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Does Adblock Violate A Social Contract?
almondjoy writes "Newsforge is currently running a story on Firefox extensions where the author states the following regarding use of the AdBlock extension: 'If you use this tool ... there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a 'social contract' between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing' Would you be volating a social contract hitting the 30sec skip button on Tivo? Or putting a strip of paper across the bottom of our TV screen to block out those super annoying scrolling banners? I have found that using the combination of AdBlock and FlashBlock extensions in Firefox has greatly enhanced my browsing experience. Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?"
Doesn't SPAM violate the same contract.
The thing advertisers don't seem to get is that you don't sell products by annoying the hell out of people. Pop-ups, pop-unders, floating ads, the all singing all dancing flash ads, anything that blinks or wants you to answer a trivia question, ad infested web pages that have half a page of text and require you to hit the next button to continue to the next page. These are all ANNOYING, that is why people are blocking or otherwise avoiding them.
You don't see people going to extreme lengths to block Google text ads. Why? Because they are fairly unobtrusive, yet still visible enough for people to see them.
If advertisers don't want me using Adblock they should use small, unobtrusive, static images and I will happily turn it off. But until then, they can whine and complain all they want. Just my two cents...
What gets me is that arguably, social cotract was first violated by offending websites and ad-server ppl in general, with things like popups, glaringly bad animation (ie, flashing colors, etc). Not to mention the EVIL doubleclick and their "we will track your ass... try and avoid us, punk" attitude. Which is what I believe the adblock authors were trying to control/avoid/defeat.
I won't adblock a server/ad that's generally nice or doesn't get in the way of my browsing... think google or other text-based adverts, or even non-animated, "non-epilepsy inducing" image ads. THATs a real social contract... because google/etc know that their revenue relies on their good behavior. I respect that.
Finally, on a dialup (like at my parents place), adblock SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance. I think removal of bloat is impressively important for non-broadband folks, and that's another case of advertisers "messing with social contract". I especially hated it when the page would load fast, but the ad at the top woudl sit there and hold up the entire page from rendering. WTF.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I also don't feel bad about not watching most commercials on TV or ripping the DVD's I buy and removing al the crap from them. I paid for the product, I don't want to see more ads. I pay about $140 a month to my cable company for Digital cable, Digital Broadband and a Digital phone. The least the cable company can do is get rid of ads for me, though I know that day will never come.
The only ad content I don't make an effort to block are text based ads like Google uses. I have no problem with those types of ads since they do not distract me. The day most/all web ads are text based and don't flash to "get your attention" is the day that I will stop using adblock and flashblock to block web ads. Oh, and adblock has two modes: "remove images" and "hide images". The "remove images" option doesn't download the images and the "hide images" option downloads but doesn't display them. So if you want to surf a site and still help out the web advertiser, just use "hide images", though I use "remove images" so I can get faster page load times.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
If a commercial website can't support itself via its audience, that website should die. If the users of the website are sufficiently motivated to pay for content, they will, and it will survive. Here's a hint: if you need to be paid, then be up-front and honest about it (eg: LWN). If your worth preserving, you'll be fine.
There is no such thing as an implied or "social" contract - by their very nature, contracts are not implications! The whole terminology is a marketing exercise designed to appeal to the "guilt" that just because someone is giving you something, you ought to pay for it.
Sheesh! Social contracts! What next ? Breathing contracts ?
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Stated that websites weren't allowed to pop-up advertisements. When they started to do so, a renegotiation of the contract became necessary, and the new contract states that while web sites may attempt to pop up windows, I am free to disallow that on my system.
If web sites have a problem with this, they need to learn to read the fine print before they sign.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
There can't be any social contract between people who haven't even communicated with each other.
Social contract or not it is really my choice whether or not I want something displayed on my screen. If the revenue generated from ads on a particular website is suffering to the point of not being profitable then perhaps it is time to look at new ways of making money. You can't try to enforce some form of draconian control over everyone's computers. This is my machine and I will decide what is downloaded, displayed, and run on it.
