Exiting new Firefox feature in the latest nightly build
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@ender said:
This is very simple to achieve: never serve annoying ads from atdmt.com, and I won't block it.
There are thousands of publishers using Atlas, and tens of thousands of advertisers.
Oh, and Atlas uses Akamai to host content-- do you block all of Akamai also? Because I'm sure at one point in history one of those annoying ads was hosted on Akamai. How about Amazon's S3? Do you block all of that?
You know what, we're not getting to the source here. Some of those ads were served from Linux servers, so you better block all Linux servers. Oh, and some are coming from Windows servers, so you better block all Windows servers while you're at it.
@ender said:
Because if site X has annoying ads from atdmt.com, there's a great possibility that site Y also has annoying ads from atdmt.com, even if site Z has nice ads from atdmt.com.
No there isn't. But, by all means, keep on spreading ignorance. God knows we don't want those pesky "facts" getting in the way.
@ender said:
But that's a problem atdmt.com has to deal with.
Atlas is an exchange. I know you have no clue what that means, but the short answer is: it means it's not their problem.
If you have a problem with a specific publisher in the exchange, you can block that publisher-- well, you could, if AdBlock had that feature.
Again, I'm not opposed to AdBlock existing, or your using it, I'm just opposed to the way it works. Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist.
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@PJH said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
The site owners make content available on the understanding you will view ads to pay for it.
Well they shouldn't piss off their (potential) viewers by using annoying ad companies then.Atlas isn't an advertiser, it's a fucking exchange!
Could someone on your side of the debate PLEASE get a clue on how advertising even works before we continue? At the very least, figure out what an ad exchange is and how it differs from an advertiser? Thank you.
Edit: You know further up, I said that I'm fine with any decision anybody on this board makes about blocking ads, as long as it's an informed decision. Now I'm finding out that absolutely nobody blocking ads has an informed decision. It's really disappointing.
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@Xyro said:
So are users of text-only browsers (e.g., the visually impaired) all culpable of thievery?
Nope. Because no-one said ads are only visual. A blind person blocking audio ads would be just the same.@Xyro said:
Tell me, when you are reading a periodical or driving down the highway, do you compel yourself to read the ads and billboards?
Billboards are entirely different, but anyway, the correct analogy would be having someone go ahead of you covering up billboards. Ads in magazines and ads on billboards inside places that you pay less to get into are both similar to the case we're talking about, and although you have no obligation to pay attention to them, preventing them from being displayed is obviously not your choice.@Xyro said:
Do you find it unethical to turn the radio channel when the three-in-a-row-greatest-1980s-hits stops playing music?
No, but it is unethical to have an in-line filter that blocks the ads so you don't have to change channel. It's very simple, really. You can choose not to avail yourself of the service paid for by ads, or you can choose to view/listen to the ads. You can't have the service but not the ads without breaking the moral contract under which the service is supplied. That it's easy to steal doesn't make it right.@Xyro said:
the station owners make the shows available on the understanding that you're not going to move from the sofa when the sponsors need their words.
Not at all. They make programmes available in the hope and expectation that not everyone will switch off in the ad breaks. If you had a tv station that showed ads in a small box in the corner of their regular programming, it would be wrong to block those.
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@blakeyrat said:
Could someone on your side of the debate PLEASE get a clue on how advertising even works before we continue?
We know how they work (or rather don't) - they exist to annoy because advertisers (and those that help those advertisers advertise) think that big and flashy works.
If someone comes up with (or serves, or however else you want to differentiate the annoying advertisers with those that enable the advertisers to annoy despite their audience not giving a fuck about any difference) big and flashy adverts, they are being annoying.
Perhaps if ad exchanges were a bit more savvy about what fucks of the product they're selling, then perhaps their product might be worth a bit more, and they could sell more of it to their customers.
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@blakeyrat said:
No there isn't. But, by all means, keep on spreading ignorance. God knows we don't want those pesky "facts" getting in the way.
I'm just speaking from experience - blocking domain serving flash ads on one site cleaned several other for me. You see, cleaning several websites from annoying ads is a feature to me, and if the ad blocker required me to block ads on each site individually, even when they were served from the same domain, I'd probably just blacklist the domain in hosts.@blakeyrat said:Some of those ads were served from Linux servers, so you better block all Linux servers.
The only thing that matters is the domain they're served from.@blakeyrat said:Atlas is an exchange. I know you have no clue what that means, but the short answer is: it means it's not their problem.
I don't care what it is - if it's serving ads (and using a single domain name for that), it's their fault.
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@PJH said:
We know how they work (or rather don't) - they exist to annoy because advertisers (and those that help those advertisers advertise) think that big and flashy works.
That explains how Search and AdWords placements are so cheap-- oh wait.
Look, are there some old-school marketing people who think big and flashy ads are the way to go? Yes. They believe this because they come from the era of TV and radio ads, where that's a widespread myth. Due to the fact that TV/radio/etc has zero accurate analytics, they don't realize that these ads are typically more harmful than helpful... there's no way to look at a TV ratings sheet and tell how many people bought your product based on the ad, but on the web you can do that. That's why we're trying to get these dinosaurs into the 21st century, and if we're successful the ad rates for TV will go down so far they'll be in the basement.
But that's not a justification for blocking any ads *except* the specific big and flashy ads that annoy you.
