Just wondering how many people here noticed that pornhub injects google analytics, and gives google unscrutinized access to your sexual preferences and habits? They don't even bother showing a google ad, they just let them inject their arbitrary js payload.
I do not consent. They can fuck right off.
...by showing you ads.
How about identifying which youtubers your children are impressionable to, and then approaching them to push unhealthy food products?
How about using your porn browsing habits and location history to figure out when you start cheating on your significant other, how about offering you divorce lawyers before you even realize you need one.
How about figuring out when you become isolated and lonely by looking at changes in the volume of texts and phone calls and IMs you exchange, and then selling that primarily to dating and sex chat websites.
Ever wondered why these websites are silently deploying anti-adblock functionality rather than trying to bring the matter through the legal system? Because if it ever became a legal case and they were made to disclose how they use the data, there'd be a fucking uproar. This is exactly what happened in the EU and that's why advertisers had their balls cut off in that region. So now they've opted to support the destruction of net neutrality and bolster DRM laws so they can shoehorn advertisements and anti-adblock under DRM instead.
People need to get 100% clear on something: there are very smart people getting paid very generous salaries whose job is to find ways to distort and manipulate laws and public perception to prevent consumers from asserting their rights against having their behavior manipulated. I don't think it's an understatement to say that these groups are a major threat to the wellbeing of the people, right up there with war and climate change. Ajit Pai is a textbook example of this pattern. He's not stupid, he's not an asshole. He's a smart person who has been tasked with a goal that goes against the public good. And he's done a good job at that task.
"General Data Protection Regulation" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...
The sad truth: nobody cares. There won't be an uproar. There are/were countless blog entries on how your data is abused, and nobody cares. _Oh, look, a site where I can showcase my vanity and have followers like some kind of celebrity!_ - this is the reality.
I'd love to make people realize how bad it is. I'd really want to know where are the people who donated enough to the Mozilla foundation to supports a 2-page ad in the New York Times in print for Firefox back in 2004. I'd really like to know what makes people listen, but I honesty have no idea.
Yes, they leak data like a sieve. But I don't see they using that data, except for defrauding people I buy stuff from.
I don’t buy things I don’t have a pre existing need for based on advertising, or really in general. If anything ads make me less likely to buy something based on the associated irritation.
My political beliefs have not been swayed by my Facebook feed. I think if anything Facebook has made people more hardline to their existing beliefs by feeding them that there is mass agreement with them.
You rolled off into unsupported tinfoil hat land for a bit. Soon to be divorced men isn’t a big enough market to go after.
And if your kid wants gummy bears, that’s on you for buying them.
How do you know if you're being silently manipulated? That's kind of the point of silent manipulation - you don't know it's happening.
Maybe you think you wanted that product, but in reality subtle ad exposure made you desire it.
As an average person, if you spend 8 hours a day reading all the terms and conditions you 'agree' to, it would take you 76 days to just read them, nevermind understand them.
http://techland.time.com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-t...
I'm not actually sure how we ended up living in a world where those terms and conditions are legally meaningful. But I'll reiterate that they can fuck right off and there is absolutely no moral dilemma about blanket filtering of ads and trackers. As to how effective they are - effective enough to prompt anti adblocking measures such as TFA.
IANAL, but as an European I'm pretty sure they aren't legally meaningful. To be honest, I don't consider any online T&C's to actually affect me, and only pay attention to explicitly mentioned licenses for content. I have no idea how far from actual reality this is.
(IANAL)
As for moral justifiability, I find it unacceptable that a website operator can sell data about me without my consent just for following a link to their site.
I guess it boils down to what you think the Internet is. I feel I should be in control of my computer, and thus I get to decide which bits I allow onto my network and which of those bits are then rendered on my screen. If you've made content publicly available, it's mine to consume in the way I see fit. I don't see why I shouldn't, for example, be allowed to use a text based browser to view content or browse with JavaScript disabled.
Payment for content is of course difficult for websites, but I just don't feel an ad based revenue is feasible on an open web, precisely because the web is open. The platform does not support the notion of content creators implicitly dictating terms.
Where this analogy breaks down is when those cameras start following you from store to store.
I don't really know if one could require this. Seems complex. But add that the cameras are hidden (you don't know they are cameras) and it becomes a very simple issue.
