The Morality of Web Advertisement Blocking 974
An anonymous reader writes "There has been some recent coverage of the over-hyped boycott of Firefox, in response to the rising popularity of the Adblock Plus Firefox extension. A recent editorial on CNET looks into the issue, and explores the moral and legal issues involved in client-side web advertisement blocking. Whereas TiVo users freeload on the relatively fixed broadcasting costs paid by TV networks, users of web ad-blocking technology are actively denying website owners revenue that would otherwise go to pay for the bandwidth costs of serving up those web pages. If the website designer has to pay for bits each time you view their website without viewing their banner ads, are you engaged in theft? Is this right? "
Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh my. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to live in a fantasy world where I'm simply entitled by default to ad revenue, and I only have to deal with insidious "users of web ad-blocking technology" who are "actively denying" me my solid gold razor scooter. Fortunately for users, in the real world, a webmaster has to earn ad revenue by finding content that users want and ads they are willing to accept -- not by taking it for granted that they will just gaze longingly into the CRT clicking on everything that swirls.
For a long time, advertisers were able to support a huge number of frivolous web sites, partly because they could bombard the user with page after page of obnoxious flashing garbage for which no technical countermeasures existed. The collapse of the dot-com bubble eliminated the most unviable popup-pushers, and the rest are beginning to get the message. Popup blockers are normal mainstream software, and Google has had significant success selling all-text advertisements.
The website owners seem to think that we've pushed back hard enough, and should just deal with the sea of repellant Flash banners they want to drown us in. I guess those website owners are wrong, because clearly there are plenty of people who are not willing to tolerate the barrage of useless ads. We'll find a balance eventually, somewhere in between no ads at all and the websites whose masters believe they are entitled to a tithe every time their server sends a 200 status.
next step? (Score:5, Insightful)
Use loaded questions much? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is it theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
No more theft than it would be if you were viewing web content with a browser that couldn't physically render the content. What if everyone used Lynx, [browser.org] for example?
Shift the example (Score:4, Insightful)
A non-issue ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And (Score:5, Insightful)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't care (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like the MAFIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Pay-per-view is dead, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I understand it, the pay-per-view advertising model has gone the way of the dodo, and they're all pay-per-click now. Telling me I have to let the ads through on a site, when I have zero intention of ever clicking on them, is pointless. In fact, since I'm never going to click on them, by not displaying them, I'm saving the advertiser bandwidth.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
When you site warns me that it's going to resize my browser, install software and watch everything I do I'll stop blocking it.
There will come a breaking point.... (Score:2, Insightful)
But people are going to be paid to write good articles about products, instead of advertising. Your beloved Engadgets and Gizmodos will write articles saying "THIS THING IS AWESOME", paid for by the manufacturer. They won't be making any ground with traditional advertising since we are blocking it all. Tivo removes the ads as well.
So you are going to have to make a choice... do you want simple ads on the side that accompany your article or TV show, or ones that are embedded into them, and influence them? You can't have it both ways, and at some point marketing/ad companies will realize they are losing money because of Firefox and try alternative methods of syndicating their content. Probably at our expense.
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If you do not get the reaction you expected from me, then you have simply lost that portion of your investment. I have not stolen anything from you.
Next up on Slashdot, if she won't blow you after you buy her a drink, is she guilty of "theft of resources"?
Theft? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we going to start getting take down notices from ad agencies now too due to this twisted logic?
Freeloading TiVo users? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, before TiVo people used to skip ads by (1) going to the bathroom, (2) getting a snack, (3) changing the channel, or (4) talking. Does that make OTA tv-watchers freeloaders too?
This attitude is irritating. Over the air content is provided for free. There is nothing that says "to watch this TV show you must watch the commercials." Same with radio. Radio content is provided for free. There is no implied contract that I must listen to advertisements to enjoy the content.
It is my choice whether to watch/listen to the ads or not. This isn't a question of morality at all. It's also my choice whether I buy a product or not. Does not buying mean I'm being immoral?
If a car dealer says "If you don't buy this car, I'll starve and you'll kill my family," would you still buy the car?
What about my bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
With a pipe, there ARE two ends to it you know.