There's also some drivers who run down pedestrians in their cars. That's not a justification to destroy every car you see. There are some developers who write malware. That's not a justification for computer users to beat you to death. See how it works?
The goal of our company is to finally get those horrible people OUT of web advertising. You don't help our mission by blocking our exchange and analytics, because analytics are the only way we can prove those ads *don't work*.
And if *your* goal was to stop big and flashy advertising, you'd stop visiting content sponsored by big and flashy advertising. If you block the ads, but continue to view the content, you're not changing the world, you're just being a selfish dick.
@PJH said:
Perhaps if ad exchanges were a bit more savvy about what fucks of the product they're selling, then perhaps their product might be worth a bit more, and they could sell more of it to their customers.
They're selling publishers to advertisers. The publishers decide what content they want on their sites, not the exchange.
That's not even accurate, anyway, since the exchange doesn't do any marketing by itself... it's really just joining publishers and advertisers in the say way that a stock exchange joins corporations and investors. (Thus the name.)
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@blakeyrat said:
But that's not a justification for blocking any ads except the specific big and flashy ads that annoy you.
It the simplest way of stopping the big and flashy ads is to block the servers that serve them, then there's every justification.
You seem to think the world owes your company a living, and claiming that "not all advertising is bad" when the non-bad advertising is lost amongst the bad advertising is an acceptable excuse for you to bang on about how ad-blocking is bad. It's not an acceptable excuse, and ad blocking is a necessity to all users who don't derive their living directly from advertising.
@blakeyrat said:There's also some drivers who run down pedestrians in their cars. That's not a justification to destroy every car you see.
Ah - bad analogy time. Indeed it's not - it's a justification for having laws and punishments for the drivers that fail to follow those laws (the sites that serve flashy adverts) and allowing the other drivers (the sites that don't) alone. Your "don't ban our server, it's good honest" is like not having those laws in the first place and allowing those drivers to continue running people over occasionally.
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@blakeyrat said:
if your goal was to stop big and flashy advertising, you'd stop visiting content sponsored by big and flashy advertising. If you block the ads, but continue to view the content, you're not changing the world, you're just being a selfish dick.
Exactly.
@PJH said:
@blakeyrat said:
There's also some drivers who run down pedestrians in their cars. That's not a justification to destroy every car you see.
Ah - bad analogy time. Indeed it's not - it's a justification for having laws and punishments for the drivers that fail to follow those laws (the sites that serve flashy adverts) and allowing the other drivers (the sites that don't) alone. Your "don't ban our server, it's good honest" is like not having those laws in the first place and allowing those drivers to continue running people over occasionally.No, you're waffling. It would be like banning Fords because some idiot drove a Ford into a child. That's not a great analogy, though. A better one would be banning postal services because someone sent junk-mail.
@PJH said:
If someone comes up with (or serves, or however else you want to differentiate the annoying advertisers with those that enable the advertisers to annoy despite their audience not giving a fuck about any difference) big and flashy adverts, they are being annoying.
Yes. So if you only block the big annoying ads, or simply ignore them, then the statistics the advertiser gets back will tell them it doesn't work. That way, they might stop doing it, and you could view websites without getting annoyed, and without ripping off the owner.
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Re: Exciting new Firefox feature in the latest nightly build
@PJH said:
It the simplest way of stopping the big and flashy ads is to block the servers that serve them, then there's every justification.
It's only the simplest way because AdBlocker has a "nuclear weapon" button and no "precise rifle" button. It doesn't have to be this way!
Anyway, you're not blocking the server, which as I said above is Akamai, because if you were the whole web would be a red X icon. You're obviously just blocking the Atlas content on the server.
@PJH said:
You seem to think the world owes your company a living, and claiming that "not all advertising is bad" when the non-bad advertising is lost amongst the bad advertising is an acceptable excuse for you to bang on about how ad-blocking is bad.
You seem to think you're a serial killer who chops up 15 nuns a week, how about replying to that one? Or maybe we should both not put fucking words in the others' mouths, eh?
@PJH said:
It's not an acceptable excuse, and ad blocking is a necessity to all users who don't derive their living directly from advertising.
Ooo, I'm gonna to love this weasel answer: explain to me how it's a "necessity"?
@PJH said:
Ah - bad analogy time. Indeed it's not - it's a justification for having laws and punishments for the drivers that fail to follow those laws
Do you believe in proportionate response in your laws and punishments for those who break traffic laws? Or do you think that every time one single person breaks one single law, 500 randomly-selected cars should be taken from their owners and smashed? Because the latter is what AdBlock is doing.
@PJH said:
Your "don't ban our server, it's good honest" is like not having those laws in the first place and allowing those drivers to continue running people over occasionally.
Well, first of fucking all, I'm not asking you not to ban ads, I think I've said that in this thread about 50 bajillion times. Oh wait you're just putting more words into my mouth to make a ridiculous strawman, and hoping I'm too fucking stupid to instantly see right through it-- right!
Secondly, you don't know whether the site is good or bad if you use AdBlock, because AdBlock blocks everything regardless. This is my exact complaint about AdBlock, that I've made approximately 50 bajillion times in this thread.
