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Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

So it's OK to take the product of a business if you don't like their business model? Why not just avoid visiting the sites you find so distasteful?

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What contract did I sign agreeing to let ad companies access my eyeballs, let alone surveil me, in exchange for looking at a webpage? If they want to block me, they’re welcome to (or at least welcome to try), but I will cry zero tears over their lost spying opportunities.

Yeah, I kinda feel it is all fair. I am just sending some request for data over the internet to you. You are free to return whatever you want to me, including ads and code to try and track me.

At the same time, I am allowed to block that code and not display those ads.

We aren't entering into any contract when I ask for some bits over a wire. We both can do what we want.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150106051404/http://www.ycombin...

  Terms of Use
  When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page.

Unfortunately the terms have now changed.

When you order food at a restaurant, there's no contract either. Just an implicit understanding by the restaurant owner and society that you'll pay at the end.

No, it is a contract. There are prices on the menu, and you are agreeing to that price when you ask for the item. Not all contracts need to be signed, but they have to be somehow agreed to.

Every website you visit has TOS. Facebook in particular has extremely clear TOS, written in plain English, that everyone consents to. In Europe, most websites explicitly ask for consent now. Doesn't seem very different to me.

And all of those sites track you before you've even had a chance to see their terms.

Facebook infamously tracked people who'd never had Facebook accounts (and therefore had never agreed to Facebook's ToS), and now claims not to, but who knows?

They can take my use of ad and script blocking as implicit rejection of the terms of their contract, and they’re free to deny me service. If they don’t, I’m not obliged to do it for them.

As I understand it contracts fall under law, TOS fall under nothing except maybe getting kicked off the platform.

no need to accept those.

When somebody walks out of a restaurant without paying, the restaurant is free to call the cops. I therefore invite all website operators to call 911 when I use an adblocker!

So the only reason you pay at restaurants is to not break the law?

I also pay at restaurants because I want to. I don't watch ads because I don't want to. When I was a kid my family would flip through magazines and violently tear out the ads before bothering to sit down and read the articles. When watching television we would change the channel or mute the audio during commercial breaks on television (I don't even bother to download television shows with the advertisements edited out, because I've found product placement to be rampant.) Without calling for state violence to enforce your will on me, you will never stop me.

You seem to have a very dim view of me because I refuse to willingly subject myself to advertisements. Let me assure you, this feeling is mutual. I look down on people who choose to submit themselves to corporate propaganda. Sometimes when I'm visiting people I see them watch television and they stare at the commercials with rapt attention; it disgusts me.

Why else would you?

Appreciation of food service workers in particular, and/or a desire to see local businesses thrive. (Neither of which would ever motivate me to subject myself to advertisements.)

Sure, sensible. In the case of the ad industry, I don't appreciate the people who work there in particular, and I have a desire to see those businesses driven from the face of the Earth.

You and I are on the same page here.

There’s probably an implied contract there.

Because businesses conform to customer wants/needs, not vice-versa.

Customer: "I want a hamburger for free. Give it to me for free or I'll just take it and walk away without paying anyway."

Business: "No. It's $2. Please pay for the burger"

Customer: "Why aren't you conforming to my needs?!"

Well, at least it's not a car comparison.

I prefer a classic slashdot car comparison. They don't make me hungry.

There's a difference here - the transaction of physical goods. There's also a big difference between, "You offered me a burger, you have signs saying I could get burgers here, and there are large groups that index you as the best burger." "That was last week. Now you don't get to know about the burger until you pay $2."

On a developer forum devoted to software companies, the main argument is that physical products are by nature more valuable than non-physical products. (As opposed to the argument that non-physical products are easier to take and use without permission, regardless of effort put into it or value extracted).

Yes, that is a primary argument. Information exists and is meant to be free. None of the "software companies" would exist without free access to data. I support public libraries over media retailers 100% of the time, as well.

On top of that, I own my computer. I am responsible for the data which is transferred to my computer. I should have a fully-accessible offline copy of any and all data which is transferred to my computer, and not one bit of data should ever be transferred from my computer without my express consent.

Adblocking comes to be a multifaceted statement. It is anticorporatism, it is privacy advocacy, and it is a declaration of data ownership & responsibility. And for some people, it's accessibility layered on top of one or more of those.

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