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Comment by jmiskovic | Hacker News Reader

Happy user for several years now. I prefer this over other more popular blockers because Privacy Badger doesn't directly go after ads. It just blocks the tracking aspect; which in 99% cases of today's web advertising also prevents the ad from showing up.

In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden. The exception is if the site owner keeps the lights on by incorporating non-tracking advertising, it would feel scummy to block off their ads and just take the good content. On the other hand tracking users is an active hostile move and blocking it is the right choice. At least that's my reasoning for choosing Privacy Badger.

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Same here. I use it for anti-tracking, and uBlock Origin for primary ads, and PiHole for anything that slips through those two.

Ads are a plague. They waste screen space, they're often virus-laden traps, they look ugly and ruin the look of a good website, they're often scams, etc.

I pay for the the internet service that sends the ads to me, the screen the ads show up on, the computer that requests the ads and the electricity that powers the computer.

I am not paying for all that just to get ads shoved in my face. If they want donations or a subscription, fine. Understandable. But no ads.

I'm totally fine with ads as long as they aren't intrusive (pop-ups are the worst). Sites should be able to finance themselves without requiring a subscription, since it allows access to those with less financial means. I just don't want them to track what I do on the internet and as long as they do, I'll block all of them.

Yes and: I'm mostly okay with (non-obtrusive) contextual ads. Behavioral targeting is immoral, cannot be redeemed, and should be illegal.

> it would feel scummy to block off their ads and just take the good content

Nothing is scummier than web site owners thinking they are entitled to our attention, to say nothing of selling it to the highest bidder without our consent.

There is zero obligation on our part to pay attention to ads. Zero. There is absolutely no shame in not wanting to be subjected to such noise. They'd very much enjoy it if we paid attention but they aren't entitled to make a single cent off of us without our consent.

> In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden.

I agree.

> The exception is if the site owner keeps the lights on by incorporating non-tracking advertising, it would feel scummy to block off their ads and just take the good content.

I disagree - if content cannot survive without advertisement, then we're better off without it anyway. Non-tracking advertising is less bad than advertising, but it's still intrusive and not-called-for, just like all advertising.

You mean if the content does not cater to people who are well-off enough to pay for it with money?

There are many people who simply don't have the financial means to support all the content they like. Does that content not deserve to exist? Should quality internet content really be a class question?

No, I'm just saying if it's important, someone will want to preserve it, and it will survive. If nobody does, then it's not important.

That's a very specific definition of important.

Thought experiment: what about a free website that shows people where their nearest food bank is?

they can appeal for grants and funds as a non-profit to keep it running. why does such a website need to make a profit?

I wasn't suggesting that they need to make a profit, just enough to pay for hosting and maintenance time.

This is a really disingenuous argument that can justify all sorts of ridiculous stuff, the least of which would be the predatory and toxic mobile game industry

Im pretty sure predatory and toxic mobile game industry would fall under the same (or worse) categorization as ads, so would fall under the same logic of "if you cant afford to run your website without doing something unethical, then your website doesnt deserve to run"

Amen to that. The toxic casino games have choked out 99.99% of the actual games, and that model is now spreading out to other platforms like a cancer.

Back to ads, it sounds like living in a corporate dystopian nightmare where your every move is tracked and you're constantly manipulated is somehow the "woke" option in this discussion. Great.

I could easily host a local Facebook-esque site for a hundred friends and family for less than $10 a month. I wouldn't need all their apps and every website they use to participate in a spy network to make it work, either.

> if content cannot survive without advertisement

Goodbye, niche knowledge sites, I suppose

Goodbye, 99.9% of content we all regularly read.

Speak for yourself.

Do it. I dare you. You won't take your site offline, nobody else will either.

Niche knowledge sites don't use a lot of bandwidth, and in a lot of cases can easily survive on the donations of niche knowledge fanatics (especially after the rise of patreon and substack.) The real niche knowledge sites who can't survive without advertisement are trade magazines, and if the ads are specific to the niche (rather than generic intrusive ad auction chum), their readers value the ads almost as much as they value the content.

Most niche sites I know are completely ad free. What are some that live off ads?

they don’t make enough off ads anyway

> I disagree - if content cannot survive without advertisement, then we're better off without it anyway.

So radio and TV should have never existed?

I think he meant advertising plus all the tracking that goes on.

the phrase I quoted is followed by:

> Non-tracking advertising is less bad than advertising, but it's still intrusive and not-called-for, just like all advertising.

So yeah, they are against all forms of ads

In the current form, yes.

s/So/& commercial/

There are noncommercial models for broadcast media, and the fact that some countries ended up with the vast wasteland[1] that is commercially-supported broadcast television and radio isn't an inevitability. It was made to happen, by commercial interests. It could well have been different in the US, and still is in numerous other regions.

See Robert W. McChesney's Telecommunications, mass media and democracy : the battle for control of U.S. broadcasting, 1928-35 (1995)

https://www.worldcat.org/title/telecommunications-mass-media...

https://archive.org/details/telecommunicatio00mcch

https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=05E6FC47CE851CB143F1DD4...

________________________________

Notes:

1. FCC Commissioner Newton Minnow, 1961

https://vimeo.com/55481067

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-min...

I mean, this is not a well thought out idea.

Google wouldn't exist if it couldn't support itself.

Neither would 99.99% of websites available.

Think of how many sites, are available just because they can cover their costs by putting adds on their site.

Think of how many of those sites are absolutely worthless vehicles who are really only available for the purposes of displaying ads.

In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden.

You don't even have to go that far. They're attempted fraud. They are by and large lies intended to trick you into giving someone money.

Ads in general? Or specifically online ads? Or specifically online ads that use cookie tracking?

imo ads - online or offline - are fine, but the internet has enabled advertisers to use so many shady tricks to milk more data (and money) out of consumers.

I’m completely desensitized to ads and know people who won’t click on ads at all. I wonder how effective ads are then.

Many ads simply generate awareness:

"Need a plumber in $TOWN? Call $TOWN Plumbers at 555-1212."

Others simply advocate for a cause:

"Vote Yes on $TOWN Proposition #4!"

Ads like those above do add cognitive burden, but they can provide utility to a community and are demonstrably neither fraud nor lies.

I understand you made your point in good faith and I appreciate that you made me think about the difference between GP "lie" and "creating awareness".

Nevertheless, I believe that giving the awareness part a free pass, can be a slippery slope. I didn't want to think about plumbing or the Proposition 4 or plastic surgery. So unless I search for either of those two I feel it's an intrusion to force those thoughts on me.

The "lie" is the unstated implication that doing these things the ads recommend will serve your own interests, and not just the interests of the advertisers.

"Creating awareness" would be handing out unsolicited facts with a neutral point of view. Most ads are more in the nature of unsolicited and manipulative advice from someone who does not have your best interest in mind.

Exactly. Most advertising is at least as malicious as someone walking up to you and saying "give me five dollars."

> I prefer this over other more popular blockers because Privacy Badger doesn't directly go after ads. It just blocks the tracking aspect

This is the exact reason why I use DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials instead of an ad-blocker. Whenever I mention that I don’t block ads out of principle, I get down-voted a lot :-D

I think we really shouldn't feel guilty instructing our user agents to do as we please. They were meant to act on our behalf, that's their purpose!

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