If AdBlock had a mode where you could first judge whether or not you agree with a site's advertising before choosing to block it, I'd be 100% behind it. I'd install it on all my friends and relatives computers. And I believe it would be more morally responsible of the publishers of that program to have that option be the default. My opinion restated: 50 bajillion + 1 times.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Xyro said:
But it's the same thing. It's just that one happens to be nicely automated by an opt-in extention, and the other is manual. I load the page, I read the article, I unload the page. No ads. I tune in the station, I listen to the music, I tune out the station. No ads. If my radio had a feature where it would automatically cycle the station whenever the music stopped, would its automated ability make it unethical, whereas manually performing the same action would be acceptable?Do you find it unethical to turn the radio channel when the three-in-a-row-greatest-1980s-hits stops playing music?
No, but it is unethical to have an in-line filter that blocks the ads so you don't have to change channel.When you say, "You can't have the service but not the ads without breaking the moral contract under which the service is supplied.", that would mean that changing the station without listening to the sponsors is a breach of moral contract, and same goes for TV commercials. ...to say nothing of the validity of this unsigned moral contract...
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@PJH said:
It the simplest way of [stopping X is to do Y], then there's every justification.
Oh, missed that the first time round. That is possibly the most succinct statement of immorality I've ever heard: if something is the easiest solution for you, use it regardless of cost to others. The simplest way to deal with petty criminals is execution. The simplest way to deal with poverty is execution. The simplest way to deal with racial tension is to execute everyone. Hell, the simplest way for me to have more money than I now do is for you to send me all of yours.Maybe the simplest solutions aren't always the best.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
<hyperbole>
Whatever.
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@Xyro said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
You make a good case there that I wasn't harsh enough, but I think it's something of a grey area as long as its manual. I see nothing wrong with going for a pee in an ad break, for example, but switching channels is slightly different. I think it's reasonable to say that you have no obligation to continue watching a channel at any time, whether it's at the start of an ad break or not, but you do have an obligation not to block the ads if you are watching it. The station has its own duty to keep you interested so you keep listening, and part of that will be how frequently they breakl for ads.@Xyro said:
But it's the same thing. It's just that one happens to be nicely automated by an opt-in extention, and the other is manual. I load the page, I read the article, I unload the page. No ads. I tune in the station, I listen to the music, I tune out the station. No ads.Do you find it unethical to turn the radio channel when the three-in-a-row-greatest-1980s-hits stops playing music?
No, but it is unethical to have an in-line filter that blocks the ads so you don't have to change channel.@Xyro said:
If my radio had a feature where it would automatically cycle the station whenever the music stopped, would its automated ability make it unethical, whereas manually performing the same action would be acceptable?
I'd say that it's another grey area, but it tends towards the immoral end of things. If you are never going to listen to ads, then it's wrong to use the services paid for with ads, whether you change channel manually or automatically.@Xyro said:
When you say, "You can't have the service but not the ads without breaking the moral contract under which the service is supplied.", that would mean that changing the station without listening to the sponsors is a breach of moral contract, and same goes for TV commercials. ...to say nothing of the validity of this unsigned moral contract...
I think I've already addressed the first part of that - although I'd note that if you always change channels for the ads, that will be reflected in the price of ads, and if that drops low enough, more intrusive forms of advertising will be used more heavily. The grey areas are grey, but the overall determination is easy: if you never contribute to the costs of producing content, you're not morally entitled to consume it.What's more interesting is the question of a 'moral contract'. Obviously, it's unsigned, and since its terms are implicit rather than explicit, there are some grey areas. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though. If the terms under which something is provided are obvious, then the moral obligation exists whether or not it's enforced. If you see an unattended roadside produce stall with a box to put money in, there's a moral obligation not to take food without paying, even if you didn't sign any contract. If someone requests that you make a donation to charity in return for some help they gave you, you have a moral obligation to do so, even if you can get away with not doing so. If someone asks you to view ads in return for content, you generally have an obligation to do so if you view the content.
I don't see a moral problem with blocking ads if you give money directly to the content producer to make up for it, but unfortunately we don't have a system for that.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
The grey areas are grey, but the overall determination is easy: if you never contribute to the costs of producing content, you're not morally entitled to consume it.
You make a good and susinct point here, one which I would not fully refute. I flinch at the phrase "morally entitled" (and indeed, any reference to entitlement), because I don't think that ever needs to enter into the scenario when a product is freely available and accessible. I do not necessarily feel I am entitled to or deserve ad-free site content any more than I feel entitled to or deserve money-free produce from the roadside stand.I do, however, feel like I should be allowed to have control over what I see when I voluntarily look at something. E.g., if I have poor eyesight, then I should be free to inject my own stylesheet to increase font size and contrast. Likewise, I wish to minimize or eliminate distracting advertising. Having paid for my internet access, I see no reason why I shouldn't be in control of how the downloaded HTML should be viewed. Indeed, this "entitlement" of content rendering control was part of the original design of the web (like font faces, colors, icons, etc, when things were bare-bones), and I do not desire to be newly bound by a marketing director's questionable notion of "experience" control. If content providers wish to sustain their servers based on voluntarily-downloaded advertisements, then that is fine. But I will not feel compelled to support it.
