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The right to use adblockers

kleiba
152 replies
21h24m

> the court nevertheless preserved Axel Springer’s right to exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its content

I actually think this is fair, and I say that as someone who has been using adblockers since the dawn of time and couldn't imagine using a webbrowser without it.

I believe the court has decided absolutely sanely for one: it should be my choice as an internet user whether I want to be exposed ot ads or not. In my case: no way, Jose. And to those who make the argument that a lot of what the internet offers todays would be unsustainable without the ad revenue, I say that although you may think that you cannot live without this or that or the other on the internet, let me reassure you: you can. Everything on the internet is expendable. Trust me. Yes, even TikTok, son. Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.

It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet. And to be honest, I'd rather lose some conveniences if the alternative is this absolute insanity that is today's web without an adblocker.

But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine. It's your right to do that. Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.

izzydata
77 replies
21h5m

If something is not sustainable without ads that seems to imply that people are not willing to pay for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it then I'm not sure it is a good business model.

Regardless of the consequences I'd rather see an ad free internet. If that means Youtube can't exist and Facebook can't exist and Google can't exist then so be it.

sbarre
22 replies
20h52m

Yeah like I hate to say this, but do we need _that many_ sites about cameras, gadgets, games, cars, or <insert topic>?

Do all those sites need to be commercial enterprises with sales teams and large editorial teams? Or could they go back to being hobby passion projects?

Or maybe there's just a handful of them and they are subscription-based for people who _really_ want that kind of news, and the best writers and creators gravitate to those sites and they build a sustainable business that way?

The ad-supported business model has allowed perhaps _too many_ people per topic area to try their hand at garnering eyeball in exchange for what is ultimately the same repackaged content, because they don't need their users to pay for the content, they just need to draw them in to support the sales of ads or tracking data.

This incentivizes all kinds of user-hostile behaviours in the quest for profit (or even just sustainability).

AlbertCory
7 replies
19h43m

do we "need" 50 brands of soda, or 300 varieties of cheese?

The ad-supported business model has allowed perhaps _too many_ people per topic area

"Too many" according to whom? You?

If no one "needs" them, then they won't get viewers and thus eventually won't get ads, either.

ghodith
4 replies
19h34m

If no one "needs" them, then they won't get viewers and thus eventually won't get ads, either.

Demonstrably untrue; there are plenty of spam sites that hide themselves and play the SEO game well enough to (temporarily) get my eyeballs. These sites only satisfy a "need" insofar as my grandparents have a "need" to respond to emails from Nigerian scammers.

AlbertCory
3 replies
18h50m

(temporarily) get my eyeballs

train your eyeballs better, then. Or theirs.

thecrash
2 replies
17h39m

Why do the villagers keep complaining about the widespread bandit problem when they could simply improve their swordfighting or hire bodyguards?

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h22m

I'm sure villagers wish they could adblock or PiHole the bandits. would be a win-win situation.

AlbertCory
0 replies
17h15m

Someone's been watching The Seven Samurai.

sbarre
1 replies
18h12m

Ok.. This feels needlessly confrontational?

Sure, yes, according to me. That was implied when I posted my opinion on here, a discussion forum where we share opinions.

My opinion is that the ad-supported model itself, which doesn't rely on having paying readers/users, but rather on attracting said users to then be paid for showing them ads or collecting their data, has perhaps unintentionally created too low of a bar for entry (in hindsight) and as a result, the fierce competition for profit has led to user-hostile incentives in order to stay alive in such a crowded landscape.

I think the low barrier to entry for putting up websites or creating content online are a net positive, for the record. I love that anyone can just put their content online and compete for an audience on merit (more or less), rather than needing some large monetary investment up front.

But I also think the ad-supported monetize-the-shit-out-of-users model is a bad thing, and benefits from the same low barrier to entry.

But you take the good with the bad I suppose.

AlbertCory
0 replies
17h40m

This feels needlessly confrontational

if you make an assertion about there being "too many" of something, it begs for someone to ask how you know this. Almost anyone on HN might ask that. However, you've now added some nuance to it.

I think in general a low barrier to entry is a good thing: most of the music on Bandcamp wouldn't have even been available to the public 50 years ago.

Most of the self-published books out there now also would never make it past the Mean Girl "agents" who populate literary agencies. Most of those books are crap, but then so are the books from major publishers in airport bookstores.

dageshi
6 replies
20h37m

I think you're about 5ish years out of date.

Most of the sites on cameras, gadgets, games, cars e.t.c. are dead or dying and have been replaced by youtube channels, many of them run by hobbyists.

mewse
1 replies
19h26m

Hobbyists who are sponsored by NordVPN. ;)

JohnFen
0 replies
18h56m

They represent a small fraction of the hobbyists on the web. The majority that I see aren't wanting or accepting sponsors of any sort.

jjulius
1 replies
20h13m

The same rhetorical question still applies for hobbyist YT channels, IMO. Especially since many of them lock the more useful content behind subscription walls.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h24m

Especially since many of them lock the more useful content behind subscription walls.

useful content? which ones? average youtuber incentives (be it through YT or Patreon) tend to just be a community private server on Discord to talk to the creator with. Or cut content that they couldn't air on youtube anyway (e.g. extended commentary on a video that would be de-monitized otherwise. There's way too much competition to lock out signifigant part of a Youtube's channel's content.

whstl
0 replies
18h59m

This is an interesting point in the SEO conversation.

SEO, content farms and content marketing are killing the open web and Google is enabling it, perhaps because they're ok with the web being replaced by 4 or 5 websites, Youtube being the biggest of them.

sbarre
0 replies
20h2m

Ehh sure, that's a take.

There's still plenty (too many?) commercial websites - most that include their own YouTube channel - trying to compete for eyeballs by repackaging the same preview/review/press materials that companies send out..

They're no longer the only game in town though, that's for sure. I don't disagree that many hobbyists (definition up for debate) can compete on merit for the audience, which is awesome of course.

eli
4 replies
20h11m

What's stopping people from creating these hobbyists sites now? Or you from using them?

bshacklett
2 replies
19h57m

Discoverability is a problem. The average hobbyist website has no chance of making it to the top of the pile of search-engine-optimized trash websites that are returned by search engines. For example: Quora often takes up half of my results these days.

…and if the hobbyists know that their sites aren’t going to get any visitors, there’s little reason to make them in the first place.

struant
1 replies
18h22m

If we just ban all advertising then there are no more SEO optimized sites trying to get that ad-revenue. So hobbyists should have no trouble with popularity if the ad-supported internet goes away.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h18m

hobbyists who may one day want to have a lifestyle out of this wouldn't benefit. And those would be the sites that have a reliable stream of content instead of maybe a burst of content for 2 months before getting bored or burned out and maybe making a piece of content every 5 months afterwards.

For all the negatives, a consistent stream is one of the biggest benefits from professional content creators, be it traditional news, Youtubers, streamers, or even bloggers.

sbarre
0 replies
20h5m

Nothing! And I do use a lot of them personally. I pay for several creators on Patreon and subscribe to a few creator-owned website publications to encourage work I care about most...

These are not mutually exclusive things, sorry if I implied that.

My point was more about the race to the bottom with commercial content sites/networks/publications in what seems like a borderless space, with increasingly bad incentives to draw in users.

ryandrake
1 replies
20h37m

You shouldn't hate to say it--it's absolutely true. We don't need yet another listicle site choked with ads competing in a zero sum slugfest for some top organic search result spot. Nobody needs it. The only thing these sites serve is the greed of whoever is producing them. The Internet is worse off the more of these that exist. This shouldn't be a controversial opinion.

sbarre
0 replies
2h55m

I guess I have a slightly more charitable take on this, in the sense that the Internet has an amazingly low barrier to entry for putting your content online and reaching an audience, and I think overall that's actually a great thing.

So I don't begrudge people trying to build an audience by publishing online about things they know or love, but one of the downsides is that the Internet's "content is free" tradition - that comes from hobbyists working out of passion - has led to a whole industry of "how do we make money off people without taking money from them" and that's ads and tracking.

And then the game becomes "how many people can I draw in to my site by any means necessary" instead of "how can I create engaging content".

arp242
12 replies
20h2m

Things like newspapers and comic books and whatnot have had ads for over a hundred years. These types of things partly being sponsored by ads is hardly a new concept.

Ads are not going away.

I would argue that the internet has gone rather overboard with it, but that's a different thing.

JohnFen
11 replies
19h31m

For me, the problem that internet ads have that older media ads didn't is all the spying that comes with them. It's the spying that elevates them from being incredibly annoying to being just plain evil.

arp242
10 replies
19h7m

That's not an ad problem, that's a tracking problem. I think it's important not to conflate the two concepts. But other than that, yes, I agree.

JohnFen
9 replies
19h2m

They are two different things, but you don't get ads without the spying. Often, you get the spying even if you block ads.

arp242
8 replies
18h32m

That's not true; there is nothing preventing anyone from serving ads without tracking, and I'm pretty sure there are solutions out there that do exactly that, even if they're not the most commonly used. Like I said, ads were viable in print, well before the internet.

Just <img href="/ad.png"> would work, and has no tracking and is essential the same as print media ads (or those YouTube sponsors for that matter). While this would probably net in less income than e.g. the Google ad stuff, it's completely viable and I'm sure there are people and companies doing something like that.

But uBlock will block that, because it's an adblocker and not a trackblocker, and that's clearly an ad. That's perfectly fine, but what I want is a trackblocker

JohnFen
6 replies
18h29m

there is nothing preventing anyone from serving ads without tracking

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not done.

arp242
3 replies
18h11m

How do you know? For starters there's a bunch of solutions out there that specifically market "non-tracking" as a feature. I assume they're being used.

