Comment by dizzystar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dizzystar | Hacker News Reader

Are you getting paid by impressions or actual clicks?

If you are getting paid by impressions, I do feel a little bad for blocking your ads, but you have to understand that the reason I put up the adblock is a reaction to ad-abuse. I'm sick and tired of seeing ads scrolling up and down and across the page, interrupting your content. I'm sick and tired of pages taking 30 seconds to load because of ad-bloat, and I'm sick and tired of the generally bad experience that ads are bringing to me. Don't even get me started on pop-up ads or ads with music or talking.

If you are getting paid for actual clicks, then I don't feel bad at all. I never once, in all the years I have browsed the internet, clicked on an ad, so you aren't gaining anything from me anyways.

As an aside: I can't name a single ad that I have seen over the past week. Marketers thinking that ad-views are somehow equivalent in impact of billboards or TV ads are stuck in some dinosaur age of marketing and I ought to open up ads in pure spite.

The crux of the issue is that too many sites have abused its readership by thumping our heads with pointless and useless ads. The day I see you respect me is the day I'll respect you. This is no way implies that Destructoid is abusive, but unfortunately, you have been caught in the maelstrom. However, since I only click away the ads that irritate me, I find it odd that a site that I have never been to is apparently completely blocked as I see no ads. Choose your advertisers wisely and I may not even block (or notice) their ads.

> I can't name a single ad that I have seen over the past week

Ads aren't trying to get you to remember the ads, they're trying to get you to recognize, like, buy, etc the product. That can happen without remembering or actively paying attention to the ad.

I won't go on a hunt for a list of research confirming it, but there are about hundreds if not thousands of examples explaining that marketing does work, whether its audience thinks it does or not.

tl;dr Even if you believe you'll never click an ad, you're probably still hurting the advertiser and therefore the publisher.

Which is the justification for pay-per-impression ads. Grandparent says that they are sorry if they are pay-per-impression; what difference does blocking or not make though if they're pay-per-click, and they never click?

You hit the nail on the head. If it is per impression, then yes, there is some information they would like me to have and there is some profit that this site is receiving from those impressions. It is fair game then to have me see those ads if that is what the model is as long as this model isn't abused.

If the pay-per-click is supposed to piggy back on free impressions then I have zero conscience of denying them free advertising.

The 'elephant in the room' of a question: what do you feel gives you the right to block ads? The content-creators establish the terms, and their deal is you get content in exchange for ad-viewership. If you're unwilling to view ads, don't partake in the exchange -- do not visit that site.

Are you implying that it's also wrong to skip television ads with a DVR?

It's not a contract to which I've agreed though. If they want me to get content in exchange for something, then they should make sure I do, otherwise, they are putting things on an open server that I can easily read from. What I tell my browser to take from it is up to me,

Would you have a problem with me reading the site in lynx?

You could enforce a contract by having a paid for membership, as he alludes to, which gives you rights to see articles early or have post rights on a forum or gives you some physical thing.

>It's not a contract to which I've agreed though. If they want me to get content in exchange for something, then they should make sure I do, otherwise, they are putting things on an open server that I can easily read from. What I tell my browser to take from it is up to me,

You are conflating the practical ability to do something with the moral right to do something.

The fact that something cannot be enforced is a practical problem, not a moral one. A rural car-park owner may have no practical method to force people using his car park to leave money in an honesty box [1]. His request for payment may have no legal standing. Neither of these points has any influence on the moral value of not leaving the requested payment.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty_box

What makes using an honesty-box moral? It is not that one side has dictated the terms.

Imagine finding an empty car-park, parking your car, approaching the honesty-box and finding a note declaring the owner does not expect money but instead expects to be paid in teeth: and would the car-park users please pull-out a tooth and deposit it. Would that be moral?

Yes, one could say it is moral to all follow a general rule of reciprocating, of giving something as well as receiving. But what and how much?

The morality of cooperative interaction is not about what one person wants, it is about how all are affected.

Saying what exact actions and amounts would be moral is in general an impossible calculation. But what would clearly not be moral is one party dictating to the other. Once you deliberately offer to engage in cooperative interaction you alone no longer set the rules.

You bring up good points. But I'm still not sure about the 'not a contract to which I've agreed' part. Couldn't it be argued that there exists an open understanding by all parties that the content creation is sustained purely through ads -- and all site visitors are softly agreeing to these general terms upon site access?

The entire thesis of my post had nothing to do with a benign willingness to block or unblock ads. I block ads simply because I am sick of all the things I mentioned in my OP. The point is that they stepped over lines that I feel should not be crossed and I blocked them because they disrespected me. I would posit that many people are sick of it and any non-tech person could easily open google and ask "How do I stop all these irritating ads on websites?" and they will be taken to adblock.

Obviously, advertising is a service, but if sites learned to tone it down instead of money-grabbing and causing a miserable experience for their readership, they should actually be thankful for adblocks. Without adblocks, many people would simply click the back-button, cause their bounce rate to go through the roof, they drop off the front page of google, and they would have no views to brag about to advertisers.

> Couldn't it be argued that there exists an open understanding by all parties that the content creation is sustained purely through ads -- and all site visitors are softly agreeing to these general terms upon site access?

No. Absolutely not.

What about an older browser that can't properly display javascript? What about someone using a screenreader? What about when I use Lynx from a terminal window?

There is no implied relationship. There is no contract. A website hands me a block of text and I can choose which text to render.

Something like 92% of browsers support javascript. Fuck off with this stupid, trite red herring.

You want content. You are not owed content.

> You want content. You are not owed content.

Then put it behind a paywall.

It's my browser, my choice to display what I want, how I want. You don't come into the equation, even if you are the content owner. Either charge for it, or stop whining.

Ads are just content that you're delivering to the end user. The user has zero obligation to view that content, or your native content, or any other kind of content. Ad sales are predicated upon this understanding, and it's why delivery rates (rather than just content pageviews) are such a big deal for content providers and advertisers.

What gives you the impression that a site has the right to force you to view ads?

Also, what bizarro universe are we living in where viewing ads is seen to have some sort of value or merit on its own? If I were to watch broadcast tv, for example, and in one instance watch all of the advertisements dutifully and in the next skip all the ads with a dvr but in both cases on no account be influenced in any way to buy the products advertised, is there a difference (morally or commercially) between either behavior?

I would suggest that I have no more obligation to watch advertisements than I do to buy anything being advertised.

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