I would have to say that the social contract that's being broken are by the people advertising. I've been browsing the web since it's inception with HTML and the like. The things that's been invaded is my space, not the other way around with me blocking it.
Adblock, flash block, block images from this server will always win out with me.
There's an old saying that seems appropriate here:
Free speech is the right to say whatever you want; it's not the right to make people listen.
There are always bozos who actually buy things they get spammed about, which is why spammers continue doing what they do. It would be nice to fine the companies whose products are being pushed by spam as a way to combat this, but then of course companies would aim to have their competitors fined. Better, I think, to just shoot the spammers on recognition :)
In any case, using Adblock is a good way to deal with things until a more permanent and global solution to end internet advertising can be found.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Why should this be different on the internet?
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
This "social contract" BS is something marketers dreamed up to make it "bad" to block their ads. The TV people say the same thing about how you're "breaking contract" by muting commercials, getting up off your duff for a drink, or skipping past them on a recording you made.
I didn't sign any contract. I didn't agree to any ToS. I don't want to see your commercials, so poo on you.
Same thing can be said about.. Popup blockers and Spyware removers. Are they breaking a "social contract" by removing the spyware/blocking popups that some sites/apps use? I understand what the article is saying but but they could have worded it better.
The idea of a "social contract" is just a scam some people use to con other people into thinking they have obligations that they never actually agreed to. Any real contract is written down and signed by the parties agreeing to it.
And conversely, should we implictly pay for the bandwidth to receive content we neither requested nor wanted? I think not.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Advertising exploits a coincidence. It is not an obligation on the viewer. I don't enter into any agreement, implied or otherwise, with /. when I come here looking for content. That I happen to look at the ad on the top of the page as a consequence is a side effect that slashdot and other web sites choose to capitalize on them. Good for them. If and when most or all users start blocking ads, they'll have to find another means to survive, or just close up shop.
It isn't your customers obligation to fund your business. It's your obligation to satisfy your customers sufficiently well that they fund your business. Not many companies seem to remember that.
Adverisers took the social contract, ripped it into fifty billion pieces, then get upset when we don't abide by our side of the contract?
Look, I am perfectly willing to see reasonable, well placed ads. I am seeing a Vonage banner ad above Slashdot write now. I am NOT forced to see intrusive, obnoxious crap that intereferes with the reason why I use the service. Anything that requires me to "click" on it to send it away qualifies as abusive intereference, and should be outlawed.
Morons think "If I can get them involved, they will pay more attention to my ad" Instead most consumers get ANGRY at both the site that is abusing them and the moron company that thinks "bad pr is better than no pr".
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The Social Contract cuts both ways, and I don't see advertisers holding up their end of the bargain with truthful ads. Are the boobs in True's advertising blitz actually using the service? Methinks not. Does clicking here actually get a free iPod? Methinks not. Does whatever those damn strobing ads ... nevermind, no.
When media sites start carrying advertising that's not disrespectful of their audience's intelligence, then I'll worry about bypassing it disturbing a social contract, but while its not adhering to the social contract itself then they can bite my shiney metal ass.
Quite simply, sites that put ads on their page depend on the profit from those ads to support themselves. The page authors chose to put those ads there. If you don't want to see the ads, then you have no right to view the content. If you refuse to see the ads, you should find your content on another website.
Reading the content of a web page is not a right, it is a privilege afforded to you by the website's author and it comes with strings attached, like ads.
It is unfortunate that so many websites choose to use popups and horrible flashy ads that don't entice people to click anyway to make a profit. But you should take that up with the webmasters.
