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Comment by saguro | Hacker News Reader

> To me you are consenting the moment you decide to use services and websites that cost millions of dollars to maintain and expecting and paying little to nothing compared to the real cost of those services.

That's not how consent works, if it was then I would just claim that by establishing a connection to my computer, the remote website consents to my rules including ad blocking. My computer is mine, I have the right to display the content sent to my computer however the fuck I want. If my doing so ends up putting some company out of business because their tracker revenue dries up, that's perfectly fine, that's literally the free market at work and the consumers signaling to providers that this business model is not viable.

I'm not obliged to be a source of revenue to these companies.

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I guess my point is you’re also not obliged to use their services. I don’t understand the entitlement of “I shouldn’t have to play ball by their rules but I also want to use the ball until it deflates”

Your response is just a variation of the “They returned status code 200” argument which I explain as really just supporting the system albeit half-heartedly.

If you really hate them so much (I mean, you’re fine with them going out of business so at least, you don’t love them or rely on them) why even make the request? Why put their filthy ad-tracking blood money funded content on your PC. If it’s so repulsive to you on such a deep level but you also don’t rely on it or need it or care if it goes away, why even get near it?

Edit: And I’ll add my take on it. I think you want to have your cake and eat it too and the “their server responded with content” argument is just trying to romanticize the concept. I honestly don’t have a problem with people trying to fight ad blockers, my issue is when they try to paint it as anything more than wanting something they act like is absolute poison for less than it costs to make. It’s like I give you a bite of my sandwich and you decide to lick the whole thing because “I can consume it how ever I want”. Sure you can, and I willingly gave you the sandwich, but I’m not going to be able to give you bites of my sandwich if you insist on licking them and leaving them unpalatable for me. If you really don’t like my sandwich why not refuse my offer and show me that the sandwich is flawed, not the conditions I’m offering you a bite under.

If anyone is wondering what greater harm comes from the advertising industry than just showing obnoxious images, it's this.

Consumers becoming so brain washed, so accepting of the advertising status quo that they actually defend it even though everything about it is against their personal interests.

> I don’t understand the entitlement

There is no entitlement, it's a right. I am exercising my right as the operator of this PC to connect to content providers and display their content however the fuck I want within the confines of the law. The law doesn't give them any right to extract revenue from me if I choose to opt out. If they have a problem with that, they have the right try to block me within the confines of the law. And I have the right to bypass that block within the confines of the law.

Let me put it another way. Your sentiment is way more pliant and ethical than the sentiment of the guys who run the ad industry. Your job history, drinking habits, sex habits, food preferences, mental health, personal aspirations, etc - all of this stuff is up for sale to anyone in the advertising circles. The only thing missing is your credit card number and name/address so it's not 'technically' PIA even though correlating all of it back to you is trivial and everyone knows it. I thought I was paranoid about ads, and then I landed a job in the ad industry and realized my worst paranoia was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what actually goes on.

Don't defend the guys who are fucking you, stand up for your rights.

I’d argue you’re pretty much just ignoring my larger points and nitpicking very specific excerpts and ignoring the context of them to make a point that’s not entirely new in the thread then appealing to emotion with what was supposed to be jarring commentary but just comes across as ranting. I mean you spent something like 70% if your commenting trying to dissect half of a sentence in my comment.

And, I don’t appreciate being called brainwashed... this is barely a step above ranting about sheeple.

You points about my profile I guess are supposed to be alarming but are not news to me. I’m fine with all of that being for sale. Correlating it back to a person is trivial... until you try and do it at scale and evaluate the risk vs reward. Risk is very very high and gets exponentially higher at scale, and reward is almost nonexistent until you do it at scale. And are guards that add enough friction to make it not worthwhile often.

Sure there are cracks in the system, but seeing as I can’t pay what the content I consume is worth, I accept the risk gladly.

I mean, you're using moralistic arguments to defend a clearly immoral market actor whose entire business model revolves around abusing lack of regulations to collect and sell consumer information without their knowledge or informed consent.

