But I don't understand why this would be annoying at all to the developers. I have absolutely zero conundrum with just ignoring a request if I'm not in the mood to do it.

Most of them I even delete outright, but I still have requests that were sent to me in 00s that I'm keeping just in case one day "I'm in the mood".

And yes, people request (demand!) crazy things, and have done so for decades. I even remember the "If you don't do it, then ..." guys.

I mean, you still read them though, right? And you somewhat sort out the ones based on how much of a buffoon the user is? Maybe someone with excellent writing skills and having demonstrated reading all the documentation and FAQs is still asking for help in a respectful and intelligent way, and so maybe you engage.

All of that is mental tax. And it gets tiring, even if you're mostly ignoring the request. It's still tiring even when you're in the mood for it.

Just saying, it's a hard thing and I definitely sympathize for the way which open source / open project / volunteer collaborators get treated.

> Maybe someone with excellent writing skills and having demonstrated reading all the documentation and FAQs is still asking for help in a respectful and intelligent way, and so maybe you engage.

You mean it gets tiring to find the entertaining messages instead of the random trash? Because it doesn't matter how much effort the sender has put, or how intelligent his request/question/contribution/comment is. If I'm not in the mood, I will ignore it. I'm doing it for the fun, not to provide free support, so I will only read stuff that is fun to me. Obviously being an intelligent question is likely to add points, but it's not always the case.

It's not like this is race to see who is the least Torvalds-like of the bunch. It's 100% OK to just ignore everything. The people who complain "I had to moderate comments while my mother was in the hospital!" look like they have an addiction, or a runaway hobby.

I even have an online board for this sort of requests and generally I just read the subject lines. Fortunately for them, once your software is popular enough, a lot of people seem to like to reply to other people's questions, for some reason.

Maybe you can ignore it? And that's great, if so.

But I know I can't. I'm perfectly fine ignoring the buffoons. But I feel much anxiety over ignoring an insightful request or comment that would benefit both myself and the user if I were to engage.

If I'm passionate about a project (in whatever form of contribution), I definitely want to help people who are genuinely looking for help. The problem is the signal to noise is way out of line, heavy skewed the wrong direction.

For me it's a mental tax to wade through and find the good requests sorting them out from the bad ones. And it causes anxiety to miss the good ones.

Some people just aren't suited for certain jobs. There's nothing wrong with the person, and there's nothing wrong with the job (in this case, the job "just is").

> "For me it's a mental tax to wade through and find the good requests sorting them out from the bad ones."

This might be one of those very valid use-cases for an "A.I." / LLM to classify "hostile" messages into some sort of "junk bin" and maybe flag ones it's not entirely certain about for human review. Could fairly dramatically cut down on the garbage hopefully, leaving only the stuff worth reading.

> I mean, you still read them though, right?

no?

am I the only one with the super power of leaving a discussion and never going back?

But why are you working on a project? If it isn't for the money then you are doing it to 'give back to the community'. But if they are turning hostile to you then why continue?

Because you want to see that sort of project exist and if no one else is doing it, why not yourself? That's why I work on (certain) projects anyway, not for any community support or for money.

> "Because you want to see that sort of project exist and if no one else is doing it, why not yourself?"

That right there was my understanding of how most open source projects come into existence. Building a thing because it's a thing you want, and it don't yet exist in the form you're seeking, so ... "I'll just make it myself!" Then you throw it out into the world, because "Hey, why not?"

Who is "they"? In the UBO threads I've seen there are about a hundred supportive comments for every entitled dickhead - if that's enough to make you characterise the community as "turning hostile" then you are unlikely to ever be satisfied. Bad and inconsiderate people exist. The sensible thing to do is just ignore them.

> "The sensible thing to do is just ignore them."

I tend to go one step further than "ignore mode" (when I'm not bein' so utterly stupid as to get sucked in and actually respond) and actively block them any and every way that I can so that I never see that person's crap again.

> I have seen this becoming more and more common on open source projects and totally free services, where people act as if they are entitled to something as if it is their god given right.

Do you count YouTube as a "free service" (with ads) in this case?

I wonder if there is an overlap with people that expect free stuff and people that use uBO on YouTube. YT does offer most users YT premium, which gives users an ad free experience.

Disclosure: I worked at YT in the past, but still pay for premium because I don't want the ads.

I think he’s referring to the Adblock as the free service here.

I think deadmutex is pointing at a bit of irony and hypocrisy at how we're saying it's bad for people to feel entitled to free adblock support (and ask for more) but champion people feeling entitled to free videos by blocking the ads or refusing to pay for no ads.

One is free high quality security software, and the author doesn't even accept donations. The other is "free" videos that come with malware.

One is the best, most reliable video serving platform on the planet and the other is a scriptkiddie’s project that evidently doesn’t even work and he’s so salty about it that he had to make a post.

The OP is a post by a random person discussing reddit drama. As far as I can tell, the author of uBO isn't involved in any of it.

uBO does work fine, and is easily one of the most valuable pieces of end user software there is. Raymond Hill is very generous and has made a very positive impact on the world.

Not hypocritical at all.

There is no "entitlement" to videos. They are free. YouTube sends them to us for free. They do so hoping we're gonna look at the ads. We're under exactly zero obligation to actually do that though. It is not at all our responsibility to make their business model work.

Abusing open source developers is the true entitlement.

Expecting that the videos will be free with no qualifiers (such as an ad playing) is also entitlement. Not that you have said that explicitly but that seems to be a common assumption among many adblock users.

YouTube is free to make windows and Mac apps, and turn off their web views.

They're relying on me doing work to run a browser that renders their ads, rather than providing a binary. They're not sending me a page of ads, they're sending me a couple files that I can choose how to show and what to put through a JavaScript interpreter

>YouTube is free to make windows and Mac apps, and turn off their web views.