You said, "If someone requests that you make a donation to charity in return for some help they gave you, you have a moral obligation to do so," but I disagree in its universality, and particularly in this context. I suppose, more simply, I want to place the burden of payment on the seller, not the buyer. If a seller gives away his goods for free with a donations tip jar on his table, he shouldn't get fussy when less than everyone donates. Especially when the jar is next to, say, a strobe light and a siren. You are perfectly free to donate or not donate.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@PJH said:
Bullshit is it stealing. There's no law against it. Stealing is defined taking someone's property with the intent of permanently depriving them of it. Requesting a webpage from a publicly-accessible HTTP server is not stealing it, and it does not create any kind of contractual obligation on you to go out and fetch all the URIs listed in the returned content. If you don't like that, get off the internet, because that's how it works.@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
Well if such advertisers didn't have such annoying ads that steal our bandwidth/screen estate/CPU/cache/any other number of our resources, we wouldn't be tempted to block them to stop them stealing.But that's a problem atdmt.com has to deal with.
OK, but it's still stealing.The site owners make content available on the understanding you will view ads to pay for it. The fact that you are able to block the ads makes no moral difference, any more than someone leaving their front door unlocked entitles you to steal their stuff.
You're going to end up like that TV exec who claimed that not watching the ads is stealing. If people like you had your way, we'd all be bolted into chairs with our eyelids scraped open so that we can't even blink or turn our heads like Alex at the end of Clockwork Orange.
THIS! THIS IS WHAT THE FUCKERS WANT TO DO TO US! WELL I SAY FUCKING REDHOT SERRATED ASSPOKER DEATH TO THEIR EVIL PLANS! BLOCK ADS NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN! BLOCK THEM ALL!
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@Xyro said:
I flinch at the phrase "morally entitled" (and indeed, any reference to entitlement), because I don't think that ever needs to enter into the scenario when a product is freely available and accessible.
I agree, it sounds like it means something it doesn't - but I'm not sure how else to put it. If you go to a shop and don't pay, you do not have the moral right to take anything. If you do pay, you are then morally entitled to take what you paid for. It sounds better the other way around, I guess: if you pay, the shopkeeper has a moral obligation to give you what you paid for. Still, it's the same thing.
@Xyro said:
You said, "If someone requests that you make a donation to charity in return for some help they gave you, you have a moral obligation to do so," but I
disagree in its universality, and particularly in this context. I suppose, more simply, I want to place the burden of payment on the seller, not the buyer. If a seller gives away his goods for free with a donations tip jar on his table, he shouldn't get fussy when less than everyone donates.I'm not quite sure. A lot of this depends on circumstances, because people don't always want anything more than the opportunity to persuade you to donate, but you're obligated (to my mind) to give them what they reasonably assume they'll get in return for whatever they're giving away. So, for example, if a shop offers free cake at the door to get you inside, if you take the cake, you have an obligation to go inside and take as much of a look round as is reasonable, but not to buy anything. If a charity does a free concert, you have an obligation at least to consider donating to them. If a site assumes you'll view the ads, and provides content with that in mind, you have an obligation to be reasonably open to viewing them, I think.
I should note that this implied moral contract has some small print, so any ad that, for example, breaks your PC, is one it's perfectly acceptable to block. Even if it's just a hideously annoying ad, you might be justified in blocking that one ad, although perhaps you should avoid the site - it depends whether other ads are served as well, and things like that. It's blocking all ads that I see the big problem with.
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@DaveK said:
Bullshit is it stealing. There's no law against it.
Ooh look, someone who doesn't know the difference between illegal and immoral. There's no law against many things that are wrong, but that doesn't make them right. Not to get all Godwin on you, but the Nazi death camps were legal in Nazi Germany. Stalin's purges were legal in Soviet Russia. Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife. Does that affect the morality of those things?
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
If a site assumes you'll view the ads, and provides content with that in mind, you have an obligation to be reasonably open to viewing them, I think.
No way, I will not be bound to someone else's false assumptions!As a matter of interest, do you donate money or otherwise to open source projects? There's no doubt several dozen that sustain your employment, whether you know it or not. I mean, it's okay if you don't, you have that option, but I believe you're arguing yourself into opening a few annuities to OpenSSH, Perl, Apache Foundation, etc, etc.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife.
You may not possibly believe that, but there are "alienation of affection" laws in a few states. If you steal someone's spouse, you may be found liable for a big amount of money.
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@alegr said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife.
You may not possibly believe that, but there are "alienation of affection" laws in a few states. If you steal someone's spouse, you may be found liable for a big amount of money.
Let us not get started in the legal system, we won't come out alive, there is a reason there are so many lawyer jokes in any language as it is an universal black hole of wtf
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@Xyro said:
There's no doubt several dozen that sustain your employment, whether you know it or not.
I have some doubt, but maybe I'm just not aware of them. What kind of things do you mean? I don't use any of the examples you mention, although I do (presumably) use sites that use them.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Xyro said:
Not knowing your job makes it difficult to guess, but unless you work with only Microsoft products or only with mainframes or only with some abhorrent combination of the two, you'll be supported by open source software somewhere. Places to look for them include.... email delivery - like sendmail and postfix on various servers themselves, not just the enterprisey one; server support script - Perl is on every Unix system out there for a reason; routers - both big and small, although I'm not sure what all is in those Cisco behemoths; secure communications - OpenSSH et al, most (all?) SSL implementations can thank OpenSSH; do you use VoIP? I don't know what marketshare Asterisk has, but I know we use it; how about version control?; And these are just the direct applications. If your employer buys software, its development costs was surely lowered thanks to open source software as well. I'd even go as far as saying that the amount of infrastructure in the Unix-y world that comes for free is what lets employers have enough money to hire folks like us to program them out of the dark ages. This is to say nothing of the cultural change that has broke or is breaking (depending on who you ask) the once-prevalent and often-malevolent business model of vendor lock-in and renting software and charging you a dollar for every bit you process. GOOD TIMES.There's no doubt several dozen that sustain your employment, whether you know it or not.
