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Comment by TheLogothete | Hacker News Reader

The publisher told you that if you want to see the content, you have to see ads too. They are very explicit about it. You are not entitled to see the content. If it was just an adblock issue, I can see the logic of clicking on links and blocking the ads. I do not condone it, but I can see that some people might find it logical.

BUT the publisher intercepted you and said "you cannot continue with adblock turned on". Why do you think you have the right to see that content without seeing the ads when the publisher explicitly said you can't do that?

When he wastes your bandwidth with ads, he is the devil, but when you waste his bandwidth, it's perfectly OK?

Technical ability has nothing to do with it. You have the technical ability to stab someone with a knife. You have the technical ability to download a book, copy it and then distribute it. Is that OK too?

Just because you CAN do something does not mean you SHOULD do it.

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Ok wait now that's just turning these publishers' (indeed very explicit) message around.

> you cannot continue with adblock turned on

They don't say that. They tell their users "to continue, please whitelist our site or turn off your adblocker", which is a whole lot more irresponsible and something I am totally not okay with.

People might actually believe the message, they ought to turn off their adblocker and view the site!

I help many non-technical people clean their laptops (yes it takes a lot of time, but I'm a nice guy and it can be done during beers). I install them an adblocker. If the only reason was "because the Internet just looks nicer without ads", I probably wouldn't. But especially for not-very-technical people, an adblocker is usually a better (and way less resource-intensive) security defence than an actual virus scanner.

What if sites like Forbes manage to successfully guilt these people into disabling their adblockers? Forbes will get a few dollars yay and my friends may lose a few hundred because they got ransomware not-yay.

I wish they just told people to go away.

> When he wastes your bandwidth with ads, he is the devil, but when you waste his bandwidth, it's perfectly OK?

Yes. He can try to stop me, just as I try to stop him. This is the game. It's an antagonistic relationship. There's nothing inherently "wrong" about either side - it just is how it is.

> You are not entitled to see the content.

If their server gives me HTML containing the content, it's up to _my_ computer what to render, therefore I am entitled to see or not see whatever is in that response.

I am very entitled to use of my own computer. They do not get to decide what happens once their content is on my end. If I were sending malicious code to their server in order to remove the adds or similar, you'd have an argument but since it's happening entirely on my computer, you don't. The entitlement to how my computer renders it rests entirely on me.

This is not ad blocking. They told you they don't want your visit and you still go ahead and consume the content.

This is not a game. You just like to freeload and when somebody calls your bull, you throw a tantrum.

Yikes, angry much? Do you run Forbes or something?

I am amused, not angry. I find self entitled goofs tiring, but like to poke them a bit from time to time.

Blocking ads will only make things worse, btw. You just don't see it coming, yet. Just wait for the telcos.

Telcos? Please, enlighten me.

What do you think will happen when the media companies realize that the promised subscription revenues will never come and scaling web advertising is not a realistic goal for them? Do you think they will say, "oh fuck it" and close shop? Oh, you thought they will wither and die. It's cozy to think that way, but it is not based on reality. They are gonna get bought. And do you know who is in the best position to snatch the market? Yup, you guessed it. They have entered in the ad business in a big way already. Just a select few partners to keep it quiet. For now. Buying distressed media companies is the best path forward. All the reach they need, the sales pipeline and even more data then they already have. Oh that sweet, sweet data.

You think your privacy is violated now? LOL.

Oh and btw, if you missed it, Verizon bought AOL. Have a nice evening.

Yeah, definitely seen some sketchy shit like that with consumer grade ISPs, but the way I look at it, as long as the big datacenters don't do it (and I doubt they feasibly could) I'm still in the clear.

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