If someone wants to feed ads into that content, that's their right. If I want to change the way that content displays, that's my right.
I don't think they were saying there was a legal agreement, just a moral and social one.
It's like taking all the eggs from an honesty box outside someone's house - you didn't sign anything saying you wouldn't, but it's pretty clear you're in the wrong.
Yes the understanding isn't legally enforced, but socially that's what they're expecting.
Since you know that's what they're expecting (unless you're an idiot), the more moral thing to do is to respect that and not engage with them if you don't agree, rather than continuing to take while knowing that it's not what they wanted.
If you think the current state of online advertising as a business model is actively immoral, as I do, then I'd argue violating that expectation is at least morally neutral if not actually the moral thing to do.
Why not avoid the businesses instead?
I don't think these replies are the clever 'gotchas' that you think they are.
Websites with ads are funded by the expectation that some will click through, make a purchase, and justify the free distribution of those bits.
If you eat samples with no intent of making a purchase, you are subverting FoodCo's expectation that samples will lead to sales. You are making their business model unsustainable.
Why do you think the free taking of bits (which cost much less to serve, and is much less tangible) is less justified than the free taking of food samples? In both cases it subverts the business model expectations of the party offering the free stuff.
I think individuals are not obligated to support the business models of companies that give them free stuff in hopes it will make them money - so have no moral concerns with either case.
> By your own logic, ...
And didn't explain why OP is being hypocritical with their arguments. It seems you are misunderstanding their position.
I personally don't find ad-supported content objectionable. But it's still my browser running on my computer and I'll do what I like with it.
Well yeah that's how society works.
Unless you want written code for all social interactions? Most don't.
Is it that I'm only in an implicit social contract with the person serving the content I want? Then it would be morally fine for me to block ads as long as I trick advertisers into thinking I didn't- the host only cares about whether they get paid. And what about on YouTube or Instagram, where the advertiser is the host? Google expects me to view their ads, not just render them, and I'm definitely in a social contract with them.
Or is it that they are allowed to stake a moral claim on the content of my browser, but not on my attention? Then I'd be allowed to block full-screen ads that force me to find an X, or autoplaying ads with sound, as they are forcing me to give them something they have no right to. And if I had an attention deficit disorder or a shopping addiction, all ads would be in that category. Even without such things, every ad accesses my attention without my consent, even if it's just the attention required to ignore them.
Morals are not defined by capitulating to the wishes of others. If it was, the moral thing for advertisers to do would be to not try to show people ads who don’t wish to view them but do wish to consume content. Your argument here falls apart the second you consider any symmetry.
Furthermore, there are decades of history of advertisers being perfectly aware that most people would prefer not to see the ads, given a choice. They do not, in fact, expect people to just watch the ads. As evidence of this fact, they have come up with dozens and dozens of legal and technical mechanisms to force people to view their ads despite their preferences.
Respecting, not capitulating.
> If it was, the moral thing for advertisers to do would be to not try to show people ads who don’t wish to view them but do wish to consume content.
No, if the website and user don't have a common understanding, then both can go separate ways.
> perfectly aware that most people would prefer not to see the ads, given a choice
And I'd prefer not to pay the bill in a restaurant, but that's not the expectation.
> they have come up with dozens and dozens of legal and technical mechanisms to force people to view their ads
And restaurants come up with legal and technical mechanisms to make me pay the bill.
Restaurants are a false analogy. There is an explicit agreement known in advance by both parties, a legal contract with a restaurant when you order, and leaving without paying is a crime. There is no such expectation with ads.
This is cringey and goofy. It’s not a moral issue, you’re really stretching. Even if it was a moral issue, the global known public expectation of ads is that they’re sometimes tolerated and on the whole not preferred. You’re choosing to prioritize the viewpoint of advertisers over respecting the wishes of the public, while if you look at it from the public’s perspective, ads have never been the “moral” choice.
Your argument, of course, is also wearing blinders to the many ways that ads can be actually immoral, for example as a soft bait-and-switch, by offering one thing to entice while delivering something else with an agenda, and the ways ads are often directly immoral by using misleading or untrue information, selling goods and services that are overall harmful to the public, from excessive sugar to payday loans to expensive pharmaceuticals to politics.
There's a reasonable argument to be made that the first request is a gimme. As soon as you see that there are ads being blocked, however, the moral thing to do would be to close the browser and go elsewhere.
> As soon as you see that there are ads being blocked, however, the moral thing to do would be to close the browser and go elsewhere.
False, because that’s not the actual public expectation today. The common expectation that would define what is moral in this situation is that blocking is reasonable because ads are intrusive and annoying and often get in the way of the reason I’m on the site. I’d be fine with saying it’s “nice” and it’s “supporting” the site to not block the ad, but hard disagree that blocking is immoral, that’s just hyperbole.