You’re claiming that, by choosing to visit a website, I have implicitly agreed to and am obligated to download every resource and execute all code that website’s maintainers decide to include, and to do that recursively for each downloaded resource. That is preposterous. It could, for instance, obligate me to download a literally endless amount of data, which might be very expensive for me. It might also obligate me to perform limitless computation on my machine, if for instance the website includes a script to mine Bitcoins.
I try to avoid making moral arguments, but I will certainly point out logical consequences of other people’s moral arguments that to me seem absolutely ludicrous.
It doesn't work that way.
And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200”
Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view.
Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simply view you as a customer, albeit one they’re being cheated out of with a pesky ad blocked.
To me you are consenting the moment you decide to use services and websites that cost millions of dollars to maintain and expecting and paying little to nothing compared to the real cost of those services. If you used paid sites you’d see less ads (maybe not no ads because often times the cost you pay still isn’t the “real cost” of that service”) and my guess is this tracking would seem a lot less intrusive.
Example: Sometimes I use sites to watch foreign films that show several tabs of ads for each click. You need to click on each hyperlink about 3 times, each time opening a new ad, some of which are the “Update flash” malicious type. I don’t ad block them (anymore, for a short while I used ad-block on sites like this and then thought better if it) because hosting 100s of HD movies costs money.
Sometimes I run out of patience and instead of playing up my entitlement and just saying “I deserve this because reasons” I just... close the page. If no one views the videos, no money will be made, and either the hosting service will shape up, or it will close. There won’t be an arms race of anti-ad-blocker vs ad-blocked.
That's not how consent works, if it was then I would just claim that by establishing a connection to my computer, the remote website consents to my rules including ad blocking. My computer is mine, I have the right to display the content sent to my computer however the fuck I want. If my doing so ends up putting some company out of business because their tracker revenue dries up, that's perfectly fine, that's literally the free market at work and the consumers signaling to providers that this business model is not viable.
I'm not obliged to be a source of revenue to these companies.
Your response is just a variation of the “They returned status code 200” argument which I explain as really just supporting the system albeit half-heartedly.
If you really hate them so much (I mean, you’re fine with them going out of business so at least, you don’t love them or rely on them) why even make the request? Why put their filthy ad-tracking blood money funded content on your PC. If it’s so repulsive to you on such a deep level but you also don’t rely on it or need it or care if it goes away, why even get near it?
Edit: And I’ll add my take on it. I think you want to have your cake and eat it too and the “their server responded with content” argument is just trying to romanticize the concept. I honestly don’t have a problem with people trying to fight ad blockers, my issue is when they try to paint it as anything more than wanting something they act like is absolute poison for less than it costs to make. It’s like I give you a bite of my sandwich and you decide to lick the whole thing because “I can consume it how ever I want”. Sure you can, and I willingly gave you the sandwich, but I’m not going to be able to give you bites of my sandwich if you insist on licking them and leaving them unpalatable for me. If you really don’t like my sandwich why not refuse my offer and show me that the sandwich is flawed, not the conditions I’m offering you a bite under.
Consumers becoming so brain washed, so accepting of the advertising status quo that they actually defend it even though everything about it is against their personal interests.
> I don’t understand the entitlement
There is no entitlement, it's a right. I am exercising my right as the operator of this PC to connect to content providers and display their content however the fuck I want within the confines of the law. The law doesn't give them any right to extract revenue from me if I choose to opt out. If they have a problem with that, they have the right try to block me within the confines of the law. And I have the right to bypass that block within the confines of the law.
Let me put it another way. Your sentiment is way more pliant and ethical than the sentiment of the guys who run the ad industry. Your job history, drinking habits, sex habits, food preferences, mental health, personal aspirations, etc - all of this stuff is up for sale to anyone in the advertising circles. The only thing missing is your credit card number and name/address so it's not 'technically' PIA even though correlating all of it back to you is trivial and everyone knows it. I thought I was paranoid about ads, and then I landed a job in the ad industry and realized my worst paranoia was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what actually goes on.
Don't defend the guys who are fucking you, stand up for your rights.
And, I don’t appreciate being called brainwashed... this is barely a step above ranting about sheeple.
You points about my profile I guess are supposed to be alarming but are not news to me. I’m fine with all of that being for sale. Correlating it back to a person is trivial... until you try and do it at scale and evaluate the risk vs reward. Risk is very very high and gets exponentially higher at scale, and reward is almost nonexistent until you do it at scale. And are guards that add enough friction to make it not worthwhile often.
