Largo is happy with Linux and expanding its usage. Burlington Coat Factory is still Linux, I believe. So is... uhh... the tire company. I know because a month or so back, I shoulder surfed their system when I drove a friend to get new tires.
Seems to me that people switch, are happy, and go back to their business. "Business has computers" isn't much of a story, the switch is.
And I can't understand why somebody would think that playing video games (or *anything* to do with consoles other than possibly modifying them) has anything to do with being geeky. Fun, yes. But geeky?
Maybe it has something to do with pre-dot com geeks versus post-dot com geeks. Science was pretty geeky until somehow nerf toys displaced it. Somehow my throw pillows with electron orbitals and my trilobite collection are no longer considered geeky by the neo-geek otaku button mashers, but a web comic about MegaMan is. I don't get that.
Perfect example. No, you do not have to read it. I have never said that you have to read ads, merely display them.
You could pry the VW symbol off the car. If it was your car (you owned it), then you would be right. If it is not your car (you do *not* own it, but are borrowing or renting it), then it's not right.
Pretty simple, really. Not very analogous to this discussion, unfortunately.
There is no moral obligation WHATSOEVER to view his marketing tripe.
There is if you take his pictures of flowers.
That's the core of the problem with spam - they are pushing the advertising on you. When you go out to someone's site, you are requesting their content. This is not about legalities, it's about ettiquiete and being polite.
I disagree, I think it is perfectly moral to not view ads.
You don't have to read them. But not displaying them is screwing over the site owner and/or the advertiser. When you read or use the site's content, you are agreeing to display the ads. If you violate that agreement (a very easy thing to do), you're doing the wrong thing. Not terribly wrong, just mildly wrong. You're doing the easy thing, not the right thing.
I'll do everything possible to filter or ignore the advertising, but still read the content. In fact, I hope that all who support this bad advertising go under.
Before the advertising goes under, the content will go under. You're aware that idiot marketing guys are hardier than good authors, right?
If I visit bobs site I am already paying to see his pictures, a tiny amount perhaps but thats not the point (if it helps imagine me visiting 10000 other similar sites per month). Why should I pay extra to see some 3rd party trying to sell me their product.
I could use analogs: you pay to drive to a restaurant, doesn't mean you can skip the tip. But those are basically flawed. You should pay extra because that's the social agreement that you made when you visited the site. You're getting the flowers, get the ads, too. Think of it from Bob's perspective. They are his flowers, it's his site, he is doing something good, people are taking advantage of him and costing him money. That's wrong. If you're screwing somebody over when there's an easy way to do the right thing, you're doing the wrong thing.
Bob could quite easily use another revenue model, such as putting low-res pics on the site and only allowing access to the full-res ones to people who donate or similar. It's not my fault he's chosen an intrusive method so why should I suffer for it (tiny suffering true, but not with 10000 visits).
This is an argument made with mp3 sharing that I've never understood. People don't copy software and say "well, they should have a different profit model; it's their fault". They don't steal cable and say "they should have a different profit model, Comcast should take donations or something". You don't sit down in front of a street portrait artist for half and hour, then whip out a digital camera, take a picture of the portrait and walk away saying "technology has changed the world, you just need to change your business model". In all three cases, you're doing the wrong thing.
It is not up to you to dictate how you will use a service, it is up to the person or company providing the service. And I believe that, by putting ads into your html, you have an unspoken agreement "here - take this content and view these ads".
Don't forget the main people profiting from this are doubleclick
So? What makes Doubleclick different from Bob? If you screw over Doubleclick, you're screwing over a couple hundred Bobs - the Bob who runs the company down to the Bob who empties the trash can. If it were a case of their business going away, I'd agree - you have no requirement to keep people in business by using their services. But when you downloaded the pictures of flowers, you agreed to participate in their business model. If you don't like it, don't use websites with ads.
No, I'm not being trollish. Let's try to come to an understanding here.
Bob takes pictures of flowers. He thinks they are nifty and other people might like them. He pays $10 a month for a website and puts them up online. Bob is paying to give you something for free. Bob's site becomes popular, and the bandwidth jumps over the course of six months to $200 a month. Whoa. Those are some high res flowers. Bob puts some ads on the site to try to defray the cost - to help pay for what he's giving out for free.
Bob is (implicitly) saying: "Hey, I went out and took these pictures, and you can have them! When you view them, I have some ads running so I can continue to bring them to you".
Now, you don't have to visit Bob's site. You won't see any ads. You asked when you agreed to view ads... when you chose to go to Bob's site.
You certainly have the technology to block those ads. But that's being rude to Bob who is trying to host these pictures for everybody to use. Not very polite. Thus the wrong thing to do.
Bob is being nice to you. He's giving you free pictures of flowers. Being nice to Bob and viewing the whole site is the right thing to do.
