I'd be hopeless without the ability to block ads.
Addendum:
A "Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force" does exist, but they seem to be mostly focused on people who have difficulties understanding the content or how to mentally map/navigate it. What I want is a legal right to the ability to block major distractions.
It'd be great if Google would stop their efforts to sabotage ad blocking, but I'll take a browser-level setting in the same vein as the new "prefers-contrast" and "prefers-reduced-motion".
So if that's actually true on average, ad-suppprted services aren't really "free"? I pay for them in all the extra spending I do because of the ads, and the margin on those product prices that goes to advertising.
When you buy milk or a shampoo or a car you only wanted the product itself and you did not CHOOSE to pay for the ads.
That means you unwillingly paid for the ads with your attention - first - and then you paid with your money - again.
Or another way to look at this issue is if a company cut their advertising budget (as many did early in the pandemic) do they also follow through with a reduction in price? If not, why do we assume an increase in marketing budget means an increase in price?
No, I never made such assumption.
> if a company cut their advertising ... do they also follow through
This is a strawman. The price point for a single product from a single company is subject to a million forces so nothing can be said. The behavior of an entire industry is a different thing and costs don't magically vanish.
This is like saying that if I heat up some water I cannot prove that each molecule changed behavior so heat transfer does not happen.
Sure you did. Your argument was that all (or at least all advertising) costs are passed onto the consumer.
>The price point for a single product from a single company is subject to a million forces so nothing can be said. The behavior of an entire industry is a different thing and costs don't magically vanish.
That logic goes both ways and basically eliminates any point in having this debate.
Most people have. To them you might as well be proposing that the sky is a particular shade of red for all the time it'll take them to dismiss that thought.
The generic isn't cheaper because it didn't spend money on advertising, the generic is cheaper because if it were the same price as the brand name, you'd buy the brand name. It is my firm belief that Kraft (aka Mondelez) has been getting away with selling garbage products for at least a decade now just because the brand is so strong.
I would add a footnote in that comment.
[1] - A working market without large barriers to entry, information asymmetry, regulatory capture, monopolistic or oligopolistic companies, or basically anything else that deviates from the dozen or so different assumptions made in the "perfect competition" examples used in econ 101 classes that rarely exist in the real world.
If you were to pay, you would only have to pay the part that covers what the platform would earn on the ad.
And then there is the design issue: if Facebook charged their users they would design Facebook so that it gave more value to you, instead of just sucking in as much time as possible.
That's always been the case
Well not the full cost, just the net cost compared to your previous alternative. If an ad gets you to buy a Coke instead of a Pepsi and they both have the same price, the choice didn't cost you anything.
There should be a payment to me set by me for seeing an ad.
In general, an ad is an attempt to modify my behaviour in the future and I suffer damage by seeing it. My fair compensation €5 per ad. If you don't consider me worth of €5 of business you have to filter me out of your advertisements. If you still show me an ad, I expect a deposit for each impression. Or I would in a perfect world..
The issue you'll run into with this is that retrieving content that is accompanied by advertising is not a passive activity. You've solicited it.
You could make some interesting arguments along these lines, for example against the concept of highway billboards perhaps, or similar. But the word unsolicited is doing a lot of work here that I don't think applies.
Advertising doesn't show up on site without the OWNER of the site wanting it to be there.
The owner might get subtle ads for tailored shirts, while I get animated punch-the-monkey¹ or some dumb freemium game.
1: Not sure if these are actually still around. I usually don't last five seconds before installing an ad-blocker.
The editorial and advertising departments are firewalled from each other - for good reason. You wouldn't want journalists to be pressured by advertisers into favorable coverage.
The people writing articles have no idea what ads are going to run next to their articles, and the advertisers have no control over the content of the articles. The owner of the publication might set limits on what advertisers to accept, but they're not choosing which ads run next to what content.
It’s quite simply theft of resources.
I'm not sure I agree with the advertising is theft analogy, but this is a bad counter example.
Imagine you ordered a book through the mail, knowing the book vendor offered it for free, but not knowing how, only after the fact finding out Toyota paid them to give away promotional pickup trucks, except you had to pay the shipping expense for a truck to go through the mail.
Is that theft? How is bloating the web with unrelated content a user has to pay for without knowing in advance they'll be getting it or even how much they'll be getting any different?