Sure there are cracks in the system, but seeing as I can’t pay what the content I consume is worth, I accept the risk gladly.
You're defending a business entity whose entire existence is against your personal interest. In market terms, you are not a rational actor maximizing self interest. If you're not brain washed, what are you?
Just like businesses would be irrational if they didn't use every legal tax 'loophole' to make sure they pay no tax, you are irrational if you don't use available legal avenues to get the content you want for the lowest price - in this case, viewing it with ad blockers. If that means content providers go out of business, that's okay. New ones will show up with new business models that are actually viable. The free market expects individuals to maximize their self-interest within the confines of the law. If you're not doing that, you're just harming yourself for no meaningful reason whatsoever.
Ok, I'm brainwashed, thanks.
If they can't make it, then it's no excuse to resort to creepy stuff like tracking and profiling people without their consent, or with them ignoring the extent or implications of it. It's nothing short of abusing people, and it being the last card not to get out of business is hardly an excuse.
You made a free mall analogy in another comment: if businesses can't run free mall without abusing customers, then don't run free malls; it's not like people always expected free malls, it's just that some companies began to offer products/content cheaper and cheaper, and now they hit rock-bottom. Whose fault is it? The customer for asking, or the businesses to enter a race to the bottom, and then going full unethical?
Again, I get your points, but don't track me, my friends or my family.
The problem is we don’t have a protocol for signaling that they want to track you before you load the content and its tracking.
So you get the content, the tracking code, and detection for anti-ad/tracking plugins.
If they detect anti-ad plugins they say “We did give you the content, but we see you don’t have the form of payment we want so please don’t view it”
At that point, to me, neither side has done anything wrong. Would it be preferable if they could give you the “please don’t view it” message upfront? Definitely. But instead they let you opt out.
Once you decide to modify the paywall away and view the content you still haven’t done anything wrong but you’re saying “I want to view content paid for by showing people ads that was also designed to drive ad engagement but I don’t deserve to have to view ads so I’ll ignore your paywall since it’s my computer and you let me have the content” ... which is fine. And also won’t solve the actual underlying problem. Instead we just get an arms race of ad-block vs anti-ad-block (which anti will lose) and content creators hoping ad-blocking doesn’t reach critical mass.
The alternative is to turn down the content by going away. That sends the message that you won’t support the model. Bonus points if you pay someone willing to take your money in exchange for not tracking you since the most effective way to disrupt the market right now is to fund those trying to break out of the current model.
Not the OP, but the "brainwashed" angle applies to more than just ads.
Anyone with a Gmail account is effectively selling my communication with them to Google for a free service. And you bet that when told about this very few would see it that way. Consumers _are_ as guillable as they are ignorant. These new "established" online norms - be it tracking, profiling, ads, what have you - would've never flown in their physical form, but here we are in a world where Gmail, WhatsApp, Android phones, Google Analytics, etc. are considered gold standards of modern tech.
No sane person, if explained the exact ramifications of these "free services", would've agreed to any of them just 15 years ago. But they do now, giddily at that. Pray tell how this is anything but a brainwashing.
And all the downvotes just tell me people aren’t confident enough in their counter arguements to let them stand against a comment that isn’t intentionally de-emphasized.
And the fact you think I’d change my mind over downvotes, even in part, tells me something about you.
Well, tracking my mother who doesn't know enough about ad-blockers or the implications of being tracked is already wrong, to me. Collecting detailed personal information on people for commercial purposes should be strictly regulated, at the very least when it's done automatically.
> That sends the message that you won’t support the model.
We should send the most effective and unambiguous kind of messages: I like that content, but not the ad/tracking that you put on your site. That's much clearer than not visiting the site altogether (they might think they just have to change their content, or their marketing or sth). Some media are not fully aware of the crap they run, because it's run by a third-party, and the decision was made by another department etc. I don't necessarily want to send a bad signal to everyone there.
If a company doesn't want to offer free access to content that costs them money to produce, they can create a login system and a paywall.