I have revanced which edits their binary to remove ads. I don't see what your point has to do with mine though. My point is this: adblock users are grazing from youtube's field. We are eating the grass that youtube has planted and watered. To expect that such a field exists and then to expect that it can be eaten from at will is entitlement. To say "but they put up no fence" (or, more accurately, a weak fence) is not a refutation of this point. In fact it is exactlty what defines it as being a tragedy of the commons.

They're also free to build more serious adblock countermeasures into their website, which is exactly what they're doing now, and people are complaining about it.

As GP said, maybe this is not your position, but it's a common enough one that their comment is not out of line (given that you are the one who replied to them).

YouTube switching entirely to a Netflix-like paid model or going bankrupt are entirely acceptable outcomes.

Another true entitlement is adblock users complaining that YouTube is greedy, etcetera, now that they're actually kicking said users off their site. You (in the general sense) are certainly not responsible for making YouTube's business work, but by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue.

Convenient lack of mention of the content creators in these threads where people just complain about Youtube corporation.

Content creators have other revenue streams these days. The ones I enjoy have quite the following on Patreon and other such platforms. Unlike ads, those are perfectly ethical ways to make money and I wish them all the success in the world. They don't even require copyright to work since they don't depend on artificial scarcity.

> by a similar token they are certainly not under any obligation to continue serving data to users who don't generate any revenue

Sure. Let's see them return HTTP 402 Payment Required instead of a free video stream then. I'm actually okay with that.

Somehow I doubt they'll ever do that. They want that mass market appeal, don't they? I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just like the "free" apps who do anything in the world to get themselves installed so they can start monetizing.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. By all accounts, YouTube is implementing countermeasures that block adblock users from watching videos on their site. What is functionally different between that and returning a 402, especially since you can in fact pay for ad-free YouTube?

Nope. Still free, they just managed to circumvent my browser extension. They're not even supposed to know I have it installed.

They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads. I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads.

> Nope.

What part of my comment, specifically, is this responding to?

> They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining.

Why?

> What part of my comment, specifically, is this responding to?

The notion that detecting our adblocker and actually charging for content are equivalent.

> Why?

Because if they send us ads we'll delete them and there is pretty much nothing they can do about it.

> The notion that detecting our adblocker and actually charging for content are equivalent.

Well then maybe you meant to respond to somebody else, because that's not something I said at any point.

> Because if they send us ads we'll delete them and there is pretty much nothing they can do about it.

This entire HN thread and the linked article are about how they are literally doing something about it, and it's working.

> it's working

The cat and mouse game is not instantaneous. Give it a little time.

> They need to either start charging everyone for access or stop complaining. I pay for access to a lot of things but I'm not paying money to avoid ads.

Then don't. It's fine. However please don't complain about not being able to get access to the content on Youtube without paying or watching ads.

> I sure as hell am not gonna pay money to watch videos with hard coded ads.

That's up to the content creators, not Youtube. Very few of my subscribed channels use hard-coded apps and if they do they need to make up for it with worthwhile content.

> please don't complain

I don't complain. If I see an ad I just close the tab. uBlock Origin and yt-dlp is the only reason I watch stuff on YouTube at all.

> That's up to the content creators, not Youtube.

Their business relationships are not my concern. I'm not paying to watch ads. Maybe YouTube should implement their own Sponsor Block system for the benefit of their paying customers.

Psssh, you and I both know the model only works because people _do_ sometimes look at ads.

If people don't, then YouTube will stop delivering videos for free. Your argument is pretty disingenuous.

So you think people watching over-the-air television are morally obligated to watch the ads and not mute them, leave the room, use a DVR to skip them, etc.?

This is what some people actually believe.

So what? Let them stop. Let their "model" stop working.

Ad blockers are free. They’re made available to be downloaded for free. It is not at all our responsibility to make their business model work. Open source developers are entitled.

What business model?

Correct.

I pay for YT premium and Ads are still my #1 complaint about YT.

Partly this is by design, where it seems to decide that a creator having a "merch" ad integration doesn't count as an ad. Which might be understandable (but still not what I want) if merch meant creator's face on a mug, but it also includes products where a home fix it channel will have an overlay of products from Home Depot which is literally just an ad with no caveats (an overlay that obscures the video on Chromecast, it's part of YT UI not embedded in the video).

Though I guess I'm also unclear how often I see that because Premium is buggy and how often it's intentional. Ever since they made YT on Chromecast an "app" it's been a disaster of account state bugs where it also keeps trying to enforce safe mode (which blocks half of everything, including practically any music video) because it says it's not logged in even though I'm trying to cast from a phone that is logged in.

This is the reason I won't pay for youtube red. It doesn't do what it says. It says "ad-free" but only filters some of the ads. It's literally false advertising. It's doubly frustrating because youtube can easily fix it if they want. They would just like the extra money.

> a creator having a "merch" ad integration doesn't count as an ad.

this is why you also install sponsorblock (https://sponsor.ajay.app/). Only whitelist the channels you want to "support", if you really want to make sure to eyeball the sponsorship (which doesn't really help unless it happens to be a product you actually are interested in buying).

You still have ads despite paying YouTube not to show you ads. They're hardcoded into the videos themselves now. You're also tracked and profiled by Google which is an indignity unto itself.

I wonder if paying for YT premium would disable tracking as well as the ads, and I feel like the answer is obvious

Imagine paying to an ad company that profiles, tracks and snoops.

YT Premium costs more than Netflix or Disney+. Quite pricey to get ad free Youtube videos and not as much content than normal streaming sites.

Especially considering that YouTube gets the content for almost free

> YouTube gets the content for almost free

Google pays out about 50% of ad revenue to content creators, that isn't "almost free" that is many billions of dollars.

Yeah but what percentage of subscription costs go to paying creators?

