If a website is providing ad-supported content you enjoy, you really see no moral quandary in stymying their income?
"Akshually there's no law saying I need to behave morally" feels like an adroit sidestepping of the problems here.
"Akshually there's no law saying I need to behave morally" feels like an adroit sidestepping of the problems here.
The parts I choose not to download are designed to psychologically manipulate me into buying something I likely don't want, they run code on my system I don't care for them to run, and they grab what data they can in order to profile me. I don't feel like I'm the one that should be feeling shame here.
If the advertising companies showed any kind of restraint and respect, maybe I'd feel differently. From what I've seen, it's been getting progressively worse since the "punch the monkey" days of the web.
If the person or entity hosting the content can't support the creation and hosting of their website without trying to manipulate me and track me and without opening my system up to potential malware, then good riddance, I guess. If all they did was show ads as text or static images without any of the tracking nonsense (basically the old print magazine or newspaper model), then I wouldn't care that much. But they don't, so I do.
And if we really want to speak about morals there is an unacknowledged moral issue here in that most websites using ads are hooked up to someone else's ad network and do not vet them for accuracy or safety. The website owner has seemingly no responsibility for the portal they opened to shove someone else's content into my face.
Until such time I can demand payment for damages when that negligently opened portal serves the latest zero day or scams my family or employees and tracks me all over the web while violating my privacy, I am forced to conclude the average webmaster wants the benefit without the responsibility. And with that, the blocker stays on, with a clear conscience and an eye to safety. Your business model that demands I sacrifice safety and privacy so you can make a few pennies is not my fucking problem.
First party ads are an entire different issue and do not have any of these concerns. They are also very rare.
Or more aptly, switching and/or muting the tab when an ad comes on a Twitch stream.
If there was a moral ad network, I might take pause, but the industry has leaned into the rottenness and embraced creepy surveillance and thought manipulation.
Nope. Find another business model or go bankrupt. If you send me ads, I'll delete them. No exceptions. I don't have to justify myself either, "I don't want to see ads" is more than a good enough reason.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
– Banksy
Please define these morals explicitly so we know what it is we have to do instead of just berating people for arbitrary violations.
Tip to ad companies, don't turn the displays 90 degrees, they are meant to be used in landscape mode for a reason...