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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

They typically have no say or control over the ad network.

How so? They chose the ad network, no?

So what? What happens next? Do I have to ask every creator of ad attacks extensions like AdNauseam if the ad network I wanna use fits in their definition of "good" before adding it to my site? Do I have to ask them for permission about what HTML/JavaScript can I place in my website?

Worse, what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil? Then what? I still need to make ends meet so should I try to bribe the AdNauseam devs into whitelisting my site?

That's the thing about attacking on the basis of having the moral high ground, you are very likely to end up becoming the thing you hate.

EDIT: (cause HN doesn't let me reply)

Answer to @icebraining

So yeah, I find your counter-argument depressing as well; because its not about who is right or wrong but the one who believes themselves in control to determine being both the judge and the executioner.

Answer to @wongarsu:

After installed this extension silently attacks networks, and you think people is gonna care enough to jump to the next best one... because you think they are constantly reading about the moral basis of the blacklisted ad networks? ...right? You are more delusional than expected and I hope ad networks start pouring money into permanently banning users of this extension from all major websites.

I don't even use Adnauseam, but I find it a bit depressing that you don't see the flaw in that argument.

Let's leave ads aside and think of something else. Say businesses were dumping toxic chemicals into rivers, and activists were plugging those pipes. Would "I still need to make ends meet" be a valid excuse for those businesses?

Now, I'm sure you don't consider online advertising to be the same as dumping toxic chemicals. Like I said, I don't use the addon either. But for those who do, your argument is simply invalid. And the claim that they become the thing they hate makes no sense.

It's way more like, what if I'm pouring red colorant to the rivers, and I know the colorants make absolutely no damage to the river but activists still try to destroy my business because they strongly believe so. So yeah, I find your counter-argument depressing as well; because its not about who is right or wrong but the one who believes themselves in control to determine being both the judge and the executioner.

Well, I'm not going to argue the merits of civil disobedience here. I'll just point out that while "innocent" ad networks might be affected, it's factually indisputable that the vast majority heavily spy on their users and occasionally serve them malware, and that there has been zero legal consequences for that. It's easier to convince people to not be "both the judge and the executioner" if the actual judges and executioners do their work.

Civil disobedience is never about products you don't like, its a tool when society doesn't work not when you don't like the inside of a store (analogy of store == website); you don't start throwing rocks at stores because when you entered you found some announcements you didn't like; that's not civil disobedience, that's just assault at private propriety and sociopath behavior.

AdNauseam has a clear definition of "good" ad networks [1]: with default settings it allows ads that obey do-not-track headers, as tracked by the EFF.

Of course in theory they could become some kind of evil authoritarian censor board. But that would cause a lot of users to jump to the next best extension. It's not really a big threat.

>what happens if they think every ad network that fits my user-base is evil?

That sounds unlikely, but if that happens and you are too small to manage your ads yourself, you should find a different revenue stream. Or start an ad network, since you've obviously just found an under-served market niche :)

1:https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#what-is-the-effs...

What's good and bad is decided by each individual user, not AdNauseam. They chose AdNauseam because they agree with whatever it does and whatever kinds of ads it targets. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, or even if it's hard for you to figure out what "color of water" they don't like. That's what market research is for.

So if all your users decide you're doing something bad, and that puts you out of business, then you probably should be out of business. This isn't unfairness like being arbitrarily banned from Google search or getting fake reviews on Yelp. This is your own users telling you they don't want what you're offering for the price you're charging (having to view ads they don't want).

No; this is like stealing the product. If you don't like a product you just don't buy it (meaning, don't go to their website), you don't go to the their publishing agency and throw rocks at their windows just because you don't agree with their profiting methods, it's really simple.

False, it isn't at all like stealing, because there is an infinite number of 1's and 0's, it just so happens that your personal arrangement of those 1's and 0's was found to be unfavorable and discarded, and now you're mad about it. What you advocate is the same illogical idea the big content companies all have, the idea that your arrangement of 1's and 0's is somehow special from anyone else's arrangement and only you can say what happens to it (especially once it is put out in "public"), and that it is somehow scarce (when none of this is at all true in any real sense).

It all boils down to control - you (and people like you) want all of it, and other people have other ideas contrary to your own (and are willing to do whatever they feel works to achieve what they want).

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