I am not however, willing to support a site that forces me to look at the ads, and has shitty content.
Oh, I agree. I see the more morally correct solution as not going to sites with annoying ads and shitty content. It doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's a horrible act to block ads, merely the less moral act.
And as I've stated many times in this thread, I'm not saying you have to be 100% moral, but recognizing that it's not the right thing to do is probably an important thing.
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Evan "I downloaded SG:Atlantis, sans ads. Not totally moral, but I wanted to watch it now."
I think it depends on the social contract which the internet is based on. The grandparent suggests the old-style social contract; the parent the new-style one.
Ironic, considering it's possible I've been using the internet (or the predecessors to it) longer than the grandparent poster has been alive.
I don't see it as a new style one; when you connect to somebody's server, you are accessing their data. I don't get the right to grab their data and do with it as I please. And I think that respecting their unwritten agreement (when you view this content, please display these ads) is the morally correct thing.
That's been the way it has worked for the past two decades plus. This newfangled "web advertising" thing,/etc/motd, login notices, etc - they all are part of the package when you access somebody else's site.
The very technology which these ad companies use to make money was invented for the free public use and exchange of information.
Hardly. It was invented for the sharing of information. That does not imply that said sharing comes with no restrictions, either legal (copyright) or invoked by polite society (do not spam, do not troll, accept the ads that support our site, do not mailbomb). You are free to violate these latter things with little reprocussion other than a potential ban from the service you are abusing. But if you do the later things, you're being rude and abusive.
I have a nice fat pipe. Really big, and I have full say over what happens. I could suck down a fellow's website sans ads to the tune of 15,000 requests a minute. Is that moral? No. Why is it okay when the masses do the same thing?
A site with ads is making an implicit statement: "Here, have this content. If you like it, enjoy. Those ads help pay our bills". I'm not sure how hard it is to see that simple fact. You're taking without giving in the manner that is generally agreed upon. That's rude, and thus wrong. Not terribly wrong, but certainly not the right thing to do.
Yep - I'm not saying that you can't block ads, or that it should be made illegal. In some cases (your dialup situation, for instance), it makes sense. As I say, I download tv shows with the ads stripped out for the convenience of watching them later with my SO.
But I know that it's wrong to do so - like having dinner at Costco by snarfing a couple handfuls of each of the freebie stands. Not terribly bad, just... not the right thing to do.
Personally, whether I block the ads or not I won't be clicking on them, so what difference does it make to the site's owner?
Because either the owner makes no revenue from the ad that would have displayed (or gets kicked to a lower traffic category), or the advertiser thinks that their ad, which they paid for, has been displayed.
Either way, you're are the one who is deceptive. Sure, the businesses should be held responsible to not be deceptive - shouldn't the consumers?
What about the ads in the men's room for things like window tinting or the table of business cards and band fliers? Those do not made contextual sense.
Internet advertising usually takes the "beer sign in a daycare" route.
Then don't use the daycare. Pretty simple - it's up to the host/author/owner, not up to you as to what ads are there. You choose who you patronize.
Ah! Perfect - a very good arguement. Only I see it as supporting my position. When I share something, I am perfectly happy if the person sharing it has a (often unspoken) agreement about that sharing.
Somebody bringing a bunch of sodas to the office will often leave a cup by the sodas. Drop some money in to help defray the cost of the sodas. If you're short today, no biggie. But if you swipe sodas without ever paying, well... you can do that.
But you're a dick.
Somebody posting... say... really cool pictures of how he made a car interface for his iPod is sharing. He's got a couple ads there to defray the costs of the hosting. If you're using a text browser via ssh or due to being visually impaired, no biggie. But if you block all ads so that all the people trying to defray their costs are screwed (or the ad company who paid for an ad that never got to your screen), well... you can do that.
The bottom line, however: If you can't live with the possibility that someone might want to read your content without wanting to read the ads as well, the web just isn't the medium for you.
I never said that I read them. I ignore them, just as I ignore TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and magazine ads. And billboards.
The fact is, somebody wrote or hosted content, was paid for it, and (at least part of) that money came from an advertiser. The advertiser paid to have their ad displayed.
Somewhere, somebody is getting dicked, and you're getting something for free. I'm not saying that I don't do similar (I bittorrent tv shows without ads), I'm just saying that I recognize it as being wrong.
well, you might be moved to be rude in return to them, and not really care about ordering the minimum 2 drinks. Even if you wouldn't, certainly there are a lot of other people who would.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm just saying that it wouldn't be right. It is perfectly moral to walk out the door and cease being a patron of the establishment. But it's unethical to be an asshole back just because somebody was an asshole to you.
Or at least by my moral standards - not saying that I live *up* to them, but it seems to me that getting articles without the ads that pay for them is wrong.