You're defending a business entity whose entire existence is against your personal interest. In market terms, you are not a rational actor maximizing self interest. If you're not brain washed, what are you?

Just like businesses would be irrational if they didn't use every legal tax 'loophole' to make sure they pay no tax, you are irrational if you don't use available legal avenues to get the content you want for the lowest price - in this case, viewing it with ad blockers. If that means content providers go out of business, that's okay. New ones will show up with new business models that are actually viable. The free market expects individuals to maximize their self-interest within the confines of the law. If you're not doing that, you're just harming yourself for no meaningful reason whatsoever.

Again you spend so many words to say so little to address the actual topic at hand and instead shift the topic. This time to... doubling down on saying I'm brainwashed?

Ok, I'm brainwashed, thanks.

I understand your points, people don't want to pay (enough) for content, so content provider have little choice. I'd say it's the content-provider responsibility to market its content in such a way that people are willing to pay for it. That's what all businesses do.

If they can't make it, then it's no excuse to resort to creepy stuff like tracking and profiling people without their consent, or with them ignoring the extent or implications of it. It's nothing short of abusing people, and it being the last card not to get out of business is hardly an excuse.

You made a free mall analogy in another comment: if businesses can't run free mall without abusing customers, then don't run free malls; it's not like people always expected free malls, it's just that some companies began to offer products/content cheaper and cheaper, and now they hit rock-bottom. Whose fault is it? The customer for asking, or the businesses to enter a race to the bottom, and then going full unethical?

Again, I get your points, but don't track me, my friends or my family.

I thinks we need to remember the context of this conversation, I’m not against blocking tracking and not wanting to be tracked. I’m just against blocking ads then saying it’s taking the moral high ground and vilifying content creators who offer ads. I’m not even against blocking ads period, so long as we’re accepting the fact that it’s for personal benefit and definitely not “sticking it to the man”

The problem is we don’t have a protocol for signaling that they want to track you before you load the content and its tracking.

So you get the content, the tracking code, and detection for anti-ad/tracking plugins.

If they detect anti-ad plugins they say “We did give you the content, but we see you don’t have the form of payment we want so please don’t view it”

At that point, to me, neither side has done anything wrong. Would it be preferable if they could give you the “please don’t view it” message upfront? Definitely. But instead they let you opt out.

Once you decide to modify the paywall away and view the content you still haven’t done anything wrong but you’re saying “I want to view content paid for by showing people ads that was also designed to drive ad engagement but I don’t deserve to have to view ads so I’ll ignore your paywall since it’s my computer and you let me have the content” ... which is fine. And also won’t solve the actual underlying problem. Instead we just get an arms race of ad-block vs anti-ad-block (which anti will lose) and content creators hoping ad-blocking doesn’t reach critical mass.

The alternative is to turn down the content by going away. That sends the message that you won’t support the model. Bonus points if you pay someone willing to take your money in exchange for not tracking you since the most effective way to disrupt the market right now is to fund those trying to break out of the current model.

> At that point, to me, neither side has done anything wrong.

Well, tracking my mother who doesn't know enough about ad-blockers or the implications of being tracked is already wrong, to me. Collecting detailed personal information on people for commercial purposes should be strictly regulated, at the very least when it's done automatically.

> That sends the message that you won’t support the model.

We should send the most effective and unambiguous kind of messages: I like that content, but not the ad/tracking that you put on your site. That's much clearer than not visiting the site altogether (they might think they just have to change their content, or their marketing or sth). Some media are not fully aware of the crap they run, because it's run by a third-party, and the decision was made by another department etc. I don't necessarily want to send a bad signal to everyone there.

> vilifying content creators who offer ads

Not the OP, but the "brainwashed" angle applies to more than just ads.