This site says 55% since youtube take 45%:

> In the end, YouTube takes a 45% cut of a creator’s Premium earnings, just as it does for ad-generated revenue.

https://vidiq.com/blog/post/youtube-premium-creator-revenue/

If a channel hasn't make any ad/premium revenue yet, Google still has the content for the cost of supporting the upload--i.e. they got it almost for free.

The fact is, Google takes on no risk and does none of the work of creating content, and takes a 45% cut for distribution, and is free to continue changing their terms to make things worse for content creators.

You are still served ads in videos. It sucks paying for premium and your content creators use 3 minutes of 15 minute video to promote “nordVpn”.

That’s kind of your fault. None of the channels I subscribe to do sponsored content.

https://sponsor.ajay.app/ - sponsorblock is a must.

We could apply LLMs to act as an interface with the angry crowd, rephrasing angry comments into constructive criticism and summarizing needs. In turn LLMs could be applied to synthesise development progress and answer the angry crowd. Everyone would be happy.

Or, use an LLM to detect angry comments and delete them before any humans have to deal with the BS

You don't need llm for that I think. But sure, if you want people to just leave you. It is a pain but a part of scaling is dealing with a crowd.

And I would prefer LLMs to hallucinate a nice constructive criticism than to delete comments by mistake.

I'm pretty familiar with scale and open source. Entitled jerks can fuck off. They take away from your passion and those helpful & respectful users. I draw a hard line there - not letting haters get in the way of love.

or use LLM's to ruby my feet before bed since apparently LLM's can, and should, be applied to everything.

I can't wait for the day an LLM can wipe my ass for me.

No. Because then angry people are rewarded for being angry, and that's not happy.

They are not angry because they are rewarded for being angry. And an answer is far for being a reward. A negative answer is still an answer.

> especially when you consider that there are only two people on the uBO team

Why in the world are there only two? That's your problem right there.

How many competent devs are right here in the comment section? Why is it so difficult to get their help?

uBO readme https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/README.md makes it clear this is not for profit;

> Free. Open-source. For users by users. No donations sought.

> If you ever want to contribute something, think about the people working hard to maintain the filter lists you are using, which are available to use by all for free.

> Why in the world are there only two?

You may have missed "there are only two people on the uBO team dealing with YouTube" rather than "on the whole team".

Indeed I did.

These services have had years to set up privacy-preserving micropayment systems. Instead they want your PI and a monthly fee, all the while using network effects to create defacto monopolies.

Why are these big tech monopolists so entitled?

I am talking about free and open source products like ublock origin and not YouTube itself. Entitilement towards youtube can be debated, entitlement toward uBlock origin is just bad behaviour.

Such is my reading comprehension on Saturday lol

I hateto bring it to you but we are on sunday :)

Today is Sunday

If we're going through the hassle of micropayments and other unnecessary beggar stuff, when why rely on some big company to take a cut of the money? Just setup a bank account and host your videos on a simple web hoster. If you're not willing to learn how to use wordpress then don't complain about youtube putting ads.

If they didn't have such entitlement they wouldn't be blocking the ads in the first place.

The technology that constitutes the internet is fundamentally incompatible with this opinion, despite that businesses would absolutely love if they could convince people otherwise. Trying to prevent me from modifying whatever you send me for my purely private use is mostly infeasible and potentially immoral, regardless of how that simple reality affects your business model.

It is not the user's responsibility to alter their behavior to support a business's strategy. If a video hosting platform is mathematically unsustainable with the number of people who choose to view ads, along with any other sources of income, then that's just the way it is: Unsustainable (However, the answer to the question is: It's sustainable. Leadership just might not like what that means in practice).

It isn't incompatible actually. Remote attestation exists and platforms that allow rampant ad blocking will go the same way as PC gaming did due to rampant piracy and cheating: become a second tier platform that gets some stuff late and other stuff never :(

"I sent you data so you have to use all of it exactly the way I want" is the entitled perspective.

As opposed to the so un-entitled "customers have no right to negotiate use of their data".

ACCEPT THE EULA PLEB

Nonsense. I provide a service in exchange for payment, then not paying is entitlement.

The problem is that for YouTube to get that payment, I have to give them, and other ad networks a major view in to my whole life.

Ad networks are currently scum of the earth, easily giving lawyers a good name.

If ad networks were riddled with crime, invasion of privacy, and other bullshit, people would be much more willing to entertain them.

Today though, they’re obnoxious AND invade your privacy AND may actually just a virus AND are of questionable legality or outright illegal.

It’s not just about funding the platform. You’re not “getting a service in exchange for payment”. Or at least, that is massively understating the behaviour of the scum of the earth ad networks.

> The problem is that for YouTube to get that payment, I have to give them, and other ad networks a major view in to my whole life.

Wait... does that mean, Google could offer "DoubleClick Premuim", where I pay to not see any DoubleClick ads whatsoever, anywhere on the web, but the websites I visited would still get their funding? I think I'd pay $10/mo for that.

Don't fall for that scam. If you pay for such a service, it only increases the value of your attention even further. You're clearly demonstrating you have enough disposable income to pay their extortion fees. It only makes them sell to you even more.

There is no context where a rational businessman would choose not to advertise to you. Someone will at some point realize they're leaving money on the table and the policy will be reverted.

They have no limits. They'd put ads under our eyelids if they could. In our dreams. The only way to deal with such people is to block their ads unconditionally and with extreme prejudice.

> There is no context where a rational businessman would choose not to advertise to you.

...except, the businessman wanting to show me an advert doesn't have a choice. The website chose DoubleClick; I'm paying DoubleClick not to show me any ads. Websites that don't choose DoubleClick either get adblocked, or I avoid, thus making less money from me.

There is some expected value that DoubleClick will get from me in the course of a month; that's not infinite, and if it's a reasonable fee (like, $12/mo) then they'll get a lot more from me than if I use an ad-blocker.

