Comment by sedev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sedev | Hacker News Reader

There is no right to advertise, is how I see it, any more than there is a right to use asbestos, lead, and mercury any way you please. There is societal permission to use those substances in strictly controlled ways, requiring that serious work be invested in preventing and limiting the toxic effects upon the public of using those substances, because those toxic effects are real and taking the benefits of using those substances while shuffling off the toxic effects onto someone else, is evil. We should regulate advertising in the same way: it is evil to shuffle off its toxic effects onto the public at large while the advertiser and ad-inventory-seller keep all of the benefits. Ad-blocking is as virtuous as carrying around kits and sensors to check how much lead and mercury is in my immediate environment — certainly I will benefit from doing it, but I shouldn't have to, because pumping out ad-toxins into the social environment constantly and pervasively, is evil.

> those toxic effects are real and taking the benefits of using those substances while shuffling off the toxic effects onto someone else, is evil

*is capitalism, ftfy :)

More seriously though, there is always a dicothomy between the "healthier" features of capitalism (competition, private initiative, etc) and the rest: rent-seeking, pocketing the profits and dumping externalities on others, enclosing the commons, etc.

Is there a right to free content? Because ads are obnoxious and I do block them, but I also pay for stuff were I can. If ads didn't exist there effectively there would be a pallwall on the internet. As there should be, people need money to live. If people feel so strongly about ads they should either not consume the content or pay for the ad-free version. I use YouTube premium and I've never seen an ad. I get the ad-free version of everything. My child even uses Amazon kids, so she can enjous apps to her hearts content without ads. But I pay for that.

Ad blocking is theft. It's theft that I will commit, but it is theft. When you block an ad you reduce the content creator's salary. We then have to ask: what happens if the creator gets no money? They stop giving the content away "for free".

This is the piracy fight all over again. Again, I'm on the high seas, so I'm not innocent. I still think that we need remember that content isn't free. We pay for it with attention or money. If enough people don't do that then the content won't be there. That's how capitalism works.

Ad blocking is not theft. If it were, leaving the room with the television on while ads were playing would also be theft. Youtube is freely sending people content. No one is forcing Youtube to send them cat videos. No one is acquiring Youtube videos illegally via torrents.

Ad blocking is only possible on Youtube because Youtube insists on doing big data auction based advertising. If they wanted to, Youtube could embed ads in the video stream making it impossible to block them.

Youtube does not have a right to display whatever content they want on my devices. If they freely send me data, I have the right to display that data however I can on my device.

If Youtube wanted they could end the utility of adblock today. They could only send data to people who paid. They could embed ads into the video stream. It is their choice to make adblocking possible on Youtube.

Ad blocking is no more theft than is blocking crypto miners or a virus turning your computer into a botnet member. This particular form of malware is common, but it's still malware attempting to hijack my computer to do things I did not authorize.

Would you support websites using your GPU to mine crypto coins? It's a more direct form of payment that doesn't create editorial conflicts or involve spying. Even if you're on battery, energy is just the price being charged. Or would you see it as them using your computer without your consent and taking advantage of the horrible security model of the web?

Ad- and spyware should be recognized as what they are: malware. Distributing malware and using someone else's computer for unauthorized purposes is a crime. Doing it to 10 or more computers is a felony. It also gets used to destroy markets by dumping free products onto them. The whole model should be illegal.

One could make the argument (I do) that the way advertising is done today is a cancer on society. Never mind whether it’s legally sanctioned to do so.

> That’s how capitalism works

Indeed, capitalism has a weakness when it comes to enabling and encouraging predatory behavior. Thankfully, we don’t live in a (completely) capitalist society. Instead, we can make laws to protect consumers against the negative effects and don’t need to strictly adhere to an “ideal” vision of capitalism.

>As there should be, people need money to live.

Not at my expense they don't.

> If ads didn't exist there effectively there would be a paywall on the internet.

This is a false premise. The internet of old, from which the current version evolved, had no advertising and yet still contained useful information. In fact, the ratio of useful information to garbage was much higher, so it could be said that with advertising was brought a flood of trash, and so a more informative, useful internet is one without advertising.

That's how capitalism works, it brings the con men and scammers and bottom feeders looking to make a quick dollar from the naive and unsuspecting, and if such behaviour can stay under the radar of regulation long enough then it becomes normalised, and otherwise good citizens defend it as 'the only way'.

> Is there a right to free content?

No, but there's also not a right to force others to consume content. Websites are within their rights to send ads to my browser, and/or to make users pay to get ad-free content, and I am within my rights to block ads if I don't want to see them, or just not visit their site at all (the latter is mostly what I do). This isn't a contest of theft on one side vs. honest toil on the other. It's a straightforward conflict of interest--websites want to show me ads that I don't want to see--which leads to a straightforward arms race of ads vs. ad blocking.

> When you block an ad you reduce the content creator's salary.

No, I don't; I'm not paying the content creator a salary by viewing an ad. I am simply not participating in the content creator's chosen business model. The content creator has no right to force me to do so. He does have the right to detect that I'm using an ad blocker and simply refuse to show me his content at all in that case. And then I'll just go surf somewhere else.

If the content creator wants me to pay him for his content, he should set up a Patreon or a Substack or something like that. There are perfectly good vehicles available for people to get paid for the content they write without having to clutter it up with ads. If a content creator chooses not to do that, that's his choice, and choices have consequences.

> This is the piracy fight all over again.

No, it isn't. Using an ad blocker is not piracy; I'm not going and fetching content behind the back of the copyright holder. I'm just refusing to view content I don't want.

> If enough people don't do that then the content won't be there.

Which for me at least would be no great loss. Given the content that I usually see with ads, I would be perfectly fine with not having it at all. Which is why, as I said above, I mostly just don't go to websites that insist on showing me ads; their content isn't worth enough of either my money or my attention to make me even care about entering the ads. vs. ad blocking arms race with them.

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