Come to think of it, you're on a site with track-free ads right now: the ycombinator launches/hiring posts really are just ads.

And whatever the status-quo exactly is right now, what I responded to was "if something is not sustainable without ads then it's not a good business model", and tracking really doesn't come in to play in discussing to what degree the very concept of ads is or isn't desirable, as that's just an entirely separate issue.

Nextgrid
1 replies
17h34m

that specifically market "non-tracking" as a feature

Which ones? All the non-tracking, supposedly-GDPR-compliant ads/analytics out there just use a convoluted and overcomplicated interpretation of the GDPR to claim their solution complies while it ultimately doesn't, or stretch the "legitimate interest" definition quite a bit.

For example, if it's able to reidentify a user coming back to a website, then it doesn't matter if they hash the IP address 20 times which is salted with the outcome of a crystal ball and all under the supervision of a magic unicorn, it's still processing personal data for non-essential purposes and should require explicit consent.

arp242
0 replies
16h43m

What's the superlative of conflation? That's what bringing analytics into the discussion here is.

JohnFen
0 replies
2h30m

OK, let me be very precise, then.

The vast majority of ads are supported by and come with tracking. Sure, there exist sites that do ads in a way that isn't so intrusive, but they're an extreme minority. It's also hard-to-impossible to tell if a site is tracking you or not.

So long as more than a tiny number of sites use ads that involve tracking, it's necessary to treat all sites as doing so.

tedunangst
0 replies
14h44m

https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

There is one "tracker" on DF, but it doesn't affect the ad you see. And if you read the RSS feed, you get the ad without the tracking.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h9m

it's not done as often =/= no one does it. And I feel it is a good distinction to make.

jefftk
0 replies
15h35m

It's pretty hard to do online ads without tracking because of how easy fraud is online. With newspaper, TV, and radio we put a bunch of effort into measuring the size of the audience, but those methods are far easier to subvert online.

If I tell you jefftk.com has 10k daily active users so you should pay me $500 to put a banner on the top of my site, should you believe me?

kevindamm
8 replies
20h55m

Some services would go the subscription route and survive, but then they're limited to the users that are able and willing to pay. I can't imagine offering a search product or wiki product where payment is required. Donations may be a viable option but may not provide enough starting runway.

Maybe I've been drinking too much internet capitalism koolaid, but a completely ad-free internet would not have had the commercial lift we've enjoyed these past 20-plus years.

JohnFen
3 replies
19h30m

a completely ad-free internet would not have had the commercial lift we've enjoyed these past 20-plus years.

Would that be a bad thing?

sethhochberg
2 replies
19h4m

I’d wager a significant number of people posting here owe their careers to that commercialization - I hate listicles, too, but not so much that I would wish them away and gamble that I ended up with the same standard of living on an Internet reserved mostly for nerds (nerds said lovingly, of course)

kevindamm
0 replies
12h27m

I'd wager that the pandemic would have gone a bit different too if we hadn't had the internet growth preceding it.

I recognize the double-edgedness of that, too, though.

JohnFen
0 replies
18h59m

I’d wager a significant number of people posting here owe their careers to that commercialization

I'm sure that's true, and it would be a bad thing for those people. But for the world at large? It's not clear to me at all that it would be bad.

johnnyanmac
2 replies
8h4m

imagine offering a search product or wiki product where payment is required.

I mean, we just called them Encyclopedias back in my day. They won't be as high quality, complete, nor peer reviewed, but there are plenty of fan wikis powered entirely by free labor. no money in nor out.

Search is much harder, but I've been keeing an eye on Unlimited Kagi which seems set to do this very thing. Hope it succeeds.

didntcheck
1 replies
7h46m

And most of those wikis are now on Wikia, sorry, "Fandom", which runs some of the most aggressive ads I've seen. The flippant response is to strawman then as evil and greedy, but the less satisfying reality is that web hosting can actually get quite expensive for popular sites, especially with media. And there's the additional cost of defending against abuse, of the DDoS, spambot, or malicious human types

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1h59m

Yeah, if the users don't care enough to move to ad-free sort of content, there's not much you can do as a passive viewer. Fortunately, Wikis are in theory easy to migrate should such a motivated user comes along.

That said, these days more and more guides and tribal knowledge is stored in discord servers. I don't know if that's better or worse. At least there's no ads.

margalabargala
0 replies
20h32m

Maybe I've been drinking too much internet capitalism koolaid, but a completely ad-free internet would not have had the commercial lift we've enjoyed these past 20-plus years.

I completely agree that an ad-free internet would not have seen numbers get big as quickly as what we've experienced, but it doesn't necessarily follow that an internet that makes numbers get big quickly is also the internet offering the best user experience.

Usually, user experience gets sacrificed to make the numbers get bigger, faster.

tootie
5 replies
19h57m

That would eliminate 99% of news. Including anyone on social media.

JoshTriplett
2 replies
18h26m

No, it would eliminate most news sites, and little value would be lost. Frankly, net value might be created that way. People will still write about things that happen, and people will still read that, and money just won't change hands. Or people will read paid news, and the quality will almost certainly improve as a result.

tootie
1 replies
15h8m

No, no they will not. News sites pay reporters. If news sites have no money reporters stop reporting. Journalism costs money.

JoshTriplett
0 replies
10h42m

I said "Or people will read paid news", by which I mean news sites supported by subscriptions rather than ads. I don't think that's a likely scenario, but it's another possible alternative world that could arise.

krapp
1 replies
19h26m

Good. 99% of news and almost everything on social media is garbage. Burn it all down.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h7m

ironically enough, it'd just mean that most news would end up being funded by the government where possible. Which is how the FSFE gets its funding.

charcircuit
5 replies
21h2m

Why not just ignore sites that use ads? If people find value in ad supported product they can use them and if they don't they can just avoid them and use an alternative without ads or nothing.

izzydata
2 replies
20h53m

If there were no ads anywhere on the internet than everything would be on an even playing field. Currently a site that offers a paid service for something that someone else gives away for free is at a huge disadvantage.

drewcoo
0 replies
18h31m

If there were no ads anywhere on the internet than everything would be on an even playing field.

In one dimension. Maybe.

Influencers would still be a thing. So would SEO. The web would be like some medieval map with vast uncharted territories and "here be dragons" but also the few known sites where everyone in the known web lives.

Unless we dismantle media and tech monopolies, they will still dominate that web.

charcircuit
0 replies
20h10m

Even if the web was on an even playing field it has to worry about being disrupted by other platforms that allow ads. That could take the form of Web2 which is the web + ad supported sites with backwards compatibility with the original web or it could take the form of mobile apps where users can get useful ad supported apps.

BobaFloutist
1 replies
19h36m

If there were a way to filter sites that serve ads out of Google searches, that would be an interesting thought.

As of now, any given random website is far more likely to have ads than not, and many of the drawbacks of getting served ads (tracking, data collection, and performance issues) arise before the page is even loaded enough for you to know they exist.

midasuni
0 replies
18h36m

I don’t use google but surely there is an extension to allow you to block a domain?

paulryanrogers
2 replies
18h58m

Some of us want an ad supported internet. And the ad / no ad Internets are not mutually exclusive. They can coexist.

You can chose to only frequent ad-free sites and services. You wouldn't even have a use for an ad blocker.

bee_rider
1 replies
18h1m

There are too many low-effort ad supported sites currently. I don’t think we should make ads illegal, but it would be preferable if all ad-supported sites would identify themselves as such and then link aggregators, search engines, or even web browsers could have an easy “don’t show links to ad supported sites” button.

It really seems like a win-win.

jefftk
0 replies
15h39m

It would be very easy for link aggregators and search engines categorize sites as ad-supported or not: load the page in a browser (which these sites often already do) with an ad blocker extension and see if it identifies anything. But my guess is they're not interested in doing this, since it rules out a lot of valuable pages. For example, HN is ad-supported.

paulddraper
2 replies
20h53m

Or, some people are willing to pay for it, and some are willing to pay for it indirectly (via ads).

Hulu

I wouldn't characterize it as a "bad" business.

neuralRiot
0 replies
20h21m

If past experience serves me right, usually it would rther be: Some people are willing to pay for it indirectly by ads and some are willing to pay and still get ads later.

bediger4000
0 replies
20h19m

Ads are creeping in to paud-for Hulu. That's the nature of ads (or maybe advertisers): they corrupt the medium they support.

crazygringo
2 replies
20h27m

that seems to imply that people are not willing to pay for it.

No, it's just often that the logistics make it too inconvenient.

For various impossible-coordination reasons, micropayments and monthly-subscription-to-all-news just haven't taken off, despite consumers being willing to pay.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
8h12m

sounds like enough people weren't willing to pay. It's very easy to espouse demand, but in reality not everyone will put their money where their mouth is.

Or in a worst case scenario, everyone who is willing to pay already is, and the business is indeed non-sustainable. But I doubt this.

crazygringo
0 replies
2h1m

No, I said precisely the opposite.

People can be willing to pay, but corporations are unable to coordinate amongst themselves to receive the payment or make it frictionless enough. This is not an uncommon situation in economics. It's not a fictional concept.

E.g. you can look at Spotify as a success story of coordination. That wasn't inevitable though. If record labels had chosen to launch fragmented independent music streaming services, that wouldn't have changed people's willingness to pay for all music for $10–12/mo., even if it weren't available.

oh_sigh
1 replies
20h28m

Except that users are willing to pay for it, since a vast majority of them look at the ads and some of them even click on the ads.

neuralRiot
0 replies
20h15m

I wouldn’t have a problem with ads if they weren’t so intrusive and obnoxious. Imagine trying to read a magazine that would jump itself to the page with the “Axe” ad, you go back to the page you were reading and 10 seconds later it jumps to the “Chevy colorado” ad. Or asking the bookkeeper for “a book of holiday recipes” and on you way home in every corner a guy knocks your car window to sell you “holiday food”.

giantrobot
1 replies
18h50m

If people aren't willing to pay for it then I'm not sure it is a good business model.