Then they realize you're paying about $150 a year to avoid ads. That fact alone increases the value of your attention. Thus you gotta pay them even more money to avoid ads. Which increases the value of your attention further. At some point the value exceeds what you're willing to pay and it's back to ads. Then they start selling your personal information to the highest bidder which includes the fact you have enough disposable income and a willingness to pay not to be bothered. The only possible outcome is rent seekers pouring out of the woodwork to try and grab a little of your sweet disposable income.

The only way to deal with these people is to reduce their profits to zero, not come up with ways to increase them. We simply decide that ads are unacceptable and that's the end of it. They either adapt or die.

> That fact alone increases the value of your attention.

OK, but does it increase my value to more than $150/year? I mean, just how much are people willing to pay for me to see ads?

I mean ultimately, if someone is paying $5 to show me an ad, either they're going to go bankrupt, or it's going to be pretty darn good. If paying $12 once means I'm on the "costs $5 to show this person ads" list, then that's probably still worth it. :-)

Who knows? Maybe if the value of your attention increases too much they'll socialize it among themselves or something. Instead of 1 company paying for an ad slot, 10 of them will band together and pay 1/10th of the cost to share the same slot instead. I'm sure they'll find a way.

Pay-per-view creates a perverse incentive to make SEO noise and make it more difficult to find what you want. You would be mostly paying to make your life worse. Better to just block ads, encourage and help others to block ads, and hope those sites die.

I certainly understand the perverse incentive, but that's already the incentive we're working under. And how do you propose we fairly compensate people for the value they've created when making content? How can we support artists, journalists, and so on to do the work that we enjoy?

If everyone did as you suggest, spammy SEO sites will be the last to die, because the effort invested to make them is so much lower than the effort of quality content.

> And how do you propose we fairly compensate people for the value they've created when making content?

> How can we support artists, journalists, and so on to do the work that we enjoy?

We either pay them before the work is completed or in an ongoing manner to support their activities. Patronage. Crowdfunding. Plenty of people seem to be achieving success via platforms like Patreon and GitHub Sponsors. This is ethical.

If they're worthwhile and looking to be paid, you pay them. If they're not worth paying, they go out of business, and SNR improves.

From what I've seen on youtube, almost all professional "content creators" make very shallow entertainment (or thinly veiled ads), which at least personally usually just makes me feel disappointed in myself for having wasted my time if I indulge.

Google Contributor did offer something like that for a while.

Google has repeatedly experimented with that. It always fails because the amount advertisers subsidize your internet experience is more like on the order of hundreds or thousands of dollars per month, not ten.

Yep I agree, the ad supported Internet was a mistake and we should never have stopped paying for the services we use. I just hope that these changes will increase people's willingness to pay, then other platforms who aren't owned by the largest ad broker might have a chance.

If your form of payment is running malware, don't be surprised that security software (recommended by the FBI mind you[0]) blocks it. Same as if your form of payment were running a crypto miner or exploiting local IoT devices to set up a botnet.

Don't be surprised also that if your business is distributing malware that people won't be very sympathetic toward you when they take the bait you offer without running the payload.

[0] https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

Aren't ads in YouTube locked down to displaying a video and some plain text you fill into a template. Doesn't sound like a great attack vector. I understand this for shady file sharing sites, but in the case of yt I'm not so sure.

Adware and spyware are malware. Youtube delivers both. uBlock blocks them.

Attention and personal information are not a valid payment methods. Either charge money up front or accept the risk we're going to ignore or delete your ads.

Why aren't they valid payment methods?

Because our minds are sacred. They're not empty spaces they get to insert brands and products into at will. I consider that a form of violence. Their surveillance capitalism should be literally illegal. They should be scrambling to forget all about us the second we're done transacting with them, not amassing vast amounts of information into data lakes.

You're implying that my not watching your short video that you sent to me is equivalent to my not paying for a service you just rendered. The fact that this extremist opinion is anything but ultra-fringe is evidence of the deeply greedy, irrational, antagonistic, dangerous, bully-ish relationship some businesses have with citizens.

The internet is not a platform for exchanging services for the promise that you viewed a short video. It is a general purpose platform, on which you happen to be able to almost implement said exchange. Trying to alter the premise of the internet in order to remove that "almost" is immoral. If you don't feel that way, that's a pretty fundamental disagreement that is likely unreconcilable.

Most Internet traffic happens with the agreement that you watch ads alongside the content you actually want to see. This is not a fringe position, it's the absolute majority of all traffic.

If you don't want to see the ads, you can just not use my service, what's so hard to understand there.

That's actually a mentality that was "bolted on" by the advertising industry after the fact, once they realized how utterly wrong they were about their assertion that "The Internet is just a passing fad. Nobody will ever want to advertise on the Internet." (That's an almost exact quote from a lot of advertising folks I talked to back in the early days of the Internet, when websites were just starting to get popular.) Prior to their involvement in the Internet, it was purely just a network of networks, not a giant global advertising platform. They "jumped on the bandwagon" and corrupted it to their needs, and everyone else's wants and needs be damned, and then they convinced everyone "It's always been that way".

There is no such agreement, only a one-sided demand. Don't be so surprised if more and more of those on the other side respond with "LOL. LMAO, even."

I allowed ads for a long time, believing a site should be able to earn revenue for the content they provide.

I started blocking ads when ad networks failed to properly vet their ads and allowed malicious ads to be distributed.

Do you allow ads on sites with more responsible ads?

Yep. All two of them. ;~)

Honest answer, I have no interest in doing that research. I wouldn't know how to make that determination with any degree of confidence. Even if I could, I feel like it would require that I constantly monitor how a site delivers its ads.

Fortunately, I am at a point in my life that if I really like something, and they offer an ad-free subscription, I can support them that way.

> when ad networks failed to properly vet their ads and allowed malicious ads to be distributed

All ads are inherently malicious.