I have some doubt, but maybe I'm just not aware of them. What kind of things do you mean? I don't use any of the examples you mention, although I do (presumably) use sites that use them.
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@DaveK said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
The fact that you are able to block the ads makes no moral difference, any more than someone leaving their front door unlocked entitles you to steal their stuff.
Bullshit is it stealing. There's no law against it. Stealing is defined taking someone's property with the intent of permanently depriving them of it.Well, if you put sth outside your property, and don't leave a tag on it, either the garbage man will take it, or if it's still worth sth, one of your neighbours. Neither of those is stealing. On the other hand, if you invite me into your home, give me sth and I take it with the intent of permanently depriving you of it and you said that was ok, it's also not stealing. If then when I walk out you say oh but you have to pay for it now, that's also at least weird.
Similarly, if a site offers me content for free, and they don't expressly say "but if you look at this you have to see all the ads too", how is it immoral for me to just look at their content and not the ads? Or how is it immoral for me to just view one article and not all articles? Even if you argue that there is an implicit agreement because as a internet user I should be aware that most sites fund (part of) their content by ads, I say that most users that don't block ads, still don't actually watch them. Would you say those users are immoral too?
BTW, I've also been a site owner, and I even used Google ads to fund (part of) the hosting. Personally, I wasn't offended by anyone blocking the ads. I found that about 1 in 100 users clicked on one of the ads, which was fine by me. I didn't resent the other 99 ones who didn't.
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@Xyro said:
If your employer buys software, its development costs was surely lowered thanks to open source software as well.
I agree that somewhere in that, someone ought to donate to the OSS development. To my mind, though, that's the company making use of the open source software directly. I don't even want to think about the relative ethics involved if you know that the appropriate donations weren't made further up the chain.@Xyro said:
unless you work with only Microsoft products or only with mainframes or only with some abhorrent combination of the two, you'll be supported by open source software somewhere. Places to look for them include.... email delivery - like sendmail and postfix on various servers themselves, not just the enterprisey one; server support script - Perl is on every Unix system out there for a reason; routers - both big and small, although I'm not sure what all is in those Cisco behemoths; secure communications - OpenSSH et al, most (all?) SSL implementations can thank OpenSSH; do you use VoIP? I don't know what marketshare Asterisk has, but I know we use it; how about version control?;
I should note that I'm not a programmer to any significant extent. Mostly I work with MS-based or other commercial systems - some sysadminning, but mostly I get paid for breadth of knowledge, knowing what the possibilities are, and telling people which route is a good one to go down. I don't think I use any of the things you've mentioned. When I advise someone to use a piece of open source or free software commercially, I generally have a quiet word about the morality of doing so without making a donation. If I advise someone that they should use *nix systems, I'll be referring them to someone who does *nix stuff who hopefully will do the same.
In principle, I'm very supportive of donating to OSS projects, anyway. In practice, there are some objections. One thing that's not been mentioned in this context is that some people work on OSS projects on the basis that putting the code out there will indirectly benefit them, because other people will do the same. I'm not sure what the moral imperative is there.
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@b-redeker said:
Well, if you put sth outside your property, and don't leave a tag on it, either the garbage man will take it, or if it's still worth sth, one of your neighbours. Neither of those is stealing.
Just to hammer home the point about morality and legality being different, a starving man taking food from someone else's garbage can is committing a crime in most countries.@b-redeker said:
Similarly, if a site offers me content for free, and they don't expressly say "but if you look at this you have to see all the ads too", how is it immoral for me to just look at their content and not the ads?
This is the difference (again) between legal and moral. You're not being forced to view the ads, and you have no legal obligation to do so. They don't need to explicitly state that they want you to view the ads because it's self-evident from the fact that they have put them on their site.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@DaveK said:
You didn't say it was "immoral". You said it was "stealing", which is a far more precise term referring to an illegal act of theft.Bullshit is it stealing. There's no law against it.
Ooh look, someone who doesn't know the difference between illegal and immoral.
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
There's no law against many things that are wrong, but that doesn't make them right. Not to get all Godwin on you, but the Nazi death camps were legal in Nazi Germany. Stalin's purges were legal in Soviet Russia. Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife. Does that affect the morality of those things?
None of those things are "stealing" either, which is all we're discussing here. Your straw-man is irrelevant.
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@b-redeker said:
Actually, if you put something in the trash, you are giving it quite specifically to the trashman and anyone else who takes it is stealing (possibly "stealing by finding") it. (NB that YMMV depending on the rules in your local jurisidiction.)@DaveK said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
The fact that you are able to block the ads makes no moral difference, any more than someone leaving their front door unlocked entitles you to steal their stuff.