People literally can't pay a sane price for content. A blog post or warmed over press release isn't worth a penny let alone a dollar. Ads unfortunately are the only mechanism to pay the sub-cent value for content.

Even if you could reasonably conduct a penny transaction that's still an insane price to pay for a blog post or tweet.

So it's not about people being unwilling to pay it's about being unwilling to pay transactable amounts of money for content that's nowhere near worth those amounts.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
7h57m

Even if you could reasonably conduct a penny transaction that's still an insane price to pay for a blog post or tweet.

depends on the content TBH. some (relatively few in the grand scheme of things, but "some" when focusig on otherwise helpful feeds) blogs are worth their weight in gold. some feel like they should pay me to even read it. I do wish a micropayment sort of system was feasible in general so we could test such models. But I'm guessing that's a logistics issue with payment vendors; they probably don't like small, disparate transactions anymore than a GPU.

Still, I've tried the closest thing for a few comic websites back then where you buy "coins" in bulk and purchase new releases a la carte (e.g. say, 2000 coins for $10, and each new chapter is 10 coins. so roughly 5 cents). Doesn't feel too bad.

dageshi
1 replies
20h43m

It's a well understood part of human nature that it's very difficult to charge for something you previously gave away for free.

The vast majority of the web has been given away for free by being ad supported, that's never going to roll back, the expectation has been set.

Thankfully, the wider public might find ads irritating but they'd still prefer them over paying so ads aren't going away anytime soon.

izzydata
0 replies
20h25m

I know it will never happen. At least not anytime in the near future.

There is usually a group of people advocating that using an adblocker is like stealing or killing businesses. My counter argument is that I'm fine with that. Don't offer something for free when I have complete control over how it is displayed on my end if you can't stay in business if I block some part of it. Everyone on the planet should use ad blockers for their own protection and to actively change the internet to a non-ad business model.

I will never stop using ad blockers and I don't feel bad about it in the slightest.

changoplatanero
1 replies
19h50m

If something is not sustainable without ads that seems to imply that people are not willing to pay for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it then I'm not sure it is a good business model.

Advertising can be a perfectly fine business model. Look at the radio, television, and newspaper industries. These have existed for decades and have brought much good to humanity even though they need advertising support to exist.

soraminazuki
0 replies
16h18m

The crucial difference being that traditional advertising didn't enable mass surveillance.

xboxnolifes
0 replies
15h22m

If something is not sustainable without ads that seems to imply that people are not willing to pay for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it then I'm not sure it is a good business model.

This only holds if you agree that humans are perfectly rational economic agents. I disagree with that and think that there are lots of little interactions where just introducing a financial transaction impacts how people interact.

Maybe If I tallied all of my internet usage, figured out how much I value my internet usage, and then gave each page visit a value I could find out that I value my hackernews usage at $0.02 per link click. But if clicking links directly led to me paying more, my usage pattern would change.

caskstrength
0 replies
9h12m

Regardless of the consequences I'd rather see an ad free internet. If that means Youtube can't exist and Facebook can't exist and Google can't exist then so be it.

But you can already do that by not using Youtube and FB. You just want to deny opportunity to use them to other people who may like to have access to "free" (ad supported) internet services.

awiejtlaijwr
0 replies
19h12m

Well, ads are the business model. Ads make it possible to sell things that people don't want to pay for. Newspapers and magazines wouldn't be possible without ads. It's been that way for literally centuries. But internet ads are definitely a new level of crazy. I'm conflicted about Youtube in particular because when you filter out all the social viral crap, Youtube is one of the greatest educational resources ever created by human beings. I can go search youtube for any subject imaginable and get broad and deep video instruction on the subject from dozens of different perspectives. In grad school when a professor did a terrible job of explaining a niche technical subject, I could go on Youtube and watch lectures from a variety of other professors. I can go to Youtube to learn how to cook, how to dance, how to build a wooden canoe with hand tools, so many amazing things. It's a shame we can't find a better way to fund and maintain the educational portions of it. I don't know of a better way.

crazygringo
32 replies
20h43m

But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine.

Exactly. I've got a right to block ads if I can figure out how to achieve that technologically. But they've got a right to not give me content if they can figure out, technologically, that I'm blocking their ads.

This all seems very fair to me.

l0b0
11 replies
20h11m

Agreed. As someone who could not use the web without an ad blocker, I wouldn't even be opposed to a `X-Blocks-Ads: true` request header or something, to just shut down the hue and cry between the two parties. Let's all be honest, then see where it gets us.

plagiarist
10 replies
20h2m

If we could trust adtech to be honest we wouldn't have to vigorously block them. You and I both know X-Block-Ads would be nothing more than an extra wrinkle for your browser fingerprint.

l0b0
7 replies
17h46m

It would be another bit for the fingerprinting, that's an important caveat.

The point is that web site owners should be able to easily implement ad/pay walls, and let the market decide whether users are OK with that. The current situation is that ad blocking is a luxury, afforded by people like us with a decent Internet connection for the constant updates, and understanding of technology, to enable ad blocking in the first place.

PH95VuimJjqBqy
5 replies
16h11m

The point is that web site owners should be able to easily implement ad/pay walls

They should be easily able to make the attempt, they should not easily be effective because to do so is to allow authoritarianism.

I paid for my device, they should have no control over it, yet they do. The threat of having that ability is too high.

johnnyanmac
2 replies
8h29m

I paid for my device, they should have no control over it, yet they do.

no they don't. Even with this theoretical header, they wouldn't have control unless it was an OS-level setting (even then, it'd be trivial to spoof).

they have data you desire, you send a request to connect, they use info in that request to give you a response. malicious services aside, the worst they can do is send nothing, or only undesirable data (a page full of nothing but ads, that you'd block. resulting in nothing). It doesn't control your ability to tab out, close the tab, switch the browser, nor change your OS.

PH95VuimJjqBqy
1 replies
3h11m

I don't think you've read much on what's coming.

And this isn't just about the browser, but about things such as certain cables being unable to display movies, etc.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
2h11m

I've read about the chromium stuff. This is why 1) alternatives are important and why I switched to Firefox this year and 2) why being open source is important for competitors to fork and avoid this BS.

certain cables being unable to display movies, etc.

HDCP was indeed a mistake. A very flimsy one at that. There's so many ways to display content that trying to block it on some specific kind of cable protocol is silly. It just makes people think the device is broken.

vineyardmike
0 replies
12h57m

You're choosing to run their javascript. If you turn off JS, they don't get any control, and you'll likely not get any content or ads.

Let's not forget that people are (1) choosing to visit the site, and (2) choosing to run the server's code locally. This isn't authoritarianism.

If you want to watch YouTube, or Netflix, or whatever, you have to seek it out, and run their code. And of course, you should mutually agree to terms to see be distributed their content.

l0b0
0 replies
14h6m

They paid to create the content, they decide whether you get to see it. Simple as that. No DRM or other shenanigans needed.

justinclift
0 replies
12h55m

should be able to easily implement ad/pay walls

Isn't paywalls (not ad walls) just bog standard subscription membership?

If so, the technical implementation part of that has been pretty well solved many times over.

Ad-walls though are a different kettle of fish.

dylan604
0 replies
18h42m

Right, because the Do-Not-Track flag was respected oh so well. The only people that seem to care about flags are an invading colonizing system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

JohnFen
0 replies
19h35m

Yes. The adtech industry is a hive of scum and villainy. They'll use every bit of data they have access to in order to screw you.

idle_zealot
10 replies
19h34m

I mostly agree, but it seems wrong to me that the side serving up content even has the ability to tell how you choose to display it. It's like a magazine with embedded cameras that self-immolates if it sees you take out scissors to cut it up for scrapbooking. Feels like a gross violation already.

tshaddox
4 replies
17h58m

What do you think about advertisements played by broadcast radio stations? How about billboards?

xahrepap
1 replies
17h48m

I turn off broadcasts so I don’t have to listen. And if I record them I fast forward them.

I hate billboards. I feel like they’re too intrusive and wouldn’t mind seeing a ban.

Especially the ones that are back lit. Can’t believe advertisers are given the right to attempt to distract drivers the most.

correnos
0 replies
15h48m

Agreed. Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii all ban billboards, and they're all nicer to drive in as a result.

wcarss
0 replies
15h38m

Imagine if your radio wouldn't let you turn the volume back up for the next song set if you happened to turn the volume down during an ad break.

rgoulter
0 replies
15h22m

https://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you...

Broadcast static-media advertisements generally aren't engaged in a cat-and-mouse game where they increase surveillance to combat fraud.

paulryanrogers
2 replies
19h2m

Well presumably you paid for the magazine, since it has a significantly higher production cost.

midasuni
1 replies
18h41m

I get all sorts of magazines through the mail for free that I don’t even want.

jamespo
0 replies
18h14m

whereas you access websites

627467
1 replies
18h22m

But that's not what's happening: what's happening is the server is asking for the properties of the client and making a decision to serve based on response. Similar to presenting credentials to be served. Surely the server is allow to set whatever conditions they are able to express technologically. You can't force a server to serve, or can you?

belorn
0 replies
16h44m

They can ask for the properties of the client, and the user can then make a informed decision to consent to that collection of personal information. In EU it is similar to asking for identification credentials.