Anyone with a Gmail account is effectively selling my communication with them to Google for a free service. And you bet that when told about this very few would see it that way. Consumers _are_ as guillable as they are ignorant. These new "established" online norms - be it tracking, profiling, ads, what have you - would've never flown in their physical form, but here we are in a world where Gmail, WhatsApp, Android phones, Google Analytics, etc. are considered gold standards of modern tech.

No sane person, if explained the exact ramifications of these "free services", would've agreed to any of them just 15 years ago. But they do now, giddily at that. Pray tell how this is anything but a brainwashing.

I wonder if this guy will look at this topic and all the counter arguments and downvotes and actually stop and ask himself if maybe its possible he is a bit brainwashed.

Half the comments are yours and aren’t counter arguments at all.

And all the downvotes just tell me people aren’t confident enough in their counter arguements to let them stand against a comment that isn’t intentionally de-emphasized.

And the fact you think I’d change my mind over downvotes, even in part, tells me something about you.

The answer to your question is: Because of hyperlinks (ie, the way the web works), it's not practical to tell people "hey, you clicked on the link, you agreed to pay them via advertising". A publicly accessible page is like a public space in that way.

If a company doesn't want to offer free access to content that costs them money to produce, they can create a login system and a paywall.

Which question?

If the one in the comments several levels up from this one, isn't this just a variation of the HTTP Status Code 200 argument? (which I explain why I don't support in other comments)

They can also implement ad block detection. Not every site is going to implement a paywall, they should have the option of business model and ad supported is a valid choice though I do hope more variety comes along to more sites.

I think it's a bit more nuanced than that and ultimately comes down to a lack of regulation of what third party advertisement companies should be allowed to do without full disclosure.

It is reasonable to expect a free lemonade stand to print ads on the cups and have sales people around trying to initiate conversations with you while you consume your free beverage. Peeling off the ads and yelling at the sales people would make you an entitled hypocrite. However, if the same sales people would also secretly take a creep photo of you, write down your preference of lemonade and take note of your clothing and body type and compile all of it into a personal file on you to be sold and shared with other businesses in the whole world? Wouldn't you start to question whether they take a bit too much in exchange of that free lemonade?

I would accept it if they wrote the conditions on a sign before entering, but that is not how most free sites today operate. The fact that the tracking is completely automated somehow makes it seem less intrusive to many people, but it is just as creepy as someone spying on you in person.

I agree that sites should be more direct with what they're tracking, and would support regulation around that, but this thread is really about people claiming they're fully aware of what is being tracked and just don't want it to be tracked.

I think your analogy makes it easy to see why people support it if you take it a little further.

For free lemonade? A layperson would say of "Of course that's too far!". But now imagine a mall where everything is free. Everything. Suddenly laypeople start asking "Well can they at least tell me they're taking the picture?", "Can they write down the answers after I checkout instead of holding up the lines to do that?"

I think we need to sit down and seriously evaluate what content is worth. I feel like we reached our current predicament because people just seriously undervalue content, and advertising became the last bastion of value generation. It's similar to how IAP became the only smart way to generate revenue since people feel 5$ for a solid app with indefinite support is just too much. yet IAP ends up being a lot more intrusive than upfront payment.

Right, I agree that it is a bit hypocritical to use a free site on a regular basis with ad-blocking enabled if you have full knowledge about its advertisement and tracking practices, and you know that their business model depends on it.

I think you are right that the problem comes down to valuing personal data and content. How many $ is your data worth to e.g. Google vs. how many $ would you need to get paid in order to give up your privacy? There is probably a discrepancy here, which is why people are getting mad.

I like some content. I am willing to pay ten times[0] the revenue ads would generate, potentially more, to see the content without ads. I want to pay for only the content I read, and not a monthly sum. Why am I unable to pay, and what incentives would change the system so that I can pay, other than using an ad blocker?

[0] Say a website has a CPM of $5 and displays 10 ads to each user, such that a single impression from a user without an ad blocker earns 5c. 50c is entirely reasonable, particularly if a user can refund clickbait.

>what incentives would change the system so that I can pay, other than using an ad blocker?

