hustlegrinder
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User ID: 719
hustlegrinder
2yr ago
Can anyone offer me an argument in favor of ad-blockers that doesn't amount to some kind of misanthropic "The system, man, it's broken; so whatever I do against the system is a-ok"? I really can't even create a steelman for the ad-block position.
First, tracking is in fact a big problem and ad blockers are a practical solution to it. The adoption of ad blockers, by crippling the ability to track users in browsers, incentivises the ad networks to develop other ways to deliver ads that don't rely on tracking to such extent. See for example https://www.ethicalads.io/ . Hopefully that reduces the amount of surveillance that's going on.
Second, ad-blockers may need to be discouraged, but definitely shouldn't be banned; the last thing we need are more regulations on what we are and aren't allowed to run on our hardware. If the content creators and other businesses want their users to engage with ads or otherwise bring revenue, that's great, and such businesses should ensure that by means of technology or by the choice of their business model. Consider what Apple is doing with iOS, they arguably imposed a greater restriction on the vast majority of their users (in that all the apps and purchases have to go through the App Store), meanwhile jailbreaking your iPhone is legal and always has been. Or, in fact, see the recent efforts by Google. No regulation is necessary here.
hustlegrinder
2yr ago
Web advertisement itself is a great thing. It solves a big, important problem - connecting businesses and customers, at low cost and awesome efficiency. Besides, the narrative about all-powerful, mind-controlling demonic ads really needs to go away, Dall-E or no Dall-E. I suggest anyone who takes this seriously to switch off the ad blocker for a few minutes and go watch some actual ads, "touch the grass" so to speak. What you'll most likely find is a picture of the product with a price sticker superimposed on it, and maybe some kind of a product description. If you're lucky you may stumble upon an ad that's a bit more creative. Either way, it's not a hypnotic pattern devised by a malicious AI superintelligence with the purpose of injecting irresistible desire to buy into your head.
The real value here is about matching the product ad with the people who actually want it to buy it. The ad networks collect all kinds of data from the user, then use it to decide what ads to show him. That kind of thing allows you to find a paying customer for a few dollars. It's a nice, valuable service that solves an important problem. Try it sometime. Build something useful and sell it on the internet - you'll grow to appreciate the ads. Improving ad network capabilities, that are by the way vastly overestimated by many people including yourself, would be awesome. It would mean that instead of garbage ads peddling things of no interest to you, you'd see ads for things you really need right now (also no, a facebook ad cannot make you buy something you don't want to buy). It would also mean that it'd be easier and cheaper to start or scale a business.
If we don't want to devolve into a horrid anarcho-capitalist future
The sad thing about the advertisement industry, however, is that in all likelihood the ads aren't leading us into a capitalist paradise. The side effect of collecting user data for the purpose of serving better ads (the good), is that a whole lot of user data ends up centralised in an ad network's data centers (the bad), and then one way or another ends up in the hands of the state surveillance system (the ugly). The amount and nature of that data is such that it can be used to trace it back to you as a person. There isn't anything remotely "anarcho" about that.
Perhaps we can re-engineer the ad industry so that it doesn't have to collect that much data about the user. I don't think the ad companies would be against that, provided that the quality doesn't drop. That's not a problem that's going to be solved by regulation, though, for obvious reasons.
I think it can be argued that being able to install an ad blocker is within the standard controls of a web browser as a medium.
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