Like those entitled tv viewers who switch the channel.

As a user, I have a right to control what is executed and rendered on my devices. It's not the user's fault that internet advertisements have become a security threat, a significant visual nuisance, and now an environmental issue [1].

Additionally, for those with neurological issues, I imagine using a browser without content blocking must be unnecessarily difficult. It would be a tragedy if these users lost control over the content rendered in their browser.

Additionally, for those with family members who struggle with discerning scams and other forms of manipulative advertising, content blocking is a legitimate tool for mitigating this risk.

[1]: https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/technologies/technologies-...

It also feels awful to be called a beggar and a panhandler just because you're trying to find a balance and build a sustainable project by having a donation popup (that can be disabled) in your software.

This disgusting review was sitting at the top of the review page for Search by Image on the Chrome Web Store: https://i.imgur.com/P1QU176.png

This person has edited their review a couple of times in the past year which pushed it to the top, and also emailed me with a similar demeaning message. I've reported it to Google staff, and they thought that the review did not break their content policy, so they did not remove it.

So yeah, it hurts when you're offering so much of your free time for so little benefits, or none at all, and a couple of entitled jerks still manage to poison the well for everyone.

With each abusive message the thought of no longer offering up your time and the results of your work for free grows stronger and stronger. It's no surprise that people either quit, sell their open source projects, or stop offering it for free.

> It also feels awful to be called a beggar and a panhandler just because you're trying to find a balance and build a sustainable project by having a donation popup (that can be disabled) in your software.

Interrupting someone's browsing experience to ask for donations is both providing a poor user experience and is in poor taste. I think it's fine to solicit donations in the browserAction popup, the settings page or even the initial installation window, but doing so elsewhere would deservedly be criticized.

A donation popup is shown once a year, and only when you use the extension, it does not randomly interrupt your browsing experience. Te popup can even be disabled from the extension's options. It is similar to a donation prompt being shown when an app is opened, once a year.

That's what this person was complaining about, that they've seen a donation prompt once when they've initiated an image search with the extension.

There is no winning with some of these people, they want your time and the results of your work, they want it for free, and they want it to be neatly packaged and presented exactly the way that is most convenient for them. If you deviate even a little bit from their unreasonable expectations, you'll be promptly attacked.

Not defending the trolls, but this kind of abuse is part and parcel of merely being online and putting anything out there. I've received hate mail and even one death threat from just commenting on HN. Lots of unhinged (but ultimately cowardly) people out there who feel empowered by distance and anonymity. I don't know a single female internet user who hasn't been on the receiving end of absolutely vile anger and hate at least once. Thick skin is a must.

Of course, though the frequency of repeated abuse makes all the difference.

> There is no winning with some of these people, they want your time and the results of your work, they want it for free, and they want it to be neatly packaged and presented exactly the way that is most convenient for them. If you deviate even a little bit from their unreasonable expectations, you'll be promptly attacked.

You're making a pretty big leap from "users prefer these things" to "users expect these things".

Are you going to pretend you don't want things to be free, neatly packaged, and convenient? Who wouldn't want this?

And the idea that a four star review which starts with "A good extension." is an "attack" is absurd. Given it appears you expect your users not to express any preferences that aren't exactly what you've implemented, perhaps it's you who has unreasonable expectations?

> Once your projects grow past a certain size, threats of physical violence also become a regular occurrence, here's a milder email I have received last year: https://i.imgur.com/LKJQq1p.png

That's not a threat of physical violence at all.

> doing so elsewhere would deservedly be criticized.

I suggest that these people express their criticism by not using the software in question. I doubt the typical purveyor of free-as-in-* software who's stuck between a rock and a hard place re: monetization particularly cares what somebody who doesn't understand the personal specifics of their dilemma thinks about their chosen solution to it.

> I suggest that these people express their criticism by not using the software in question.

Do you also suggest that when an application is ad-ridden or potentially malware-ridden to also just not use the app? Naturally that's an option, but the review is to warn other users of their experience.

I don't think death threats or calling people slurs is appropriate, but the review being complained about it is pretty mundane.

> Do you also suggest that when an application is ad-ridden or potentially malware-ridden to also just not use the app? Naturally that's an option, but the review is to warn other users of their experience.

Is a restaurant owner pissed off about a one star review by somebody who didn't like the decor in the bathroom implicitly suggesting that people who receive food poisoning at a restaurant have no right to communicate that experience to other potential customers? Is a homeowner who puts out ant traps in her kitchen tacitly endorsing genocide?

I think there is such a vast gulf between displaying a mildly annoying message asking for donations and tricking someone into installing malware on their computer that anybody with a moderately intact sense of proportionality should have no trouble seeing it. So, no, I don't suggest that.

I think there's even greater utility in telling people about minor things that might annoy them, because those minor things aren't going to get a developer's application pulled from the app store, but have a meaningful impact on the user's experience.

That is, in fact, exactly what reviews are for.

> I think there's even greater utility in [...]

You really think it's more important for me to air my grievances about a free software's occasional donation nag messages than to tell other potential users it's a front for malware? That's honestly really strange, and I categorically disagree.

It's greater utility in the sense that there's other mechanisms in place to report malware that are more effective at getting that changed than just the review section.

Reviews are much more useful for applications that stick around on the app store, or chrome web store, or whatever else, because well, they're still there.

I disagree. In my experience, user/customer reviews have been vastly more useful to me for learning about serious safety or quality issues with a product or service than they have been for any purpose (unspecified because I really can't think of any) predicated on learning about specific users' weird gripes. I can practically smell the unreasonableness dripping off that review somebody linked above, and I would ignore it if I spotted it in a list of reviews—but unfortunately I can't ignore it out of the aggregate rating.

Anyway, this isn't going anywhere productive, so I'm out.

> I suggest that these people express their criticism by not using the software in question.

