I don’t have a problem with using Greasemonkey scripts to alter websites in various ways, and it could be said that blocking ads is quite similar.
Still, I feel bad about not supporting certain websites that I want to continue. And morality aside, it is in my best interest to do so. So I have decided to whitelist a few.
I enjoy looking at the poll regarding this. It seems like it’s a rare person indeed who finds it immoral.
I’m surprised so many people on the SDMB block ads. It’s not a valid sample for the internet using population overall, I guess, but I wonder how ads continue to be profitable with so many people blocking them.
If businesses don’t want me to block their internet ads or avoid their TV commercials, they should make better ads. It’s not my fault they suck so much.
Some people love ads. Every February, don’t you hear people say they only watch the Superbowl for the commercials?
There’s a Cecil article about how to stop junk mail, and he says to just write the companies sending it to you. But, he says, most people who write those companies are requesting more junk mail, not less. I didn’t believe it at first, but I’ve come around. Observe people and you’ll see them jauntily humming jingles and talking about the latest commercial around the water cooler.
People love magazines, and they’re mostly ads. I complained once about a fashion magazine that was >75% ads, and I was told that was a special issue that people wait all year for, specifically because it has all the hot new fashion ads.
As far as supporting websites, I think quite a bit of it is based on clicks, not impressions. And my understanding is that ad revenue doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if you’re not a huge website like Google or Facebook. Find out the email address of website creator and send them a donation. $5 is probably more than you would bring them by watching ads all year.
You haven’t read any EULAs, have you? Your computer is yours. The code you run is not. If manufacturers had their way, you wouldn’t even be able to modify/hack/jailbreak. Answer this question: If you don’t want to put in the DVD every time you play a game, is it legal to crack the game? Yes or no?
I don’t run software that has a EULA. So there you go. If everybody did that we’d be back to a reasonable level of sanity with software. Instead, most people are happy to be used.
However, I don’t think EULAs have been tested in court, so they may not have the power you think they do.
And plenty of modifications/hacks/jailbreaks ARE illegal per the DMCA. I don’t use those devices either. I specifically buy things to own them. Plenty of modern appliances only fool you into thinking you own them, when in reality you rent them from the manufacturer. I don’t play that feudal bullshit. I’m not a peon and software and hardware companies are not my overlords. My devices work for me, not the other way around, and I spend a decent amount of effort ensuring this is so. I highly suggest everyone else does too.
It would only take a relatively small amount of us to break the backs of the companies who want to own our digital lives. Their power is subsidized by their customers. If we pulled together we could make them change however we wanted. Sadly, however, most people seem happy with the status quo.
A large chunk of the reason I block ads on Youtube/Blip videos is that the commercials are pretty much never relevant to me, and it’s always the EXACT SAME ONES. If I watch five videos on Blip in one day, then I’ll see five times over the exact same ad for the new Nissan hybrid (which I can’t afford), homeowner’s insurance from Chase (which I don’t need), or the latest grossout comedy coming to a theater near me (which there’ll probably be dozens of scathing reviews of on the same site within less than a week.)
It’s not immoral, but it causes the advertisers to escalate their behaviour, so it’s a bad idea. Remember life when commercials and entertainment were subtly separate? Those days are long gone. Soon they will have smiling, sexy youths lurking in wait for anyone who makes over $50,000 a year, following them around and shouting “buy Froofles™!” every chance they get, modelling their ecstatic happy sexiness (thanks to Froofles™) for anyone within earshot.
I don’t use an adblocker, but I don’t consider using it to be inherently immoral or unethical. It is the responsibility of the content provider to figure out how he’s going to make available his content, and it is only immoral if the implied social contract is violated. For instance, imagine a website that charges for access to their content; it would clearly be immoral to get free access to that website.
A page like the Dope, however, is quite a bit different. Without an account, anyone can view anything, so there’s no agreement on a non-member to do anything; as such, no obligation to view ads. For members, they can pay to not view ads, but even for non-paying members, I don’t recall seeing anything in the agreement saying we must view ads. If they wanted to put that obligation to make non-payers view ads, they should put that in the membership agreement. Also, of a bit of interest, even for those who don’t view ads, it’s possible that you do still generate some revenue because others who pay or see ads will come here to read the posts you make. If they were then to decide they aren’t making enough and choose to go after those who are non-paying and using adblockers, it’s up to them to udpate the agreement.
