Ask HN: Is using Adblock unethical?
It doesn't seem that using Adblock Plus is in any way illegal, but I can't help but feel guilty that I might be unfairly benefitting at the expense of websites and other users. Is using Adblock unethical?
It's perfectly legitimate to get up and get a drink of water instead of watching commercials on broadcast TV, and it is equally legitimate to not view advertisements on websites that post advertisements.
I don't care that I'm an "asshole". When I show less technical people how to block advertisements, the first thing they usually say is, "thank you!" or "can I buy you a beer?". I never met one person (other than people in marketing) that have said, "No, I'd prefer to see advertisements over content".
Lets not specify any particular brand or types of advertising for the sake of discussion, all advertising is just advertising.
Because you chose to present it that way in hopes of maximizing your revenue. Maybe you would be better off using a paywall. Personally, I don't think it's so simple in terms of all upside, since I may jsut as easily visit a content provider only to have my time wasted by copypasta or inaccurate reporting or whatever. Frankly, I would rather consume fewer products of higher quality, and am willing to pay not to have to look at advertising, but no simple mechanism exists for me to opt out from the ad-supported model on most sites.
Lets not specify any particular brand or types of advertising for the sake of discussion, all advertising is just advertising.
Not from my perspective. I'm quite willing to have products or services suggested to me in the form of advertising, but I'm not willing to be shouted at with garish visuals, distracting animations, or misleading taglines. I think there's a great deal to be said for the strict guidelines that Google imposes on adwords advertisers.
You may not distinguish between different kinds of advertising as a content provider, because the revenue it generates is fungible. I care a great deal about it as a content consumer because it imposes a time cost upon, which is highly variable depending on the content of the advertising.
On the other hand, I am aware that everyone's ethics are different, and I generally try to withhold judgment.
Your conscience can be clear, since you have the means to allow sites to fund themselves via advertising if they deal with ethical advertisers.
What I consider unethical is sites which track you across hundreds of internet sites while trying to figure out your previous URL history of sites it doesn't track all the while hiding behind the fine print saying what it does is legal.
Internet advertising is nothing like newspaper or magazine ads. Internet advertising has a tracking component built into it and that tracking component doesn't stop once you leave the site. It follows you forever.
Of course the content curators can use the same argument. They have every right to restrict content access to whoever they want but ultimately that wouldn't be profitable so they have to very liberal with their access permissions and chalk it down as a cost of doing business.
That is unarguable.
However, very few here will be man/woman enough to admit they're an asshole and don't care about the finances of the website. It's the true reason why we use Adblock and pirate others' IP.
Being an asshole are the sites that allow unethical tracking and pass around user private info from one ad network to the next. Take your weak argument elsewhere.
Site owners need to have some common sense when it comes to advertising