If the one in the comments several levels up from this one, isn't this just a variation of the HTTP Status Code 200 argument? (which I explain why I don't support in other comments)
It is reasonable to expect a free lemonade stand to print ads on the cups and have sales people around trying to initiate conversations with you while you consume your free beverage. Peeling off the ads and yelling at the sales people would make you an entitled hypocrite. However, if the same sales people would also secretly take a creep photo of you, write down your preference of lemonade and take note of your clothing and body type and compile all of it into a personal file on you to be sold and shared with other businesses in the whole world? Wouldn't you start to question whether they take a bit too much in exchange of that free lemonade?
I would accept it if they wrote the conditions on a sign before entering, but that is not how most free sites today operate. The fact that the tracking is completely automated somehow makes it seem less intrusive to many people, but it is just as creepy as someone spying on you in person.
I think your analogy makes it easy to see why people support it if you take it a little further.
For free lemonade? A layperson would say of "Of course that's too far!". But now imagine a mall where everything is free. Everything. Suddenly laypeople start asking "Well can they at least tell me they're taking the picture?", "Can they write down the answers after I checkout instead of holding up the lines to do that?"
I think we need to sit down and seriously evaluate what content is worth. I feel like we reached our current predicament because people just seriously undervalue content, and advertising became the last bastion of value generation. It's similar to how IAP became the only smart way to generate revenue since people feel 5$ for a solid app with indefinite support is just too much. yet IAP ends up being a lot more intrusive than upfront payment.
I think you are right that the problem comes down to valuing personal data and content. How many $ is your data worth to e.g. Google vs. how many $ would you need to get paid in order to give up your privacy? There is probably a discrepancy here, which is why people are getting mad.
[0] Say a website has a CPM of $5 and displays 10 ads to each user, such that a single impression from a user without an ad blocker earns 5c. 50c is entirely reasonable, particularly if a user can refund clickbait.
That's really simple, more people need to be willing to pay.
I mean, I say in other parts of the page that I can't pay what the content is worth, but I'm actually not sure that's true for myself. But it is true for the general public.
And it's not they can't because they can't afford it, but rather, they don't want to. So we can make it easier to pay, for example. We can try and explain what advertising is doing. But in the end, I don't see a change happening.
People just seriously undervalue content.
People won't pay 99 cents for an app, so the market switched to IAP and suddenly people were gladly be nickled and dimed for more than 99 cents with intrusive applications designed from the ground up to drive IAP.
It's not like content generators wouldn't rather just take your money. I'm sure they don't love the hoops they have to jump through (it cost money to implement those ads too) to get inconsistent ad revenue that is often not very transparent and rife with pitfalls.
But until enough people to at least cover the cost of content are willing to pay, we'll see ads be king.
Am i expected to pay to 50 different sites? That quickly becomes unmanageable.
Maybe something like radio stations have is required for the internet. Where the artists get paid based on how often a radio station plays their song.
You’re expected to find some number of sites X that let you pay to access ad-free content that total to an amount you find palatable and limit yourself to those.
It’s not trivial, and it’s inconvenient. The sites like that are relatively few and far between.
But it means you’re making a sacrifice to support sites that are trying to break out of the model that you don’t support.
If enough people do that, the incentive forms to make paying for content upfront and ad-free and suddenly the market will solve the problem of 50 sites wanting payment, be it through easier payment mechanisms or “share cropping”
There are apps that had thousands of downloads and great reviews that failed because of peoples in unwillingness to pay for them.
How will you know you’re going to like a news story before you pay to read it?
The metrics you have are the same as any other type of content, word of mouth, reviews, past performance of the content creator.
People will spend 10$ on a movie ticket when critics and reviewers are split on if it’s a good movie. They’ll spend 20$ to try a new dish they might not like on the recommendation of a single person, even an impartial waiter. But they don’t value apps so they don’t pay for them. People will go to app developers with their brilliant idea and act shocked when they get a 5 figure estimate because they figure app development is a dime a dozen.
Likewise I doubt many people appreciate the true cost of the content they consume.
Or maybe an emotional approach like the Guardian or Patreon would work better.
The point here, though, is that you can both like the content and want to support the creator yet choose to block ads.
But if the creator only offers ads as a method of payment and you consume their content while blocking their ads, regardless of what you want to do, you aren’t paying them for their content.
At that point your options are to continue consuming the content (and preferably not post comments vilifying the content creator driven to using ads like the original comment I responded to above does, which I take exception to) or to not consume the content, signaling to the content creator that something isn’t working about their ad-based model.