Re:There will come a breaking point.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depends on what kind of ads they are (Score:5, Insightful)
What this might cause, eventually, is for ads to be served through the same server and directories as content (to avoid URL pattern matching), for content to be served through the ads (like a flash file that provides both the ad and text content) or that ads sneak inside content (which they already do, in the form of sponsored articles, sponsored tv shows, on-screen banners during shows, etc.)
It'd probably be in the best interest of consumers to find a good middle ground.
Many analogies (Score:5, Insightful)
Arby's has a "five for five" deal where you buy five items for five bucks because they *hope* you will spend five dollars instead of, say, two dollars. You, being a clever person, realize you only want two of the five items, so you spend $2.50 on two items and leave.
Circuit City sells printers for only $30 because they *hope* you are going to pay $20 for a high-margin Monster Cable. You, being a clever person, buy the cheap printer and purchase a generic cable for $2 from Fry's.
CNN.com offers their content for free because they *hope* you will click on their ads (or at least glance at them) while you visit. You, being a clever person, ignore the ads or disable them outright.
The point is, any free or below-cost business model is a risk that the provider has accepted, and they are inherently providing these extra "benefits" at *no obligation* to the consumer. If the provider isn't willing to run the risk of people not following their suggestions, then it is time to turn that suggestion into an obligation (pay websites, or otherwise restricted-access websites). This is not a morality issue for the consumer, it is a business issue for the provider.
Re:Oh my. (Score:3, Insightful)
What drives me absolutely bonkers are sites that insist on using popups, especially those that work to circumvent any popup blocker I have installed. Sites that use CSS/Flash ads that glide over the screen, obscure text, etc. are equally annoying as they detract from the site itself.
Other sites insist on using ads from servers that can't keep up with the traffic and often take forever to respond, leaving my browser chugging away at nothing. All too often this prevents parts of the page from loading.
Slightly less annoying are the ads that are purposely put right in the middle of the text I'm trying to read, interrupting my train of thought and seriously impeding anything I'm learning from the article. These are slightly less annoying as they are usually simplistic text ads or small banners.
Slashdot seems to have a decent handle on ads. They exist, I see them, and occasionally I click on them because they actually happen to be relevant. They're unobtrusive, and even the flash based ones seem to load relatively quickly. Rarely, if ever, do I have any problems with the advertising here.
So I think there definitely is a place for advertising on a web site. And web sites that strive to ensure that the ads are both relevant and in good taste are sites that I will visit again. I don't mind so much the tracking and whatnot as I don't see it having any effect on me. And I clear out cookies and whatnot often enough that it should disrupt them anyway.
That said, I don't see ad blocking software being anything illegal. You're putting your content on the net and expecting people to visit it. If I don't want to see the ads and I use a blocker to prevent that, then so be it. Perhaps you as the site owner should find another way to entice me to view those ads. Perhaps linking within the articles themselves? I've seen that on a number of sites and it seems to work well.
Another quick thought.. If we classify Ad blockers as "illegal" because they prevent the website owner from earning revenue through ads, does that mean that text-only browsers like elinks and lynx are illegal as well? They don't load images either....
Re:Oh my. (Score:4, Insightful)
How exactly will a webmaster find ads that users are willing to accept if the ads are blocked and nobody ever sees them? I agree with TFA that ad-blocking software poses an issue for web sites and for the users of the web in general. In the Webs current state the ads are what is supporting the production of most of the content you see. What happens when that support gets pulled out from under the web site owners? (Webmasters could get around the issue by inserting the ads directly in to the content instead of having them served by a third party.)
On the other hand, I wouldn't equate ad-blocking with theft. Websites are posting content in a public infrastructure where the viewing public has a great deal of control over how they see that content. If they don't like it then they can just charge for access, or engage in an ever escalating (and losing) technology war against the user.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
As a site publisher I understand the angle that it "blocks advertising", but as a web surfer I definitely understand. I don't put intrusive ads on my page, but if people want to block them, I understand.
Re:Then don't go to the godammned site (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would I miss a free
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shift the example (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not like TV, where all you get is what the broadcasters send to you. You are the one who requests data from them. If all I want is the text (say, I want to read in a terminal via Lynx), then that's my prerogative and nobody else's. If I don't want Flash or JavaScript on my machine, then who is anyone else to tell me otherwise?
As the user has total control of the browsing experience, online adverts were an inherently broken revenue model from the beginning. The fact that users are just now being empowered in this respect does not change the inherent flaws of the advertisers' plan.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
And blocking ads from your computer is not wrong. Your comment is null and void.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
If you shine a light in my window, annoying me,
I cant draw the blinds? Because your commercial
interests are affected?
