thanks. You could be completely correct. If this is the case then it's a legal technicality. (i.e. a single line added to the TOS or a clickthrough would change it.)

However, I think most HN contributors would not agree with you that "if there were, then yes, you'd be breaking an agreement" - I would think most HN contributors would argue that the agreement would not really be binding legally or at least morally/ethically.

I'm okay with the position you take today, as long as it's clear this is a legal technicality as opposed to some moral imperative and right to view the content on servers, that applies regardless of any agreement in place, even explicit.

Seems telling that you're getting downvotes but no replies explaining how your comparison is wrong...

thanks. nobody really has any points of difference between my analogy and their behavior.

To make it more explicit, I suppose there could be a click-through or something that sets a cookie "I-agree-to-load-ads-in-exchange-for-requesting-content-from-this-site", so that you have to start by clicking that. It's rather moot, though, as that is precisely what sites do that choose not to serve those users who use ad-block. Those users typically still try to get the content from the sites anyway. So they would likely agree to the transaction, before failing to uphold their end.

I'm waiting for someone to chime in with the "it isn't like stealing because no physical goods are taken" argument that always gets thrown out in piracy debates.

It's not wrong, but it is irrelevant.

Or it could be such a tiresomely old straw man that people see no point in typing out an explanation that he could figure out for himself, or read in one of the many previous discussions of this.

I'm generally happy to reply if I think a) the writer is willing to listen, or b) their comment might mislead others, so that a reply helps provide a balanced perspective. I don't think either is true here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com