Comment by godshatter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godshatter | Hacker News Reader

I've been fighting ads since the "punch the monkey" days of the web. Advertisers have progressively gotten worse over time. I have seen very few attempts to self-moderate their aggressiveness. Instead, they track us around the web and sell our data, and sometimes infect our machines with malware. Because of this, I aggressively block ads. They had their chance and they dropped the ball, and have no intentions of picking it back up again.

I don't want a service that blocks ads for a price. I want a service without ads. If websites can't find a way to sustain themselves without ads, then they can die off for all I care. I can live without the content harvesters and the news reposters and all the other extraneous fluff out there. There will still be companies that sell services and advertise their own stuff on their websites, and there will still be people that pay for their own web hosting to put up content they are interested in.

If the pushback against ads becomes extreme, there will still be a web after natural selection has finished running amok.

I stopped using free web email, as one example, because of the ads. I now pay for email services from a company that does not run ads and does not track me around the web. There is no free version with ads. This is what I'm after.

I wouldn't mind something like CoinTent after the die-off though. Paying money in one place that would be distributed as I see fit adds value for me. I don't want to be followed around the web though, that's a deal-breaker. Let me select the websites my revenue goes to and with what weightings. Sites that impress me will get added, sites that disappoint me won't. Also, let me determine how much I wish to give. Do this for websites that don't post ads, and you've got a winner for me. I will gladly pay for a useful web, and advertisers can go extinct for all I care.

Everyone's bought into the bullshit that ads give us stuff for free when it in fact it costs all of us a LOT MORE. Rather than dismiss my claim as lunacy, I beg you to take the time to read my explanation (and reply with rational counterarguments if you disagree):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237

Our industry has made a selfish deal with the devil in the name of getting rich quick: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10047706

On our failure to focus on finding alternate solutions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761

I'm not sure what your goal is? Advertising is never going away because there will always be companies that want to increase the visibility of their products and are willing to pay for it. How that advertising is implemented will continue to shift overtime but it's always going to be there.

Your second post for example is advertising for people to contact you about some project you want to start.

> Advertising is never going away

See fowlerpower's originally top ranked comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805998) and then see my reply to it (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12806687).

And no, my second post is not advertising by any reasonable definition, and certainly not the meaning of "ad" in "ad blocker". By defining "advertising" so broadly that in includes all announcements and solicitations, such that even a love letter is considered advertising, you have "won" the argument by rendering the term meaningless. I believe there is a technical term for such specious reasoning, such as there is for "straw man" arguments, but I can't remember it.

Sure, advertising will always exist, but it can be made mostly if not entirely irrelevant. Just as littering will always exist, but is now pretty minimal because anti-littering is now deeply ingrained in our culture. That's what cultural evolution is all about: overcoming our base natures.

Your reply to his comment is pointless. You're equating advertising to slavery? Going after the shock factor to make your point. Sounds a bit like the click bait you rally against.

It is advertising you are telling people about a service you are working on and soliciting participation. That's not using a broad definition of advertising by any means.

Advertising will always exist because there will always people people who want to tell others about their products and services and there will always be people who want to find out about new products and services. How do you propose people find new products and services in your imagined future without advertising?

> Your reply to his comment is pointless.

No, you missed the point. I'm criticizing his "Advertising is something that has existed for at least 100 plus years." and therefor "is here to stay" logical fallacy.

No, your definition is so broad as to be meaningless.

What do I proposed? For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10398290. But more importantly go back to my "On our failure to focus on finding alternate solutions" link above. This website and the culture it worships touts its creative and problem solving ability. So it is not just a moral failure but also one of imagination.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."

– Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera

And honestly, I believe you are so armored against my ideas, that you haven't given them (my comments here and my links) a truly honest, reflective read. You keep challenging me but you haven't answered all of my points or challenges. jrcii's comment's being down-voted to oblivion represents how upset people here get about anything that challenges their golden goose.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

– Upton Sinclair

>No, your definition is so broad as to be meaningless.

Advertising: the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc.

As in "eevilspock was advertising their new project to rid the world of advertising".

So how do people find the collaborative filtering systems in your proposed world without advertising?

All the alternates lead back to advertising.

>You keep challenging me but you haven't answered all of my points or challenges.

What points or challenges? You have just posted quotes and said that everyone is lazy for not thinking of a world without advertising.

As long as there are people with services and people who want services there will always be advertising.

If I'm understanding correctly, you're not happy with being able to pay for content and not be shown ads; you also want nobody be else to have the option of free content paid for with ad views? Why?

Mainly because I don't want to miss something and wind up in yet another database. Or get malware. And because I wish the ad companies in their current form would just die off.

I think there would be traction for an ad-free network you could subscribe to and direct the flow of your funds. I would be more inclined to subscribe to the service in that form rather than what CoinTent is currently proposing. But I doubt I'm in the majority.

I think what the previous user was hinting was that if you're so uncomfortable with the prospect of accidentally collecting a tracker cookie you'd be happy for websites to "die off for all I care" the option of simply not using the internet exists (beyond a whitelist of trusted sites, I suppose). This both satisfies your personal desire to eliminate all possibility of accidentally collecting a tracker cookie without eliminating the ad-supported internet for the average person that is happy with uBlock or actually enjoys punching monkeys or downloading CometCursors.

But I do want to use the internet. I just don't want giant corporations tracking me around the web and employing thousands of people whose job is to try to trick me into buying crap I don't need or want in a myriad of different ways. I don't think this is unreasonable. People who just love ads would find no worth in the ad-free network I wish would spring up, but the rest of the ad-laden internet would likely still be there for their pleasure.

"trick me into buying crap"

What? You chose to either buy or don't. I don't see the trickery.

The entire job of advertising is to trick (or "convince" depending on how you want to look at it) people into buying things. You can be tricked into making the wrong choice.

I would encourage you to watch the Defcon 18 talk by Moxie Marlinspike, called "Changing threats to privacy". It explains why "simply don't participate in X" is not really a valid option.

Here's the link to the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk

> there will still be a web after natural selection

Here are 10 things you will do after ad blockers kill the web (You won't believe number 7!!!!)

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