Bugger off, make some ads that are not offensive.
When I _can't_ go to the godammned site (Score:3, Insightful)
PLONK! goes that ad-server's IP!
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, I agree with you completely... if they need a click to generate revenue, they aren't going to get it from me anyway.
How about radio and TV advertizements? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, corporate greed took over when TV stations (licensed to use other portions of the PUBLIC's electromagnetic spectrum) started claiming it was THEIR medium and that if you didn't watch the commercials but only the content they were broadcasting YOU were a THIEF. Absurd. They can transmit content and commercials but no one, absolutely NO ONE, has to watch every photon they transmit during any particular time period. That's the risk they take, especially if their ad content is so trivial or dishonest or begins consuming too large a segment of the time period.
There was a time when commercials took only about 6 to 10 minutes of every hour. Now they take 20 minutes or more, and in the case of Infomercials the full 60 minutes. It's NOT uncommon now for 6 or more commercials to run during every commercial break, with some breaks exceeding 10 minutes in length with only 2 or 3 minutes of show in between.
Infomercials should be outlawed. The cable companies are double dipping. They charge the advertiser for channel, and they bill the cable customer for "offering" the infomercial channel as part of the cable lineup. Are we stealing if we don't watch the Infomercial?
To make matters worse, the TV shows deliberately focus cameras on brand name advertisements and include product hype within the script of the show itself. And they not stealing time from us?
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's the real rub. I have adblock, but I've got a bunch of sites actually whitelisted because I don't mind their ads and I don't want to have a bunch of empty space all over the place (which, without the whitelist, I'm never sure would be ads or something else I'm missing). And I wouldn't even have adblock at all if it weren't for a few really bad apples that forced me into it.
Adblock is not something that everybody just has, and that's as simple to use as flicking a switch. Remember that most people - and I don't mean most people here, I mean most people in the world - have no clue what a "Firefox Extension" even is or how to install one. You need to make an actual effort to find out about this, to download it, to install it, to configure it so that it blocks what you want it to block. Even people who have the technical ability to figure this out are not going to do it unless pushed. It's not like everybody who hits the web for the first time immediately says "ok! I'm ready to start surfing! But first, how do I block the ads?"
Look at Google's model (at least to this point). They're making plenty of money on ads, and so are all the sites that rely on them. And I guarantee you they're not having any problem with adblock. Their revenue numbers certainly don't seem to show any. Why? Because their ads are not intrusive, in fact they occasionally even border on useful. I have clicked Google ads a few times myself.
It's both funny and strange to me that people still think the way you make money on ads is to be as annoying as possible, when the biggest company on the net became as successful as they are by doing exactly the opposite. Don't people ever learn anything?
If you ask me, any site whose model is to present you with the most annoying ads possible deserves to have a user set that relies on adblock. If you've got a problem with adblock, it's because you as a webmaster brought it on yourself.
Well you're half right. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other end there's another persons server, content and bandwidth. If they don't want to serve you pages, then they don't have to.
Everybody's happy.
Re:What about my bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
The short story is, it's not theft; the user agent is just configured to ignore certain elements that match a pattern. It's the user agent doing it's job of presenting the content in an efficient manner to the user.
If you want to force people to view the content so rigidly, use a PNG or PDF.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:1, Insightful)
That means that if a product or service is advertised via an annoying TV or radio campaign, I make a point of remembering, and avoiding that product or service for a good long time.
That means that if I receive a telemarketing call, I never buy the product on offer or contribute to the charity that's calling.
That means that I delete spam unread.
That means that if I come across a web advertisement that resizes my browser or otherwise pisses me off, I make a point of remembering, and avoiding the product or service for a good long time.
So, given all of the above, what's the point in my even viewing a web ad in the first place? Hell, by blocking web ads I may well be saving the company in question from a year-long boycott!
a better mantra (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:next step? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like a lot of others here, I didn't bother with adblock until the ads started actively interfering with my browsing.
That said, I think this whole issue is just a troll for the purpose of, naturally, driving more traffic to another fluffy ad-laden website.
Re:Well you're half right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. He has every right not to serve me pages if he doesn't want to, and I won't complain if does that. What he does *not* have the right to do is to serve me pages and then bitch about how I view them.
