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Why It's OK to Block Ads (2015)

blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk Why It's OK to Block Ads | Practical Ethics

Over the past couple of months, the practice of ad blocking has received heightened ethical scrutiny. (1,2,3,4) If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “ad blocking” refers to software—usually web browser plug-ins, but increasingly mobile apps—that stop most ads from appearing when you use websites or a...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/560483

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Why It's OK to Block Ads (2015)

blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk /2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/

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I used ad blocker but I cannot imagine a world without ads. What does discoverablity look like in a world without ads?
I think ads have the same issue as content recommendation algo, that being that they're bad but useful.
- @Auth @floofloof
  IMHO: Advertisment is another word for recommendation. While advertisment is seen as bad a recomendation isn't.
  So what advertisment never made happen is making themself usefull to the consumer. Most consumer want maybe a !!! usefull recommendation !!! but not someone trying to force you to buy a certain product.
  So what was the time before ads ... it never existet ... even before tv radio had advertisment. Even back in this day people hated the advertisment and did music recordings cutting the advertisment and talking out.
  Some old people might remember press record ... press stop ... rewind a little bit ... and all of this.
  The alternative was to pay alot of money for music ...
  
  Word of mouth existed long before advertising, and as for algorithmic discoverability retailers do a fine job of that already.
  
  Ads try to make useful recommendations thats why google puts so much effort into trying to figure out who you are. Companies today can suggest their products to exactly who they think would most want them. But this comes with the downsides of user privacy.
  If we had no ads then companies would pretend to be real people and make product suggestions. We can never escape it.

56 comments