Naturally this may make the process a bit cumbersome and websites that does not behave like this will gain a bit competitive advantage.

bee_rider
7 replies
19h14m

I think it doesn’t even need to be a “try to achieve” type thing. I’ll happily leave if a site doesn’t want to serve me without ads. I’m not interested in a technical back and forth.

I wish sites would stop with the nag pop-ups and all that junk.

Ideally, sites’ link generators would have a means of labeling their links as “ad-required” and our browsers could just be programmed to not render them. Link aggregation sites like Hackernews could just not show those sites to users that don’t want them. If a site requires a GDPR tracking pop-up, I just don’t want it to show up in my duck-duck-go searches.

It is annoying that it is a battle. We have two parties that just don’t want to do business with each other. I get that many sites are ad-supported and I wish they could be hidden so that I could more easily find the other ones.

jdiff
5 replies
18h54m

If a site requires a GDPR tracking pop-up

Not sure I understand that particular hill for dying on. If they aren't legally required to give you a choice, they're just going to be tracking you unconditionally.

clippyplz
2 replies
16h4m

I believe their point is that only sites that are tracking you are legally required to give you a choice.

jdiff
1 replies
15h47m

Plenty of sites ignore GDPR, some sites will GDPR just to CYA, some sites have cookie popups just to be polite, "Site with GDPR popup" in reality is a very poor analog for "site that wants to track me." Most sites that want to, especially for those not in the EU, just will, no questions asked.

Jensson
0 replies
15h44m

Most sites that want to, especially for those not in the EU, just will, no questions asked.

Maybe for most sites, but not for most site visits, since people mostly visit just a few large sites that are too big to ignore the law.

bee_rider
1 replies
18h18m

Who’s dying on a hill? They can have that hill if they want to die for it!

GDPR is great, sites should be required to ask to track. But if they start asking, most sites, I’d rather just leave.

jdiff
0 replies
17h31m

I'm asking why because I don't understand and I would like to understand your perspective. With my current understanding, that seems like a strict downgrade.

ReadCarlBarks
0 replies
6h52m

I wish sites would stop with the nag pop-ups and all that junk.

Just go to the Filter Lists tab in your uBlock Origin settings and check these groups:

* AdGuard - Annoyances

* uBlock filters - Annoyances

If you still see nags anywhere after enabling these lists, please click on the extension button and use the report option (the speech bubble icon).

shiroiuma
0 replies
9h52m

But they've got a right to not give me content if they can figure out, technologically, that I'm blocking their ads.

If they can figure out how to do that technologically, it's their right (IMO). However, I believe they're fooling themselves if they think they can maintain this: the hackers are constantly figuring out how to defeat such protection measures, and it only takes one hacker to figure out how to bypass their ad-blocker-blocker and add it to the ad-blocker apps (or filter lists) for it to work for everyone who uses that ad-blocker.

genocidicbunny
10 replies
20h10m

But if content providers do not want to give me their stuff unless I watch their ads, I think that's fine. It's your right to do that. Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.

To me, I think this is the more salient set of points. I accept that a company wants to show me ads to pay for the content they're serving. I accept that they may refuse to let me access content if I don't first view/consume the ads. And I also accept that if I am not happy with that specific arrangement, I am free to go elsewhere.

What I do refuse to accept is that once they have sent me the data that they have any right to control how I consume it. If you want to prevent me from accessing your site unless I view ads, you have a very simple way to do that -- have your webserver return an error code unless I have viewed the ads. But once you have sent me the bytes, in my eyes, you lose any right to dictate how those bytes are processed or blackholed.

rollcat
6 replies
19h13m

In my view, this falls under fair use.

If you have a private copy of a printed newspaper, you're free to tear out a page, draw pen-mustaches, wrap a fish in it, make a paper airplane, solve the crossword puzzle incorrectly, wipe yourself, basically anything you like - for your own amusement.

I don't see how your private copy of the webpage bytes should be any different.

In both cases there are very clear boundaries: you can't redistribute derivative works without permission & attribution (copyright), you can't publicly broadcast, etc. Everything else should be fair game.

paulryanrogers
5 replies
19h0m

One generally pays for the newspaper.

kahnclusions
2 replies
18h47m

Not at all. There are many legal ways to receive free copies of newspapers. No one is going to come beat me up just because I didn’t read all the ads.

paulryanrogers
1 replies
17h46m

Denying access to a site is hardly like beating one up for not reading newspaper ads. It's more like they'd refuse to give you another edition of the paper on your next visit, or insisted you pay for the paper instead.

rollcat
0 replies
8h11m

As genocidicbunny points out all the way up in the thread, if the server responds with 402 Payment Required, I'll honor it and either pay or go elsewhere. If it responds 200 OK and sends me the content - I'll use the content however I want, end of story.

whstl
0 replies
18h49m

What the sibling said, plus: There are plenty of free newspapers, and even magazines. All of this applies to them as well.

genocidicbunny
0 replies
18h55m

And websites are free to put up a paywall in front of the content to get me to pay for it.

vineyardmike
0 replies
12h52m

you lose any right to dictate how those bytes are processed or blackholed.

Stop running their code locally if you don't like what it's doing! You're choosing to let them dictate, and if it's not running on your machine, they didnt' "take back" the bytes.

Also, realistically, most places send javascript to check for ad-blocking, and if it's positive, they skip sending you the content. I can't imagine why anyone would send you the content so it's local THEN try to keep you from seeing it.

PH95VuimJjqBqy
0 replies
16h8m

What I do refuse to accept is that once they have sent me the data that they have any right to control how I consume it. If you want to prevent me from accessing your site unless I view ads, you have a very simple way to do that -- have your webserver return an error code unless I have viewed the ads. But once you have sent me the bytes, in my eyes, you lose any right to dictate how those bytes are processed or blackholed.

This is my view as well and I argue the danger of any other policy is authoritarian abuse of humans. Mandating that these companies have rights on devices _we_ paid for is a stepping stone to more egregious things.

627467
0 replies
18h20m

But isn't this the case? Who's going after people to do whatever they want to data they already have?

awiejtlaijwr
5 replies
19h20m

Christ, this is why I don't even browse the web on my phone. I email myself reminders to look things up when I get home to my laptop. The absence of adblockers makes it unbearable. Three different videos selling three different products unrelated to my query all trying to talk over each other? Kill me please.

turquoisevar
0 replies
1h13m

There are ad blockers available for both Android and iOS. Both free and paid.

Personally I’ve got a great experience for years now with Wipr on iOS, but at this rate I should start asking for a commission because I literally just suggested it to someone else here on HN.

technothrasher
0 replies
18h38m

I leave my phone connected via OpenVPN to my corporate network with a PiHole server to filter out most web ads, trackers, etc. What I do try to avoid is using any apps where I can use the website instead.

suslik
0 replies
10h41m

If you’re talking about iOS, ther is adblocking there. Adguard works well for me on Safari, and Orion browser even runs ublock origin. I honestly never see ads on mobile.

matrix87
0 replies
17h59m

Maybe use android then? Then you can use newpipe, AdAway, FF with desktop add-ons. I use it and don't have the same problem

berkes
0 replies
18h59m

Firefox mobile can run an AdBlock addon just fine. Firefox focus even has it built in.

Xenoamorphous
5 replies
21h6m

Just don't think that I am going to turn off the adblocker for you as a consequence. Much more likely, I'm just going to go somewhere else for my kick.

You’ll be saving them money (less infrastructure costs, like bandwith) without giving a penny to their competitors (because you’re using an adblocker); actually now you’re probably a net loss for their competitors.

So they’re happy to lose you, I guess?

We’re headed towards a paywalled Internet, I know first hand. And I hate it.

cschep
1 replies
19h48m

There is so much good content on the internet that people put out because they just love it and don't expect any money for it. All of that won't change. Lots of the ad-ridden blogs and stuff will go away but I'll echo the sentiment found largely around these comments: good riddance.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
7h50m

and my favorite content creators only post once in a blue moon when the stars align, likely because they don't have a need to post more often. Which is why my most frequent content creators tend to be the consistent ones who try to get something out at least once a week or month.

Thing is, even with this ad-free model, the most motivated ones will be the ones on top. And They will just find other ways to monetize instead of ads, because they are motivated to capitalize on their audience. Donations (charitable or incentivized), merch, content paywalls, self-ads instead of sponsored ones. Same concept. Ads are a big problem, but not THE core issue.

paulddraper
0 replies
20h33m

We’re headed towards a paywalled Internet,

If that's the intersection of need/demand, okay so be it.

Like, I have preferences but I understand they might not be others'.

lolinder
0 replies
20h48m

I'm actually very excited to get back to the point where services compete for my money rather than for my attention. Advertising has created an internet that has an enormous amount of content, most of which is just... bad. It's hard to find good content because almost all of it is engineered to get clicks.

A paywalled internet will mean I'll have to be choosier about what I consume, but what's available will hopefully be high quality because it's not competing for my attention when I'm at my weakest at the end of a long day, it's competing for my wallet when I rationally review the budget every month.

JohnFen
0 replies
19h25m

We’re headed towards a paywalled Internet, I know first hand. And I hate it.

I'd be completely fine with that result. It would mean that commercial websites would be segregated off, leaving the rest of the web (the part I get real value from) more discoverable.

belorn
2 replies
16h22m

There is one major aspect that I find troubling with companies blocking users with an activated adblocker. It removes the illusion that they are providing a service without any expectation for payment.

Tax law, at least where I live, is very explicit on this. If a company provide goods or services with the expectation of payment, be that as a good or service, then that transaction trigger value added tax. Free samples and gratis products do not trigger this, including those that has advertisement, because those do not have an expectation of payment.