Chris Mattern
Re:What about my bandwidth? (Score:4, Insightful)
So here's the thing; you want to, for example, read an article on CNN. The article will be several thousand characters of data. The images for advertising are typically several times that or more. So when we watch TV, we get like 11 minutes of actual content for 4 minutes of ads. Even that's intrusive, if you ask me, but let's say we accept that. Your bandwidth basically gives you about 3 parts content to 1 part advertising.
On a website, your bandwidth often gives you 1 part content to 5 or 6 parts adverstising.
Too bad. The thing is, people used to accept TV ads for the content they got, then Reagan (rightfully, IMO, even though it ended up ruining things) deregulated TV. So now we have MythTV boxes and Tivos and avoid the ads altogether. The day they start sending signals to make it so I can't bypass the commercials is the day I cancel my Tivo subscription. If Myth somehow couldn't do it, I'd be better off not watching anything anyway.
So if websites keep getting more and more intrusive, and if they somehow manage to force these horrible, overbearing ads on me, I'd be better off not surfing at all. As far as I'm concerned, they have every right... but will be surprised to learn the only thing it earns them is disdain. The things that are REALLY important; the intranet at work, banking and investing, shopping... these are the only things I really want anyway, everything else (like slashdot) is just time wasting fluff.
Re:It's not your web server. (Score:5, Insightful)
Chris Mattern
I think this is quite true (Score:4, Insightful)
I've found that when you have ads that don't have this problem, not only do I not mind, I can even be happy with them. Google ads are an example. They hold the record as the only online ads I've ever bought something from. More, I've done it several times. I don't mind them at all. The servers seem to be fully capable of handling the load, so they aren't slow, the ads are very unobtrusive and on Google itself blend right in, and they are very relevant to what I'm doing.
For example I'll search for something I'm interested in purchasing and rather than looking at the normal search results, I look at the ads. Here is a list of people willing to sell me what I want. The ad usually takes me right to the relevant page. Now that's useful.
However that's not how most advertisers want to do it. For some reason everything they know about advertising seems to fall out of their brain when it comes ot the web, and they believe that the answer is invariably make it more obtrusive and it'll work.
Not Insightful. (not even a little) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there's some fancy latin term for this fallacy, but I'll just call it the War Games defense. (The only winning move is not to play.)
The parent poster is saying if an ad is static text or image--no flash--and doesn't track you past the single page displaying the ad, then it is immoral to block the ad. Interesting.
I say, my stand on blocking ads has nothing to do with the ads. My argument doesn't depend on ads being obtrusive or anything else. I simply say, I control what I download. I choose not to download from certain sources.
You see, I don't get into a debate on types of ads. I don't even really address the issue of ads at all. I just say, I download what I want to download. If I think I'll never have any reason to request data from a domain, I might use a HOSTS file to direct requests for that domain to 0.0.0.0 just to protect myself from any inadvertent requests I may make.
Someone who wants to take the position that there is something wrong with not viewing ads on a web page has to play on my field and explain why the ISP connection and the computer I pay for are obligated to accept someone else's data without my request.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well you're half right. (Score:4, Insightful)
He's got every right to bitch about how you view his pages. He just doesn't have any right to do anything about it besides refactoring his pages so the ads are harder to block.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Well no. (Score:4, Insightful)
HTML isn't like television. Television is 25 still images a second; there is nothing to filter out except the entire stream. HTML is discrete chunks, and I can very easily tell my browser that I only want to view certain chunks...It's part of the design. I can change the fonts on the pages, I can reset the background color. I can turn off flash or javascript. Don't tell me I HAVE to view it like they "intented"...Hell, using Firefox it's often enough that you can't do that anyway because of some IE only horseshit.
Costs me money too (Score:5, Insightful)
This means that each advert on a page causes my computer to actively send and then receive additional data.
This results in real additional bandwidth usage on my part.
If I am using any kind of metered access, or even if I am using unmetered access but with one of the major ISP's who arbitrarily enforce unofficial bandwith caps, then I incur a real cost for viewing that advert.
