Most free web sites pay for their upkeep with ads. It has been an unwritten agreement since forever (or at least as long as there have been ads on the web) that if you consume the content, you pay the creator by looking at the ads on their site.
Consuming the content without looking at the ads is like shoplifting because you don’t like the way a store’s checkout counter works and/or the fact that they want money from you at all.
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Counterpoint: The checkout counter at the store doesn’t follow me out into the parking lot, grab my license place number and sell it to whoever wants it, or follow me into other stores.
Definitely an unpopular opinion, though! Take my upvote.
- you pay the content creator by buying their content, not by browsing ads on their site – ads are a really annoying tip jar being waved in your face when you’re trying to hand money to the cash register
- advertisers have been given plenty of warning to behave themselves and they refuse, they are parasitic leeches bleeding both creator and purchaser
- adblockers are the effect, not the cause
- original websites were ad free
- banner ads were added and we tolerated them
- advertisers then added in distracting flashing effects, loud audio cues, broke security with Flash, broke accessibility
- adblockers invented
- advertisers shed crocodile tears and pretend to be contrite
- advertisers start pushing tracking, malware, phishing, crypto-miners
- adblockers are now as important as antivirus for the safety of your computer/tablet/phone
Definitely was one of the ones way back who said "If they keep it classy I won’t disable my adblocker. I want to say, generously, that maybe 10% of sites made ads that weren’t intrusive. Ad companies can’t handle themselves, they have to take over the entire page and distract from the content. It’s their own fault we use ad blockers.
Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. There are sites I appreciate which don’t allow you to pay to disable ads - so I sometimes take a look at one or two.There are others where the ads get annoying, so I stay away, or leave when I’ve had enough of 35 animations slowing down my web browser.
I have yet to see an ad that managed compromise the safety of my computer (knocks on wood). I am aware that this has happened, but I would be really cross with BitDefender if it happened to me.
Theft?
Methinks you don’t know the definition of the words you use.
Even if it is - fuck 'em. 99% of websites use invasive scripting to track us, and they’re clearly adversarial to us. Just read up on what Facebook has always done…think they’re the only ones?
Website owners had a chance in the late 90’s to treat users/consumers with respect, and chose to say “fuck you” instead, and since have doubled down on their attitude towards us.
Fine. You wanna play that way? I’ll teach everyone I know how to use ad blockers and tools like DNS filters. I’ll never buy something directly through your website, etc.
If you want to call ad blocking theft, then the delivery of ads is theft of my bandwidth, cpu time (electricity), and the invasive scripting/tracking is theft of my personal info.
How many boots do you lick in a day?
You use a service but deny it the remuneration it expects. If that does not meet your definition of theft, do you also think turnstile jumping is fair play?
It would be boot licking if Big Advertising or Big Content actually cared about my opinion. I have no illusion that they do.
Is boot licking made better or worse when the licked boots are apathetic?
You keep using that
wordphrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Jumping a turnstile is less theft than adblocking. That subway train is gonna run whether I’m there or not. On a site, you are more directly consuming their resources.
In any case, due to capitalism you can’t give companies an inch cuz they are required to abuse the shit out of it to squeeze out as much money as possible. It’s not enough to show an ad at the start of a YouTube video, now you have to have multiple unskippable ads at the start and also in the middle of it too. And that’s not enough either, now you gotta track people across websites, even if they aren’t logged in, to show more ads. And that’s not enough either, now you gotta sell user data because if you don’t, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s gross.
Do you read every billboard on the road? After all they’ve paid for that patch of sky, what obligation do you have to glance that way without paying them the courtesy of processing their inane drivel. Ever see the same ad more than once? Me neither. Every time I see an ad, like a stupid, happy cow, I am entertained once again.
I have (no kidding) taken u-turns to see an interesting billboard. Anyway, the analogy is flawed: You still see the billboard, even if you don’t read all of it - just like I see the ad, but may not really read it.
You ever hear the term “born sucker”?
Ever hear of "Can’t read half a sentence without
no.
Well, now you have. I also tailgate or pass annoyingly slowly to be able to read bumper stickers.
Unpopular indeed.
Ads are a hostile takeover of my time. No one is entitled to my time.
Ads are code, executed on my device. No one is entitled to running code on any of my devices.
New mantra unlocked
So what if a site had terms of use so they can gain that right? Would you turn off your adblockers then?
No.
Edit: Fuck
yourthe deceiving walls of text (TOS).
I would love to support sites by viewing their ads, but I object to the behind-the-scenes data transactions that are associated with ads. maybe I’ll click, maybe not, but creating profiles of me that people sell is not acceptable.
Not sure if the opinion is popular or not, but only ⅓ of web users even use ad blockers.
That’s mostly because at least 70% of web users nowadays have no clue what they’re doing.
Honestly, that seems high
Only in the same way you’re supporting the local economy by being pickpocketed. There are better and less shady ways of doing it.
LOL
I wholeheartedly disagree with you. I am so confused. Do I upvote or downvote?
Definitely up :)
No ads for me thank you. I’d rather make a donation when the option is available, or pay a subscription if the price is fair.
If you’ve ever managed or monitored a corporate firewall, you’re honestly doing yourself a disservice by not using an adblocker these days. The amount of malicious advertising that corporate firewalls block these days from employees on the internet is astounding.
Legitimate as traffic accounts are constantly hijacked by threat actors as its such an easy way to spread malware and compromise machines.
Remember print magazines and newspapers? Ads pay a large portion of the costs of producing them, but no reader is obliged to look at any ads at all. Advertisers pay for a chance to be seen, not for an obligation for anyone to look at them. Since nobody has any obligation to read the ads, avoiding them cannot be a violation. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
I was working with a different definition of ‘look at’. When reading a magazine (according to my definition), you will look at the ad, because you never know whether a given page will contain an ad or editorial content. Your eyes will fall upon the ad, and then you move on, likely not really taking it in unless it manages to catch your eye. Same with me and web ads. Most will barely register, as the majority is really not that interesting - but sometimes, I will take a closer look, and very occasionally even click on one.
Where I live, newspapers come with a separate detached portion that are all ads. With your logic, I’m obligated to have to read them too and not just throw them out?
I think I’d be ok with removing my ad blocker if ads were simple and non intrusive and creators actually got a decent chunk of the ad revenue. The reason I use it however is that most websites have proven that if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile. So many websites now have so many ads that the actual content is barely visible through the mid-page ads, auto play videos, popups and banners. And that’s not even mentioning the tracking and cookies they now request/use. The internet has become unusable without an ad blocker. If I want to support someone’s content I’d rather use whatever donation method they have set up.
