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Comment by sbarre | Hacker News Reader

Because, like so many things, context matters.

Ads have a place in the world, where we expect to see them (whether we like them or not), and typically most ads are not trying to pass as non-ads (yes of course there are exceptions to this).

The difference here is that these exist in a place where ads should not be, as per the description and use of the service. And it also subverts the experience the service owner is trying to provide.

Imagine if you accept a "free sample" box of cereal and you get home and open it and it's just full of flyers, instead of being full of cereal.

Or this is why you can't just go to any private space like a shopping mall with a megaphone and a sandwich board and start advertising your services without permission. Security will ask you to leave, because the owner of the mall didn't agree to this.

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> Or this is why you can't just go to any private space like a shopping mall with a megaphone and a sandwich board and start advertising your services without permission. Security will ask you to leave, because the owner of the mall didn't agree to this.

You can certainly go to any public space and do this, however. People do it all the time (admittedly less frequently with megaphones). Are all of the people on street corners doing twirlies with cardboard signs immoral? Billboards would be a gray area example whereby they're hosted on private resources (land) but intrude into public space (view from highway).

> Imagine if you accept a "free sample" box of cereal and you get home and open it and it's just full of flyers, instead of being full of cereal.

Imagine if you accept a "free social media feed" of information about your community, and you "get home" and it's full of ads. Or you accept a "free article" from a website by clicking on a link, and when you load it (consuming bandwidth on a line that you paid for), it contains just as many ads as it does paragraphs of information.

As I said, I'm not defending spam in general (which is obnoxious), or the act of the person/people who polluted/vandalized the npm repos. I just think "immoral" is a little strong unless you also want to paint much of the rest of the ad world with the same brush.

I'll paint 'em all with that brush. It's a fundamentally manipulative industry.

> You can certainly go to any public space and do this, however. People do it all the time (admittedly less frequently with megaphones). Are all of the people on street corners doing twirlies with cardboard signs immoral? Billboards would be a gray area example whereby they're hosted on private resources (land) but intrude into public space (view from highway).

Yes I specifically said private spaces for a reason. Apples and oranges here.

There are no public spaces on the Internet.

> Imagine if you accept a "free social media feed" of information about your community, and you "get home" and it's full of ads. Or you accept a "free article" from a website by clicking on a link, and when you load it (consuming bandwidth on a line that you paid for), it contains just as many ads as it does paragraphs of information.

Not sure why you're trying so hard to counter my examples, with inadequate examples to boot?

I am still getting something from that feed with ads, or that article with ads.

If I only get flyers and no cereal, then not the same, right?

The internet absolutely was a public space until the ads/walled garden model replaced it.

You and I have different definitions of public space.

I've been on the net since the early 90s, and even back then there were no public spaces.

There is nowhere online, and really never has been, where you have a right to be, or where you can express your government-given rights (also, which government? most of us are not US citizens) without anyone having the ability to cut you off or kick you out at their own discretion.

Every server, whether it was Usenet, IRC, the web, email, or otherwise, was, and is, owned by a private entity that could moderate, manage and restrict usage as they see fit.

If you cause them enough trouble, they will boot you, and have every right to do so.

I don't call that public spaces.

Much more eloquently composed response than mine.

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