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Comment by lvs | Hacker News Reader

If I pass a street musician, I haven't implicitly signed a contract to pay her for the show -- either in currency or by transferring any other valued commodity. I don't have an obligation to support her business plan, even if I enjoy the music.

She may perhaps claim that we entered into an implied contract. Or the musician could post a placard reading her terms-of-service. But in simply walking down the street, like clicking on a link, it can't reasonably be claimed that I entered into a preconceived and negotiated contract where I agreed to payment for a service.

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> walking down the street, like clicking on a link

these two are not even close to the same thing. clicking a link is a very specific action "show me this stuff". Your analogy would be more apt if it involved going into a venue where music is performed.

Lets be honest, a link is just an attempt to catch a fish.

Is a fish obligated to swallow a hook that is cast into the ocean?? No reasonable fisherman would think this.

Surfing from link to link is very much the essential and original behavior of users on the web. A user often has very little idea what's behind the next click. I don't know what I'm getting behind the link, so a "show me the stuff" mentality would yield a deeply uninformed transaction, even if we were to think about every click that way. But from a founding perspective, the idea that every click is a fee-for-service proposition is not a basic tenet of the web or a reasonable assumption to be made of every user.

OK, so you walk in to a bar. The barman says, "£10 please, there's music playing that you've consumed". You chose to walk in. Unless they post a sign at the door, saying a concert is on and the price of entry then they're not (legally/morally) entitled to charge you.

The web equivalent is a paywall.

Now, bars put on free music. And you can go to them and not buy a drink regardless that the landlord puts on the music to get you to buy.

The landlord might get paid to have advertising up, like on a toilet vending machine. But me choosing not to look at it isn't morally wrong.

Arguably, even if I never buy a drink I can benefit the establishment socially.

The problem comes when the establishment not only needs pay the workers and buy the beer but also pay the breweries management and return dividend to share holders.

The web has moved to that stage where the capitalists have moved in - like large breweries owning pubs. Forums aren't run by the admins they're owned by media conglomerates, etc.. I'm really not sure it's made the web a better place.

Now, get off my lawn.

Correct you took no action to interface with them besides walking. But if you walk into a room where just a musician is playing(and its advertised that this is whats happening in the room) you have now created a relationship where you've chosen to receive their art. And if they have a poster for their sponsor on the wall behind them you can't complain about it.

Online ads also track you, and are often executed in poor taste. It's as though most of the posters had a camera and bright flashing lights.

And then followed you home and wanted to know what you eat for breakfast, even though it had nothing to do with the musical performance.

Trying to explain this has failed an innumerable number of times here. Whenever this discussion pops up, there are die-hards who are against all advertising versus those who present a rational argument explaining how the content they willingly consume is supported by those ads. Like wrestling in the mud with a pig, you will come out of this unfulfilled while the other side comes out feeling like the winner. They're just a highly vocal minority.

I'm not a personal fan of ads but when it comes to things I find important enough and have the option, I pay to remove them. The difference however is that the die-hards tend to not accept paying or viewing ads as acceptable. If they did, this wouldn't keep coming up.

But nobody told me what was happening in the room before I walked into it. I saw nothing but a URL, or maybe I saw some text obliquely indicating what might be happening in there. I certainly didn't see the text of a contract before I walked in. If I walk in, not knowing anything, how can I have signed a contract?

Similarly, if I have no binding contract, it certainly can't be required of me to observe or respond to everything within the room. There is no origin for the musician's claimed right to oblige me to any commercial action.

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