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Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

> Blocking one form of advert is not even slightly the same as blocking all forms of adverts.

Well good, then you just misunderstood me. I'm asking for an animated HTML5 ad blocker to parallel a Flash blocker (or pop-up blocker, etc.) Not something that blocks all ads.

Although you didn't state it specifically, presumably you're ok with pop-up blockers. And therefore accept that it is ok for consumers to override the choices of bad web site designers in some cases, not merely choose to never visit the site again. Flash blockers did the same thing. Cookie blockers and readability are relevant for the same reasons. Consumers have a vote on how the web should be designed, too.

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> Consumers have a vote on how the web should be designed, too.

Exactly the wrong-headed sense of entitlement I'm talking about. No, you absolutely do not get a say, whatsoever. You either get the product through the monetization scheme set up by the content owner, or you get no content at all.

Your foot stamping and insistence that people shouldnt have any control over site content does not infact change the technical reality that they do, being as its their client on their machine displaying what they tell it to.

Its better to just accept this fact and work with it than attempt to boil the ocean.

one might also ask about what kind of entitlement an attitude like yours is bringing to the table.

I guess the mindset comes from TV/Radio land where content is just dished up, and there is only one way to consume it, or you can stop consuming it.

It's probably more an issue of, we are in a difficult situation where some businesses don't know how to monetize outside of advertising (like google). And if everyone could block them, you'd effectively destroy businesses like that.

But on the flip side, the advert business model have gotten everyone used to 'free'. If google started selling "Search packs" where you get 100 searchs for $20, I don't think people would go for it.

This has nothing to do with radio or TV, this is simply trying to keep the lights on. How is a web service like imgur going to keep doing what it does without adverts?

It's a practical problem as much as a moral one. Content producers need to pay the bills somehow, and ads can be an effective way of doing that, if people don't try to circumvent them.

This isn't about what you can do, this is about what you should do, and what damage you cause the content producer and yourself when you decide you're entitled to something without paying for it.

You're the one with a sense of entitlement. If you want to go down that road, you should only put your sites in pay per view locked-down kiosks, or something similar that enforces your perspective.

Um. I get the content however I want. It's my computer.

If you send me some data. I can choose to view or ignore any of it. You have absolutely no stance to make me acknowledge all of it, or any of it.

If I asked for some data from your server and you sent it, you sent it. But I don't have to read all of it. Even the bits that make you money.

Further, some people choose (or more likely didn't know they had a choice) to make you money, if you want their money, in aggregate their wishes are something you are interested in. At no point does entitlement enter into this.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. I sent my data with the social contract that you'd also look at my monetization technique.

By breaking that contract, you're preventing me from producing more content, content you apparently want. You're actually hurting yourself, from a practical standpoint, as well as causing harm to me.

A social contract? I have never acknowledge such a system, or heard of such a system. Are you referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Contract

seems unrelated.

Advertisements have a measurable cost on me. I have limited focus, losing it is expensive to me. I've seen advertisements change the thinking and perception of my peers, and it scares the crap out of me. I am all for uplifting the community through my actions, but this cost is too great. I have an extreme distrust of advertisments anyway, I never click on them (except by accident, which was frequently btw, until I started blocking them), so even If I acknowledge them, I'm still not making you money.

and finally, this is just a side note which I think only applies to me, most content I consume only has advertisements introduced by the gatekeepers (or I pay for it). Youtube, blip, et al. I'd rather the producers just use distributed systems, but we can't always get what we want.

If the cost is too high, don't pay for it, but don't take the content as well. That's theft.

And I mean social contract as in a contract you agree to by simply being part of society that stands above law. Don't kill people, don't steal things, that kind of thing. Things you do and are therefore allowed to be part of society.

Society allows me to be a part of it because it has no objections to my behaviour. I actively tell the people around me I block ads. Therefore, if your social contract did exist, I would not be in breach of it.

Morals are subjective, the people that surround me believe there is nothing wrong with my actions, if your only standing point is that it's "morally wrong" then you have failed to convince me.

That, of course, is not your only point. You also believe that without the advertisements the content I enjoy wouldn't be produced. This argument has some grounds. The only problem is how actively degenerate ads are. I can outright improve almost all media just by removing them.

Let's say the "nightmare scenario" happens, and almost everyone blocks ads with ad block. Ad Block is running an initiative of acceptable ads. Ads that arn't decietful, distracting, or annoying (which, in my opinion, is a far more morally abhorrent act). So if everyone started using ad block. The world would actually get measurably better. Not worse.

The product server throws bits at you, and your software displays them however it's setup. It's not an entitlement issue, it's how you let any browser/server/thing consume bits sent by any server (instead of, say, requiring some sort of specific viewer).

I used to put blank paper on ads when reading printed magazines because ads distract me. What am I supposed to with web sites? Literally cover the screen with paper?

So...... you're for or against pop-up blockers?

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