In general it is the company that is selling a product that must manage payment of value added tax to consumers within the country, and the government has soft blocked imports from companies when that tax has not been paid.

I don't know German law around value added tax so they might have different exemption rules. I do wonder however if the court acknowledged in the Axel Springer case that the viewing of advertisement is an payment for providing content.

recursive
0 replies
16h15m

They're getting paid by advertisers, not viewers.

Jensson
0 replies
16h16m

Do you got any links to previous legal cases about that? Otherwise it is just baseless speculation.

vasco
1 replies
18h41m

Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.

I wasn't in love with my girlfriend / kids / etc before I met her either but I wouldn't want to go without her just because there was once a time where it was true. That seems like weak argument.

kleiba
0 replies
18h28m

Maybe because that particular sentence wasn't an argument at all but rather an illustration?

mission_failed
1 replies
19h43m

There is a grey area though when a company becomes the defacto monopoly over a service. Google and Microsoft email both have history of blocking email from other providers and have created a landscape where trying to run your own email server is a nightmare. But should they be able to refuse service to you if you block ads?

thfuran
0 replies
18h24m

Unequivocally yes. If not, do you also think they should be required to serve all your requests while you dos them?

foob
1 replies
18h44m

I mostly agree with this in principle, but an important point is that, when you squint, the technology behind blocking ad blockers starts looking very similar to the technology behind blocking web scrapers. If you're capable of programmatically scraping content without a human user viewing ads, then you're capable of displaying the content to a user without the ads. So any solution for preventing ad blocking implies that the content can't be scraped programmatically.

I know that web scrapers carry some negative connotations, but keep in mind that search engines like Google couldn't possibly exist without web scraping. A world where you can't block ads or scrape content for indexing is a world where only a few preordained companies have the ability to build search engines. Proposals like Web Environment Integrity (WEI) accomplish two goals for Google: they make ad blocking more difficult, and they kick down the ladder to prevent new innovative search engines from emerging. There are already many websites which only allow-list Google's IPs for indexing, and I think we should be very hesitant about anything that could further entrench their monopoly on search even if we support content creators being compensated through ads.

Bu9818
0 replies
16h46m

I agree, I don't even care about ads in specific. I primarily use the tor browser which doesn't block ads due to fingerprinting (it's ok for casual browsing, though some sites are actually obnoxious and slow down the browser). More generally, I care about web scraping and being able to control the presentation of content: for internet archival, using a featureful video/music player (mpv) or library like a local imageboard, utilities like user scripts to add features/programatically do stuff, content blocking (filter rules for specific posts/users), creating RSS feeds for notifications if the site doesn't offer one, simpler/faster frontends like invidious/nitter, etc.

turquoisevar
0 replies
1h11m

I’m pretty with on this almost word for word.

I can’t have my cake and eat it too, and I’m fine with that.

Maybe if at a certain point everything is locked down with the help of device attestation/DRM I might change my tune, but even then I’m sure there will be alternatives for me, whether online or offline.

pyrophane
0 replies
18h10m

I like it because it forces some decisions on various parties.

Don't want to look at ads online? Block them but realize you yourself may be blocked from certain places.

Don't want to allow ad-blocked users? Okay, but you lose those users unless you engage with the reason they are blocking ads and either give them an alternative or convince them to greenlist you.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
8h40m

let me reassure you: you can. Everything on the internet is expendable.

Every single thing on the internet is expendable. The internet as a whole is arguably not. I think that's where the rub lies.

It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet.

really depends on the person. I would not have my current career nor WFH role without the internet. It doesn't mean I can't "live", but it would cause a radical enough shift in my life that I'd essentially become a different person. I'll leave that answer to the philosophers.

irrational
0 replies
17h10m

While I agree with you, I also am not sure what I should think about nearly every news article on here has a link that someone has posted that circumvents the paywall that has been put up prevent people from accessing the content without paying (either directly or via ads). Is it okay to use an adblocker and not pay for a subscription, but also circumvent walls so I can still access the content?

franciscop
0 replies
17h22m

Everything on the internet is expendable. Trust me. Yes, even TikTok, son. Heck, most of what you're in love with today wasn't even there 10 years ago.

This is unfortunately patently not true anymore. As the internet has gotten more intertwined in our lives, so has into the gvmt, corporations, society, etc. For example banking, for using my bank I need an internet connection. I literally work on the internet, but even if I didn't I cannot imagine any of the main jobs I would be remotely qualified to do that doesn't need internet, so I'd be back to minimum-skill minimum-wage jobs. Which wouldn't afford me my current home, and from which I'd be kicked out of the country I live at since I wouldn't qualify for either the job type or minimum salary.

Note: I assume by "expendable" you mean "can be avoided without a huge impact in life", I _could_ live without internet but I'd also need to be working a minimum wage, wouldn't afford my home, and probably would even lose my visa.

avazhi
0 replies
9h27m

This echoes my thought process, too.

I would go full Luddite and swear off YouTube, Twitch, etc if I absolutely had to watch ads to use their services. I already do this with twitch - once the unblockable ads start playing I close the tab and spend my time elsewhere, with nothing of value lost. There is literally no content that is worth being exposed to ads to access, from my point of view. I realise that many others don’t share such militant views on this, but for me it’s non negotiable.

andy99
0 replies
20h29m

Yeah it's pretty simple, the world doesn't owe anyone a business model (something that's forgotten way to often) but nor are we owed free content. My understanding of a transaction is that there needs to be a "meeting of the minds" - if I value what you want to give me more than the price you want, we have trade and everybody wins.

Unfortunately the ad economy is closer to begging. The consumer doesn't value what's being provided and the provider somehow tries to guilt or force users into "paying". And overall everyone loses - the content provider doesn't get the value they want for their content and the consumer doesn't get something they value. The only winner is advertising intermediaries. That unfortunately is the system we've set up.

_Algernon_
0 replies
3h38m

Agreed. The server gets to decide whether to send data and what to send, and I get to decide how I use it when it is sent to me.

In short protecting the users' right to run what they want on their computing device.

Now just apply this general principle to copyrighted content as well and we would approach a sane legal system (at least in this specific area).

1vuio0pswjnm7
0 replies
18h56m

"It may come in as a surprise to some but yes, you can have a life without the internet."

Maybe even more of a life without it.

There is one fact that I learned immediately when I started using the internet in 1986 and then the www in 1993.

There will always be an endless supply of free "content" on the internet and www. With or without advertising. The ads did not even start until 1994 or so. There was an internet without ads. A non-commercial internet. That's what I signed up for.

That people today are paying for multiple "subscriptions" to view stuff on the internet is amazing but it will not make the free stuff disappear. It will not stop non-commercial use of the network.

The internet did not come into existence for the purpose of advertising. But the companies exerting oversized control over it, that is all they are interested in.

teekert
24 replies
21h31m

A browser is your car on the digital highway. Said car should have your best interest as priority #1. Not the highway itself, not some company. You.

Use Firefox people, before it is too late.

jefftk
10 replies
20h30m

And, yet, if Firefox decided to ship an ad blocker on by default they would lose their primary source of funding.

oh_sigh
4 replies
20h27m

That sounds like Firefox made a bad decision to fund their operations by selling the default search engine space to an advertising company, then.

teekert
3 replies
20h25m

It’s chicken and egg. Because of their low usage numbers they don’t have much leverage and a deal with devil is the option they’re forced into.

lolinder
1 replies
20h13m

To date, Mozilla refuses to let me donate to directly fund Firefox.

I can donate to Mozilla, but then they'll take my money and pursue whatever their current distraction of the month is. I can pay for Pocket, but then I'm paying for Pocket, which I don't need or want. I can't just give them money and say "I really, really want this money to go directly to Firefox, not to another side project".

Until they offer that as an option, they cannot claim to have tried everything.

JoshTriplett
0 replies
18h20m

I'd love to have an option to pay for Firefox Sync. It's by far my favorite Firefox feature, I use it every day, and I'd happily pay for it even if they just said "this just funds ongoing development and offers no added features", though they'd get more revenue if they find something to offer for paying users.

jefftk
0 replies
18h3m

Firefox has been funded by selling the default search engine for decades, including when it had 30% market share.

JoshTriplett
4 replies
18h19m

Has that actually been established, or is it still just speculation? I doubt the contract actually says that, though of course it might affect future renewals.

jefftk
3 replies
18h5m

Sorry, I'm claiming they would lose their primary source of funding in the sense that the next time the contract came up for bid no one would want it.

JoshTriplett
2 replies
17h12m

I'm at least somewhat skeptical here. The value gained by Google from all those searches is not exclusively in the ads shown. It might lower the value of the contract, but I would be at least somewhat surprised if it lowered it to zero.

jefftk
1 replies
16h59m

There is value from seeing which result a user apparently likes best, which lets you train your search engine better. But Google already has a ton of this and the marginal contribution from Firefox users must be minimal. Instead, probably a different, smaller, search engine would probably pay. Though, even then, simply the cost of serving acceptable search results could be higher than the marginal value of the data?

Either way, this goes from a contract bringing in hundreds of millions to maybe tens at best?

JoshTriplett
0 replies
16h46m

There's value in being the one to serve personalized results, get people to sign up for accounts, cross-sell other services...

evulhotdog
4 replies
20h29m

If only it gracefully supported profiles in a similar way to Chrome. Having two binaries running gets real funky when you want to open a page in whatever browser window you recently used, which also happens to be the most recent profile, too.

wjdp
0 replies
20h20m

I'm aware it's not the same as Chrome profiles but multi-account containers, where individual tabs can have their own sessions, is a killer feature of Firefox.