Because you like the content?
If it's genuinely decent content it should encourage the middleman who owns the delivery system to look for more honest and up front sources of income. If it's crap, bottom feeder content then it's no great loss if adblockers drive it out of business is it?
Block all ads?
> That’s robbing sites of needed advertising click-dollars!
Click all ads?
> That’s robbing advertising companies of needed attention!
This is totalitarian capitalism: it’s not good enough to accept being tracked everywhere, spied on, and burdened with processing advertising. Not good enough even to click every ad. You must love the ads in your heart. It’s your duty, citizen!
Block all the ads?
That’s robbing sites of needed dollars.
Click all the ads?
That’s robbing advertisers of needed dollars.
The end game in both cases is ads become worth less, or worthless. It doesn’t matter which side of the scale you tip to cause that.
It’s so easy to understand what’s wrong with AdNauseam if you look into the spirit of the tool. The problem isn’t clicking every ad, it’s clicking every ad with the intent to throw a wrench in advertising.
If it worked well enough the end result would just be ads are worthless and sites lose money, just like if you block their ads.
To use an inexact metaphor, if I am selling gas no one is obligated to fill up at my station. Fuel efficient cars are not “robbing” me. People who take public transit are not ripping me off. My job as a businessman is to make money. Consumers owe nothing to me. If the gas I sell is leaded and no one wants to buy it, I have no right to complain.
If I cut out every ad from my copy of the yellow pages no one has a right to complain. Adblocking is no different.
Advertising has to wake up.
Hopefully I can answer your question.
I use an adblocker all the time. I make no exceptions, and I have never whitelisted any site. If I notice something managed to sneak through a filter, I send a pull request to add it to the filter.
I know I'm robbing the content hosts of their ad-based revenue. So why do I keep doing it?
Because I fucking hate ads of any kind. I want all ad-based revenue streams to dry up permanently. And I put a lot of effort into that. Fuck ads. They can burn in hell.
And you can't say "just don't visit the site" because pretty much every site does this. You might as well say "just quit the internet" which obviously is not a solution.
It’s not true that every site does this, but yes, most are funded by the model that relies on your information being sold and used to build a profile of you.
If you don’t support that model why buy into the system? After all, the content minus ads was still written and designed to drive ad revenue. Any conflict of interest between driving ad revenue and conveying information (ie. uninformative clickbait) in the content is still affecting the end result even if you never see the ads.
Why not compile a list of sites that don’t track you and offer paid services that can provide what you’re looking for?
Will you be limited? Very! Will you be feeding the system you apparently have deep seated qualms about? No! And if it means that much to you, I think you should be very happy.
If the system is broken enough that enough people go that route, companies will chase the money. If users are willing to pay enough to cover the real, un-intrusive-ad-tracking-subsidized cost of content, companies will jump for joy at not having to deal with ad networks and pay people to optimize for ads and just take your money directly.
If me blocking ads/tracking results in some company shutting down, then so be it. But maybe others will jump in to fill that gap and try something different like, say, a subscription fee, in which case I'll happily pay.
But if I/we just stop using those sites that I truly enjoy, then if/when they shut down others might be afraid to go into that market because they might think there's not enough interest in it.
All of this is just a guess, obviously.
Actually, even when you understand what's going on, the sheer number of things to check to get the full picture make it unpractical.
Your argument make sense if a website clearly make you click on a term of service like google does. In that case, you accepted a clear, explicit contract. Either consent or leave.
But that's not what happen with most services.
And because of that, it makes sense to use an ad blocker. You just prevent sites to make you pay a price that they don't disclose.
Another thing is:
- what they are doing is immoral
- what we are doing is not illegal
So the reason we should stop doing this for sites that DO disclose what they do is morality. But there is little incentive to be seek morality when playing with an immoral player. So there is not scenario here, where not using an adblock is a good strategy.
Because they want to allow things like indexing they serve the content and the "paywall" (payment being you allowing ads) in one swoop. Yes it's on your computer and you control your computer so you can get rid of their paywall, but you can also do that to software that requires a license key to activate, yet we don't seem to defend cracked software the same way.
Maybe if we reimplemented the internet today we'd allow browsers to send an "Allows Ads" header and have an HTTP Status Code for "I only accept clients who accept ads".
I mean, even Google doesn't actually make you click on a term of service to search.
