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Comment by toastercat | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavior.

Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.

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When I started visiting resources on the internet there was an oft-written (and occasionally enforced!) social contract that the internet was not to be used for advertising at all. I personally never agreed for those terms to change so I'll continue to configure my enduser clients as I wish. (I do sometimes consume ads--sometimes they're good content.)

No, the burden is on you. The web is public by default. If you join it and think there is a burden on your visitors to pay you by viewing some bullshit that you serve them from some megacorporation who sells their identity, you are the one being unethical.

This is classic "big corporations are bad". Simply put, the internet would be dead if it were not for megacorporations as you call them, like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Google have provided an invaluable source of information all for free. The least you can do is watch some ads and let them harvest your data.

> This is classic "big corporations are bad". Simply put, the internet would be dead if it were not for megacorporations as you call them, like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Source?

That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else.

But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.

So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?

> But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.

> So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves?

No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users?

Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.

> Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads

I mean, only a Google search will reveal there's people still getting ads despite using YouTube Premium.

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