The ability to have multiple AWS accounts logged into at the same time in tabs side by side is a real time saver.

teekert
0 replies
20h26m

Is this not a use case for containers?

On any other browser I always miss my containers.

mrj
0 replies
19h56m

I use containers with SideBerry for this. I have panels dedicated to google accounts (broadly: work, other and personal). When I'm in a panel and click a link it opens correctly with the right container and corresponding auth.

It's the best flow I've found. You can also set rules for domains to always open (or prompt) in a container, but I found that to be too much work for several common domains that I use from different profiles.

I do still have rules set up for some things like Github, which should always use my personal container. That's nice since no matter what mode I'm working in, it opens correctly and I don't have to log into Github for each container. And I have stuff like Linkedin and Facebook firewalled into a social container.

danShumway
0 replies
19h28m

The problem is there's no single right answer about how isolated profiles should be.

Firefox offers two options:

1. full profiles, which are almost completely isolated. They're separate processes, the data can live on separate parts of your computer. I do not want that to go away, I like being able to have almost separate Firefox installs on my computer.

2. containers, which are lighter profiles than Chrome and attempt to isolate sites without isolating browser settings. I also really like these, and I don't want them to go away, although I wouldn't mind them getting some additional controls for segmenting more of the browser.

What a lot of people want is:

3. Something in the middle between those two things.

I'm not opposed to that, but I don't think it's necessarily settled that Chrome's approach is perfect or that different users might not want some things to be less separated than Chrome's approach or more separated.

"Something in the middle" can mean a lot of different things, and there are a lot of users that sound like they're asking for the same things (better profiles), when I suspect in actuality many of them have very different ideas about what they want that to look like.

I'm down for Firefox offering more options there, but I don't know that there is a singular version of profiles that would satisfy everyone, I suspect the only way this actually works is if it's somewhat configurable. And I definitely don't want the less isolated version of profiles to replace the real actually isolated profiles that Firefox has now. I want at least the option to keep my profiles as separate binaries.

Rather than making a completely separate 3rd option, maybe the better option is for containers to have more customization and to allow more isolation? Firefox already doesn't really expose containers without an extension (which is probably a mistake, but whatever) so having different extensions that are hooking in differently and could turn on/off different isolation features might be a middle ground. It does get a little weird if you also want to also isolate addons, but...

Dalewyn
3 replies
20h17m

Firefox has Mozilla Corporation as its #1 priority best interest.

roelschroeven
1 replies
19h34m

Through the way things are set up, Firefox has Mozilla Foundation as its number 1 priority. Corporation makes money for Foundation, Foundation steers everything.

Dalewyn
0 replies
19h21m

Mozilla Foundation serves the interests of Mozilla Corporation (including Firefox), and Mozilla Corporation in turn serves the interests of its CEO Mitchell Baker.[1]

Foundation makes money for Corporation, CEO steers everything (literally, as CEO of Corporation and Chairman of Foundation).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary...

I_Am_Nous
0 replies
20h12m

Honestly I trust Mozilla more than Google or Microsoft. Not that corporations should be trusted. It's more of a "less bad" situation.

InCityDreams
2 replies
19h16m

Please, may i use a browser of my choice?

teekert
0 replies
2h56m

I will allow it. But it’s good to know the consequences and take them into consideration.

Dalewyn
0 replies
19h9m

You may choose between Chrome, Chrome (Edge), Chrome (Brave), Chrome (Opera), Chrome (Vivaldi), Chrome (Chromium), Chrome (the others), Safari, and the remainder of which Firefox is probably the most known.

HenryBemis
0 replies
21h24m

The way the interweb currently works is bringing stuff into my computer, and showing it to me here. Even with streaming, I see it 'here'. So My PC, My Rules.

If the interweb changes and I see it 'there' instead of 'here' we can discuss again.

Manuel_D
17 replies
20h30m

My go-to analogy:

I subscribe to a magazine. It has ads. I pay my butler to cut out the ads. Is that illegal? Now I have a robot butler doing the exact same thing. Is that illegal?

The web server is serving you content. Your ad blocker is a robot butler cutting the ads out of the documents you're receiving.

IlliOnato
9 replies
19h57m

The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it. The magazine is able to detect that your butler is cutting out the ads. The magazine decides it does not want to send you its issues any more. Is that illegal?

squigz
3 replies
19h0m

To continue this strained analogy, what is happening now would be like the magazine trying to prevent your butler from doing what you told him.

Dropping the analogy, YouTube has every right to block me from using the site if I'm using an adblocker. They do not have the right to continuously try to circumvent my adblocker

berkes
2 replies
18h57m

I'd say they have that right to circumvent your blocker. And you have the right to circumvent that. Ad infinitum.

squigz
0 replies
44m

Should a company have the right to constantly harass you IRL with ads, even after you take actions to avoid seeing those ads?

shiroiuma
0 replies
9h40m

I agree: they have the right to try to detect on their end that I'm not watching the ads, and then refuse to send me more videos. And I have the right to try to evade this detection with software on my end. They don't have the right to use the legal system to force me to watch ads on my equipment (for instance, by banning ad-blockers).

Manuel_D
1 replies
18h56m

They can refuse service for any reason (outside of protected class like race, gender, etc.). YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker. Of course people have developed further countermeasures to ad blocker detection.

shiroiuma
0 replies
9h37m

YouTube already does this, it refuses to play if you have an ad blocker.

No, it doesn't. Maybe they'd like it to work that way, but in my experience it's never worked that way: it works just fine with my ad-blockers. (knock on wood)

I guess we'll see if they come up with more effective measures, but honestly I doubt it: anything they come up with can be countered, and there's a literal army of people happy to find ways around their ad-blocker-blocker measures.

simonblack
0 replies
16h4m

The magazine is given to you for free, you don't pay for it.

Sorry, but data allowances are NOT free. In the past I have had data allowances of 2GB per month which works out to just 60MB per day on average. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to completely use up that small data allowance.

Now supposing you have to actually choose whether to download a movie or to download hundreds of unwanted ads, which choice will YOU make?

MiddleEndian
0 replies
19h44m

Neither one should be illegal. Not every conflict needs the court system to resolve it.

InCityDreams
0 replies
19h29m

Cosmo isn't free.

fxd123
3 replies
19h4m

Yes, and the magazine company has a right to stop sending you more magazines if they don't like that

astrobe_
2 replies
18h48m

Depends on where you live. In my country refusing to sell is illegal, unless the company has good reasons.

paulryanrogers
1 replies
17h31m

If it's free with ads is it really a sale?

astrobe_
0 replies
16h31m

Don't really know, I was responding to the analogical version. But I'd say that a EULA that requires you to watch/see ads is something different in nature than usual EULAs that just cover legal-and-good-relationships things.

unshavedyak
2 replies
20h2m

Yup. If you reverse the situation it gets even harder to define. Ie to say you're not allowed to automate your avoidance of ads seems to bundle your consumption of content with your attention to ads.

How much attention are we required to give these ads? How much annoyance in bypassing them is required? Are we only allowed to walk away from the TV to avoid ads? etc

userbinator
0 replies
19h49m

Indeed, either muting and doing something else or changing the channel was a common thing to do back when TV was an actual tube.

From a similar era, it's also worth noting that some VCRs had automatic "adblocking" (pause recording, and resume once the ad breaks were over.)

Personally, I think it boils down to: my eyes, my brain. I shouldn't be compelled to effectively lose the right to close my eyes when I want to.

iamacyborg
0 replies
19h58m

Not only are you expected to put up with the ad, you’re expected to put up with your personal data being sent to hundreds/thousands of third parties whenever someone wants to show you an ad.

alphazard
7 replies
21h24m

This is ridiculous. We don't need people pontificating about what "rights" exist when I chose to request content from someone else's server.

We need better ad-blocking technologies. Let the arms race continue. Haven't had to deal with ads for years now, as a happy Firefox + uBlock user.

drdaeman
2 replies
21h17m

This. Service operators have no saying in how you process the response, as long as it doesn’t violate any laws (e.g. redistribution beyond fair use)

But. The end of this arms race is gonna be problematic because of the halting problem. Unlike some other issues, we possibly don’t want to push it too hard here until the society catches up, or we’ll end up with black box programs inside the browsers, handling all aspects of rendering. That would be a wasteful loss for everyone.

ilc
0 replies
21h13m

The camel's nose is already there. Say hi to DRM.

JohnFen
0 replies
21h5m

If I can't find browsers that help me protect myself from websites, I'll just stop using the web entirely.

The web has been getting less useful, more irritating, and more problematic for years anyway. At this point, it wouldn't be a huge loss to me.

tantalor
1 replies
20h49m

We don't need people pontificating about what "rights" exist

While you may prefer anarchy, in the real world courts will make these choices for you, and enforce the rules, putting your property and liberty at risk.

alphazard
0 replies
20h13m

In this case it's a bit like legislating the weather.

Rights are just commitments by a government to ensure certain things do/don't happen within its area of reach. A right is only as good as a government's ability to enforce it.

In this case we aren't talking about life or property or physical things in a single jurisdiction. We are talking about information exchanged over a distributed network, that spans nearly every jurisdiction on Earth. Unless you are expecting a single world government, monitoring every network link, and a ban on encryption in the near future, it's unreasonable to expect the "rights" being discussed to materially impact you.

Maybe you work in advertising, and this does actually affect some number in a quarterly report.

epgui
0 replies
20h42m

This just sounds to me like you don't know a whole lot about the philosophy of law and you think it's not worth learning or thinking about.

SoftTalker
0 replies
20h41m

Yes. It's my computer, my screen, my power, my network connection. I will choose which content I wish to view using my resources. I don't wish to view ads, especially the kind of intrusive, annoying ads that are predominant today. If they were simple banners that didn't try to interupt my use of the site and tax my CPU and network I probably would care a lot less.

