They are willing to serve my general-purpose computer a stream of data over the wire. What I do with that stream of data is none of their business. It's as simple as that. If they want me to view that data only if some conditions are met, it's their right - but they have to enforce it before sending the data, and not retroactively complaining afterwards. There's no moral issue here, except publishers trying to guilt-trip people into viewing ads, because they're too scared of actually asking for money[0]. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
[0] - rightly so, but that's a feature of capitalism, isn't it?
Even getting entirely away from the argument that ad networks can host malicious code, it's quite simple. I send a burst of information to a server. The server sends a burst of information back. I then decode the information to reveal a set of instructions.
Demanding that I execute all these instructions without exception is like a subscription service sending me a newsletter in the mail and demanding that if I pick it up, I've somehow agreed to read the whole thing, beginning to end, out loud. Absurdity.
>No they are not. They are willing to serve you pages with ads. Not pages without ads.
This is an out-and-out lie. They are willing to serve me pages without ads, because they do it every time I browse there with an ad-blocker. I make an HTTP request, their site responds. The HTML code asks me to download an ad, and I, through my ad-blocker, decline. That doesn't stop their server from sending me the content.
If they don't like that, they're perfectly free to design their site to force me to download ads in order to view the content. They have every right to, for instance, show me a video ad, and then have me take a quiz to demonstrate that I viewed the ad and remember it, before continuing on to the rest of the site. If they don't want to do this, that's their problem, not mine.
>No ads = they don't exist = no content.
It's not my job to worry about their business model.
>My bet is that companies just find a way around ad-blocking
Well, they could just embed the ads into the page, such as by serving them from the same domain and making it non-obvious which images are ads and which are not. People have been proposing this for ages. But the ad companies don't like it because they don't trust their own clients to accurately report ad-servings. Again, not my problem. They need to fix their own business model. If they can't do that, and go out of business, that's their problem. They should have done a better job coming up with a viable business model.
This may sound greedy to you, but for you to have the absolute gall of telling people that they need to expose their computers to malware is purely asinine.
"This is an out-and-out lie. They are willing to serve me pages without ads, because they do it every time I browse there with an ad-blocker"
You people are naively deluded.
" No ads = they don't exist = no content.
It's not my job to worry about their business model."
You don't seem to grasp the realpolitik here.
No ads = no content - in the long run.
Get it?
You don't seem to grasp the math here.
If there are no ads, they, and all their peers cease to exist.
Or else they go full paywall.
I'm not even making an ideological statement - although I could very well do that, I don't need to.
Do you know the reason that there are maybe 1/3 the number of foreign correspondents for major news networks - and why there is so little coverage of Middle East etc? Because CNN now competes with click-farms like Buzzfeed. Less revenue = less product.
So it's the 'choice' consumers make.
These things don't exist in a vacuum they are real.
You don't want ads, you don't want to pay - they you are 'de facto' saying you don't want the content in the long run.
There is no argument against this - you can rant and rave as much as you want about side issues such as 'the http stream belongs to me' yada yada yada - it's totally irrelevant.
No ads (or pay, or donations) = no content.
It's as simple as that.
"This may sound greedy to you, but for you to have the absolute gall of telling people that they need to expose their computers to malware is purely asinine."
No - I am not exposing people to malware by suggesting that they 'not use ad blockers'. Because 99.9% of the world does not use adblockers and don't face such malware problems. I'm not even suggesting they 'not use ad blockers'. I'm merely pointing out the reality of the situation.
Denying reality is the only 'asinine' thing going on here.
If there are no ads, they, and all their peers cease to exist....Or else they go full paywall.
You didn't mention the other options -- publishers could get together and come up with a micropayment standard so users can pay the few cents for each view that the advertiser would have earned from ads.
I use an ad blocker, not because I am opposed to paying for content I view, but because ads are annoying and distracting, and I'd be happy to pay them the money they are earning from ads.
But what I'm not willing to do is pay "just $3.99 for unlimited access to our site!". I'm not going to pay $50/year for access to a site that I might only visit a couple times a month or less.
But let me fund $10 a month into a micropayment account, and then dole out payment for each page view, and I'll gladly sign up -- as long as it's an open standard so with one funding account I can visit pretty much any micropayment site.
If it was just paying publishers a portion per page that would be okay. I don't like this setup of trying and sometimes failing to outbid ads at whatever price that keyword is this second.
> What makes you think they're bidding against ads?
"Here’s how it works: when Contributor users visit a site in Google’s network, their monthly contribution is used to bid on their behalf in the ad auction—so they, rather than an advertiser, end up buying the ad slot."
> It allows you to do what you described as wanting for most sites, and you're not going to use it because it's not perfect? You should try it.
Someone being able to pay extra to get past my ad blocking is not what I want. Nor do I like the way money is allocated from such a system. But beyond that, being adsense-only means it doesn't affect the worst quarter of ads, and I can't even lobby those sites or ad networks to join the micropayment system. Also the system I want has a "this site tricked me, don't give them money" button.
If it could merge with flattr and invite other companies, then it would have a real path forward toward an ad-free landscape and I would be much more willing to use it.
> Realpolitik will very quickly trump any ideological arguments.
Waiting for it. Because I predict that with ads gone, the content that will be gone is the worthless kind. People are fine with sharing stuff for free out of the goodness of their heart, and they're also fine with asking for money for their services.
The problem with ads is that ad-driven sites serve content created only to support their ad-driven business model.
I always think it's funny when people point out that all the ad-driven content would be gone if nobody viewed ads. So what? I'd pay for the few things that were really worth it, and the rest would be provided by people who just wanted to share. That would be amazing.
Meh. Some of this "content" doesn't really qualify as content, though. I suspect a lot of sites on the bubble of being eliminated by ad blocking are just derivative, reposting sites, and should probably be culled from the herd anyway. For example, how many "Apple news" sites do we really need, posting and reposting the same dubious rumor eleventy-seven times?
It seems fairly easy. Even when ads are being blocked, images on the page are not blocked. So the content creators will need to dump the ad networks and host the ad images on their own servers. If it is impossible for the ad blocker to tell the difference between a content image and an ad image it can't block the ads without blocking all the images. Of course I realize that this is far from ideal. Now there is no ad tracking. And each content creator has to roll their own ad image system (including hiring sales people to get companies to purchase ad space, handling the payment system, etc.). And so forth.
>My bet is that companies just find a way around ad-blocking.
No they won't. The entire way the web works gives far more control to the client with regards to what they do and don't see. There will never be a way around ad blocking.
No they are not. They are willing to serve you pages with ads. Not pages without ads.
The logic that you guys use is pretty twisted.
These companies exist because of ads.
No ads = they don't exist = no content.
In the long run:
A) They will find a way around it in which case you will see ads.
or B) They will all be about of business, in which case you get no content.
Nothing is free, everything takes time and energy from someone else.
"is also none of their damn business" obviously it's 'their business'. It is literally their business :)
My bet is that companies just find a way around ad-blocking.
It'll be interesting to see just how.