Just like downloading music on a p2p system is a violation of copyright law. You have no social right to listen to that music. You have no social right to see a webpage with its ads filtered out.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
Indeed, ignoring the gratuitous reference to a "social contract": put simply, AdBlock is not in any way "unethical" because advertisers pay on the assumption that they'll make money. If they don't think a certain type of advertising will generate revenue, they won't use it. Why won't advertisers mount megaphones on the top of cars screeching "NIVEA HAND CREAM!" in residential areas? Because it would piss people off, make them less likely to buy Nivea hand cream; or, more importantly, just be ignored. I use AdBlock not primarily because I don't like having to see advertising per se, but (A) because busy, moving, flashing ads interrupt my browsing experience and (B) because I have never clicked on an ad in my decade-plus internet experience. Most advertisers pay on clickthrus, and I bet that most AdBlock users, like me, would never clickthru anyway. Indeed, if I didn't use AdBlock I'd end up making more corporate enemies than I do by using it--"Eugh! That Pepsi Flash ad is horrendous! I'm never buying Pepsi again!" If AdBlock use affects advertising revenues, then advertisers will come up with a better way to sell their product. If it doesn't, they won't. Somewhere in the middle, they'll make advertising even more pernicious; but Mozilla's development platform means they'll always be someone around to program a way to get around their get around. Isn't OSS great?
Has acceptance of web sites crammed with advertising content become part of my social contract with society?
The answer is yes. You get the content for free, the ads pay for the site.
Of course, "social contract" is just a PC euphamism for "not being a dick".
Blocking the ads makes you a dick, and does violate the "social contract". Lots of good sites are gone forever because of the attitude that "nobody has the right to show me advertisements".
However, when a site is "crammed with ads", or has popups or hijacks your browser, tries to mislead you, etc, then the webmaster has violated HIS side of the social contract (that is, he's being a dick).
There are worse atrocities in the world than a little advertising. I don't know why everyone has to be such a douchebag about it. I mean, having a speakeasy ad at the top of this page isn't going to be the end of my world.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I don't think it's about a social contract, what it comes down to is that I will NEVER buy something simply because I saw it in an ad. I don't buy things based on ads, I buy things when someone cool says it's cool (Penny Arcade is a good example.) I can't remember ever buying something because of an advertisment. Even a TV commercial. (The exception, I think, is the Saturday/Sunday newspaper ads from CompUSA and Best Buy and Circuit City, but that's only because I'm already looking for something and they just happen to have it on sale) Since I'm NEVER going to buy something based on an online advertisment... aren't I saving the advertisers bandwidth from not downloading their ad? More to the point, aren't Adblock users as a whole saving advertisers a quantifiable amount of bandwidth (money) by not downloading ads for things they aren't going to buy?
Finally, on a dialup (like at my parents place), adblock SIGNIFICANTLY improves performance.
Thank you!
I'm still on dial-up (free from university), and I often use Adblock in this way. Many pages I frequent have some images that simply waste bandwidth. For instance, I have blocked a lot of the images on my on-line banking website so that the response time is better. Getting rid of those images cuts down how long I'm dialed in.
Social or not, a contract represents an *agreement* among people or groups. To have a valid contract, first there must be a common agreement that the terms of that contract are actually valid. Our at-large social contract works because, on the whole, people agree that there are certain rules we must live by in order for society to work.
However, there has NEVER, implicitly or otherwise, been any sort of common agreement that society *must* endure advertising, regardless of degree of intrusion or method of delivery. When TV and radio were first brought on the air, the idea that commercial advertising would allow them to survive was not a given. The fact that it *did* allow them to survive happened to come to pass, but then again, there were no technological means for the public to manipulate the medium for their own benefit - for a while. However, there was no obligation for society to absorb content broadcast to them, and indeed when options became available, they were used.
When the first tape players became available, there *were* arguments and court cases regarding recording off the air, whether it was "legal" to listen while skipping recordings, etc. These arguments have all been had before. And consistently, it has been recognized that people hvae no inherent "obligation" to absorb content in any way other than however they see fit.