So, me configuring my computer to not waste resources in that way is no more immoral than the web site configuring their page such that viewing the advertisements makes use of my resources.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
So charge for access to the site and find how much your content is *really* worth. The best content sites are the ones that have quality original content and can charge for subscriptions (Wall Street Journal comes to mind). Failing that you might try to convince your readers that you will not barrage them with flashing banners, dancing always on top flash, or video ads and maybe, just maybe, they will be nice and unblock your banners (I use both the AdBlock and ScriptBlocker and Slashdot is one of my few trusted sites). If you want ad revenue then earn the trust of users with good quality content. They may block you initially, but if the content is good and the presentation (no 1 page article divided into 10 narrow short column pages to squeeze in more ads) is fair then people will be fair in return.
Re:What about my bandwidth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Blind. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you. By hosting the ads themselves. They vet the ads, they host the ads. They don't just rent the top of their page for every crap ad in the world to get thrown in.
Those ads say something about your site. If you're so willing to whore your content that you'll bend over and take whatever the ad company feels you outta take, then don't be surprised if people start blocking your ads.
Re:Well you're half right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is how we ended up with sophisticated ad-blocking in the first place. When it was a picture here, or a link there, nobody cared. But then the ads got more desparate and we got little shaking boxes, pop ups, great big chunks of Flash (which we pay for out of our bandwidth costs as well, incidentally). The ads become a big detraction to the website that we actually want to see. So naturally ad-blockers arise and become hugely popular. I put one in ages ago to try it out and then after a re-install, I didn't bother for a long, long time. But a couple of months ago, after visiting
If advertisers had been a little less greedy or desparate, they wouldn't be in this mess. But I have every right to not download things I don't want. And it's very, very easy to do that.
Bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
As a webmaster, you bear ALL the burden. I wish webmasters would wake up and smell the fucking coffee.
* YOU (the webmaster) signed the agreement with your hosting provider (A dollars per month)
* YOU (the webmaster) signed the agreement with the ad network (B dollars per impression)
* YOU (the webmaster) are responsible for bringing to bear content that attracts visitors (C hits per month)
* YOU (the webmaster) are responsible for technical measures that ensure that users can't get content without the ads (such that attrition rate k -> 0).
* YOU (the webmaster) are responsible to maximize your own operating profit -- such that C*B*(1-k) >= A.
No where in this equation is the user expected to do anything. You bear all the risk. You are in control of A, B, C and k.
Wake up and smell the coffee, you whiny assholes. If you can't deal with this, then you need to get a new job you lazy PHP hacks.
Re:Well no. (Score:1, Insightful)
I can concede that because it is so easy to block those ads, that revenue stream isn't exactly a good business model. Similar to how you shouldn't leave your store unattended and just assume everybody will pay what they owe for what they're taking out of your store.
Using a browser that doesn't support images is a gray area. I guess this whole discussion is about what I feel ok with doing versus what you feel ok with doing. I wouldn't feel ok blocking ads, but I would feel ok with using a browser that doesn't support images because I prefer the browser on its merits independent of advertising concerns. You clearly would feel ok to block every ad becuase its an ad and not what you wanted to see. I can consider that to be "immoral", and suggest that my opinion of where it falls on the morality scale is "correct", but because that is not provable its just a suggestion. I would never try to force you to view ads.
Re:It's not your web server. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course they do. They still dont get the revenue tho, eh?
As a general rule, non-descript advertising isnt something I block (like google ads, etc). If and when it is annoying it will get junked, and most likely, as sites with a high annoyance factor tend to try to work around the blocking, the site will get completely shitlisted and I'll go somewhere else instead.
Competition, in the information market, is a killer. Painful, but the publishing business needs to adjust to the fact that the industry is overpopulated by several orders of magnitude.
Frankly tho, some sites make me want to send the EPA on them; I wonder approximately how much energy that advertizing driven automated updates, flash video ads, animated ads, etc, consumes across the world. If you cant view a site without your CPU fan spinning up, then that's a fairly noticable unecessary and undesireable waste of energy.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Some guy has nothing better to do at his public llama petting zoo one day, so he decides to sit out in a lawn chair with a bunch of printed advertisements for some store. They said they'd give him a dollar for every sale they made when their customer mentioned the llama zoo. I head into the zoo and he hands me a copy of it. I drop it as soon as I get by him, or refuse to take it at all, or take it and rip it in half right in front of him, or feed it to one of the llamas. Or perhaps he's holding a live monkey and asks me to take a shot at it before I go into the zoo. If my response is that I'd rather not take a swing at his monkey or that I trash/ignore/deface the piece of paper handed to me, a reasonable response would be for the llama herder to hop out of his lawn chair shouting, "thief. THEIF!"
