"Ad blockers are unethical—ads are how they pay to keep the lights on!”
Exactly. It's how THEY pay to keep the lights on. It's not how I pay for anything. I didn't agree to see ads, although I'm ok with some ads; what I definitely didn't do is agree to be tracked and profiled and have arbitrary third-party code running on my computer just so I could read this awful, pointless, SEO-ified shitfest of an article that doesn't come close to answering the question I was googling.
"But you agreed to ads and tracking when you decided to use their website!”
I did no such thing. Opening a webpage in my browser is not entering into a contract. Unless they've gated the content somehow, I agree to nothing. If it's on the open web, I can do whatever I want with the bits on my own device (including not let some of them onto my device in the first place).
@maxleibman right. At *most* I agreed to be served things from their site. AThey send me a script from some *other* site? Sorry it's a whitelist scenario and they ain't on it.
NoScript is a godly extension
On the subject of ads: I’m walking around Target while I wait for a prescription to be filled. Couple guys in AT&T polos haunt a table by electronics. I brace myself as I pass, and sure enough:
“Hi, sir, how are you? Can I ask you a quick question?”
I keep walking and loudly reply, “Nope, I’m not here to talk about my internet service.” Half a dozen shoppers hear this and laugh out loud.
I believe people when they say “No human being is illegal,” but some human beings are pop-up ads.
I am not opposed to all forms of sales and advertising, but let’s be clear:
Being marketed to is not part of the social contract.
#AdTech #marketing #ads #sales
@mwyman my only quibble is with your last six words. The simple truth that too many nerds and content people can’t seem to get through their heads is that the Google that cared about what I “wanted to see” has been gone for a decade.
Google has no interest in helping me find what I want. The mission of Google is not to organize all of the world’s information.
@maxleibman but Google thinks you want to see what *they* want you to see.
And Google is all about organizing all the world’s information. Just not providing it back in any way other than ones that make them bank.
@mwyman On the first point, fair enough. Kind of like Twitter in the Twenty-Teens thinking what I really wanted to do was ENGAGE with BRANDS.
On the second point: touché!
@mwyman @maxleibman That second point made me think of them like a museum.
In the "British Museum" context, that is ( https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJPLiT1kCSM&feature=share7 ).
John Oliver discusses some of the world’s most prestigious museums, why they contain so many stolen goods, the market that continues to illegally trade antiq...
@maxleibman they're frustrating as an engineer too.
"Add these ad SDKs that are all going to pull in their own versions of jQuery and React and probably a crap-ton of polyfills they don't actually need"
"Hey, why is the website so slow?"
@maxleibman It may be "how they keep the lights on," but they won't get any business from me. 😈 (Joke's on them, I have no money to spend on their crap, anyway.)
I have my browsers set to clean up everything upon closing, and I routinely clear app caches.
@maxleibman I run a few websites and as a publisher of actually useful information, I have to struggle to keep the auto-ads down on the site.
In the same vein... Video ads on websites is the worst thing ever.
And that's not even speaking about malware which is forced through as an ad. If you can't even police your ads, I'm under no obligation to be the guinea pig.
@maxleibman for me the big issue is that I have no interest in viewing your or anyone else's advertising.
If I were interested in acquiring something I would search for the item I was interested in (*not* using google, which packs its results with SEO promotions).
So what purpose does your attempt to profile me achieve?
Apart from exposing me to the possibility of malware and slowing down loading the webpages I do want to see.
How to pay for websites: let the webpages host them natively.
@maxleibman It’s easy, if they want me to look at their ads they will have to come up with ads that I want to look at…
So far they have failed to do that. Not my fault. 🤔
@fubaroque There was this period, three years ago, where all of an sudden ALL of the ads I saw everywhere were e-readers and eInk tablets and smart notebooks. Lasted for months. And I actually felt like, wow, THAT IS ME. Maybe that spooky tracking DOES have a point.
And then I guess that niche of gadgets went through a contraction and the marketing budgets went away; ever since then, whatever tracking is getting through is just leading to me seeing a bunch of random unappealing nonsense again.
@maxleibman Well it’s been a while since I was able to see if there is anything that interests me… that pesky ad blocker, eh? 🤣
On the plus side the web is a lot more responsive this way. Fixing THAT would also have to be part of getting me to want to.
But as it is they have the extra challenge of letting me know, if they ever did something. 🥳 You might say they spoiled the whole thing pretty thoroughly. 🤭
@maxleibman I'd be totally fine with having a browser setting where I can put a shopping list that gets passed through http headers for sites to serve relevant ads. My list under my control and they get to make me offers I want to see.
All this adtech stuff is just busy work for middle managers who want to keep themselves in jobs.
@maxleibman
I guess I have a fundamentally different view of this money-making approach. Nobody goes to your web site in order to find other company's advertisements. Your ads are not attracting visitors and they take readers away from your site. The only time you should use ads is when you have no clue how to otherwise monetize that space.
If a web site requires ads in order to "keep the lights on", then they have no business plan and no clue how to monetize their offerings.
@maxleibman @NAFO_69th_Sniffing_Brigade
Ad blockers are not unethical. It’s a free market choice like everything else. Business likes to switch between the economic and the ethical as it suits them. I may be a small economic engine of 1 human being but I count.
It’s a free market or it’s not on this one, and the answer is that it is. The test is to flip reverse it. Would they block? Yes they would.
@maxleibman Hallelujah. It isn't any more unethical to limit what YOU want to see in YOUR browser than it is to ignore click-through ads.
Life's too short for irrelevant shit. #enshittification
@lvdpal @maxleibman Or tried to scam people. And that the website owner takes no responsibility for what kinda ads it show. And neither does the ad company sometimes.
There is no adblocker that can block an ad that is part of the content (as youtube shows are often doing now). But the content owner will then have to be responsible for what they are advertising for.
@syphdias
Oh yes ... The original flattr was a thing I loved and it felt morally right to me. I could payed the sites and projects that needed to, and essentially rewarded the content the moment I consumed it without creating unnecessary logins and accounts on platforms I didn't want to. Flattr was the one Plattform I allowed the tracking and not any of these ad networks ...
But essentially for "big" news platforms decided that exactly the tracking of the ad networks is where they wanted to make money with and not the honest direct payments of their audience ...
And I see, for only community and small projects flattr obviously wasn't sustainable enough ... :(
@maxleibman
@maxleibman Marketing is manipulation. It is based, among other things, on the findings of Edward Bernay's propaganda, Sigmund Freud's theories and methods of psychoanalysis. Advertising and marketing are also unethical because many promises are hard-hitting deception. This does not create a win-win situation. With the Internet, real-time profiling and long-term profiling are added, which is simply perverse and violates human dignity.
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