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Comment by throw_pm23 | Hacker News Reader

What about ads displayed on a busstop? Should I feel guilty for looking the other way? It subsidizes public transportation afterall..

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No and you should also not feel guilty for ignoring the ads on a YT video. Getting a chip implanted in your brain which filters out advertisements from your vision would be closer to installing an ad blocker in your browser; and I don't know how I would feel about companies denying free service to people with such chips implanted.

Not really a fair comparison. The equivalent to "looking the other way," on YouTube would be exactly that, looking somewhere other than the ad (opening another browser, going to the bathroom, etc.).

Ad Blockers are essential painting over the bus stop ad completely, so you don't even have a chance to see it.

Ad Blockers are special glasses that allow the wearer to see an empty area where the ad is supposed to be.

I believe people should be allowed to wear the glasses they want.

I agree. But services should also be able to require that you remove those types of glasses to use their service.

In that case, if you ride the bus for free, you see the ads or you don't ride the bus.

Blind people shouldn't be allowed to ride the bus then?

Blind people would be fine as they wouldn't be wearing the glasses. Being physically unable to see the ads and purposely hiding them, are two different things.

What about using AR glasses that recognize ads and paint them over? Is that also unfair? Should we ban such AR glasses in the future?

That’s not an appropriate analogy: advertisers know what they’re getting into and how much they pay isn’t contingent on forcing you to look.

If AR glasses become common, expect to see ad revenues decline even as ads become more annoying.

While the comparison is not 1:1 but the result is the same in the two cases. I don't see the ads, one of them I have more control on how effective I can prevent ads. Also in both cases I pay for the bus from my money so that I pay for the internet connection from my own money. The internet is built on free protocols and I can use it whatever I want.

Google does not pay TCP/IP..etc designers/operators a portion of theid ad revenue. Why would they feel entitled to the the internet infrastructure they don't pay for?

This all comes down to consent: someone who pays for a billboard knows that not everyone will look at it, people who create open source software or open standards know that other people will use their work to make money, etc.

The problem is that YouTube is not providing free video but rather ad-supported video. If you don’t like that, it’s like seeing someone else’s GPL code: your choice is take it on the terms offered, negotiate other terms, or don’t use it.

Someone who pays for a YouTube ad knows some people will block it. And advertisers do not value consent.

YouTube advertisers aren't affected by this - it's the content producers who aren't getting paid, and potentially even YouTube no longer making enough to pay for the resources you use. YouTube has an enormous library now but if people who make content start thinking of it as smaller and smaller payments they're going to making new content.

Because it costs them money to host the videos on their servers, you're not paying for the protocol to deliver the content, just like you're not paying for the roads when you ride the bus. Additionally it cost the content creators time, money, and energy to make the content. People should get paid for that. So you're also paying the bus driver, the mechanics, etc.

People pay for the roads that is being used while riding a bus. It is built and maintained by their taxes. Bus fares is going towards other costs from operations to salaries. YouTube on the other hand is a freeloader on the internet infrastructure.

That's a ridiculous take. The Internet isn't just free infrastructure that anyone can use. The data has to live somewhere. 2,500 people work at YT. They pay salaries, have offices, manage servers to store the videos, pay their content creators, etc.

So nobody is allowed to start an internet company and make money from it?

Uber is a business using roads that people pay for, should they not make money? Should those drivers not get paid as well?

>That's a ridiculous take

Please chill up and don't forget the HN guidelines [1]

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

That is not the point of my comment, you misinterpreted the meaning of my comments and then built an assumption that it says that "nobody is allowed to start an internet company and make money from it?"

Which is not what my comments says. I will also not try to engage with a discussion in which side don't discuss in a good faith. Specially coming from a new account created for this purpose only.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hey man, sorry forgot about this thread. Anyway, calling something ridiculous, as in it's easily open to ridicule, is not necessarily an insult when the specific thing is exactly that. Try not to be so easily offended. Especially online.

Also, I responded to every example you had with clarifying questions that were designed to get you to think about your points and back them up or (hopefully) change them. Reading comprehension is important. Saying things like "that wasn't my point" then not realizing what you implied nor clarifying what your point actually is a prime example of why. You don't have to say something directly to make an implication, which is exactly what you did on multiple points.

Gaslighting me into "not acting in good faith," so you don't have to actually think about the strength of your point (or lack thereof) is however the very thing you claim I'm doing. I just wanted to say that I hope you get more confidence in debate so that you aren't so quick to play the victim when your argument is held to the tiniest bit of scrutiny and try to take some imaginary moral high ground that isn't there.

That's an even worse analogy, because ad blockers only block the ads for you, not for everyone else.

A better analogy is getting someone else to paint over all the ads in the free ad-supported newspaper before you read it.

At the very least, everyone sees the same ads. Bus stop ads (for now) don't have access to your private information, don't make models out of you and don't abuse that information in order to serve you highly targeted ads.

It's creepy.

https://mastodon.social/@lazycouchpotato/111251984595065259

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