Bullshit is it stealing. There's no law against it. Stealing is defined taking someone's property with the intent of permanently depriving them of it.Well, if you put sth outside your property, and don't leave a tag on it, either the garbage man will take it, or if it's still worth sth, one of your neighbours. Neither of those is stealing.
@b-redeker said:
Also because once it's given to me, it's now my property, so my possession of it does not deprive the rightful owner at all, as I have just become the rightful owner in the act of transfer.On the other hand, if you invite me into your home, give me sth and I take it with the intent of permanently depriving you of it and you said that was ok, it's also not stealing.
@b-redeker said:
If then when I walk out you say oh but you have to pay for it now, that's also at least weird.
Hear hear!Similarly, if a site offers me content for free, and they don't expressly say "but if you look at this you have to see all the ads too", how is it immoral for me to just look at their content and not the ads? Or how is it immoral for me to just view one article and not all articles? Even if you argue that there is an implicit agreement because as a internet user I should be aware that most sites fund (part of) their content by ads, I say that most users that don't block ads, still don't actually watch them. Would you say those users are immoral too?
BTW, I've also been a site owner, and I even used Google ads to fund (part of) the hosting. Personally, I wasn't offended by anyone blocking the ads. I found that about 1 in 100 users clicked on one of the ads, which was fine by me. I didn't resent the other 99 ones who didn't.
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@DaveK said:
You didn't say it was "immoral". You said it was "stealing", which is a far more precise term referring to an illegal act of theft.
Don't be painfully stupid, please. It hurts me. Stealing is a moral wrong that coincidentally is also a crime in most jurisdictions. We're specifically talking about morals, not laws here, as is completely obvious when you read the thread.@DaveK said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
There's no law against many things that are wrong, but that doesn't make them right. Not to get all Godwin on you, but the Nazi death camps were legal in Nazi Germany. Stalin's purges were legal in Soviet Russia. Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife. Does that affect the morality of those things?
None of those things are "stealing" either, which is all we're discussing here. Your straw-man is irrelevant.Your point relies on morality and legality being the same thing. It's not a straw man to point out that this is obviously untrue.
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@blakeyrat said:
Again, I'm not opposed to AdBlock existing, or your using it, I'm just opposed to the way it works. Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist.
What? By default it'll black-list. How would it be able to tell what content to block otherwise? Also you can block by directory in a domain (eg: http://example.org/ads/)
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@blakeyrat said:
It's only the simplest way because AdBlocker has a "nuclear weapon" button and no "precise rifle" button. It doesn't have to be this way!
You can block a specific URL. It is not limited to blocking domains.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@DaveK said:
You need to take things less seriously; I find your stupidity merely tedious and disappointing, rather than painful. We are talking about the validity of your calling the use of adblockers "stealing". Everything else you have mentioned since then is an attempt at diversion.You didn't say it was "immoral". You said it was "stealing", which is a far more precise term referring to an illegal act of theft.
Don't be painfully stupid, please. It hurts me. Stealing is a moral wrong that coincidentally is also a crime in most jurisdictions. We're specifically talking about morals, not laws here, as is completely obvious when you read the thread.@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@DaveK said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
There's no law against many things that are wrong, but that doesn't make them right. Not to get all Godwin on you, but the Nazi death camps were legal in Nazi Germany. Stalin's purges were legal in Soviet Russia. Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife. Does that affect the morality of those things?
None of those things are "stealing" either, which is all we're discussing here. Your straw-man is irrelevant.Your point relies on morality and legality being the same thing. It's not a straw man to point out that this is obviously untrue.
No, that's your (irrelevant straw-man) point. Mine is that it is not stealing to block ads. You are making the Humpty-Dumpty argument that "stealing" means whatever you say it means.
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Re: Exciting new Firefox feature in the latest nightly build
@Lingerance said:
@blakeyrat said:
Again, I'm not opposed to AdBlock existing, or your using it, I'm just opposed to the way it works. Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist.
What? By default it'll black-list. How would it be able to tell what content to block otherwise? Also you can block by directory in a domain (eg: http://example.org/ads/)And back again!!! Instead of me demonstrating the same fucking point one more fucking time, how about you just scroll up and save us both the time? Thx.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Lingerance said:
No need. You made a statement "Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist." I made a statement "By default it'll black-list." I fail to see why context is necessary at this point.@blakeyrat said:
Again, I'm not opposed to AdBlock existing, or your using it, I'm just opposed to the way it works. Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist.
What? By default it'll black-list. How would it be able to tell what content to block otherwise? Also you can block by directory in a domain (eg: http://example.org/ads/)And back again!!! Instead of me demonstrating the same fucking point one more fucking time, how about you just scroll up and save us both the time? Thx.
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@Lingerance said:
No need. You made a statement "Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist." I made a statement "By default it'll black-list." I fail to see why context is necessary at this point.
Not taking the bait again. Scroll up if you want an explanation. If you want to just debate in circles for a couple more days, well, you can sign up a new account and use that.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Lingerance said:
I'm not baiting. I was under the impression you are severly misinformed or ignorant on what AdBlock actually does beyond the high-level description of it's functionality. It works by having a URL filter, so it doesn't always block by domain. As such it blacklists by default. If you had stated you wanted it to have a whitelist (which makes no sense in the context) I wouldn't have made the post.No need. You made a statement "Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist." I made a statement "By default it'll black-list." I fail to see why context is necessary at this point.
