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Comment by haspok | Hacker News Reader

> People seem to think it's the browser's job to block ads...

Yes, it absolutely is. Ads not only cost me my time and attention, but also consume resources (network bandwith, CPU time, screen real estate) that I might not want to be consumed. Just open any consumer-oriented webpage these days, and I can guarantee you will get 2-3 videos (!) or animations autoplay immediately, and a large part of your screen eaten by "garbage". Sometimes reader mode helps, sometimes it does not...

One thing that I usually do is when a page shows an explicit ask to turn my adblocker off, I close that page. This is fair enough, you can call this a transaction, and I can opt out of it.

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> Ads not only cost me my time and attention, but also consume resources (network bandwith, CPU time, screen real estate) that I might not want to be consumed.

Story time. In the 1970s, my grandfather wrote a letter to our local newspaper, asking them to omit the advertisements when they built his copy of the news. "I never read them" he said.

Then my mother had to explain to him a little bit about mass production.

He would have loved ad-blockers.

>Yes, it absolutely is

following your reasoning it's your media player job to skip the uninteresting part of a video you're watching ?

no, the browser job is to display what he receive from the resource YOU requested what the server put in that resource is between you and it (you can "cheat"(not my word but liked/steal it from another comment) by drop the ad or choose to not requesting the resource all together).

> it's your media player job to skip the uninteresting part of a video you're watching ?

It is. And it has a time scroller and speed controls, unless you're watching an ad.

A piece of software not doing what you want is following the wishes of its creator, which differ from yours.

The proper analogy would be that the media player would play random extra videos in addition to what you are watching, in overlays or even opening new windows. Can you imagine VLC working like that?

In-video ads are usually OK, the way they do "sponsor" segments on Youtube for example, they are "uninteresting" but usually short and non-obtrusive. Again, I consider these as transactions and don't skip them if otherwise I wanted to watch the video. The best creators (Jay Foreman comes to mind) do these so well that I actually look forward to watching them!

Completely unrelated ads that are forcibly and blindly inserted into the video stream (again, Youtube is an example) are not okay, and I expect the browser/ad blocker to weed them out.

Not directly related, but there is sponsorblock, where the community will mark the parts of a video that has a sponsored part, and so you will just skip those parts.

> The best creators (Jay Foreman comes to mind) do these so well that I actually look forward to watching them!

Nice. I see this pattern around: when X wants Y to (say) watch an ad, X's first instinct is to try to force Y. When X does not get to do that, they tend to discover much less coercive ways to do it

> The proper analogy would be that the media player would play random extra videos in addition to what you are watching,

FWIW, its not the browser "including" the adds. The ads have been included in the video itself.

> it's your media player job to skip the uninteresting part of a video you're watching ?

Of course. That's why Sponsorblock exists.

Who is in control? I am in control over my time, my attention, not the middlemen between the video author and me.

The same as adblock exist (im not agains ad blocked, im using them already it's just trying to explain that the moment you requested the webpage it's up to the website to put whatever it wan't(his right), the job of your browser is to display it and your right to refuse the ad, hide it, block it or automate it in the browser level by an extension or your OS level (blocking DNS)

PS:in another comment i tried to explain how i see it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33919824

I never requested the ad.

no you request a resource (webpage) the ad was sent to you by the owner of the resource (it's his right to put whatever he want the the webpage) as your right to not request it/block it

PS:in another comment i tried to explain how i see it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33919824

> as your right to not request it/block it

But that's exactly what an adblocker does. It's something different than not requesting the entire website though.

I don't think anyone demanded that browsers block ads without the user's consent.

It's like going into a hotel, restaurant, college lecture theatre, or library and immediately being mobbed by sales people.

The owner/landlord may have given permission. But it's still not a welcome intrusion, and wearing a "No salespeople here" anti-mobbing suit is a completely legitimate personal freedom.

The fundamental "transaction" of the web is that the client requests files from a server one behalf of the user. The server can deny that request on behalf of the business by for example returning an 403 access denied error.

If the server returns a file, the user hasn't implicitly agreed to some limited use of that file or that it must be processed in some specific way, but the business has implicitly agreed to the user's usage of that file. The user (or the client on behalf of that user) can choose to ignore that file, not execute it or not even request it in the first place. This can be done either manually or assisted by tools (e.g. sponsorblock, ublock origin).

Anything else puts arbitrary restrictions on the weaker party (individual vs. large business), and negates their property rights of being allowed to choose what runs on their general computing device. If the business doesn't want a file to be used, don't serve it in the first place.

> following your reasoning it's your media player job to skip the uninteresting part of a video you're watching ?

Yes. Proper video players and media files have support for chapters for the express purpose of skipping what you don't want to see and getting to the point. YouTube refuses to do it because of its stupid advertising bullshit? People will do it for them with SponsorBlock.

> no, the browser job is

The browser's job is to be the user agent. It acts on our behalf and represents our will. Its job isn't to display some website's little ads. Its job is to do whatever we, the users, want it to do, even if it hurts the interests and bottom line of some corporation. If blocking ads is good for users, that's exactly what browsers should do, literally no questions asked.

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