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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Personally I think he dilemma is justified, just because I use an ad blocker doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it on principal.

However like you said, the problem is not the ads themselves it is the tracking that comes along for the ride.

There isn't any inherent reason that ads have to be so privacy invasive (I guess it is hard to not have ads at least log your requests when they go to a different server but that alone is normal I guess).

It is unfortunate that is seems the ship has sailed on actually privacy focused ads and instead of being tailored to the user they are just tailored to the content on the page/video/whatever. I would allow those ads if they existed.

It sucks since I do think ads are important, website operators need some way to make money and it is clear that most people are not going to pay for the things they have grown accustom to getting for free. But the current solution is so privacy invasive that you have to block it.

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> However like you said, the problem is not the ads themselves it is the tracking that comes along for the ride.

Not only tracking, ads can carry malware and viruses from malicious sites. They also can bog down the browser like Fandom wiki for example. Ads company are part of the problem since they don't screen them for malicious stuff.

I don't mind ads in general. I don't like it when they are in my face, lagging my mobile browser (Fandom wiki), demanding for notifications (redirector sites), autoplaying twitch stream (Fandom wiki), plastered the front page of search result (Google), and misleading games ads (mobile games).

I do have a few site that are whitelisted in uBlock because those site uses ads that are reasonable. Unfortunately, the rest of them are blocked because they can't keep it in moderation. I understand they need to make money to provides free contents, but that didn't mean they can use the ads like it is a wild wild West.

> Not only tracking, ads can carry malware and viruses from malicious sites. They also can bog down the browser like Fandom wiki for example. Ads company are part of the problem since they don't screen them for malicious stuff.

Very much this as well, I know that when I first started using ad blockers it was because of just how obnoxious the ads on IGN were.

Most mobile game ads, and similar ones are just insane.

I guess I should have been more clear that I am more thinking the old google Adsense like ads from 10 (more?) years ago that were just simple text or maybe an image. No popups, new tabs, annoying videos (YouTube I would give an exception since you are already watching a video), etc.

We have no moral obligation to be advertised to just as we have no moral obligation to be advertised to in order to consume content we didn't pay for.

> It sucks since I do think ads are important, website operators need some way to make money

They can sell physical goods and services, no one is preventing them from making money.

If you are going to quote me, maybe quote the entire line?

> and it is clear that most people are not going to pay for the things they have grown accustom to getting for free.

The unfortunate reality is that many people have been conditioned to get content for free. We can complain about it all we want but the vast majority of people are not going to suddenly going to start paying for something that was once free.

You're right nothing is stopping them from selling physical goods and services, but wether or not that actually turns into making money is another story.

I feel like if you are getting free content an ad is a fair tradeoff. IF that ad is not invading your privacy.

> the vast majority of people are not going to suddenly going to start paying for something that was once free.

Then they didn't really want it did they?

People used to run websites for non-monetary reasons, the ad model completely changes the landscape.

I don't know if that is really a strong argument, I feel like there are likely a lot of people that just simply couldn't afford to subscribe to all of the content that they get online.

It isn't reasonable to expect that you would pay every website when you go to it.

However if we are really going to make the argument that they didn't want it... well why are they going there? If they didn't want it, they would have never gone to it, they would have never seen the ads, and this entire conversation is moot.

I also don't really buy that websites were run for non-monetary reasons except in the very very early days of the internet. Running a website isn't free, sure you can easily enough stick some static content in S3 and it's dirt cheap to run. But it's still money that you are spending putting something out there. That is before even looking at the time you spent working on it.

you're not hearing me.

people used to build websites for reasons other than money, people would just be consuming different content.

> why are they going there?

because it's free.

> Running a website isn't free

Making money is not the only reason to spend money on something. That's the point.

so what you are saying is the only people that deserve to put content on the internet are those privileged enough to be able to afford to put it out for free while they pay to run the servers?

Or privileged enough to have the technical knowledge to be able to run it very cheaply?

Or have the privilege to spend the time making content with out any concern of finances? People that can chose to spend time making free content instead of needing to work another job or some other source of money.

I'm sorry but it is a fantastic ideal that people would just do things without any concern about making money but that isn't the world we live in. If I were to make content I would at least like to break even so I am not spending money for nothing.

Privilege is the word of the times, 10 years ago you would have couched it in different language and in 10 years it would be yet another set of wording.

Apparently it's a fantastic ideal that people will do things for motivations other than money. I'm going to suggest that if you believe that you either hang out with the wrong people, or people just don't like you.

> They can sell physical goods and services, no one is preventing them from making money.

Youtube does indeed offer a way to pay to not see ads. That you're still talking about blocking ads would imply that you're only theoretically in favor of Youtube selling services.

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