Not taking the bait again. Scroll up if you want an explanation. If you want to just debate in circles for a couple more days, well, you can sign up a new account and use that.
In other words, I responded because you made a statement similar to "I'd eat ice cream if it was cold" which suggests ignorance about the basic nature of ice cream. So either you miscommunicated or are actually ignorant of AdBlock.
Edit: For further clarification I'm not even arguing about wether or nor blocking ads is an acceptable practice. Personally I use NoScript, if your ads don't show up because of that tough luck. Only time I actually install AdBlock is when I want to block an avatar on a forum (like that scrotum one, or the "I'm pooping" avatars seen here), I don't even download those big lists (of things to block). I'm only posting because your wording demonstrated ignorance and I wished that you would actualy be able to make informed discourse as you had claimed you wanted people arguing against you to understand how advertisers work, thus you ended up looking like a hypocrite (remaining ignorant of the other side's tools while demanding that the other side understand yours).
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@blakeyrat said:
Look, are there some old-school marketing people who think big and flashy ads are the way to go? Yes. They believe this because they come from the era of TV and radio ads, where that's a widespread myth. Due to the fact that TV/radio/etc has zero accurate analytics, they don't realize that these ads are typically more harmful than helpful... there's no way to look at a TV ratings sheet and tell how many people bought your product based on the ad
Maybe not, but if you sell ten times as many widgets as normal in the week after you run a TV ad, you should be able to draw an inference. Even if half of them used a sponsored link from a search engine to find you afterwards (oh, the perils of having a company name which is related to the product you sell).
It's doubtless true that the most successful advertising approaches used on TV are not the best ones to use on the internet. This does not mean that they haven't proved themselves to be the best approaches to use on TV.
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Xyro said:
So are users of text-only browsers (e.g., the visually impaired) all culpable of thievery?
Nope. Because no-one said ads are only visual. A blind person blocking audio ads would be just the same.A blind person will always block audio adverts on a visual web page. Think about it.
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@__moz said:
It's doubtless true that the most successful advertising approaches used on TV are not the best ones to use on the internet. This does not mean that they haven't proved themselves to be the best approaches to use on TV.
In that respect, I once met someone who used to work for spammer (sth to do with porn). I asked her how effective that could be given all spam blockers, not to mention people's allergies to that kind of mail, and she said "you have no idea".
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@__moz said:
Maybe not, but if you sell ten times as many widgets as normal in the week after you run a TV ad, you should be able to draw an inference. Even if half of them used a sponsored link from a search engine to find you afterwards (oh, the perils of having a company name which is related to the product you sell).
If a company has ever done a truly controlled A/B test with television vs. no advertising, I'd probably be inclined to believe their results. I doubt it's been done in the entire history of television.
@__moz said:
It's doubtless true that the most successful advertising approaches used on TV are not the best ones to use on the internet. This does not mean that they haven't proved themselves to be the best approaches to use on TV.
Prove it.
TV has no reliable analytics. You can't even figure out how many people *viewed* your ad, much less how many of those people went on to buy the product (or request information or whatever your conversion is.) The value of TV advertising is grossly inflated, IMO, exactly because it's impossible to measure. Without data, you don't have crap.
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@blakeyrat said:
[analytics for TV] You can't even figure out how many people[...] request information or whatever your conversion is.
I've noticed occasional TV (and radio) adverts where they ask you to quote a code when you ring up/go to their website/whatever - I assume the same advert with different codes is used for different areas/channels/times.
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@b-redeker said:
In that respect, I once met someone who used to work for spammer
Name and address, please.
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@Lingerance said:
@blakeyrat said:
@Lingerance said:
I'm not baiting. I was under the impression you are severly misinformed or ignorant on what AdBlock actually does beyond the high-level description of it's functionality. It works by having a URL filter, so it doesn't always block by domain. As such it blacklists by default. If you had stated you wanted it to have a whitelist (which makes no sense in the context) I wouldn't have made the post.No need. You made a statement "Hell, I'd enthusiastically use it myself if it had a blacklist." I made a statement "By default it'll black-list." I fail to see why context is necessary at this point.
Not taking the bait again. Scroll up if you want an explanation. If you want to just debate in circles for a couple more days, well, you can sign up a new account and use that.
Seriously Ling, stop being dense. [b]blakeyrat[/b]'s issue with AdBlock is that is applies whitelist behaviour to domains the ads are served to, not from. (Note that I am not an AdBlock user, and thus unable to confirm or deny that claim.)
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@DaveK said:
@b-redeker said:
In that respect, I once met someone who used to work for spammer
Name and address, please.email address?
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@Spectre said:
Seriously Ling, stop being dense. blakeyrat's issue with AdBlock is that is applies whitelist behaviour to domains the ads are served to, not from. (Note that I am not an AdBlock user, and thus unable to confirm or deny that claim.)
I can't find anywhere in this thread that he said that. Eitherway from the complaints that I've found he can do what he wants:- It'll ask you to install a filter when it's first started, you can skip this and no filters will be set (meaning it blocks nothing).
- You can apply a filter to a set domain, and the inverse. Thus the filter http://example.org could be applied to example.com and tdwtf.com, or you could do the inverse and everything but those sites will have it.
- You can add filters and exceptions.
- You can block a single image on a single domain (doesn't have to be the same domain the image is from), or make a much broader rule.