I have no obligation to read the ads in a magazine. I have no obligation not to turn down the dial on the radio when commercials come on. I have no obligation to sit by idly while pop-up windows dance across my desktop. THERE IS NO SUCH CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT, social or otherwise. If my actions, and the actions of millions of others, somehow cause those broadcasting content discomfort or loss, that's their problem, not mine.
I have no obligation to support *any* business model for anyone else. Indeed, if there were such an obligation, then society could never evolve or adapt to change, could it?
In short - that's just plain old horse manure.
Ignoring expicit ads on web pages will drive the adoption of ads embedded in the content, which you will be impossible to block.
Be careful.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
A point that is missed by lots of people, and even myself when I don't actively think about it, is that since we're using web browsers that aren't subject to hijacking or spyware, we don't see the other reason to get mad at web site owners and advertisers.
As far as I'm concerned, they've violated any form of 'social contract' en masse by hijacking peoples' PCs for new ways of delivering ads. I believe that installing software through bugs in the web browser is tantamount to breaking into someones' computer. Companies that design and implement such software, and other companies that contract for their ads to be delivered should be prosecuted and their owners/directors jailed for their abuses.
I also have an opinion about software companies leaving their products vulnerable for years like this, but that's for another debate.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Some advertisers think that the only way to sell to people is to get in their face, and demand their attention like a screaming child. Hence, you get crappy ad formats like Eyeblaster and Pointroll. This is a way to piss people off, more than a way to induce them to buy your product, and I think their high click rates are only due to people trying to find the "Close" button to make the ad go away. Fortunately, not all advertisers are like this. Many are starting to recognize that something big and flashy is only "cool" once and otherwise subtle and contextual is really the only way to endear you to your customers online.
Meanwhile, some users think that there should be NO ads on the internet. They think that it's their right to access their favorite sites for free and they shouldn't be bothered with the ads that actually pay for the site to exist. Many content publishers work hard to make sure their ads aren't obtrusive, fit well within their site and they fight back against the Bad Advertisers (see above) by refusing their business -- but that doesn't matter to these users. They demand free stuff!
Fortunately users and advertisers recognize there is a middle ground, and so there's still a lot of harmony in the advertising-supported-website / good-user-experience world.
But the lunatics on both sides are forcing the issue to a head. They're starting an arms race, between the AdBlock/FlashBlock software, and designing a site around advertising (instead of vice-versa). If these people keep pushing it, soon lots more free sites will be entirely done in flash (or some other proprietary format) where you can't disable the ads; and the ads will become the content itself. Increasing product placements on tv shows are just a natural evolution of advertising supported broadcasters losing money from increasing use of commercial skipping systems. Pay-tv like HBO is one answer but not the answer to everything. There can be a middle ground, but both sides have to work for it.
Sorry, but I signed no "social contract". I am not obligated to look any ads.
I hate this mentality that companies have in that "consumers" are expected to devote their lives to VIEWING ADS. Companies are just pissed that they can no longer make sheep out of those who acknowledge the problem and use wonderful tools like AdBlock.
Besides, if someone uses AdBlock, it means they don't WANT to view your ads, and if someone doesn't want to view your ads, guess what the chances are of them buying something from it? Oh, pretty slim to NONE.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
How does the fact that you paid for 'bandwidth' (being defined strictly as being able to move information into your computer from the internet) entitle you to 'content' (being defined as services and information provided to you by website creators who get their 'wages' through advertising revenues).
These are two separate things. The money you spend on bandwidth never reaches the content developers. What you are paying for bandwidth wise is similar to purchasing a garden hose. You still haven't paid for the water yet.
A social contract is between ALL people, the whole society. It is why we can punish people, even if they disagree with a law.
I won't adblock a server/ad that's generally nice or doesn't get in the way of my browsing... think google or other text-based adverts
Are the adblock programs smart enough to know what to block, and what not to block? How do they learn? Do they have some algorithm. It is a big, large web out there.