After all of that, though, I do think it’s reasonable to consider the value of the content you’re receiving. For instance, there’s plenty of sites that work off of donations, where you can see it all absolutely free but if you like it, they want you to pay. So it’s not immoral or unethical to view the content, but there would be a conflict if you then complained about it and requested more or better quality. By the same token, if you’re quite happy, you ought to support it in some way, financially, by word of mouth, by contributing your own content, or whatever.
Yes, it’s immoral, and I’m disappointed by the entitled attitude in some of these posts. Free websites support themselves through advertisements. If you use their service and you block the ads, you are depriving them of their means of existence. You are taking something for nothing, when the deal is that you suffer through an ad (suffer is a strong word - even an ad that takes over part of your screen for a half second is a minor inconvenience) in exchange for their content.
A service is something I pay for. I am getting no service from the SDMB (or any other website I use for free), and in recognition of that, they can block me at any time and I just have no rights. That’s not service.
“Entitlement” is the idea that I owe anybody the use of my computer for their revenue.
I’m not “taking” anything. I’m requesting content A but not content B, and the server is set up to do what I requested.
No, you never made a deal, and it’s not illegal. But it is unethical. You are making use of something that people worked to make. They support themselves with ads ; they expect you to glance your eyes over an ad in exchange, and you are weaseling out of that minor inconvenience.
A great deal of the “work” that makes the SDMB is content provided by the users. If you are providing content here, you are giving them something for nothing. Is that immoral, as well?
I’m not “weaseling out” of anything. I have no obligation. I never agreed to view ads. If you make something freely available, that’s just how it is, and if you don’t get everyone to buy into your business model while they read your stuff that’s just your problem. I have no obligation to make any model of business successful. I can buy loss leader products without buying something else at full price. I can eat a free sample and not buy the product even if I like it. A business doesn’t get what it wants just because it wants it.
Really? Having to reformat my hard drive and reinstall windows and other programs because an ad on a popular website served 0-day malware that hadn’t been patched yet and hadn’t had definitions updated in antivirus software is a minor inconvenience? That was the last time I did any general web browsing without an ad blocker.
As I recall, on one of the many threads regarding malware in ads that have popped up on this board, no less than Ed Zotti himself has suggested ad blocking software if we were worried about it. So how is it unethical to do it, when the people running the sites are suggesting it?
If you’re running a website, and you’re just handing off ads to a third party with nothing more than a “Hey, I hope they don’t serve any malware, and if they do, well, I just hope they don’t do it again.” then you’re not in any ethical position to judge anyone else.
You never explicitly agreed to buy ads. But you, like everyone else here, have become part of a system in which users receive content in exchange for being exposed to advertisements. You then decided that you can’t stand the milliseconds that the ads demand of your time — an extremely small sacrifice for hours of other people’s work — so you finagled that system to get something in exchange for nothing. Does that sound moral to you? It seems very unsavory to me.
Just because on website’s ads gave you a virus doesn’t give you permission to buck the system that supports thousands of worthwhile websites around the web. If a website gives you viruses, you can stop visiting it.
I haven’t had the SDMB in mind in my replies. I’ve been thinking of the thousands of content-producing websites that depend on ad revenue to operate — for example, the Onion, Slate, Salon, Youtube, the AV Club, several newspapers, etc., etc.
The SDMB isn’t the example I’ve been thinking of. Two of my favorite websites are the Onion and the Onion AV Club. They produce great content and they depend on ad revenue. It’s unfair for people to consume the information they spend hundreds of hours making without giving something back — especially when all that’s expected is for them to have ads in their peripheral vision for a few seconds.
Sorry, no, I’m not participating in an exchange. They’re hoping a business model works, and I’m one of the consumers that isn’t working the way they want.
I just don’t understand the idea that everybody has to be the consumer who “pays” the most. Do I have to buy the expensive cable that comes with the TV that’s on sale, or browse the rest of the store, or get the extended warranty? If nobody else buys other stuff, then the loss leader TVs will go away. What about the expensive air filter at the cheapo oil change place? Those subsidize the discounted oil that gets people in the door. Gas stations rely on selling sugary snacks to make a profit; am I a terrible hypocrite for buying gas without getting a slushie?
Why, then, am I morally obligated to “pay” by downloading potentially-malicious code when I get the very cheap (free) content?