1- No ads. 2- Transparent ads. 3- Opaque ads.
By removing option 2, you only leave options 1 and 3.
If the product has costs (always true), then option 1 means that there is no gratis tier. So you force companies to remove their free tier, or to make ads opaque.
If you want to enjoy a free product without paying and without ads, then do so, but don't pretend you are an activist for doing so, just pay the ethical cost instead of trying to avoid paying that as well.
This isn't complex either, the only reason you don't get it is because you don't want to get it, you want things that are gratis without paying for them, and you want the free things to be given to you on your terms, and you don't want to be guilty about it. It's easier to think of yourself as righteous than to recognize that you want to be a leech.
People don't want ads. You imply that "if you accept ads then things will be free" but they will not. Never accept ads. Not for a free service, certainly not in a paid product. Ads exist to enable leaching in both direction in exchange for what ends up being nearly mind control. But it is two-way leaching - companies benefit without the friction of explicit payment, consumers get a service without explicitly paying via money. The downside is neither can stop the bad-incentives motivating bad actions from the other side.
Ads are a deal with the devil, and rejecting them outright is allowed via that deal, just as companies can withdraw their free service. It cuts both ways.
Presumably you wouldn't even want to use the service since it's so evil, so we probably agree that people ideally shouldn't use adblockers.
Running an adblocker today isn't so much about blocking ads, as it's about blocking the hostile advertiser industry who spy, profile, fingerprint and scam and whatnot. Blocking advertising is the only moral choice; these people are criminals. I would never let my mom browse the Internet without an adblocker. You think she knows which download button is the correct one to pick?
Making advertising unprofitable is the activist goal, so choice "1: no ads", in your scenario, becomes the only available option.
Even if they have 2, they can still make even more money by also including 3, so almost certainly will do so.
First that i should have said correlated rather than proportional.
Second that even if there's an inverse influence, there's also a positive influence between both forms of advertisement.
But in terms of proportion I still maintain that if you eliminate one type of advertisement the ratio will become 100% of the other, which is as undeniable as it is tautological.
> By removing option 2, you only leave options 1 and 3.
My point is that these are not exclusive options, and in practice, most companies will not feel constrained to only pick one of them.
> This isn't complex either, the only reason you don't get it is because you don't want to get it, you want things that are gratis without paying for them, and you want the free things to be given to you on your terms, and you don't want to be guilty about it. It's easier to think of yourself as righteous than to recognize that you want to be a leech.
No, I'm arguing that because companies in practice are going to use multiple of these when they can, my attempts to influence them by keeping the door open on 2 will not have any effect whatsoever, so I might as well close the door on it.
Could they be doing opaque ads right now and we wouldn't know? It's possible, that will probably eventually come to light and it might have legal consequences, but sure it's possible.
But it's not a given, and your logic of "it would make zero sense to leave money on the table" is certainly not a QED, it's absolute reductionism.
"Simplicity" isn't a relevant factor.
Doesn't history show us you just get both?
You pay to get into the movies, then they show you adverts before the film, then the film includes paid product placement of cars, computers, phones, food, etc.
You watch youtube ads, to see a video containing a sponsored ad read, where a guy is woodworking using branded tools he was given for free.
You search on Google for reviews and see search ads, on your way to a review article surrounded by ads, and the review is full of affiliate links.
No. "Opaque ads" are usually heavily regulated out of existence by government legislation.
They're opaque, and not regulated out of existence.
They're so opaque that I'd wager 50%+ of people aren't aware it's happening.
(Not fact checked) My favorite is Apple's "no villain" rule, where protagonists are allowed to use iPhone in movies, while antagonists are not.
...is a big exception in the advertising industry, not the norm.
So pirates get their wish of no ads granted, and they get propaganda instead.
I think that in general blocking all ads is always a good idea.
The reason is that there is no negative consequence in doing so. A person has absolutely no obligation, not even an implied one, to watch or otherwise consume any ad. I think that as long as there are ways to remove or block ads, people should use them.
That being said, if the companies wish to intertwine their products with ads that are indistinguishable from the actual content and therefore unblockable, it is okay. They have the right to do that if they want.
But, in the same fashion, the customers have every right to turn away from all such products. And never consider using them ever again.
You can't, that's one of the main purposes. Instead of having ads marked and delimited, the are woven into the content, even if you could detect them (as a plugin or gratis moderator), removing them would potentially corrupt the product. It may be a part of a joke or the plot itself.
Works out for everyone, no?
In fact I’d be better off. It’s interesting that the most ad laden products are often the worst for you: YouTube, social media. Whereas the good uses of time: books, art, are ad free.
Consider that stallman didn't encourage followers to pirate microsoft, he encouraged boycotting and made his own alternative software and contracts.
Sounds like a better way to go about it no? Why would you want to be a part of a club that doesn't want you as a member, and to the extent it does, it develops unmarked unskippable ads mixed with content so as to keep monetizing from adblocking users.
So yeah, I'm anti adblock but not pro ads, I don't do freemium or ads myself when selling, i do use free dependencies but donor based . I guess I'd be lawful neutral?who would have thunk there's more than 2 alignments!