You don't like ads, I get it. You take without compensating because you want to. Don't just shrug and say, "no notice was posted." Own it. Say, "I felt like taking this so I took it."
I'm sorry but it isn't that black and white. To be honest, I wish there was a way to put in my HTTP request headers the fact that I'm going to use an ad blocker - then your server has enough knowledge what to serve me exactly - if you wish, the text without adds, if not, then a notice saying that the text if for pay.
That'd be perfectly fine. Many sites already do this - detect my adblocker in javascript and then deny me access to the content. This is also perfectly fine - I fully agree that circumventing this forcefully is immoral/unethical.
In essence - the seller (content provider) should have the option to not give me content if I have an ad-blocker. If this is possible, then I don't see anything immoral about me using an adblocker. Do you?
And in fact, it does seem to be possible - wired for example does this. And I certainly don't try to circumvent this.
Many sites manage to work around and still show me ads. I dearly wish there would be some way for me to indicate "I'd rather be denied access to the content than be shown ads." Unfortunately that doesn't technologically exist easily yet.
It's more like content-mills like adverts, so they give content for free, attach adverts and hope it sticks.
Don't just shrug and say "we have to do this". Own it. Say, "we sideloaded non-relevant content to you for profit through pipes you're paying for because we didn't want to bother building a different business model".
Society does have many unwritten agreements, but this is not one of them.
Did you ever get those "march of dimes" solicitations that include a dime? I know people who believe that there's an unspoken agreement of reciprocity - they sent you something of value (even though you did not ask for it) so you must give something back. But no such social contract, spoken or unspoken, exists.
Similarly, there is no such contract with respect to ads. Personally, I never watch TV live, even when the schedule is convenient, because I like to skip all the ads. Courts have held time shifting to be a right, so I can assure you I am in the right on this one, although there is zero practical difference between my fast-forward ad blocking (which is sometimes automated), and running uBlock Origin.
You could argue that the society has an unspoken agreement about views vs ads, but that agreement includes limitations on what kinds of ads are considered acceptable - and guess what, most of the sites are violating that unspoken agreement.
Adblockers didn't happen by magic, they are a reaction to advertising trampling all over the implicit social contract.
And this isn't an unwritten agreement that this member of society is even aware of so... so much for that aspect of society. Or as my grandfather used to say, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, one of them will fill up faster. That unwritten agreement is worth everything its written on.
What exactly am I taking by not viewing ads? I view it the opposite, ads take away my attention and time and worst of all are generally using psychology to influence my behavior. If your site is using them to monetize, I'll be blunt, tough shit. I dislike the advertising model of shoveling malware javascript from dodgy ad companies and if blocking ads is the way to get that changed, so be it. Consider this societal protest over a business model I disagree with on its very premise. All the way back to Edward Bernays I think advertising has a rotten core by encouraging things like women to smoke, and passing off one of the most common elements off as some sort of rare thing amongst numerous other ethically questionable tactics.
But what theft has occurred when ads are blocked? What have I taken from the ad companies? From the publisher? What alternative has been given? If anything the only thing I have taken away is encouraging them to pursue better ways of monetization that doesn't treat my attention as some fungible thing for their own benefit. This company made $200 a month, donations alone could easily recoup that cost with 40 people doing $5 a month.
Also, if I go to a website and read content without viewing ads due to having an ad blocker. Well oops, but not like there is a giant banner over each hyperlink that says I can't click it without hurting someones feelings or bottom line. Block me if you want, but ironically you'd be cutting of your own nose to spite your face. I'm willing to pay for no ads, but no site is wanting to engage in what that truly means.
Point me to the ethical problem with ad blocking and maybe I'll buy your argument. But if your fundamental premise is that you need ads to publish, you're not going to convince me with $200/month arguments.
My computer is controlled by me, ads come through a programmable rendering engine, nobody owes ads the right to render unconditionally.
All that being said, the irony is I pay more out via patreon than I'm probably worth in ad revenue to all the websites I've ever visited. I do this because I hate the current model. I'm supporting the content producers that have realized this fact and are embracing it. What are you doing to change things for the better?
I hate the ad model too, but you're stealing bandwidth and hosting. Delivering those pictures and text comes from somewhere, and ads are how they're hoping to pay for it. Justify it to yourself how you want, but it's true.
It's not stealing, because you request the resource from the server and the server explicitly decides to fulfill your request. And this isn't exploiting a bug or security vulnerability. The server is deliberately programmed to fulfill requests regardless of whether the requester's client.
If running an ad blocker is stealing, then so is disabling JavaScript or using curl.
There are other comments (including one by me) discussing this. I'm totally fine with it. Others have said that most advertisers won't pay for these ads due to an inability to audit and track users.
Well, they were happy to pay for them in the past that way and likely will be happy to pay for them again if the only other option is not to be able to advertise at all.
The target of a link could still be redirected, this would not allow the ad agency to track visitors but would allow them to track the effectiveness of a campaign.
That's about as much as they should be getting anyway.
But it would kill most RTB schemes and it would get rid of the majority of the tracking, which would be a good thing.
It wouldn't even kill RTB - it's just that the RTB response would include the actual ad to be displayed, and we'd be back to Nielsen style outfits figuring out how many of those ads were actually displayed.
And the world is likely to be a better place for it.
I think the companies who rely on tracking, auditing, and preying on vulnerable users aren't typically those who would benefit from billboard or TV ads.
The companies who do advertise in more traditional forms of media tend to be larger and more brand focused. They don't rely on manipulating their customers in very short term, impulse situations. They rely on visibility and try to generate goodwill through elaborate PR campaigns.