As with most "love it or leave it" arguments, this is a transparent attempt to silence critics without actually bothering to engage with criticism, even if it's constructive.

Anything you put in front of a significant number of people will be criticized, and rightly so, because it's not perfect. Admitting things aren't perfect is the first step to making things better.

This argument is particularly disigenuous in the context of a discussion about YouTube, because YouTube is effectively a monopoly in a number of ways--it's effectively an argument that once a product reaches monopoly status, it can do whatever it wants and nobody can criticize.

Adults learn to accept, integrate, and throttle their intake of criticism. If you haven't, you have some growing up to do.

> Admitting things aren't perfect is the first step to making things better.

the implied assumption being made here with this train of thought is that it is the author's imperative duty to make things better.

It is not. The author has zero obligation to make it better for anyone; they do it at their leisure and at their convenience.

> It is not. The author has zero obligation to make it better for anyone; they do it at their leisure and at their convenience.

Yes, and it's people's prerogative to write reviews criticizing the software that is published, regardless of whether it's paid or not.

I don't think anybody here is saying it's illegal to be an asshole.

> Yes, and it's people's prerogative to write reviews criticizing the software that is published, regardless of whether it's paid or not.

Do you think that review was respectful, now that you know that the donation prompt was not obtrusive nor randomly shown (see my other comments, it has been explained in detail)? Don't you feel that the way this person expressed themselves was rather demeaning, and perhaps somewhat unjust?

I don't think that your opinion that the prompt was not obtrusive is objective truth. Whether a prompt is obtrusive or not is very much a matter of subjective opinion, and I tend to value user opinions on user experience over creator opinions on user experience.

The fact that the donation prompt was shown on startup doesn't undermine the reviewer's preference for not seeing a donation prompt at all. They're factually incorrect on a minor detail, but that doesn't change the larger point.

The rudest part of the review was them referring to the prompt as "panhandling", which is actually inaccurate, and if I were writing the review I would have used a milder, more accurate word there (maybe "soliciting"?). But in receiving any communication from anyone, it's unreasonable to expect people to communicate perfectly, and I try to understand people rather than criticize how they communicate their ideas. I certainly would not describe that as "disgusting" or "appalling".

And again, I'm not saying you should remove the donation prompt. In fact, if you made it show up every time until a user donated, I'd have no objections. Users wouldn't like this, but you're not obligated to fulfill users' every wish. Just as users aren't obligated to fawn over everything you do when it doesn't do what they want it to do.

Believe it or not, users can want things, and you can ignore what they want, and those are both okay!

> Do you think that review was respectful

Not particularly, but I also wouldn't really describe it as particularly disgusting or demeaning, either. It could have been worded better, but I'm not going to read too deeply into what random people on the internet say about me personally.

I find anything that's trying to interrupt what I'm doing like popup advertisements, cookie modals, and other things of the sort irritating because it forces me out of my workflow and requires action to continue what I was doing. It doesn't really matter how frequent it is. When i'm actively installing extensions I expect there to be a popup that is giving me information about the application. Dark Reader has a donation button featured on their popup from their action. I don't find this to be invasive even though it's there literally any time I interact with the extension. I ended up paying for the extension on safari because I liked it so much.

That's just my opinion, though. There's a lot of things that I find distasteful that would make me uninstall an application that seemingly don't bother the majority of people, and ultimately, you have a right to make your application how you see fit, but I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing it for what that user clearly views as distasteful.

No, I'm not implying that at all. The author of the software isn't the only one who might improve the software based on the criticism. A completely different person might decide to clone the software with suggested improvements, for example.

In which case the author can happily ignore all the reviews!

I flagged this comment because it contains a personal attack:

> Adults learn to accept, integrate, and throttle their intake of criticism. If you haven't, you have some growing up to do.

Normally I would respond to this kind of thing in a different way, but the (apparently) lone HN moderator has previously informed me that stooping to the level of such attacks is just as bad in HN's eyes as being the one to make them in the first place. Accordingly, I place my rhetorical fate in the hands of the mod[s], and I look forward to seeing your rule-breaking comment removed.

Nothing says "my opinions are correct" like refusing to respond to the content of criticism and instead trying to get it censored.

If you want to know what I have to say, feel free to start a new subthread replying to me with the rulebreaking content removed. I would be all too happy to respond to any substantive arguments you are able to present without resorting to personal attacks as a rhetorical crutch.

I disagree that constructive criticism is against the rules.

If you want to say something, say it, if you don't, don't--why would I care? I've said my opinion and posturing that you're better than the discussion doesn't persuade anyone that you're right. It hasn't been my experience that when people self-censor, they later reveal they had some brilliant counterargument that we were all missing out on.

Okay.

I totally agree with this sentiment. Could I also bill the creator for my time invested in learning the software and adjusting my workflows for it, all the hours invested before the hidden anti-features showed the true intention of the software? Otherwise this whole argument could legitimize spyware. I could not reasonably decide to stop using the software before I was informed of the anti-features, regardless of how their invasiveness.

It's definitely a strange proposition, but you could try it yourself.

Install Signal on your phone and start using it, in a couple of months you will be shown a donation popup a single time when you open the app. At this point uninstall the app and contact Signal's development team to send them an invoice for your invested time that has now been ruined when that donation prompt has interrupted your messaging experience.

Also call them beggars and panhandlers, after all that's perfectly reasonable, and even respectable.

For the record, I get that donate popup on Signal every couple weeks, and it's all the more annoying because I donated for several years until they recently removed SMS support.

Well, which is it?

Either we should accept software with hidden misfeatures without complaining, in which case the user must receive compensation for their time, or we should complain and inform others of the misfeature.

Uninstalling the software in silence is an invitation for more spyware and trojaned software.