Perhaps he'd be better off putting a small rack next to the entrance that says "Support Our Favorite Merchants" or somesuch and drop his ads there?
He'd certainly blend in better with sane folks, I'd think.
Once the ad is in my possesion, do I not have the right to destroy or ignore it, or write important phone numbers on the back of it?
Re:It's not your web server. (Score:5, Insightful)
Faster Browsing (Score:2, Insightful)
Now some may say ads are small and don't take much bandwidth, the servers are not as fast as my connection may be, and I hate having to wait around for some ads.xxyyuuuxxx.com to get around to sending their data in the first place.
Incidentally, the Firefox security plugin NoScript does wonders for getting rid of Flash ads and the like.
So what's next, banning the use of hosts files? [everythingisnt.com]
Hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
In terms of morality, that's a two way street. Other people have pointed out that, by blocking ads where you have no intention of ever clicking on an ad, you are in fact saving the ad company bandwidth. The ads aren't pay-per-view, they're pay per click. No click, no money, so, by your moral standards, even if I'm not blocking the ad, then I should click on it so that the site will get money.
Beyond all that comes my own feelings about what I should be subjected to. I go to a website to read an article to find that the article is spread across 12 pages, each page with its own set of ads. Clearly they don't care very much about my convenience; I would go so far as to say that they're treating me quite poorly. The question then becomes, should I add this site to my own personal blacklist? It will cost me nothing to ignore it completely. Or should I view it as the "printer friendly" version, which inevitably has less advertising. Or should I wade through 12 annoying, slow loading pages, simply because that's what they want me to do? Regardless of whether I view ads or not, my presence on their page constitutes measurable traffic that they can take to other advertisers to persuade them that their site is worth advertising on.
Frankly, I think most sites would far rather we block their ads than their whole site, and it comes down to that for me. Few articles exist in a vacuum; the internet being what it is, there is always a second source. Go to Google news, and you'll see what I mean. What linked story is linked from only one site? While content providers attach large offensive ads to their pages, spread their stories across too many pages, add annoying popups or animation, they can expect me to block their content. If they don't like that, they can block my access, and I'll go elsewhere.
I think they'll quickly find that they need us a lot more than we need them.
Re:Well you're half right. (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, my problem isn't with a site trying to make a profit, but rather with advertising. If CmdrTaco wants to hold a bake sale in the Slashdot corporate office, fine. If /. sells t-shirts or offers paid premium accounts, that's cool. But I object to adverts on principle, as I imagine many here do. I know what I want to buy, so there's no need to convince me that Shiny New Widget is what I need today. I come for the tech news (consolidated from other sources) and the chatter amongst other users, not for ads.
I don't pay for a /. sub, and I unabashedly filter ads while here (and everywhere else). If /. folds, well, them's the breaks I guess. I'll go back to USENET or some other site for my daily dose of tech ramblings and gossip. Seemed to work well back in the BBS days when most sites were free and most operators were glad to spend money on their labor of love. Sure, the dial-up BBS couldn't have hundreds of thousands us users online at any given time, so it was a different beast. But really, it wasn't that much different.
This site is cool, no doubt. It's a shame that there's no real valid business model for it to keep it from running in the red. It's one thing for sites with real original content to sell subscriptions (research publications, newletters, newspapers, etc.), but trying to charge for a site where the content itself is provided by all of us? When you think about it, it's one of those cases where "Step #2: ?????" doesn't really exist.
Re:Depends on what kind of ads they are (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't serve the information purpose you mention. Advertisement is, almost by definition, biased and one-sided. I'd very much prefer comparisons, reviews and independent suggestions.
I, personally, very, very seldomly gain any information from advertisement. When I'm looking for something, a search engine works much better. For news about new gadgets, games, etc. I prefer (online) magazines to ads.
Frankly, I am convinced there is no legitimate use for advertisement, in the sense that it makes a positive contribution to society. Everything that ads do can be replaced by better independent alternatives.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
You had me up until this bit. When I go to a website, I am not engaging in any sort of bargain with the webmaster. I never negotiate what I will do or demand what I will get from them. There is no agreement that I explicitly agree to saying I will look at their ads. If there was such a EULA on a website, I would quickly opt out and not go to their site.
