Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

ok, wow. First, let me point out how ironic it is that a news agency that makes most of it's revenue from advertising is the source of this article, and also that ABC is owned by Disney corp which is a pervasive media company creating advertising, receiving revenue from advertising and spends over 2 Billion annually on advertising[0][1].

Services we use daily are funded by advertising. Virtually all news and media companies. Sure, it is a bit nefarious to do some of the things that get done on the internet like trackers and info siloing and such, but seriously? Is not seeing an advert a moral imperative?

> I want to keep using this free email, social network, enhanced and personalized search capability, free cloud storage, document collaboration, real time news updates, weather, be entertained by television, be entertained by blogs, participate in an online community, etc

ok awesome, pay us money then, $1 a month per website/service you use?

> no

Or even the more infuriating, of course I would do that. Would you? Would you pay for google, facebook, twitter, reddit, HN, new york times, bloomberg? Maybe, but how much would you pay to that website your friend linked in an email? How many of you have apps or work at companies that get paid by advert revenue?

In a world where is is insanely easy to block ads, or to just ignore them, surely this isn't a question of morality. More of triviality and annoyance. I have 3 adblock extensions + uBlock as well as a DNS killer. I HATE ads. The reason ads are so annoying is because I have all of these things. So now companies search exploits to get my data to sell it and load tons of JS libraries to break through all of the blocking software I have. The situation sucks, but it isn't morality.

tl;dr If you think Axe body spray will get you laid, you are weak minded. Advertising pays for everything you use on the internet, and entrenched protocols are hard to disrupt. Get adblock, ublock and don't buy things you don't need.

[0]http://www.businessinsider.com/the-35-companies-that-spent-1... [1]I still think comcast is a shitty company

edit: As pointed out NBC is owned by comcast, ABC is owned by Disney corporation and I have edited to reflect that.

The fact that advertising is so pernicious is in fact a large part of the problem. I'd argue precisely the opposite: that using a corrupt system to fight against itself is precisely what you want to do. There's a long history of that, with numerous corporate philanthropies (the Carnegie Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, etc.) following this path.following this path.following this path.following this path.

None of your arguments address the failures of advertising noted in the essay.

As for the market for information goods, that is indeed a challenge. The fact that there's a market failure there still doesn't excuse advertising.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vm2da/why_inf...

"Entrenched protocols" like slavery got disrupted precisely because a moral dimension was brought into play.

Everybody has weaknesses and exploiting them to sell ads is no more an art - it's a science - that is working at a speed and scale that we have never witnessed before. Advertising is more than just selling body spray. It's about selling anything to us - from our leaders to wars to taxes. I wont be surprised if ISIS is buying FB ads - target muslim youths in low income downtown areas - ad tech can do that for you today.

The same BMW in Europe is marketing car clubs and car pooling to save the planet, while in China and India the message is total opposite about aspiration and horsepower.

Morality has to be talked about.

I'd argue that coal and steam power had far more to do with the end of slavery than moral arguments. Though those also held some sway.

When you can provide the work of tens, hundreds, or hundreds of thousands of people through fuel and capital, you can dispense with a great deal of uncompensated labour.

Of course, then there's the decline of that abundant fuel to consider....

I almost feel like you are saying that forcibly exfiltrating someone from their land, packing them into a ship where ~15-30% die before even getting the "privilege" of being sold onto bondage[0] and serve the rest of their lives as property is remotely comparable to a person using gmail for free but retaining any right for such a company to profit from that data(which you freely give them)?

> Morality has to be talked about.

Logic has to be talked about. Your privacy and attention are your own imperative and outsourcing that is a fatal mistake. You will see adverts on a few trashcans but that is the price you pay for living in society. The choice is yours whether you want to sell your information to companies, you provide it, you have agency, stop.

[0]http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&p...

You're going a bit far there in protest of an analogy.

Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and mistreatment.

But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising happens with or without that data.

There's no real opting out of ads.

> Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and mistreatment.

I mean, they didn't just show up one day. But yeah, I just met hyperbole with hyperbole.

> But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising happens with or without that data.

I think you can opt out of a lot of ads. I don't watch television often and as stated have a large amount of blocking software installed. I don't read magazines and have limited exposure to billboards as I live in a rural areas.

Data is the scary bit and it was mentioned in the article. Selling user data is morally ambiguous. Gun to my head, I come down on the side that it is probably wrong. Seeing an ad briefly while you steal a taylor swift song off youtube is different than the permanence of someone owning a silo of your personal intimate data.

Also, this data is used to create a profile of you which (outside of the 1984 scenario) is used to sell you adverts. This is pretty shitty. Once again, I try to maintain my own privacy on the internet and try to safeguard my data as much as possible and while I think it is a shitty practice, I think people should be responsible for themselves.

Wrong abc buddy. that ABC is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation not the American one. a government funded organisation that doesn't do much advertising.

Good catch. I knew that and yet still missed it...

I find myself strongly dissenting with the article and the opinions of most here.

As vonklaus states, ads subsidize many services that I use and value but am unwilling or unable to pay for myself.

Advertising is a fair market exchange. Businesses are funding my access to information and services in return for the right to present to me.

We have quite a bit of control over which contracts we enter into, everything from changing the channel during a commercial to only consuming commercial free content.

As such a market, as ads become more and more invasive and obnoxious then they become less valuable in that they drive users away and hurt the content providers who are funded by ads. So there is incentive to provide ads to consumers in a way that can be consumed if desired.

Of course in some cases like advertising minors, I do think that limits are apropos as they do not have the experience to understand what they are entering into.

An immediate appeal to hypocrisy is a very weak form of argument, it does absolutely nothing to address the points being made, and instead is just an attack on the speaker.

My point is that nearly the entire consumer internet is funded by adverts, the first bit was simply humerous. Further, advertising is pervasive and annoying (even with blocking tools) but it is mostly found in private places. I don't think it is immoral to sell ads on your own website, radio station or media channel. If you dont consume free content you would see way less adverts.

And yet cable has exactly as many ads as free TV.

> you would see way less adverts.

Cable is a special situation. They get paid by our tax dollars both directly and with tax breaks, they sell content to us and they also sell advert space to companies. Advertising isn't really a question of "morality"

I would allege that logic, morality, and competitive business tactics all align with the sentiment that ISPs should be immediately decoupled from cable companies and we should allow market entrants to compete there. Cable companies are ruthless tax collectors and deeply entrenched in political circles. It is hard to disrupt this as well, but success in winning a free internet is something I think is truly worth fighting for.

Watch european publicly financed TV. Take the BBC, or the German networks (which are the largest publicly financed TV networks worldwide, btw).

No ads (or at maximum 3 per day), consistently at least the same quality as private TV or higher, and just a lot more interesting content.

Take arte, for example. Or ZDF Neo. Sooo many interesting documentaries that are actually science and not just http://i.imgur.com/FcS4JJ2.jpg

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