Sure, and why stop there? You might also e.g. bill/sue the author of a free software you invested time into learning because they are no longer providing free updates, rendering the software obsolete and your time investment wasted.

imagine having the ability to dislike something without characterizing it as disgusting.

One could almost call it a super power.

I think empathy is a much more relevant superpower, and the lack of it can be disgusting.

Unfortunately, after all my observations of humans over the course of decades, I feel like real empathy is actually pretty rare in humans. It might be common in fictitious characters, but not in real people.

Strange that we should come to opposite conclusions; I feel like pretty much everyone I've ever known has real empathy.

You might be attractive.

empathy to random humans is rare, empathy to those in your immediate vicinity is not. I suspect the biggest asshole at your work probably has empathy for their family.

The fundamental issue at play here is trying to manipulate language by using the word disgusting to evoke a stronger reaction than is warranted.

At some point you're going to need a stronger word than disgusting because you've watered it down so much. Where do you go?

I was raised on empathy, and then got out into "the real world" and humanity actively beat very nearly every last shred of empathy out of me. At this point I truly believe that the majority of humanity are straight-up monsters and the Universe will be a better place when we're gone. Good thing we're letting the richest 1-10% of us decide we should all just die trying to make them richer than they already are. Soon enough the Universe will be safe from humanity.

Sheesh

Where's your empathy for your users? Do you really not see the point of view of that review?

Create a wall of shame and let people laugh about the idiots. So simple.

It sounds good, but a lot of people just aren't mentally equipped for that: some people are fighters, some just aren't. So instead of confronting the assholes and putting up the "wall of shame" like you suggest, they'll just give up and go find another hobby that doesn't result in receiving such vile messages.

Yeah. People need to go in the line of fire a lot more. Once you are hardened, you just waltz through these bullshits like a 70 ton tank.

The people we're talking about are providing a service for free, with no direct benefit to them. Why would you go into the line of fire for something like that?

It is our collective duty to make sure individuals providing a service to society are treated with respect. If we can't do that then we simply don't deserve their time and effort.

Why would someone who fears crossing photocell doors try it again and again... For years? To overcome the phobia, that's why.

Nah, people need to be brought out of the protecting bubble.

You give money to them, so they have a tangible evidence that their work means something. Not just stars and patting in the back. Time to stop the open source beggar movement.

Regularly having to deal with abusive comments takes a mental toll on you no matter how much of a tough guy you are. Why do you think we're entitled to them not only sacrificing their time, but also their mental heath? Donations on most open-source projects don't even come close to covering the costs of either.

Again, we are not entitled to their services and assholes can and will ruin nice things for all of us.

Not really. Tbh I like to gut these people. Most of those who belittle-berate others are weak people, they compensate for something. Once I give them some treatment, 99% percent backs off, because they don't like the barrage of insults/whatever.

I never said we are entitled for anything. I don't like that oss developers get paid nothing and have to - seemingly - beg for sponsorhip/money. But the open source model was ugly from the get go. You build something up, decide to abandon it, and people fork it, expropriate it, and the original dev is forgotten. They get nothing. The actual guy, who maintains it might get something in the future, but who created the foundation - since he left the project - gets nothing. Ridiculous.

The open source movement/idea is flawed and needs to be changed, that's all.

> This disgusting review was sitting at the top of the review page for Search by Image on the Chrome Web Store: https://i.imgur.com/P1QU176.png

> This person has edited their review a couple of times in the past year which pushed it to the top, and also emailed me with a similar demeaning message. I've reported it to Google staff, and they thought that the review did not break their content policy, so they did not remove it.

So? What's the point you're making? Users aren't allowed to have preferences about software they get for free? User experience doesn't matter for free software? Who did you release this software for if not for users?

It's a 4 star review, ffs. Do you think every review that isn't glowing is disgusting? Why on earth would you expect Google staff to remove a review which merely expresses a preference?

It really feels like a significant portion of Hacker News just doesn't really grok the whole "doing nice things for other people" thing. If you only did this for money or glowing praise for how generous you are, you'd have been better off choosing one of those and pursuing it singlemindedly instead of trying for both money and being perceived as generous, and then being surprised when people notice you aren't doing either perfectly. And sure, you're not obligated to just do it out of the kindness of your heart, and you have every right to choose how nice you want to be. But if you aren't doing it for purely prosocial reasons, then maybe don't expect people to fawn over how purely prosocial you are.

You've lost the plot if you think that it is normal or acceptable to call the maintainers of an app or extension beggars and panhandlers if there is a donation prompt shown once a year when you open the app. Most people would in fact find it appalling and demeaning to treat people with such little respect. I think you should also take a second look at your own performance in this thread, and maybe ask a friend for an opinion about your comments, because that behavior is not normal either.

> Most people would in fact find it appalling and demeaning to treat people with such little respect.

You don't speak for most people, nor do I believe you know much about most people. If you've got access to any evidence I am not aware of, feel free to share, but until that point, I can only assume this is just your opinion, which you are trying to present as most people's opinion.

> I think you should also take a second look at your own performance in this thread, and maybe ask a friend for an opinion about your comments, because that behavior is not normal either.

Asked my girlfriend. Her statements: 1. "Why are you arguing with people on the internet?" (Answer: I was bored.) 2. "That guy [you] is overreacting."

You've already checked your opinions with the Google staff, and been told they don't agree with you. Why would you think one of my friends is going to agree with you more? How many outside opinions are you willing to ignore to maintain your delusion that your opinion is universally agreed upon? I'm pretty sure none of the people who are agreeing with you in this thread have actually read the mild, polite 4/5 star review you're describing as "disgusting".

In a larger sense, you've not engaged with anything that the review said or that I said. You're just calling opinions disgusting, appalling, demeaning, etc., without actually bothering to disprove the concrete claims being made.

I asked questions in my previous post, and they aren't just rhetorical. You might consider answering them:

"What's the point you're making? Users aren't allowed to have preferences about software they get for free? User experience doesn't matter for free software? Who did you release this software for if not for users?"