This is quite a bit different than all previous forms of advertising, which were directly embedded into the content media and added no cost to deliver. There was no way to order a newspaper and be delivered a video. Analog television streams were broadcast, with airwaves publicly allocated, not paid for by the consumer (you paid for the right to decode them).
A website is easily capable of requiring users to accept an actual agreement to see the content, but simply adding it to HTML isn’t a contract any more than listing it in some TOS somewhere is.
commercial radio
Many places in the world still are subject to metered data.
Do I, though? If I've never been to the site before and don't know what's on it, my simply visiting the site for the first time isn't consent to display an auto-playing video.
I suspect, your point is that If I only steal bikes of people eating in my restaurant and I ask for permission if they are seated(1), then this is not stealing. Because of the permission. I would argue. It is an incredible.... bad deal for the one eating in my restaurant and it seems to be in bad faith.
It is even another story, if it is the only restaurant or food source in town. Then it goes well beyond stealing…
(1) And I certainly use all (bad/dark) tricks you can think of to get their permission.
>
> Hear me out.
You are heard. I read it more than an hour ago and have though about it.
I appreciate the initiative of Forbrukerrådet.
And I think your comment is obviously wrong.
You get free content for your loss of attention.
Just like selling something more expensively on one place than another isn't theft.
Maybe advertising is wrong, but please keep it somewhat serious.
Otherwise, I'll be happy to grant you free bricks for your loss of a bicycle. You're welcome.
Please keep your meme activism to yourself.
Advertising is the activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, per a dictionary definition.
Attracting public attention is not theft of attention.
You would be better served in your meme-war to refer to the dark patterns of advertising without vilifying the entire industry.
> Attracting public attention is not theft of attention.
Yes it is; you don't have the consent of the public to have it; it is ergo theft. And indicative of an entitled mindset worryingly common in other malicious groups.
You are not obligated to use Youtube, but if you want to watch funny cat videos for free there you have done so with the understanding you'll be shown ads.
This is as silly as "taxation is theft", you consent to being taxed when you participate in society(whether that be buying goods, or being paid for producing goods).
You should have edited this out as well for being against HN guidelines, too.
Clearly an accusation that violates the HN site guidelines. Mob bullying at its best, defending an academic endeavor of ethical advertising is not evidence of participation in said endeavor.
> you don’t have the consent of the public
I believe the US Supreme Court has already weighed in on the matter, as pertains to the privacy expectation of your garbage on the side of the street: there is no such expectation of privacy.
It naturally follows that being in public is de-facto consent to being exposed to the public sphere, which includes things such as public advertising.
I’m concerned that self-righteousness is superseding real societal progress, here.
Setting aside ones emotional reactions goes a long way in illuminating the core ethical and philosophical differences. Those are the things that need to be revised.
In this case, one clear avenue to resolve the advertising wars is to make it legislatively clear as to which party is at fault: the party that gave the consent or the party that created the circumstances within which consent was given.
In academic research, the principles are clear: it is the duty of the researchers to provide informed consent.
There is no such clarity, in the United States, as to what extent business are required to provide and enforce informed consent.
Apple is going a long way on this topic with the privacy nutrition labels, and it would be quite the win for free-market economists if Apple were to resolve this problem outside of the legal system, but Google and Facebook are the companies built on advertising, not Apple.
How will society legislate that Google and Facebook must ensure that consent was given?
Arguing that advertising should be abolished is like arguing that the news should be abolished.
Do we need laws that specify that new product announcements can only happen in the context of news articles?
Being deemed legally permissible does not make that same action morally acceptible. To you, perhaps, but certainly not to others.
Advertising is designed to attract your attention and convince you to do something.
Individuals, by and large (and, obviously with exceptions - working out, dieting, cosmetic work, etc.) cannot control what they look like. Even with those exceptions, they have absolutely zero control over what other people may find attractive or unattractive about their bodies. What is simply a comfy outfit that one individual chose to wear might be deemed "skimpy" or sexy by you but not by others.
They're wildly different things, and the assumption that just because some skin is showing means that someone's trying to get you to look at them is also incorrect.
Hear me out. If we agree that my attention has economic value (and it must as that is the entire basis of advertising); and if we agree once my attention is captured it cannot be applied to something else at that moment; then unsolicited advertising is an act of theft.
Unlikely legal conclusion I know, but damn, maybe I would like to sit on the beach and have my own thoughts rather than be forced by an airplane banner to wonder if I need a personal injury attorney...