Have adblock programs ever blocked content you want?? I am assuming they block third party content, like a banner originating from a different IP address than the one you are surfing. If that is the case, won't it ban all content from third parties? Or does it have a list of advertising domains, and blocks those?
What gets me is that arguably, social cotract was first violated by offending websites and ad-server ppl in general, with things like popups, glaringly bad animation... Not to mention the EVIL doubleclick and their "we will track your ass... try and avoid us, punk" attitude
I agree 100% with everything you wrote. The advertising can be annoying.
But the problem is something different than advertising. It is a content problem. I remember when the web first went live (in the early 1990's). I can't remember any advertising. I can't remember any spam. NONE!! I don't remember websites with only one purpose, to send you to a different website. Now these websites use tricks to get a high return on google, and there are so many, it is hard finding legitimate websites. I'll give you an example- there is only one bangbus website, but there are 1000 websites trying to lead you to bangbus, each probably getting a penny for a refferal. I'll give you one more example, a better. Try doing a search for alaskan crab fishing jobs. They pay between $20,000 and $100,000 for 3-4 weeks of work. And they can't get enough people because of the high-risk nature of the work (I think over 100 die each year, tides get to be 100 feet high, you are 100 miles from shore, it is ice cold, you are wet, people lose fingers easily while trying to grab the big cages in the ocean filled with crabs). Anyways, I did a search, and outside of the State of Alaska, there is not one website I could find in the first 500 returns by google that was not selling "Make $200,000 in Alaska fish industry, send $29.99 for my book". It is all bullshit. I tried to search using words like "blog" or "experiance", I tried to limit the search to "site:edu". Then I tried searching for cruise jobs... it is even worse.
The problem is THERE ARE TOO MANY JUNK WEBSITES.
Oh, I promised to tell you what is comming next. People will hate this. Some websites are going to 100% flash for all content. They integrate their advertising in the flash. You either have to have flash turned on, or you can't use the website at all. The worst ones are where you get a 1 minute commercial flash before the website appears. Yahoo is now doing this with fantasy baseball stat tracker. You pay 7 dollars for this tool, it used to be a java applet, it is now flash. The stat tracker is a real time update of scores. The old java applet loaded quickly, and went straight to scores. The new flash now has a 30 seconds screen for GM cars, then it goes to scores.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
After some consideration, I'm going to say "No, it does not violate the social contract."
Here's why:
1. There is no such thing as a social contract, as the word contract suggests that there is a fixed and unalterably correct way of doing things. What we have are social conventions, which are flexible and ever-changing, and generally vary by region and by circumstance.
2. If one person (or corporation) decides that a certain behavior is the "appropriate" or "right" thing to do, that doesn't mean the rest of society agrees. In fact, the "right" or "appropriate" thing to do can be defined directly by whatever the majority of people are doing. By that definition, the day the majority of people skip or otherwise avoid/reduce exposure to advertising is the day that doing so is considered socially acceptable. I believe we've already reached that day.
2b. However, the link between majority behavior and socially conventional behavior is even more tenuous than that, because the behavior in question doesn't have to actually occur within a majority -- it simply has to be considered acceptable by the majority.
In the case of blocking ads on web sites, here's how this all pans out: the person presenting the web site, and paying for it with ads, would prefer that people do not block the ads so as to increase revenue. But they have no more claim to the moral high ground than someone who presents a web site and pays for it by selling personal information, and would prefer that people do not withhold their personal information so as to increase revenue.
Does that mean that lots of web sites may shut down if they can't gain enough revenue from web ads? Absolutely. But that's because the business model is flawed, not because a theoretical "social contract" has been broken.
All this seems to be is an attempt to make people feel guilty, so that they will behave the way the web site owner(s) want them to. But that's nothing more than peer pressure, except that for most people the web site owners are not considered peers, and thus their attempts to pressure will have little or no impact.