Some of the youngsters on
As to your stealing soliloquy, come on. What has been stolen? Did I break into someone's house and remove the ad profit from them? No. There is no physical thing that they have lost. They lost a potential profit. A profit that they are not entitled to. They can not demand that that I look at an ad, or download one. If they want to force people to pay for their web page, then they need to ask them for money. The subscription model has worked for a long time.
It's like saying that you are stealing from Walmart if you walk into their store and you don't buy anything. In this scenario, they may want you to buy their crap. Their whole business model is predicated upon people buying their crap. And you are using their employees' time, taking up valuable parking real estate, and a whole host of other expenses. Their costs are the same regardless of how many people come into the store. But since you did not buy anything, you have stolen from them more egregiously than any mp3 copying, EULA violating, device unlocking pirates. Right?
Re:Well no. (Score:4, Insightful)
We filter *everything*. If the business model doesn't work, it doesn't work. Whining that it is "immoral" to not view adverts because a freely offered web page has the ads clipped from it is plainly stupid. Take the corners of Las Vegas in the evening as an example. People stand there and offer various cards for "evening companionship" to all passersby. Would they whine if someone took a card (freely offered by any of these vendors), and clipped the ads from them to only keep the picture?
Even viewed from other angles, the argument is fallacious. If that form of advertising is not working for you, choose another. If your sole goal is to present free information to all passersby, then do so. If your goal is to make money, and the offering of free web pages have their ads blocked... move on. Examples of this on the web are rampant. You log in to purchase items from many web vendors. If you do not read their adverts, so what? They don't care. Newegg never complains to me that while purchasing my new hard drive that I blocked the other adverts along with my purchase. If they did, I just wouldn't buy anything there and move on to a vendor who was not confused about their ultimate goal.
So tell me again why a browser that blocks images is a "gray area"? Since no morality is involved (see above paragraph) it just means that the user wishes to use a perfectly valid browser to enjoy what internet content interests them. Ad content does not interest me, and I block almost all of it. I watch television (what little I do watch) via Tivo. The adverts are annoying (usually oppressively loud after a quiet portion of a program), and I am uninterested in their content. I pay a cable provider, who in turn pays the originator of the program.
The same applies to the internet. I pay a provider to get information I wish. If I need to support sites that I enjoy special content from, I do so. If their only manner of gaining revenue is from the adverts, *and* they are giving the pages away in hopes of you paying attention; tough. Poor business decisions are not my problem. It is the responsibility of a good business to decide their ultimate goal, and format their decisions to accomplish that. A local store gives free samples on the weekends to anyone who visits. They don't complain when you don't buy the product, nor when you do not even inquire as to the company that provides the sample.
Why should the internet be different?
Re:It's not your web server. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a couple of sites I go to that are sponsored. That is, specific, RELEVANT companies support the site. The site displays the advertiser's logo and provides a link to their store. Guess what? I BUY stuff from that sponsor occasionally! I've never, ever bought something from one of these random, always changing ads. Not that I see them much anymore....
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
this is a joke, right? (Score:2, Insightful)
...and SAVES the site owner money, too (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems quite reasonable and equitable to me.
Morality? OK, let's talk morality... (Score:3, Insightful)
Drive-by malware installations. Floating ads that block the content until you click on them (with no indication what clicking on them will actually do). Ads that auto-play loud sounds that're highly inappropriate in an office environment. Advertising networks that try to do highly invasive user tracking above and beyond merely displaying an ad. Those are why I block ads, and why I'll continue to block ads. Those ads represent anything from merely a disruption to an outright threat to my system. I can't evaluate them after they've loaded, by then they've already done their thing. The only safe thing I can do is block them from ever loading in the first place. And no, a web site's right to put up ads doesn't trump my right and responsibility to protect my system.
Yes, I'm grouchy. BT,DT,GTTS. The whole line of t-shirts, in fact, in every color variation. Not interested in collecting any more.
Denying them money? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:1, Insightful)
There is the notion that just because some money CAN be made on the Internet, somehow anyone who tries automatically has some kind of "right" to make money on the Internet.
But there is no "right" to money; there is only "earnings" of money.
Compare this to a retail store, where some people merely walk in to browse, and don't buy anything, because the store didn't offer anything wanted by those people.
