But this isn't the fucking model.
The model is: We created compelling content that draws lots of views, and companies will pay us to plaster their name/products on it.
There is literally zero contract with the person being shown the ads at all. They can do as they please.
If companies don't like that... move to a different model - stop showing your stuff for free.
A better analogue for your description is something like the Guardian website, where you don't have to pay for it, but it does require a certain number of people to volunteer to subscribe for it to work.
Another different model is paywalls, which you may be correct in saying will pop up increasingly as use of ad blockers decreases ad revenue sufficiently.
Isn't that a worthy goal? After all, if the "system" stops working, it's not as if the internet will go away, or the worthwhile sites will disappear.
The "system" is a parasitic drain on the users. If it went away, the internet will still be there, as will the users.
You're talking about something else.
what if that model was a contract to the viewer, wherein the viewer agrees to see all adverts? Currently this contract is assumed, or implied, but not enforced. What if it changes in the future?
For example, youtube could require that you have a webcam, and run a trusted-computing-module DRM code which forces your webcam to be on and recording your face to view their videos?
I propose a mandatory integration with Alexa devices. Whenever the DRM module detects the consumer failing to fulfil the contractually required viewing quota, the Alexa device will be notified to emit loudly the message “Resume viewing!”. Furthermore, if available, it will cause the Hue lights to turn red and flash in order to amplify the gravity and importance of the message.
In addition to the mandatory Alexa integration, I believe it is paramount advertisers be allowed to enforce contractual viewing quotas in order to prevent financial losses. To that end, failure to resume viewing within 30 seconds should result in immediate freezing of bank accounts, immediate blocking of the self driving car from working and immediate locking of the house smart lock - To prevent the consumer from escaping the contractually enforced duties.
One more idea I can add is this. It is unfair for the advertisers to incur loss and costs due to non compliant consumers. In order to rectify these losses, interest in the form of viewing time should be applied to time spent not watching adverts. A standard 12.5% time interest should suffice. For example, a consumer failing to resume watching for 10 minutes should have 1 minute and 15 seconds added to the viewing quota.
There is no contract; it's an open market and they are competing for my attention.
There is no contract assumed, there is no contract implied, thus there is nothing to enforce.
> but not enforced. What if it changes in the future?
You make it sound like they didn't try. All those sites that attempted to "enforce"[1] this fictional contract you are referring to are not longer in existence, because there was no contract so the "enforcement" was merely user-abuse.
[1] Lots of sites did their best to undermine adblockers, going so far as to disable the site if an adblocker was detected. Those sites no longer exist.
lots of sites that stop adblockers still exist - your sampling is probably biased if you don't see it.
> You make it sound like they didn't try.
Recently (or about a yr ago, cannot recall any more) twitch.tv stopped allowing adblockers from blocking their ad feeds in to the stream. It's an expensive method (injecting ad video stream into the livestream data - you cannot directly ignore the ad; at best you can blank it out and wait for the 30 seconds).
Youtube didn't try. Youtube probably considers adblocking a small issue atm (just my guess), and likely a lot of views come from the mobile app, which is much harder to block ads on. Twitch is trying, and is pretty successful. It wouldn't surprise me that the method twitch uses might work elsewhere too.
No, it's not. Except perhaps by ad companies, but one side assuming a contract does not a contract make.
> youtube could require that you have a webcam, and run a trusted-computing-module DRM code which forces your webcam to be on and recording your face to view their videos?
Then I wouldn't watch YouTube anymore -- that's far too much to pay for something like YouTube.
> youtube could require that you have a webcam
That would be the end of Youtube. But I'm pretty sure someone will write a plugin to work around that piece of dystopian hell.
Nor to your Internet bandwidth which you pay for and which on some providers is a (artificially) limited "resource" they'll charge you extra for if you use "too much" of it (unless they're like NetZero back in the day, delivering you free Internet in trade for forced adverts)… Nor to potentially compromise the security of your network (as has happened in the past due to some "shady" advertising networks delivering malware)… Nor to interfere with paid content (as happens on some streaming services which still show ads despite you paying to view the content).
Maybe unrelated, but I always think of this when I pay for a ticket and go to the cinema, so I can watch fifteen minutes of trailers and commercials before the actual movie begins.
If the content is paid for by adverts, then of course I am not contributing to that payment. Because I am not an advertising company, so by your own logic I didn't pay for the content. What's the problem?
Just because you don’t directly pay for something doesn’t mean you don’t do so indirectly. For example, Facebook makes almost all their revenue from ads, but advertisers won’t pay them if users don’t visit. So by visiting Facebook (if you do), you’re keeping them afloat.
I don't get paid for 99.9% of the ads that infest my daily life. I get no say in it at all. There is no off switch. There is no block. There is no avoiding it. The logos are everywhere. The posters. The visual and audible noise. Advertising has infested my childhood memories FFS. I can recite more goddamn jingles from when I was under 10 than I can remember my friends and classmates names. I got no say in it then and none now.
The idea that it is unethical to block when having punches thrown at you as we are is just so incredibly ridiculous it's hard to see it other than facebrick google paid propaganda that you've taken to heart somehow. Bit tobacco sponsor your nation's culture so it's unethical not to smoke a pack a day at least.
But sure google and facebook are super-duper-ethical so doing an endrun around some part of their business plan (a tiny part of what they're selling of you) is so much worse than their endrun around the GPL license by distributing access to the software but not the actual binaries. Legally fine, ethically, well they don't have a problem with it, should we?
Meanwhile those writing, creating, and having their work infested with ads aren't getting rich like Larry, Sergei & Mark, are they? Stick up for those who have made more money screwing the public and the commons than their great grandchildren can possibly ever spend because if they don't get their money it's unethical due to argument they refute with ever fiber of their being and a bajillion bucks in PR.
I tend libertarian adjacent but this stuff makes as communist sympathetic as I'm ever likely to be.
As I say, it doesn't need to be ethical.
On your comment: of course, no one is throwing punches at you. It's just advertising. You don't have to go to the website that has it on.
Advertising is designed to make you feel shit (inadequate) and does it so effectively people kill themselves with anorexia over it to cite but one example.
It's like a prostitute saying their pimp doesn't /really/ hurt them when they get a beating.
Your other option is not to just "not go to _the_ website" because you have no choice other than to unplug and live in a cave. Defending yourself and your family as best you can from the onslaught isn't just ethical it's actually a duty to your family and fellow humans. Do it. Any way you can manage. Every way.