> - what they are doing is immoral > - what we are doing is not illegal
Only one of these is a factual statement. Ad-blocking is not illegal, and of course it shouldn't be.
But what they're doing is extracting value out of their content. You can argue it's immoral, but it's not a factual statement in the sense your other statement is.
> But there is little incentive to be seek morality when playing with an immoral player. So there is not scenario here, where not using an adblock is a good strategy.
What you're saying to me is pretty much "if they won't play fair why should I". Which is fine logic, I just think if you're going to follow that line of thought, don't trumpet it from the rooftops like it's some sort of interesting proposal. To me they're desperate to generate value from content people won't pay upfront from and leaning on unfortunate tactics, and you're saying I won't pay at all. Neither side is right, yet only one side seems to be really proud about what it's doing
Again, my point isn't that Ad Blocking shouldn't be allowed, and I'm not here to convince anyone to uninstall their ad-blocker. My point is if you don't like ad-driven content, the "moral high ground" isn't to say "yeah well why'd their server return status code 200 and let me download the assets?". The moral high ground is to decline to use their services. Except that'd take actual inconvenience, curating the minority services that aren't ad-driven. So it's much easier to just say that ad blocking is "taking a stand" instead of admitting it's really just "having your cake and eating it to"
Aren't we talking about someone explicitly blocking the content they object to?
I also don't quite buy the argument that a view on a page relieved of all ads is somehow funding bad behaviour.
And I completely don't follow the argument that viewing content somehow obligates you to contribute to their morally bankrupt revenue system. If this means the end for web pages relying on morally questionably ad companies then I'd consider that a success.
Ever since newspapers, the social contract has been that they serve content and I become a reader they can sell advertising space for me to look at. They can't suddenly change that contract and expect everyone to automatically agree.
Now I just siphon the images into a rss feed. If they want my eyeball they better start putting up banners like they used to. Active content can fuck right off.
Some sites I use a lot, I have enabled ads just to be friendly to the site. These sites also seem to have mostly acceptable ads, so it's not intrusive.
Lots of website have no control over what ads are popping up! Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! All the time popups of "outdated" Adobe Flash (that I dont have at all), installation of recent updates of Windows 7 (even tho Im on Win 10)... recently I had some sort of ajax script that actually literally installed extension in Chrome (!!) I believe somehow my mouse was hijacked to perform a click action. Unbelievable!
Im fine with Ads so long as someone is properly vetting!!
That particular site is highly functional without allowing any JavaScript at all. All links work. All non-advertising images load.
By default I just don't allow JS. Thank you NoScript. Many sites that won't display anything without JS can be viewed by View -> Page Style -> No Style.
If advertisers would agree to some behavior standards, I’d happily re-enable ads. Somebody has to pay for content.
What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.
After the recent Firefox update I had to run without Noscript for a while, until it got updated. My laptop battery really took a hit. Loading web comics in 70 tabs or so took battery life estimates down to an hour. With Noscript running and blocking most advertising Javascript the estimate stays up at 3.5 hours.
Sometimes the whole thing is a bait and switch - things like "Incredible, find out what happened to this starlet with amazing butt".... after 5-6 phrases that don't say anything about it we find out "... she's crying because her grandma died" (real story). Fucking bait and switch gutter news. But Adblock can't solve that.
I don't think a laptop can be normally used to browse these news sites without Adblock, and sometimes at all.
Youtube.
Particularly nice for the app.
This is extremely hyperbolic. Why not just, you know, not visit those websites if their business model is so abhorrent to you?
Do you feel entitled to something for nothing?
That’s not entitlement. Entitlement is the sentiment that users somehow owe advertising or web firms anything.
If operators want something from me they can ask for it. They can ask for money and I'll decide whether to provide it or they can demand I look at ads by refusing to work without ads.
If they want to connect to 37 different domains, ruin my battery life, unexpectedly play sound and video, or mine bitcoin the answer is probably no.
If the resource is valuable enough or If they simply want to load a singular resource that doesn't itself consume much compute or bandwidth I might consent to let them.
How many other industries rely on adversarial relationships with the people that ultimately keep their business running.
If these companies are unhappy with me using an ad blocker, then THEY are the entitled ones. They should change the law, if they don't like it.
I AM entitled to use an ad blocker, because that's what the law says.
Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.