- ... and More
Edit: Found what Spectre was aluding to. The point where it should only be fully active for specific domains, which really defeats its purpose. I can't find any options for that, however, you can disable it an re-enable complete it just as easily as it is to disable it for a domain or page.
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Yeah, I never said that at all.
(The bolded I is where I explained it with the most clarity/verbosity.)
Damnit, I said Ling wasn't going to drag me into this yet again, and now he did. If you're trolling, well, you fucking win, ok? If you're just being stupid, then we've all lost.
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@DaveK said:
You need to take things less seriously; I find your stupidity merely tedious and disappointing, rather than painful.
True stupidity hurts. QED.@DaveK said:You need to take things less seriously; I find your stupidity merely tedious and disappointing, rather than painful. We are talking about the validity of your calling the use of adblockers "stealing". Everything else you have mentioned since then is an attempt at diversion.
@DaveK said:No, that's your (irrelevant straw-man) point. Mine is that it is not stealing to block ads. You are making the Humpty-Dumpty argument that "stealing" means whatever you say it means.
You're the one debating a semantic point and ignoring the salient one. You can call it sheep-buggering for all I care; it's still morally wrong, whatever arbitrary combination of sounds you choose to represent it.
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@__moz said:
@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Xyro said:
So are users
Nope. Because no-one said ads are only visual. A
of text-only browsers (e.g., the visually impaired) all culpable of thievery?
blind person blocking audio ads would be just the same.A blind person will always block audio adverts on a visual web page. Think about it.
Not seeing it. Wait, that's not the best choice of words. I don't understand the point you're making. Is it that blind people use text-to-speech engines to read webpages? Because that doesn't preclude having ads inserted, although I'll grant that it's purely hypothetical at the moment since the software doesn't actually do that.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
You can call it sheep-buggering for all I care; it's still morally wrong, whatever arbitrary combination of sounds you choose to represent it.
Is fast-forwarding through commercials in Tivo morally wrong? How about watching an alternate half-time show during the Super Bowl? It's the advertisers that chose to present their material in a way that is essentailly optional, opting out is a valid choice.My personal opions on ads is that they are all hostile. Very few, if any, ads are simply informative. Most are designed to mess with the viewer's decision making process. The advertising industry is tens of thousands of people with 50 years of research on how to influence my decision making in a way that is not strictly in my best interests. For example, why should I feel morally obligated to watch a commercial for a weight loss product when the FTC data shows that many weight loss products are scams and the scams are scarily effective.
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@Jaime said:
For example, why should I feel morally obligated to watch a commercial for a weight loss product when the FTC data shows that many weight loss products are scams and the scams are scarily effective.
Are you viewing the content that the ad is sponsoring? I would argue that that morally obligates you.
If you don't want to view the ad, fine... but also don't view the content. That's how the deal works.
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@Jaime said:
Is fast-forwarding through commercials in Tivo morally wrong?
I think we're right in that grey area again - although as Terry Pratchett puts it, there is no grey, just white that's got grubby. If you use Tivo largely or solely to avoid the ads, I'd say it's morally wrong. If you use Tivo anyway, and the ad avoidance is incidental, I would say it's OK.@Jaime said:For example, why should I feel morally obligated to watch a commercial for a weight loss product when the FTC data shows that many weight loss products are scams and the scams are scarily effective.
Now we're into interesting territory. I've already said, I think, that the moral duty on you is to give the ads a reasonable chance, rather than to study them closely. If the ad itself is immoral, I'd say you have every right to avoid it, but you'd have to know it was there and block it specifically, rather than blocking all ads because one is for a scam. Whilst blocking ads is morally wrong, in my opinion, it's obviously not a very big moral crime. There are many things that might outweigh it. In general, though, I'd say that you're selling the right to be subtly influenced by ads in exchange for the programme content you receive, and if you don't like that, don't consume ad-supported content.
In an ideal world, ads would be things we'd be much happier to see than we are at the moment. The kind of general influence ads we see the majority of the time, which, as you say, are 'designed to mess with the viewer's decision making process' are only used because they're the only effective way of advertising on something as non-specific in its targeting as TV. What Blakey's working towards is ending that kind of thing by making informative, targeted ads the most effective way to promote your produce. As I said, I look forwards eagerly to the day when I receive ads for the exact products I would want to buy.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Jaime said:
What about the idea that we're in an arms race? Advertisers are doing as much as possible to make their ads as effective as possible, they see no moral barriers to using any type of manipulation. Every time a rational person sees a Pepsi or Nike ad, we all think "Why do they pay for this crap, it isn't even selling anything". But, the joke's on us, the Nike and Pepsi ads are very effective. I reality, advertising decisions take reality into account, so a person using no filtering technology is actually exposed to more advertising than they bargained for because the ad companies are running more ads (and doing more product placement) due to things like TiVo.Is fast-forwarding through commercials in Tivo morally wrong?
I think we're right in that grey area again - although as Terry Pratchett puts it, there is no grey, just white that's got grubby. If you use Tivo largely or solely to avoid the ads, I'd say it's morally wrong. If you use Tivo anyway, and the ad avoidance is incidental, I would say it's OK.The natural end to all of this is that the advertising will eventually be entirely embedded in content. Let's just skip the next ten years of pointing fingers at each other and get to it.