Most Web sites don't offer what most people want, so why do they deserve money?
One of the key points about the Internet is that it becomes easy to select a niche market, and cater to that. There is no NEED to accommodate every taste. So if your chosen niche is viable, you will have enough customers for your business to continue, and there is no need to ram junk down the throats of all the casual browsing visitors.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. I never agreed to download the ad. I never agreed to even view the ad. I have no obligation to do anything just because the webmaster placed the ad on his publically accessible webserver, wanted me to view the ad, and placed an img tag to the ad on his page. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
Again, I have no responsibility to download ad files from websites I visit. I have no responsibility to view those ad files. That's my bandwidth I'm saving, which the webmaster wants to use. I have a right to control my bandwidth, thank you very much. My actions are not wrong and thus are not immoral.
YOU webmasters are attempting to create a responsibility where NONE exists. YOU webmasters offered these pages free for ANYONE to view. And now YOU webmasters are intimidating people unless they download your ads down OUR bandwidth and view your ads on OUR time. Last time I checked, that is called extortion. So sorry, if anyone is in the wrong it is YOU webmasters. That is where the immorality lies.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well you're half right. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's stealing whose resources? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the end, a few things are clear: Users of advertisement-skipping technology are essentially engaged in theft of resources.
TFA assumes the position that if a website gets a nickel for placing an ad on MY computer, and I have a mechanism in place to prevent that ad from getting to MY computer, that I am engaged in theft of resources.
This is like saying if someone gets a nickel for every time someone else can park their car in MY driveway, and I install a gate to prevent that third party from parking their car in MY driveway, that I am engaged in theft of resources.
Website operators have no right to bitch and moan if I block their ads from MY computer, because while they insist that I am stealing if I do not permit their ads to invade MY computer, they are not offering to pay me rent or other compensation for the use of MY CPU, MY RAM, MY bandwidth, MY desktop, MY browser, or even MY electricity for sending me unwanted and unrequested material.
Seven or eight years ago I went through hell with IE in Win98, because there were sites that spawned pop-up ads, and those ads spawned MORE pop-up ads as the first ads were closed, and then the other ads were busy spawning even more ads, until the only thing I could do was hit the switch and turn the damn machine off cold. That's when I learned the magic art of disabling scripts. I cannot have been the only one.
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:2, Insightful)
"THE INTERNET IS NOT JUST FOR PROFIT". Shove your capitalism up your arse. I will determine the data that is downloaded to my computer and the manne rin which it is downloaded. It's _mine_.
If you want me to pay a price to consume a product or use a service, charge me money! Thousands of sites do this, now even including Kuro5hin.
It's not acceptable to charge advertisers money for providing a service to the advertisers, then complain that someone else isn't doing their bit. WTF? If you want me to watch the ads, give me a cut of the money! If you think your content is so good, then charge me for it. just because it took you hours and you spellchecked it doesn't mean I'm obligated to you.
I'm not consuming a product, I'm reading text, which someone allows me to connect to and download. It is legal for me to do this, there is no licence or contract involved, no matter what TOS you slap on the site.
Whether or not I choose to also download some other additional articles, or favicon bmps, or other images or advertisements has nothing to do with you.
If you don't want people to download your content, don't spend time and money putting it online.
If you can't get enough advertising dollars to do it, don't do it. The world will not crumble if a few websites go missing, even if they are popular good ones.
Your example of physical theft is childish. Noone said that something was moral just because it could be done.
Also, because you read this informative comment, you are now obligated to send me a grovelling email explaining in your own words how well you understand the concepts of freedom and individual choice. No? See? Stupid isn't it?
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Bandwidth is not a big concern. Most ads don't take more than a few kilobytes. Unless you're living in some third-world country, bandwidth costs are insignificant.
Come to think of it, adblock could use two new options: 1: load but hide ads. 2: "click" all ads in background, to generate revenue for site you're viewing.
I do in fact do that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Depends on what kind of ads they are (Score:3, Insightful)
Gas price signs (price advertising in general, really) are an example of truly useful advertising that goes beyond “it exists”. They’re one-sided in that they only show one station’s prices, but they’re much more useful than if I had to pull in and read the price off the pumps. They’re not making any claims that are subjective, so bias is immaterial, and having it in four-foot-high digits makes it easier to choose, from the street, which place to go to.