Mind you, peer pressure can be powerful, and is certainly one of the mechanisms that determines social acceptability of a certain behavior...but advertisers and content providers are not and will never be "peers" of consumers in that sense.
No signature, no verbal promise, no handshake, no nothing.
Frankly, I hate the idea of "free" websites with ads. You want to espouse your views? Pay to do so. You can share a server with a bunch of folks for a pittance a month. Blogging can be had ad-free cheaply.
I wanted more than that, and I know what I'm doing, so I bought a used server and pay for rack space, and so far there are no ads. There probably will be at some point, but they'll be low key, and they won't pop up, pop under, grab, track, or anything else. They'll just sit there (like google ads do). That'll be to help cover costs on the public service site. Or I may just do a PayPal donation thing like some sites do; I have had folks send me money and gear in appreciation.
But my personal stuff? I pay for that. Why should someone else have to pay for my "right" to express myself? That's INSANE.
I pay for my internet connection. I pay for my server. I have *zero* obligation to allow myself to be annoyed by anyone else's choices.
I think the web ads do sell products and services, otherwise no one would bother. However, by using an extension like adblock, I am simply removing annoying advertisements that I will never click on to purchase an item. As a general principle I do not click on these ads and would never consider making a purchase based on a banner ad or popup that I saw. If a company wants my business they better find more creative ways of marketing. And some companies get it. Offer competitive prices, great customer service and a quality product and then make your site easily reachable through google searches, word of mouth, price searches, etc. Get some good reviews by reputable sources. When I want to make an online purchase I do research, google searches, and talk to friends about what their experiences have been. Then I make an educated decision. To summarize: no company is losing any revenue by my using adblocking software.
Celebrate the finer things in life
The original and most basic concept of social contracts is that you don't violate rights of others in order that your rights aren't violated. In more mathematical/business terms it's a less than optimal strategy for the best guaranteed average result (i.e. using a risk management strategy instead of an optimization strategy). Unfortunately people are trying to apply social contracts to freaking everything these days which is stupid. Also they're trying to equate social contracts with moral imperatives and they are not the same thing. Many times moral imperatives and social contracts overlap but they are not the same thing.
As a result, I say no you aren't violating a social contract because there is no social contract yet with the web, it's still in a optimization and competition phase (they try to spam me, I try to filter them, they try to pop-up, I try to block them) and we haven't reached an equillibrium where a social contract can evolve. Also, I'm not sure how a company pursuing an optimization of profit to the detriment of their customers can or does participate in a social contract. Second even if you are violating a social contract, so what? They aren't moral imperatives and though they sometimes overlap I'd say choosing what you passively read/see and what you don't is never going to rise to the level of moral imperatives.
just my 2 cents.
I'm using a browser which is deliberitly not able to display image and flash ads. Am I violating this so called 'social contract' also? Not likely.
You bought something you didn't really need. By doing so, you prop up your corporate masters. That makes you both suckers.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I do not concent to the implied contract. You have no signature from me saying that I do so, and any that might be implied are hereby revoked.
If you continue to give me content despite this, I take no responsibility. I suggest that you refuse to offer the content if the ad is not pulled down in a reasonable period of time (say, 5 or 6 seconds)
$30 rebate at Fry's for a really cool computer tower box. 5 minutes, enbelope and stamp. Two weeks later a check for 30 buck-o-roonies. You must really make a lot of money per hour to top $30/5 minutes! In that case I wish I had your pay scale! You must be a lawyer or something. ;-)
Amen. Does it mean that I am violating a social contract if I run a website and don't put advertising on it?
Advertisers made their own bed. I remember a few years ago, there was a website up that hosted clips of funny TV commercials. They had a rating system in place, and it was really cool. Then they were shut down, for rights infringement of some kind.