If a site doesn't like those terms, fine. I'll find my content elsewhere.

Dwedit
7 replies
20h36m

Right to use Adblockers also means the remote server has the right to force you to download and display the ads as a condition of getting the content.

Thus begins the arms race. The client can simulate all that happening, but ultimately not actually present the ads to the user (possibly including a blank screen with a timer for enforced video ads).

Then the server starts forcing client attestation to make sure their scripts run in a trusted environment.

Gets really messy really quick.

thfuran
3 replies
18h18m

Thus begins the arms race. The client can simulate all that happening, but ultimately not actually present the ads to the user

That's trespassing but with a computer.

BLKNSLVR
2 replies
16h52m

I disagree, because the 'processing' occurs on the local (my) machine.

A user is not "visiting" a website, they're not stepping onto their property, they are sending a request for data, and the website is replying to that request. A copy of their data is being willingly sent for display to the users machine.

In the case of DNS blocking, requests to advertising addresses aren't made, so no response is received. In the case of in-browser content blocking, the received reply is put through a filter to remove the elements of the reply that the user doesn't want.

The concept of trespass just doesn't fit here.

thfuran
1 replies
16h41m

A copy of their data is being willingly sent for display to the users machine.

Not if you're telling their posted signage to go fuck itself and ignoring the terms under which it was provided.

BLKNSLVR
0 replies
14h43m

Don't read this text.

I understand the point of view you're coming from but, from my point of view it goes against the idea behind having a web presence in the first place (which is likely because I'm stuck on that old romantic view of the web from 20 years ago when people shared information for reasons of passion rather than profit). It's also a bit like a EULA, it's not enforceable it's just game-theory-esque attempts at claiming more ground than that to which they're entitled.

If no one pushed back, they'd push further and harder.

matrix87
1 replies
17h57m

Thus begins the arms race.

Except, the one side has to pay for the dev work on their own proprietary system, the other side is a horde of volunteers. At a certain point it isn't worthwhile, easier to just accept that some people aren't going to cooperate

Jensson
0 replies
16h1m

That isn't true, DRM won in games thanks to dedicated DRM companies coming around. We still have DRM free games that you can download, but some games take forever to crack. The same thing will happen in the adblocker wars in the end, it is much easier to automate systems that takes too much work for volunteers to crack. Not every company will be able to afford that themselves, but if they can buy a proprietary system to do it they will.

paulryanrogers
0 replies
18h25m

When people make it clear to me the terms of visiting their property, I take care to abide by them or go elsewhere. It only escalates when one side decides they must visit yet not abide by the terms.

ssowonny
5 replies
18h36m

Adblockers can be likened to piracy, similar to downloading movies from torrents.

It's true that service providers should be mindful of ad usage to avoid alienating users. However, using services and bypassing ads equates to appropriating the service's property.

If you disagree with a service's monetization methods, it's best not to use it. Don't steal it.

627467
1 replies
18h18m

How should someone know the terms of use BEFORE being served the data (including the terms)? It's not stealing if you're broadcasting.

mynameisnoone
0 replies
18h8m

Remember shrinkwrap EULAs? You agree to a EULA you can't read beforehand by opening the box or shrinkwrap.

Now, there are perpetually-changing EULAs you don't get to agree to that just change underneath you, and are rarely notified about.

wolfendin
0 replies
17h44m

It can’t be likened to piracy because I am asking the website for a document, they’re giving it to me, suggesting I download other documents, and I am deciding not to.

I am not taking something they own by force on a ship.

I am not distributing their intellectual property to others without authorization.

mynameisnoone
0 replies
18h9m

Except you're offering their bullshit Hobson's choice: submit or live like a Mennonite. Anything now that doesn't involve you jumping at the chance to hand over larger and lager piles of money is deemed "unpatriotic" and "criminal". That sort of groomed consumer bullshit can GTFO.

jpambrun
0 replies
16h10m

I would first need to see the site to get a sense of if I agree with the monetization, but at that I would have seen the ads.

Hence I block all ads,if a site has a nag screen about ad blocker, I block it from my searches with Kagi. I wish it already had a block list for that so I never see these sites at all. Sites who does that are typically of very low quality anyway.

phailhaus
5 replies
20h25m

At the end of the day, you have no "right" to a site's content. You have the right to use an adblocker, and a site that depends on its revenue has the right to refuse to serve you.

simonblack
1 replies
15h58m

and a site that depends on its revenue has the right to refuse to serve you.

Certainly. But it's dumb on their behalf because you won't see any of their message at all. In practical terms, they might as well not exist.

phailhaus
0 replies
4h25m

Not at all, because you ended up on their site anyways.

lolinder
1 replies
20h18m

Yes, that's what the court ruled:

While user freedom means that users are able to use the tools that they wish to when browsing the World Wide Web, the court nevertheless preserved Axel Springer’s right to exclude users with an activated adblocker from accessing its content. This can be understood as an approval on the use of adblock detection tools by companies like Axel Springer.

This sounds fine to me. If you want to put your content on the internet for all to see, great, but I'm not going to let my browser render the ads that you suggest that it render. If you want to put the content behind a paywall or otherwise block ad blockers, fine, I'll pay if it's worth my money or I won't if it's not. But I'm not going to turn my ad blocker off just because content publishers whine about it.

phailhaus
0 replies
19h32m

Yep! I use an adblocker but I can't fault a site for trying to keep me out.

iamacyborg
0 replies
19h57m

I’d happily put up with banner ads on websites, it’s the mechanism that serves that ad that I find contentious and is the reason I personally use an ad blocker.

Havoc
5 replies
19h51m

This feels off to me. I feel entitled to use an adblocker, but I also feel the site should be entitled to make corresponding choice their side.

The reality is much of the web is ad funded, so some sort of ugly compromise is necessary. Allowing both sides to do as they please seems more fair than holding a gun to corporates head and telling them no.

That said I reckon news is an exception - it's way too centralized and way to crucial to democracy to let all the big news orgs move as a unit. The way they all moved as a unit & some lead the charge on paywalls knowingly taking a hit felt way too coordinated for my liking.

paulryanrogers
2 replies
18h23m

Streets are a public space. Yet even there access to the street remains free, and ads tend to be on private property. Most of the Internet would not qualify. Though I suppose it could be argued parts are much like a public square.

Jensson
1 replies
15h50m

You aren't allowed to display whatever you want on private property. If you put up a massive billboard on your front yard the police will come knocking very quickly.

paulryanrogers
0 replies
15h25m

Depends. In the US most townships won't care. Cities or HOAs vary from liberal to quite strict.

InCityDreams
1 replies
19h30m

Ads in the street fund...something.

I ignore them as they aren't terribly targeting, and I'm not an impulse buyer based on some pic of an overly happy smiley person.

Inasmuch as I'm not obligated to fund the advertisers and companies I see in the streets, the same is true of the net.

I owe them nothing - especially as they try and track me. I leave my phone in the car when i go shopping so location isn't a thing they can utilise against me, which they would if possible.

Having said that, i am looking after a friends dog at the moment. I walked past a store that sells royal canine a few days ago... got an ad for dog food on amazon, and in my gmail.

Coincidence? Possibly. Am i nervous? Absolutely you should be too.

berkes
0 replies
18h52m

Ads in the streets fund surprisingly little.

I've spent energy and time finding out how much my local govt got from these ads and learned three things. They don't want to tell, because it's embarrassing small amounts. They don't really know the exact numbers. Many ads on "public spaces" fund private or corporate coffers rather than municipality.

samstave
4 replies
19h42m

If I cannot use an ad-blocker, then I should be able to have a perfect measurment of what % of my bandwidth, for which I pay for, is consumed by ads, and then charge them a fee for resource utilization, convenience fee, fcc annoyance fee, corrupt-packet fee and dropped-packet waste of resource fee, and congestion fee.

thfuran
2 replies
18h13m

Why do you feel entitled to send a bill to someone who only gave you what you asked them to give you?

asadotzler
1 replies
16h31m

The point was, I think, that they're giving more than what was asked for. With an ad blocker a user can opt out of expensive parts of the content and if they're denied that then they're being forced to consume the content they didn't want. A website makes a bunch of files available publicly. My user agent picks a few of those files it wants and ignores the rest. If my UA is forced to acquire all the files or the specific set the site requires, they're forcing me to spend my resources downloading, processing, and displaying files I don't want, at great expense both to my wallet and my time, and my mind. I have a tool that manages this for me and they're telling me I can't engage with some of their content because I won't engage with other of their content.

It's like a buffet that requires you fill your plate only the way they want it filled. It's a buffet. It's not a prefix.

thfuran
0 replies
14h14m

The point was, I think, that they're giving more than what was asked for.

They're not. You just turned out to not actually want what you asked for.

I have a tool that manages this for me and they're telling me I can't engage with some of their content because I won't engage with other of their content.

Yes, because they provided the former free of charge solely on the basis that you'd accept the latter as well.

paulryanrogers
0 replies
18h17m

If you're consuming content on ad supported services and sites, then why would anyone be reimbursement you for bandwidth costs that they have no control over?

You could be on a network paid for by your employer, one very frugally negotiated, or a redundant yet costly satellite link you have for vanity reasons.

BLKNSLVR
4 replies
18h44m

Part of the problem is the terminology 'adblocker' is outdated and essentially incorrect.

Ads aren't ads. They're trackers, viruses, malware, scams. Even video ads on Youtube, whilst not vectors of viruses or malware, they're advertising literal scams and YouTube are responding saying these ads are 'within' policy guidelines.

