Re:Newspapers slam ex-Mozilla CEO's new ad-blocking browser
by voyou on Saturday April 09, 2016 @12:22PM
(#11461913)
There's one pretty clear difference: the bubblegum seller isn't offering the bubblegum at no cost, so they're saying "I made something, I think you're willing to pay for it, so I deserve to get paid." The publisher of ad-supported content is saying "I made something, I don't think you're willing to pay for it, but I deserve to get paid anyway." So it's the publisher who thinks that "something that many people choose to read has no value"; they just haven't yet realised the logical consequence of this evaluation of their product is that they won't get paid for it, either.
Re:Newspapers slam ex-Mozilla CEO's new ad-blocking browser
by zurn on Saturday April 09, 2016 @12:10PM
(#11461859)
It's true that trade of physical items in the end is just a social convention. But the current legal status of bubblebum theft is based on depriving someone else of their physical property. It is not at all related to the shoplifter getting to unjustly enjoy the bubblegum.
Re both having a nonzero marginal cost: There is no consistent criminalization of wasting other people's time or money as they're trying to engage you commercially. Of course there's a separate system under which we evaluate if something is unlawful remote access of other people's computers, and I suppose that could be perverted to criminalize ad-blocking, but the sense of justice of the average citizen does not call for it.
You're making some pretty radical assertions without any attempt to justify them, so I'll draw a bit of an analogy to show why I feel like I'm missing something.
I don't see why your comment wouldn't apply almost 100% the same to shoplifting. I know the usual distinction drawn is that the marginal costs are different, but I don't really see how that's relevant: there's a (low) marginal cost to serving each page that's being lost. And anyway, the idea that the marginal cost is all that matters is beyond bizarre to me. There's a reason you buy bubble gum for more than the retailer paid for it, and it's because you're not only defraying the cost of the bubble gum to him.
> If you push out content and you can't make money on it without ads, then that content didn't need to be created in the first place.
> Ads, to me, represent a monetization strategy rooted in "I did something, and you're looking at, so I deserve to get paid" but that makes no sense. The disconnect here is the presumption that the content has any value to begin with. I think what scares traditional content-creators is the idea that the vast majority of content has no inherent value."Selling bubble gum, to me, represents a monetization strategy that says 'I made something, you want it, so I deserve to get paid' ". Again, I'm not seeing the difference in this case. The idea that something that many people choose to read has no value seems so obviously insanely wrong by definition that I must be misunderstanding you somehow.