So let me get this straight - advertisers create commercials for their products, and they do so in such a way to get people to watch them. But then they shut down a website that was giving them FREE advertising of their products. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and speaks to the general lunacy of advertising in general.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I think most folks out there browsing web sites are willing to put up with some degree of ads. And I've even clicked one or two.
But a few ads spread here and there is quite a bit different then big javascript or flash popups, animated flashing GIFs, intermission pages, and other obnoxious adversisements (like keyword highlighting, OMFG I hate it. I will not visit Toms Hardware anymore because every mention of "Server" or "Network" or "connection" is highlighted with some popup ad.)
People will only accept so much before seeking alternatives, and when they do, sometimes it's too late to go back.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Since no site will warn me about ad content prior to visiting their site, no 'social contract exists', and I can freely block them as I please.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
BTW, is that blinking ad illegal in some countries and harming people with eye sight disability?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
What I do click on are those text ads that Google places on the side of its page. This is actually a convenience for web browsing. First of all, it stays out of the way, doesn't take any time to download, provides useful information, and leads folks to products and services that might actually be useful.
Therefore, I am saying that I have no problem with web site owners making money off their creation, but please do it in a way that is comfortable for the readers, too.
If you don't like a site's ad policies, then don't use the site.
What you fail to realize is that there is no such thing as "ad policies" laid out for the visitor. The site manager might have a business model, but how this is implemented is not the visitor's problem.
People seem to think that because something is electronically based, it's subject to a different moral code.
You have obviously not read the discussion; Try again.
There is no "moral code" for readers: If a magazine has a product flyer in it I can throw it away without even looking at it; The magazine publisher still got paid. The "moral code" error is on the part of the online advertisers which do not trust "visit counts" - and with good reason since the numbers can be fudged. So they count actual ad views instead (something that cannot be done in the magazine example).
Popunders are a case in point. Used appropriately, they can be a very good thing
Popunder ads are like the flyers mentioned above, except ten times as annoying.
But in the meantime, if you block ads from a site, yes, you are in fact ripping them off and freeloading on someone else's nickel.
Or, in other words: Web technology can not be forced to support our business model, so we will try to insult people and see if that works.
(If you want revenue, a programmer can set up automated ad "showers" and "clickers" for you. To the "web technology" it will look like any other ad view, so you should be happy. Yes? Ad blockers use technology to filter them out, you can use technology to pretend they don't. Remember not to "show" or "click" too often or the advertisers might become suspicious. And use different IP addresses.)
Good point. And even if you never see the menu, we all know that's how the system works; it developed over time and became a part of everyday life. The closest I can see with the web is a server. If I go park a server in your rack and start using your space, electricity, bandwidth, A/C and so on, I can jolly well expect to pay for it. Random, public content off the web is hardly the same thing.
/. are a great example. (It helps that I sometimes find /. useful. 8^) The first time I saw a Barracuda ad, I checked out their site. Within a couple of days, I had contacted them. Within a week, my free demo unit was on the way, and within a month we had bought that unit. We love it; it works as promised, they have great support, it makes our sysadmin lives easier, and our users are despammed, devirused, d dewormed, etc.
/. has real value, so I come here every day.
There are also laws regarding restaurants, precisely because people came up with reasons they didn't think they should have to pay. In at least some states in the USA, these are a subset of "defrauding an innkeeper" laws which go well back into English history, and tend to still be very harsh. There are no such laws governing the reading of public content on the net. There are laws to deal with content that requires payment or contract to pay.
The only extant contract here is between whoever is providing the content and whoever is storing and/or serving it. It's up to the content provider to come up with a viable system that gets their content viewing paid for. It's one thing if you can convince me to agree to watch the ads on your site; if I agree to that, I should be bound to do it. But my entering a URL and hitting return, or clicking on a URL someone sent me, of I found on google, or whatever, doesn't obligate me to anything.