As I've said a few times before (in various ways), browsing the internet without an 'ad blocker' is like running Windows in the 90's / 00's without anti-virus software when you're a serial downloader of interesting programs / executables (like I was); it's negligent, you're asking for trouble.

The advertising industry, Google, Facebook, etc. are hiding behind the terminology "advertising" because it makes it sound a lot more palatable than what the reality is, as I said above: tracking, malware, viruses, scams.

If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.

Advertising, as it has evolved on the Internet, is Dangerous.

Dalewyn
1 replies
17h54m

Ads aren't ads. They're trackers, viruses, malware, scams. Even video ads on Youtube, whilst not vectors of viruses or malware, they're advertising literal scams and YouTube are responding saying these ads are 'within' policy guidelines.

If it was just advertising, then I'd be much less rabidly agressive in my defense of blocking it: Annoying is a long way separated from Dangerous.

This really needs to be emphasized more, because the problem is that these so-called "ads" aren't just ads anymore as you said.

If they were just ads, sure they would be annoying (or hilarious if they are made well!) but ultimately not something that most of us would feel a religious desire to block out of our lives.

But no, they aren't just ads anymore. They are malicious in their intent and harmful in their contents. If it's not the "ads" trojan horsing malware onto our computers, it's their contents directing us towards scams and harmful activities. That dangerous bullshit deserves to be blocked out with extreme prejudice.

Adblocking is the anti-virus of the 2010s and '20s, it's a defensive measure to keep ourselves safe.

anotherevan
0 replies
17h44m

I call them HTML firewalls.

qingcharles
0 replies
16h9m

I'll add that on top of that the ads use so many resources in the browser, CPU/RAM, that it slows many otherwise great budget computers to a standstill. And if you're on a low-res screen like me (1280x720) the ads often overwrite half the content or make the site completely unnavigable.

Additionally, the amount of bandwidth the ads use is enormous, especially when they include self-playing video, and people who have government-issued phones in the USA (poor people) only get 15GB of bandwidth on most plans, and that is burned up within a couple of days due to this.

jpambrun
0 replies
16h7m

Good point, they should rename to scamblockers to change the narrative.

syndacks
3 replies
20h38m

They have an advertisement begging for money at the top of the page.

syndacks
1 replies
19h34m

Please fsfe.org, I’m dying to know more about “The right not to be advertised to”

Bu9818
0 replies
16h16m

They aren't preventing you from using a content filter nor are they making it difficult to scrape the site. The counter measures against this are the problem.

alpaca128
0 replies
17h2m

And yet they don't tell you to turn off your adblocker

Conscat
2 replies
19h50m

All respect to Michael Larabel's reporting itself, but opening a Phoronix article and seeing a dozen ad embeds which constitute most of the page weight is a frequent reminder to me that I live in heck.

vkazanov
0 replies
18h52m

It should be a reminder to just pay for Michael's work.

JoshTriplett
0 replies
18h22m

The ads are nothing compared to the comments section. I'd happily start paying, if they deleted the comments section entirely.

simion314
1 replies
21h22m

I can't find the original source, but there are many articles that claim that FBI recommends ad blockers, the ad networks made the internet unsafe so we need to setup ad blockers on our and our family computers.

josefresco
0 replies
20h50m

This piqued my interest and lo and behold they do!

"Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches. Most internet browsers allow a user to add extensions, including extensions that block advertisements. These ad blockers can be turned on and off within a browser to permit advertisements on certain websites while blocking advertisements on others."

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

heads
1 replies
18h17m

It is difficult to take the complaint terribly seriously when part of their case against Adblock Plus is that it “violates the freedom of the press”.

Imagine if newspapers were free and supported by ads, but only had ads in the top 2” x 2” corner, on the outside edge of the paper. Imagine also that I sold a kind of square knife-press that you could use to stamp-cut the ads out all in one go. No one would seriously claim I was doing something wrong — just move the ads around to random places on each page!

Is it laziness that stops publishers from shipping targeted ads from their own servers, inlined in the content in a way that cannot be distinguished from article images or text?

jefftk
0 replies
15h26m

> Is it laziness that stops publishers from shipping targeted ads from their own servers, inlined in the content in a way that cannot be distinguished from article images or text?

No, it's about fraud. With your proposal advertisers have to trust publishers really will show their ads, and unless the publisher is very large and has a reputation to protect advertisers pretty reasonably don't trust them.

(We do actually see what you're proposing, with YouTube, Facebook, Google Search, etc)

You could do this by having the ad networks serve the pages, reverse proxying to the publisher and inserting the ads. And then the publisher page can run its verification scripts, instead of the ads running verification scripts. But that gives us a web served by Google, Criteo, AppNexus, etc. which would be pretty sad.

Justsignedup
1 replies
21h11m

Unfortunately devs don't get a vote, we're just too much of a minority. Remember IE6? It took google literally firing all guns to de-throne it, and they did it because they injected a message with every google search to use chrome.

Unfortunately... i don't know what we can do, even if the entire dev community gives google the finger.

IlliOnato
0 replies
19h51m

In Europe, Firefox usage was 30-40% (depending on a country) before Chrome has arrived.

wdr1
0 replies
17h54m

It's worth noting that Eyeo makes money by being paid to not block ads. This article estimates it at 55M euro in 2020.

https://www.startbase.com/news/adblock-plus-mutter-eyeo-waec...

I can understand defining a standard for acceptable ads.

I can understand allowing ads that meet that standard.

What I struggle with is allowing ads that meet that standard AND require payment.

userbinator
0 replies
20h37m

IMHO this is just a small part of a bigger struggle -- the right to use the browser of your choice (and thus one that also presents content the way you want), and by extension, the rest of your software and hardware environment.

simonblack
0 replies
16h10m

The way I see it, is that I have a choice whether to pay* for ads that are forced on me without my consent, or whether to block that advertising content.

The website owner has the choice to allow me to see his website ad-free, or to refuse my access to his website altogether.

That's OK. I can survive if I don't see his website at all. OTOH, if he blocks out too many of us, there won't be sufficient eyes on his advertising anyway.

* pay for the ads I see? Yes. I have many times been in the situation where I had a small monthly quota of data such that my total data allowance per day was only 60 MB. It doesn't take many 5 MB advertisements to complete use up my meagre daily data allowance.

rldjbpin
0 replies
9h36m

i have a straightforward principle for using the Web and serving a part of it: both parties have the right to serve and consume the content as they choose to.

all this shaming by content owners who tend to continue pushing more intrusive ads is being rather unfair. at the same time, i don't see any issues with them witholding access to content if we try to bypass their intended use.

today serving content at a reasonable level has never been this cheap. if you serve a 2MB webpage for 500 word piece, then it serves you right when you complain about how much it costs you to run it. using that argument to moral policing only goes so far.

mynameisnoone
0 replies
18h14m

Unfortunately, there isn't yet a corresponding human right to not being blocked for using an adblocker.

more_corn
0 replies
16h29m

Advertisers like to claim that their content is speech. While this might be true I’d classify advertising as attempted manipulation.

The advertiser only wins when they convince me to do something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. Often that thing is not in my best interest. Buying a new car is great for advertisers. It’s a terrible financial decision for me.

Advertisers succeed by manipulating consumer behavior in ways that harm the consumer. Protecting myself from harmful manipulation is not only my right but I’d be an idiot not to do it.

Companies that prevent me from protecting myself from manipulation earn my ire. Fighting against Adblock makes you a bad company, and people who do it are doing a bad thing. What do we call people who do bad things? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

matrix87
0 replies
17h47m

According to Axel Springer, Eyeo’s business model constituted: ... a violation of freedom of the press

Wah, cry me a river. Some corporation making hundreds of millions of dollars thinks it has a right to run malware on people's computers, just so the executives can line their pockets with more money. Maybe they should spend some of those millions and figure out a less stupid monetization strategy instead of trying to dream up a bunch of laws that suit them

mathgradthrow
0 replies
20h17m

How you choose to render bits that are served to you is as fundamentally your right as whether you choose to leave your eyes open, or read text that has been put in front of you.

Moreover, your right to not be spied on for you browser configuration is the same as your right to not have your irises tracked. This isn't even close.

macguyvermectin
0 replies
11h38m

I think it should be obvious that I have a right to decide whether server-imposed JavaScript and CSS will run on my computer. If I only want HTML to render, that’s my prerogative. And if a site’s HTML isn’t useable without CSS and JS, then that site is defective and I’ll black hole its domain on local DNS.

If this breaks websites’ business models, that’s their problem, not mine. I don’t have bareback sex with strangers and I don’t visit random websites without uBlock Origin.

lee
0 replies
19h33m

I'm totally fine with this.

Content is paid with your eyeballs or with money. If you're not willing to pay with your eyeballs, then you shouldn't get the content. I think that's fair.

In China where copyright laws aren't enforced, there's simply no economic incentive for producers to create content...let's not go there.

cdme
0 replies
15h21m

If you don’t want me using an adblocker, you don’t want me using your site. I’m ok with that.

If your site fails because I’ve blocked your analytics suite, you have a poorly developed site.

cannedbeets
0 replies
16h37m

As long as malvertising(1) exists, adblockers are basic security hygiene. You wouldn’t click a random link, so why would you allow an ad server to execute arbitrary code on your computer?

(1) https://www.tomsguide.com/us/malvertising-what-it-is,news-19...

Terr_
0 replies
15h40m

I'd also raise the issue if liability, for when that advertisement is a scam or a vehicle for malware Javascript or buffer-overflowing media.

If I have some kind of legal obligation to permit their system to do stuff on my computer, then surely they must have have some level of liability for what that stuff does or enables.