Resolving that the poor must endure advertising to be subsidised by the wealthy is anti-poor and anti-person.
A more reasonable take is that all humans should have reasonable access to services through the fruits of their labour, and a situation where wealth inequality makes this infeasible should be rectified.
Anything else is anti-poor.
Gambling ads, exploitative financial services, unhealthy "cheap" foods etc.
Also, why don't we just support the poor directly instead of requiring the construction of a consumer sentiment shaping global surveillance network?
If it was clear cool water, I'd be much more OK with it. But it's a steaming, bubbling, toxic, green/brown lumpy sludge that I refuse to let near my network.
I also don't think the green/brown lumpy sludge should be foisted upon the poor, but there are some rich folk that seem to have decided that it's OK to do so, and, confusingly-but-maybe-obviously, there ain't no government that's even tried to say that maybe that's not OK.
The FBI has even recommended the use of ad blockers to improve online safety.
https://www.securityweek.com/fbi-recommends-ad-blockers-cybe...
And the NSA and CIA seem to agree
https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-nsa-and-cia-use-ad-block...
Not using an ad-blocker is no longer an option for me. After experiencing the web with one, browsing without one makes me want to never browse again.
Paying is not always an option and, when it is, it's often ridiculously overpriced. Websites send me their ads, I choose not to look at them. Should I somehow be forced to consume adverts on television, prevented from leaving the room or muting the sound?
I would have more sympathy if there were no alternative, but there's a very easy one where everyone wins: static ads. I won't block those and I can't block them!
I define what's OK to me. I am able (and legally allowed) to choose what my browser displays to me, so I use browser extensions to control my (and only my) experience of the web. I do not hurt anybody and I do not impinge on anyone's rights. I resent attempts at moral preaching aimed to make me feel guilty, especially when it's in defense of powerful entities that I find reprehensible and who do impinge on my life in ways that I object to.
My local bus company does not do that.
Hiring a bodyguard seems like the right solution if you are regularly at risk of aggression.
If ad blocker use is widespread and most people don't see a problem with it even if they don't use one themselves, it is culturally okay.
The poor also does not have the money to buy expensive books, but that is why we have libraries funded by tax money - placing banner ads in the middle of textbooks would be a dystopia, but somehow we are more okay with it if the content is digital.
The far-less capitalist, far more revered society that is Germany actually did this, far before the age of surveillance capitalism.
Not sure about textbooks speficically, but it was definitely a thing with fiction, to the point of editing foreign books so that the ad would form part of the plot.
See e.g. https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/terry-pratchett-and...
Poor people should have the option to go to the public library and read things for free. In the public transportation metaphor, poor people should get fair public transportation at an affordable price, and not need to ride without tickets.
Saying ads sustain poor people is, in my view, saying there is no expectation that the State/society will give a decent base level of service to anyone, and we're left to what private companies are willing to do and the mercy of the ones who can pay - coupled with their willingness to go along with whatever conditions the companies enforce for their "benevolence" (i.e., making you and your data the product).
So, what's wrong is that there's a gap here, and the poor people are not getting any support to bridge that gap and eventually get better off and add more value to society. Private philanthropy is not a valid welfare policy.
We need a new model like we had with libraries, one that handles the fact that most new content is now online. Unfortunately, most discussions I've seen around that were more about IP rights and protecting paywalls than enabling a 21st century lending model. And the traditional libraries are dying. Solving that would do more for the poor than subjecting yourself to intrusive ads ever will.
The ad industry needs users so ad-free content is unlikely to happen even if you pay.
> The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens.
Ads are an aggression on the mind of the people with real psychological consequences. Imagine a public libraries where you should either pay a ticket or be targeted every few minutes by an advertizing team to interrupt your lecture, slap a flyer on top of your book, holding your arm to prevent your from removing it all this while shouting at you offers for a service. And that would be the rich subsidizing the service for the poor and would be a good thing. This is bonkers.
> On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tickets, even though it's basically the same thing and a very similar business model.
Not really. Paywall is similar business model, You pay the price, you get the service. Ads are just Ads.
I am perfectly free to decide to use whatever technology exist to remove ads from my sights when walking in the streets, or close my eyes. Same has to be for the internet.
Also, online medias lost any right to pretend we should see ads when they decided to go the unethical way and act like criminals that redirect our traffic to external parties without our consent. I was perfectly fine when ads were few and far between, not covering half the screen, served locally and only a click on the ad would send me to the advertiser.
This is technically true, but it leaves out the entire flipside of the coin. The rich wouldn't do that at the scale that they do if it didn't benefit them more than it does the poor. The services you speak of are offered at a high, but invisible, price (in the form of lost privacy, hijacked attention, manipulated will, etc.).
If you really want to help the poor, UBI does it better. It doesn't require charity from self-centered rich psychopaths. We should tax them whether they want to or not.
I don't accept that it's an analogous situation, but many people have no problem with fare dodging. Public transport is for the public good and if someone can't afford the fare, dodging it the moral option.
That's silly.
> The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor,
[Citation needed].
> On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit
Actually I know exactly zero people who are not ok with either. The only reason I pay for public transport is that I'm afraid of being caught, but just like the correct amount of ads is zero, the correct public transport fare is also zero.
> a very similar business model.
Public transport is not a business, and it's not my concern that your business model sucks.
That's clearly wrong. The equivalent of not buying a ticket would be to use a paywall bypass service to read content that's not free.
Using an ad blocker is instead equivalent to reading a book on the subway instead of looking at the ad posters. Which I hope you will agree is entirely acceptable.
The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens.
On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tickets, even though it's basically the same thing and a very similar business model.