That review is completely respectable and something I would leave if an extension added popups asking for money to my browsing experience.

Ironically, "entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin" is exactly the kind of sentiment that leads to the use of ad-blockers in the first place.

So it can scarcely be surprising that the sorts of people blocking youtube abs because they want the content for free, are the same sorts of people that feel entitled to uBlock Origin's services for free.

If you want youtube's content without ads, then pay for it. If you despise ads, but refuse to pay, then don't watch youtube.

> Ironically, "entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin" is exactly the kind of sentiment that leads to the use of ad-blockers in the first place

Entitlement towards tracking me across the internet and delivering malware is why I use an adblocker.

Precisely why I use an adblocker but still pay for services thay provide that option (like YouTube Premium, Nebula, various Patreons).

Why can't I just use an ad blocker? My machine, my choice of what and how I display things on it. You haven't presented any argument why people shouldn't use ad blockers. I suppose the pejorative term "entitled" is supposed to replace the actual argument?

I hope the people developing uBlock Origin and all the filter lists are alright. They're my heroes. No one deserves this treatment, least of all them.

I like to take a moment to publicly thank them whenever the opportunity to do so arises. Thank you so much!

Every single time I meet one of the developers of an open source project that has benefited me in some way, I always make it a point to tell them "Thank you" and let them know how (and how much) their generosity benefited me, and how much I really appreciate it. I also make efforts to help out in any ways I'm able. Sometimes that's cash (when I've got some available to spare), and sometimes it's just helping out in support channels, or bugreports / pull requests, etc.

Thank you for making the world a better place!

Not I, thank you. The folks who create and release open source software (which I myself have not done in many years now). I'm just reacting appropriately to their generosity which is actively contributing to the world being just that little bit better because of their actions / decision. :~)

Yes! Their generosity is an inspiration to me. Open source technology is empowering and world changing. I really admire these people.

You and me both. They're the people keeping alive the original "hacker spirit" from "ye olden days" of computers, back when it was all new and exciting to have an actual "home computer" on your desk at home. Almost all software back then was "open source" (though we didn't call it that yet). :P

Of course Ublock users think they are entitled to free stuff when the whole point of the tool is getting free access to sites without paying for ad free.

It's unfortunately been this way for a long, long time. Though it does seem to have gotten more frequent in recent years. I've been running PortableApps.com for nearly 2 decades and, in that time, I've been sworn at, harassed, doxxed, received death and rape threats, etc. My personal favorite was a user who accused me of donating a kidney to my father because I thought I was better than everyone else and to try to garner donations. Despite the fact that I donated it years before PortableApps.com existed. Just this week I had someone mad a meet for not updating an app due to the fact that I am recovering from a concussion.

The common advice to delete toxic people from your life applies to those online as well. I don't think of this as a FLOSS-centric problem. Instead of taking it personally I try to think of a suffering person lashing out at the world attempting to spread misery. Then I hit the delete/block button and move on.

Thank you for your work at PortableApps. Windows isn’t my daily OS but when I get my hands on it from time to time, the apps you pack are what keep me sane.

You're welcome! I'm glad it's been helpful for you.

Doesn't the same apply to YouTube then? People who want to block ads are entitled imo. Those people outright refuse to pay or to simply not use the service if they don't like ads. And it enrages so many people when this is pointed out.

Google made a mistake in offering free drive, gmail, Google docs, etc etc. Imagine telling someone in the 90s all the shit we get for free with a couple ads/our data being sold.

People have free will, they should use it, and stop using these services if they don't like ads or want their data sold.

Pay for email instead of your Gmail. Everyone refuses to do this, they'd rather shake hands with a devil and then cry when their soul is taken.

You say that as though there’s a viable alternative, which is precisely googles business model.

> People have free will, they should use it, and stop using these services if they don't like ads or want their data sold.

People have free will, and they should use it the way you want them to?

No thanks, I don't agree to the rules set forth by the ad-supported companies. I think I'll use my free will to install an adblocker.

I don't use Gmail any more, but that's because there are viable alternatives for people with my technical abilities. Not everyone is a software dev. The tradeoffs for most people switching off Gmail aren't acceptable.

When the choices are "conform to what this company wants" or "don't have working email", that's not freedom of choice. Freedom requires real viable alternatives. Only in late-stage-capitalist hellholes like Hacker News is this sort of choice considered freedom.

I literally read someone on HN recently saying that if people didn't want to pay tens of thousands yearly for insulin they were welcome to not, i.e. the choices are pay a pharma company or die. That's a much more extreme example, but it's pretty typical of HN these days.

> Those people outright refuse to pay or to simply not use the service if they don't like ads. And it enrages so many people when this is pointed out.

YouTube used to offer “Premium Lite” which was reasonably priced and only offered ad-free YouTube.

But now Google has shut down that subscription and only offer is one more than twice the price which includes lots of things people don’t want. I can see why some people refuse to pay for that.

The way I see it, Youtube feels entitled to get some of my ad viewing time. If they'd pay me 14.95 USD per month, I'd probably watch their ads. But they never made me that offer, they believe I should spend my time to increase their business revenue for free. Not only that, they've convinced tens of thousands of unemployed people to make content for them!

Why does youtube have a paid option to avoid ads but not to avoid the violation of our privacy?

Everyone talks about how no one cares about their privacy and just want free stuff. When the world was signing up for gmail or watching youtube, where was the big click to acceopt that explained the (obscenely unfair) trade users were making?

Entitled? Google is the one that feels entitled to our data.

> I have seen this becoming more and more common on open source projects and totally free services, where people act as if they are entitled to something as if it is their god given right. The people doing public services like uBlock origin can only take so much from the mob.

Only donators should be allowed to review the service and complain then.

Guess why gorhill ended uMatrix....