Hacker News Reader

I disagree that the penalty falls unfairly on content producers. The content producers choose their business model. If technology makes that model untenable then the content producers must change their model.

View on HN

Imagine a site that started their business when ad networks were less abusive. Over time people started running ad blockers, and the ad networks saw revenues declining, so they started amping up the annoyance factor--more animations, more noise, more tracking. This drives more of the site's visitors to blocking, which makes the ad networks more desperate. Revenues continue to decline even though the site does nothing except produce more valuable content.

None of this is the fault of the site running the ads. Maybe it's inevitable, and maybe they just need to suck it up and evolve or join the ranks of obsolete business models, but it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the unfairness of the situation.

I replied with something similar elsewhere. The content producers have to pay for hosting (generally). Their business model may not work, but adblocking is basically circumventing their revenue model. The only "fair" means would be to not go to that site if it serves ads, but then the internet would be much smaller. It's just as moral as pirating movies in countries that don't offer them or offer them in friendly formats. I see why you'd steal, I don't think you're a bad person, but it's still not a moral means of acquiring the content.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com