The ethical problem isn't ethical, but existential. If everyone acted on only their immediate self-interest, ad-supported business models would fold. Then, we already have all lost out, because people currently obviously prefer ads to paywalls. Even if you decide to pay for a few sources of information, you will never again have access to the breath of journalism you have now.
If paywalls don't catch on, it's game over for he current model of societies. Because even if my contribution of a vote every four years seems quite small, it's still the currency that democracy depends on. And without an informed public, their decisions tend towards randomness, and are no longer a factor in the decision-making process.
All this isn't a new mechanism, it's basic tragedy of the commons. "It's my boat, and I'm gonna go out tonight, and fish as much as I want to. Nature belongs to me as much as to anyone else, and nobody has the right to tell me what to do, especially not in international waters".
There's nothing really wrong with that argument, except that many a fisherman has made it, and seen his haul cut to almost nothing when overfishing had decimated the population.
The public's attention span and patience is a commons, too. Advertisers have engaged in a vicious, scorched-earth campaign to target the most vulnerable (read: gullible) people out there. Needless to say, this has done catastrophic damage to the commons.
The media deserve their share of the blame. Besides participating in this unethical ad market, they've cranked up the emphasis on sensationalist, click bait garbage at the cost of real journalism.
To continue with the fishing/aquatic analogy: don't blame people for filtering their water or buying bottled water after all of the toxic waste that's been dumped into the river.
If everyone stopped watching ads, of course the ad-supported business models would fold! And what we would have lost out on is a business model that is apparently not liked by enough people anymore.
Who's to say paywalls will end up being the norm? And what happens if the paywall is abstracted away behind a Spotify-like news interface?
In the Netherlands there's an online subscription-based news and magazine service, it's doing quite well. It seems quite succesful in engaging their readers more than the traditional media.
I do also see that we live in a more chaotic time than say a 100 years ago. I think much of it can be attributed to the rise of fast information transport systems, computers and the Internet, but that does not mean I have an obligation to support a business model I find immoral, because it might in some way indirectly benefit journalism and democracy in general. Perhaps abolishing the advertising model will make space for interesting other models, like community-curated news, patronage, paying for archives/more in-depth articles, etcetera.
It's not a tragedy of the commons if the only "victims" are a few companies. Companies are not "the commons", or humans for that matter. Companies fail all the time, and that's OK. Business models are not sacred cows that can never be slaughtered. If one business model stops working, companies will adapt and find new business models.
On the other hand, it can be argued that advertisements can have a negative influence on their viewers in many ways.
> people currently obviously prefer ads to paywalls
I don't think this claim can be made on the basis of site traffic. You would have to compare how many people actively support the ad system vs actively support the paywall system.
Assuming people that use adblocking software, support the paywall system as a default alternative, ~22% of internet users use adblockers[0] and (let's say) support a paywall system.
I would guess that of the 78% of people that don't use an adblocker, the majority of them don't know about them, rather than make a conscious decision to not use them.
Ad revenue model is winning on traffic because of three reasons
* lots of people don't know about adblockers
* the default configuration for browsers is to not do adblocking
* most people don't change defaults
I couldn't find any studies that have specific estimates of how many people dont know about adblocking software or know and don't use.
>hen, we already have all lost out, because people currently obviously prefer ads to paywalls.
Fallacy of the excluded middle: among the choices you did not accept we have the option of returning the internet back to the laws that originally governed it, that is nothing commercial.
I don't personally want this across the board, but I am not convinced that the world wouldn't be better if that rule held for non fictional content.
There's an unwritten agreement that sites won't serve stuff that tries to infect me with malware, but, well, here we are.
Could you please answer the question: are you accepting actual legal liability for users' computers you infect with malware from ads? If not, you have lost any moral argument.
Does your site take responsibility for the ads it displays? Will you compensate me for the time and expense in the event one of your unvetted ads infects a user at my company with some kind of drive-by malware?
No?
Then I guess this "agreement" isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on.
Give me two examples of unwritten agreements that are not laws and will get me in more trouble than "some segment of the population will think less of me".
Twist it however you like, but just saying things like they're a fact does not an argument make. Making your case without accusations would be a good place to start.
I'm definitely entitled not to let your document which you chose to send me on request cause my hardware+software to do things I don't want it to, like make any ol' network request it pleases without my say-so.
Would you say the same about changing the font size or the color contrast?
For years I had "flash click to play" for usability reasons (I always have 20-50 tabs open), before ad blocking was a thing - but as a results, ads wouldn't play or show until I clicked on them. Do you think back then I had the obligation to click-to-play the ads?
It is exceedingly simple. If you don't want me to see content without ads, don't serve it to me without ads. If you don't want me to change the font size, serve it as a png so I can't change it.
Sure, it's called "manners", or "social behaviour". Of course, as time goes on, many informal social rules have been made into law, because someone always figures he can live with the disapproving looks.
As just one example: If you've agreed to meet with a friend and they don't show, without notice, you'll probably inform them that they are in violation of your unwritten agreement.
(I'm not actually in favour of this line of argument, but I believe it's pretty obvious that unwritten social norms exist, and often serve a purpose)
If you argue with that kind of unwritten agreement, I'd argue that ad providers should also adhere to the agreement not to track me, manipulate me or to infect my machine with malware. Which they evidently don't. So I don't feel very motivate to respect theirs.
You don't like ads, I get it. You take without compensating because you want to. Don't just shrug and say, "no notice was posted." Own it. Say, "I felt like taking this so I took it."