Some sites (please note correct spelling 8^) have a reminder like "If you found this site useful, please support my sponsors". In such cases I'm fairly likely to at least look around and see if their sponsors hold any interest at all. In fact, I tend to do that anyway, if I find the site useful. If not, I'm unlikely to pay attention to their sponsors unless the sponsor has done something worthy of my attention.
Barracuda's ads on
HOW did this happen?
1)
2) Barracuda had a good ad, which wasn't intrusive (I will no more buy from annoying advertisres than from spammers).
3) Barracuda followed up.
4) Barracuda provides something I needed at a price I was willing to pay.
If all advertisers followed this model, which has worked very well for Barracuda, I suspect we wouldn't be having this discussion!
The only problem is, as Spurgeon noted, that 90% of everything is crap. This includes web content, products being marketed, and the advertisements themselves.
OK, so you host a website. A popular website. So your host sends you a big bandwidth bill every month. How do you pay for that?
Interestingly enough, all your viewers have flat-rate broadband, and, individually, don't expend a whole lot of bandwidth on your site. They could use four or five times the bandwidth on it, and wouldn't notice the difference.
I have an idea - how about, instead of annoying us, you let us help you host your website and take some of that burden off of you?
The solutions are still taking shape (things like Dijjer), but soon there won't be much excuse for ads anymore as a way to pay the bandwidth bill.
But do you really think websites will take the ads down once distributed tech thins down your bandwidth bill?
How about we make a deal - you take off the ads, and we'll host your content. Now THERE's a real social contract.
No one has agreed to the trade-off between content and ads, not even implicitly. It's a gamble on the part of the business owners, like many other things. Many stores and restaurants give out free samples, in the _hopes_ that people who were lured in will buy their product. If you don't buy anything, you're not breaking a "contract", it's just that their gamble didn't pay off.
If a business decides that they can lower the price of their product by including ads, that's a business decision that carries some risk. It's not a requirement that consumers must follow. If a business came up with the idea that they'd give a free car to everyone who came into their ice-cream store, they'd go broke. That's not "breaking a social contract", that's bad planning.
"Your failed business model is NOT MY PROBLEM."
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
A 'social contract' isn't a contract at all. You're thinking of an 'implied contract'.
A social contract is the thing everyone participates in to make society work correctly, and is not a 'contract' at all. They are simply polite behaviors.
You walk on the right, I walk on the right. Look, we no longer run into each other.
You don't be annoying with your cellphone, I don't be annoying with mine.
You tell me if you see me walk off with my headlights left on, and I do the same for you.
You refrain from killing me, and I refrain from killing you.
Etc, etc. When violation of a social contract causes serious problems, we tend to outlaw it. When it's minor, we just call those violators assholes and shot them the bird.
Now...I refrain from blocking your ad, and you...refrain from blocking mine? WTF? I have no ads.
'Social contracts' have no bearing whatsoever to ads. Ads are unidirectional, from a very small subset of people to the population at large, and hence they can't possibly be part of any social contract.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So your agurement is "Because someone else does it, it's ok for me to do it" ?
/rant
Bullshit, the internet is a chance we have to make things different. Look at maddox he nevers put ads up, and he gets tens of thousands of hits, or what about Wikipedia. They are doing what everyone should be doing, I provide you this content for free, in return you provide your content for free.
When adbanners first came out, people were fine with them. Then more and more came out, pop-ups, pop-unders, spyware, everything. Had it just stayed at adbanners everything would have been fine. Now we are left with no choice but to block them. Most people don't block text ads. So use them if you must. But first think about what you are providing, is it a "I want money" or a for the public good website?
The internet is one medimum that corp's haven't yet taken control of. Do you want them to?
Or would you prefer the people to remain in control, and live by our rules, not the rule of the almighty dollar?
By visiting my website you agree to accept and view commercial content on the site and to not block, remove or otherwise make inaccessible said material, bla, bla, bla...
By transmitting your website to my browser you agree to not transmit or attempt to transmit any commercial material to my system, bla, bla, bla...