Adblock from an Advertiser, and Adblock from Me
By insanejedi 86 Comments
So it's not surprising that after this weeks episode of Scoops and The Wolf (great video series, keep it up) that both Alex and Patrick's opinions would set the internet world on fire about the discussion on Adblock.
What's bothersome is that writers and journalists are ultimately going to be baised on this topic for the sole reason that most if not all writers and journalist all over the internet rely on advertising to keep the lights on and feed their families.
So ultimately opinions like
don't see the light of day in charge of having a fair conversation over the topic.
I'm not going to repost the whole thing here, but you should definitely check it out as it's adblock from the perspective of someone who actually works in advertising. Needless to say he represents a strong view from the other side of the debate on this topic.
A quote that sums up the point nicely is this one.
Here’s the problem with all the attempts to shame someone for using Adblock - you as an owner of a computer have an innate right to protect your shit by any means necessary. You have zero obligation to risk viruses and other malicious content on computer, regardless of some pretentious “content creator’s” “revenue stream,” and fuck them if they try to make you feel guilty for it. A large part of web ads are malicious, misogynist, full of malware/ransomware, and are a risk to your computer - the sooner the people behind websites stop playing the victim, clutching pearls and calling everyone on the Internet thieves, and abandon this revenue model, the better off we’ll all be.
Now I come from someone of a different perspective who is interested in computer security systems and the like. Ultimately going to any website in the world all you see coming back are packets of data. You own your computer, you own the hardware, and you have the right to do whatever you want to decide what data you want to filter to your computer. You are the receiver of the packets and it doesn't make any sense how you have some obligation to receive all the packets, instead of choosing to see the packets you want on a computer YOU OWN.
It's just like you have no obligation to open junk snail mail, pick up telemarketer calls, look, see, or hear anyone's advertising.
Alex makes the point that you can justify it 1000 ways but at the end of the day you are just stealing peoples money from their pockets. Guess what though? It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility to get someone else's salery paid, and it's not your problem if the business model they choose is not working. Someone out there relies on telemarketing calls, high pressure used car sales, and even junk mail to feed their families. Does that mean you should pick up every phone call and actually talk to them? Are you a human piece of shit for switching the channel on your TV when ads come on so their ratings clearly go down whenever ads come on? It's not your problem.
If you are relying on a system that requires 1's and 0's to be sent and and actively viewed by another persons computer that they own, and probably don't want to see those 1's and 0's, to pay rent and feed yourself, maybe you should think about a different more reliable system of revenue that isn't so easily circumvented.
After Patrick calmed down it seemed that he realized this.
BTW, I regret my "die in a fire" joke. People can do what they want. Biz models aren't really their concern, but I care about good content.
— Patrick Klepek (@patrickklepek) August 26, 2013
The other tweet was that people who use adblock should die in a fire before he deleted it.
What's bothersome but predictable is that this conversation shows the double standard when it comes to consumer rights and content providers and that this really isn't about some big moral stance about advertising, it's just that people are looking after themselves.
@Le_Saboteur @shinyghostore @giantbomb In our case, if you're a subscriber, that matters less because you don't really see ads anyway.
— Alex Navarro (@alex_navarro) August 26, 2013
Even during Scoops and the Wolf I just got the vibe that "Adblock is fine, so long as you don't do it to us."
Which then who cares about the guy down the next IP address right? That's whatever though, looking out for yourself is the normal thing to do, just don't be surprised when your audience does it as well.
And for all of those predicting the doom of the internet if adblock was to be used everywhere, grow up and realize the business doesn't run on sensationalist bullshit that the whole internet shuts down and every website is paid content.
What's more likely to happen is something akin to Free-to-Play games where some free content is placed on a website which subscribers will have to pay more to see more content on the website. Huh, sounds like a business model that is already in place today.
Two: realize that advertisers and websites are not really trying that hard to prevent adblock systems. I mean the way websites run ads are empty spaces that run advertisers URL's on another persons website thus being able to be black listed so easily. Twitch TV video players and how their advertising works on videos have two video players running at once and the other video player is controlled by the advertisers thus making blacklisting so easy. Just making the websites put up the advertisements on the native website would totally wreck havoc on the adblock system because it would be hard to detect if the image is from an advertiser or if it is actually a genuine piece of content on the website. Just that one simple thing alone would cause adblock problems. If Twich instead of running two players, just ran one player that ran ads and the content producer, it would also break the adblock system.
It's the classic armor vs firepower fight, someone's going to make a bullet penetrate your bullet proof vest, and someone is going to make a bullet proof vest to stop your armor piercing bullets. It's just that right now one side is barely trying. I can't really see screaming about the end of the internet when the other side isn't really trying hard to prevent this from happening.
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