I read a blog post by Marco Arment on the ethics of ad-blocking, and while I generally enjoyed his post, it was his use of the term "ethics" that gave me pause. Is it really potentially unethical (i.e. morally wrong) to block an ad? I understand the consequence if every internet user were able to block ads 100% effectively might quickly lead to a very different internet, but is that wrong? The other day at a doctor's office, I thumbed through the ads of a People magazine so quickly, I effectively "blocked" them. If anything, the waste (IMHO) of paper in a magazine more ads than article was the offense there. I routinely mute my television and pay attention to some electronic device when commercials come on, and don't consider myself a monster for doing so.
So where is all this rambling going? I guess it's just I seem to be seeing more and more online discussion of the right and wrong, aka "ethics", of ad and tracker blocking, and I'm not seeing a moral dilemma here.
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[–] HowAboutShutUp 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago
My computer, my internet connection, my rules.
If web ads were more like highway billboards (easy to ignore, giving them your attention is totally optional, they're not in the way of what you're doing) than tv commercials made by third rate hucksters with no quality control and rampant fraud and malware, on a tv that runs the same ads on every channel, I might consider not blocking ads. Advertisers don't have a right to advertise to me, and they don't "deserve" my attention, they need to earn it.
Basically fuck them and the horse they rode in on, and if they want to cry about it, fuck them twice over. I hope the pain gets worse as more and more people block ads til they're forced to quit being unreasonable fuckfaces about the way they advertise. Ads should be something that I see when I look away from the content I came for (i.e. ads should be banished to the bottoms and corners of sites), not what I have to make an effort to avoid just to read/see what I actually went to a webpage for.