2y ago

Saying that using an adblocker is immoral is no different than saying that it is immoral to switch the TV channel in a commercial break

just that the TV commercial looks back at you through the TV and the TV follows you around everywhere, wherever you go, whatever you do, taking note of everything to get to know every single detail about you, every interest, every prejudice, every weakness of yours, to get to know you like no person, no matter how close to you does, like not even yourself do to use that information to influence you most effectively to the TV channel's and the advertiser's advantage, to manipulate you, to sell this information about you to other companies like insurances who use the power that this knowledge provides over you to extract every last cent of money from you, to sell you.

18 comments

You know what's immoral? Advertising medicine. Advertising surgery breakfast foods to kids. Advertising garbage fast food to kids.
That's immoral, not adblockers.
- I love a big bowl of surgery for breakfast
  
  Mm delicious triple bypass
- You know what's immoral? Advertising
  Just this would do.
- It seems I’m stupid because I don’t understand what you imply when you say advertising medicine is immoral
  
  Because people shouldn't be convinced to take a medicine based on good marketing. They should get advice from a good source like a doctor.
  
  It's illegal in Europe for example. Because it's big pharma basically pushing unnecessary drugs on people.

A reminder that this war isn't new, even before the mass consolidation of TV stations, they got together to standardize commercial break timing so it didn't matter if you changed the channel because you were just switching to commercials on another channel

Considering that everyone can be targeted by "bad actors" ... by even ads on search engines (see https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/-nitrogen-ransomware-effort-lures-it-pros-via-google-bing-ads ) adblockers are as immoral as a knight wearing armor because it's an "unfair advantage". Sorry, but no one I know wants ransomware installed on their computers.

I don't think that's quite right. The act of changing the channel wouldn't have impacted the station's ad revenue because the tech couldn't tell if the ad was served. On YouTube you actually deprive the site of ad revenue with an ad blocker. And if enough people do it, you could also deprive creators of material earnings.
- So fucking what?
  
  So it's not the best analogy.
- Well, historically ad revenue for TV is based on viewership, right? I'm not 100% sure how that was calculated before streaming, but I would think that changing the channel would still affect those numbers, albeit in a more gradual way. It would still have a similar effect, just not as immediate.
  It's important to differentiate "immoral" from "consequences." The consequences of adblockers/changing the channel is that it may impact content creators, but that doesn't make it immoral.
  
  It was calculated by a sample of households with a tracker box

It is, because you don't switch the channel, you decide to skip the commercials that are meant to finance it.
I think they are immoral beyond any doubt, but many websites are acting immoral as well, which justifies their use. I happily disable them for sites with an ethical approach to advertising and data collection.

18 comments