That's really simple, more people need to be willing to pay.

I mean, I say in other parts of the page that I can't pay what the content is worth, but I'm actually not sure that's true for myself. But it is true for the general public.

And it's not they can't because they can't afford it, but rather, they don't want to. So we can make it easier to pay, for example. We can try and explain what advertising is doing. But in the end, I don't see a change happening.

People just seriously undervalue content.

People won't pay 99 cents for an app, so the market switched to IAP and suddenly people were gladly be nickled and dimed for more than 99 cents with intrusive applications designed from the ground up to drive IAP.

It's not like content generators wouldn't rather just take your money. I'm sure they don't love the hoops they have to jump through (it cost money to implement those ads too) to get inconsistent ad revenue that is often not very transparent and rife with pitfalls.

But until enough people to at least cover the cost of content are willing to pay, we'll see ads be king.

I think it's not about monetary cost, but about attention. If you had an opt-out payment model where users are automatically charged a capped amount that they can later refund, or even a paywall with a "Pay with Ads-B-Gone" button, users would accept much more readily.

Or maybe an emotional approach like the Guardian or Patreon would work better.

The point here, though, is that you can both like the content and want to support the creator yet choose to block ads.

I’m not trying to imply blocking ads means you don’t want to support the creator.

But if the creator only offers ads as a method of payment and you consume their content while blocking their ads, regardless of what you want to do, you aren’t paying them for their content.

At that point your options are to continue consuming the content (and preferably not post comments vilifying the content creator driven to using ads like the original comment I responded to above does, which I take exception to) or to not consume the content, signaling to the content creator that something isn’t working about their ad-based model.

The problem is I don't read 50 articles on 1 news site. I read 1 article each on 50 different news sites, linked by aggregators like HN.

Am i expected to pay to 50 different sites? That quickly becomes unmanageable.

Maybe something like radio stations have is required for the internet. Where the artists get paid based on how often a radio station plays their song.

While there are solutions we could build in the future like the one you describe, today the answer is pretty simple if you’re really against the current ad-supported model...

You’re expected to find some number of sites X that let you pay to access ad-free content that total to an amount you find palatable and limit yourself to those.

It’s not trivial, and it’s inconvenient. The sites like that are relatively few and far between.

But it means you’re making a sacrifice to support sites that are trying to break out of the model that you don’t support.

If enough people do that, the incentive forms to make paying for content upfront and ad-free and suddenly the market will solve the problem of 50 sites wanting payment, be it through easier payment mechanisms or “share cropping”

People won't pay 99 cents for an app because it's nearly impossible to evaluate it's quality from the beginning.

The problem doesn’t go away for other types of content and that reasoning is often repeated but not supported by other markets.

There are apps that had thousands of downloads and great reviews that failed because of peoples in unwillingness to pay for them.

How will you know you’re going to like a news story before you pay to read it?

The metrics you have are the same as any other type of content, word of mouth, reviews, past performance of the content creator.

People will spend 10$ on a movie ticket when critics and reviewers are split on if it’s a good movie. They’ll spend 20$ to try a new dish they might not like on the recommendation of a single person, even an impartial waiter. But they don’t value apps so they don’t pay for them. People will go to app developers with their brilliant idea and act shocked when they get a 5 figure estimate because they figure app development is a dime a dozen.

Likewise I doubt many people appreciate the true cost of the content they consume.

The sandwich analogy doesn't really hold up.

Well it's a complex subject that can't really be boiled down to analogies and idioms as much as people like to act like it is. The analogy is only meant to give a slight glimpse at the direction the entire rest of the comment is going for, not explain the current market.

>If you really hate them so much (I mean, you’re fine with them going out of business so at least, you don’t love them or rely on them) why even make the request?

Because you like the content?

If it's genuinely decent content it should encourage the middleman who owns the delivery system to look for more honest and up front sources of income. If it's crap, bottom feeder content then it's no great loss if adblockers drive it out of business is it?

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