That’s not really the advertiser’s wish either, they don’t want the result to be less traffic, they just want you to watch the ad. So your suggestion isn’t actually respecting their wishes.
I think they are - it's moral to respect other people's reasonable wishes, or not interact with them if you're not able to respect them.
If I know someone expects that I'll bring a bottle of wine to their party, I should either do that, or I should decline to come to the party. If I know that's what they were expecting and I turn up empty handed and eat all their party food then I'm just a bad person even if no laws were broken.
'Nah nah nah no laws broken, agreement was never written down, no money changed hands' isn't a kind way to interact with people.
No I wouldn't agree with that. I think it's moral to show adverts, but not to be subversive about it, and I think it's moral to offer a way to turn them off such as paid plans, which I often use.
Err that's exactly what my comment was about. I was sharing my opinion on what I think is moral. If you don't want to hear my opinion on it why are you reading the thread?
I'm not threatening to codify this into law and enforce it on others if that's what you were worried about lol!
The ultimate purpose of ads is getting money from us, why can't we have a say about how the request is presented to us? Ads are not a privilege or a right, they're beggars posted at every corner of the Internet.
Yeah by not visiting sites with bad adverts.
By not consuming intrusive ads, and by not buying products promoted with unethical practices.
You can't possibly defend the current state of private spying and surveillance, it's dystopian. The data collected is sold (directly or indirectly) to bad actors, and is ripe for abuse. You can't just say "deal with it or GTFO", ad blocking is the only recourse we as consumers have to voice our opinion.
It's not - you can prefer paid services over advertising-supported services. Buy a physical magazine rather than a digital subscription. Etc.
But a website could cover the marginal cost of serving me content with simple image adverts, sponsored content, donation mechanism, subscription or otherwise. They may decide that having X% of viewers block ads is a ‘cost of business’ and is worth it to increase viewership.
Modelling the situation as ‘honest’ to accept ads and ‘dishonest’ to block them may undermine the chosen business model of the site, and not visiting again models the monetisation strategy as static, which it is not.
HN lets you see who wrote a comment - it says above each one.
> If that’s not putting moral and social burden onto tracking blockers, I don’t know what is.
I mean you don't have a burden to visit their website if you don't want to. If it was a government organisation then yes.
But they don't, they let me in despite me being very clear that I am entering on the condition that they don't track me, so here we are. They don't get to pull the surprised-face card when I then proceed to not let them track me.
Adjacent to that, I think a "I'm not going to display your ads" or bluntly "don't show me ads" header would make perfect sense and yet I'm quite sure that webmasters would treat it the exact same way that they've treated do-not-track.
"Akshually there's no law saying I need to behave morally" feels like an adroit sidestepping of the problems here.
And if we really want to speak about morals there is an unacknowledged moral issue here in that most websites using ads are hooked up to someone else's ad network and do not vet them for accuracy or safety. The website owner has seemingly no responsibility for the portal they opened to shove someone else's content into my face.
Until such time I can demand payment for damages when that negligently opened portal serves the latest zero day or scams my family or employees and tracks me all over the web while violating my privacy, I am forced to conclude the average webmaster wants the benefit without the responsibility. And with that, the blocker stays on, with a clear conscience and an eye to safety. Your business model that demands I sacrifice safety and privacy so you can make a few pennies is not my fucking problem.
First party ads are an entire different issue and do not have any of these concerns. They are also very rare.
Tip to ad companies, don't turn the displays 90 degrees, they are meant to be used in landscape mode for a reason...
Please define these morals explicitly so we know what it is we have to do instead of just berating people for arbitrary violations.
Or more aptly, switching and/or muting the tab when an ad comes on a Twitch stream.
The parts I choose not to download are designed to psychologically manipulate me into buying something I likely don't want, they run code on my system I don't care for them to run, and they grab what data they can in order to profile me. I don't feel like I'm the one that should be feeling shame here.
If the advertising companies showed any kind of restraint and respect, maybe I'd feel differently. From what I've seen, it's been getting progressively worse since the "punch the monkey" days of the web.
If the person or entity hosting the content can't support the creation and hosting of their website without trying to manipulate me and track me and without opening my system up to potential malware, then good riddance, I guess. If all they did was show ads as text or static images without any of the tracking nonsense (basically the old print magazine or newspaper model), then I wouldn't care that much. But they don't, so I do.
Nope. Find another business model or go bankrupt. If you send me ads, I'll delete them. No exceptions. I don't have to justify myself either, "I don't want to see ads" is more than a good enough reason.
If there was a moral ad network, I might take pause, but the industry has leaned into the rottenness and embraced creepy surveillance and thought manipulation.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
– Banksy