Pretty much my point exactly. There were highly suspicious ads in the early days of radio as well (ads woven into the show, bait and switch and outright lies). It's gotten better. There were annoying ads during the dot com era. It's gotten better.
As the web audience has gotten more sophisticated, so have the both the advertisers and the sites that host advertising.
Do you consider it unethical to read a newspaper without reading their ads?
No, but it is unethical to publish the articles without the ads. The ads pay for the articles by paying the authors.
Record a TV show and then fast forward through the commercials later?
Nope, but it is unethical to download tv shows with the ads stripped out. Something I do on a regular basis, I might mention... just because it's not ethical doesn't mean I don't do it. I download mp3s, too. I just don't say it's right. Easy, but not right.
Get up and get food/go to the bathroom during commercials?
Yep. I also don't read banner ads when they are on a web page. Nor newspaper ads.
Throw away mail flyers for products?
Yep. All the time. There is no reason to keep them.
Look - you're justifying. I'm sure you're fantastic at justifying how horrible these ads are, that they eat children and kill the elderly.
Doesn't matter. You are visiting a free site in such a way that you aren't paying for it. When you walk into many museums, they say "suggested donation of...". You don't have to pay $4 to walk in. But if you have the coinage, it's not the right thing to do.
This is not about how annoying the ads are, or how the site *should* be. It's just wrong to not let the site get the ad revenue. And if you block it such that it shows as a hit, it's wrong to the advertiser who paid money.
Basically, fundimentally, you're dicking someone over and getting something for free.
If I walk in and there is a wall of neon beer ads in the bar... well, that's pretty damn common, and nobody really complains.
But if there was a singing beer ad (you see them around halloween occasionally), yes, I'd more than likely not go to the bar. I might even complain about it. But it's their bar, and I'm not going to unhook the sign and toss it in the garbage just because it annoys me. If it annoys me, I don't go.
Where the heck is everybody going and finding these annoying ads? I haven't seen an annoying ad since the dot com days. Sites just don't allow them because they drive away customers.
Flash ads are still around, as are interstials, but they are often for day passes at sites like Salon, which gives you the choice to pay or watch an ad. Makes sense to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! You did the same thing! Improper word choice. Your message should read:
The problem hear is that spell check would not have caught there error. Your write, though, its annoying.
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Evan
Seems to me that people switch, are happy, and go back to their business. "Business has computers" isn't much of a story, the switch is.
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Evan
Maybe it has something to do with pre-dot com geeks versus post-dot com geeks. Science was pretty geeky until somehow nerf toys displaced it. Somehow my throw pillows with electron orbitals and my trilobite collection are no longer considered geeky by the neo-geek otaku button mashers, but a web comic about MegaMan is. I don't get that.
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Evan "damn kids - stay off my lawn!"
A rose is a rose is rose, but nothing says geek love like Amorphophallus titanum...
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Evan "her lab is on campus; she's home today because they ran out of liquid helium for the EPR machine"
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Evan "It's just a jump to the left... damn dumpster"
You could pry the VW symbol off the car. If it was your car (you owned it), then you would be right. If it is not your car (you do *not* own it, but are borrowing or renting it), then it's not right.
Pretty simple, really. Not very analogous to this discussion, unfortunately.
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Evan
There is if you take his pictures of flowers.
That's the core of the problem with spam - they are pushing the advertising on you. When you go out to someone's site, you are requesting their content. This is not about legalities, it's about ettiquiete and being polite.
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Evan
You don't have to read them. But not displaying them is screwing over the site owner and/or the advertiser. When you read or use the site's content, you are agreeing to display the ads. If you violate that agreement (a very easy thing to do), you're doing the wrong thing. Not terribly wrong, just mildly wrong. You're doing the easy thing, not the right thing.
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Evan
If you own the site, you can remove the ads, too.
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Evan
Before the advertising goes under, the content will go under. You're aware that idiot marketing guys are hardier than good authors, right?
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Evan
I could use analogs: you pay to drive to a restaurant, doesn't mean you can skip the tip. But those are basically flawed. You should pay extra because that's the social agreement that you made when you visited the site. You're getting the flowers, get the ads, too. Think of it from Bob's perspective. They are his flowers, it's his site, he is doing something good, people are taking advantage of him and costing him money. That's wrong. If you're screwing somebody over when there's an easy way to do the right thing, you're doing the wrong thing.
Bob could quite easily use another revenue model, such as putting low-res pics on the site and only allowing access to the full-res ones to people who donate or similar. It's not my fault he's chosen an intrusive method so why should I suffer for it (tiny suffering true, but not with 10000 visits).
This is an argument made with mp3 sharing that I've never understood. People don't copy software and say "well, they should have a different profit model; it's their fault". They don't steal cable and say "they should have a different profit model, Comcast should take donations or something". You don't sit down in front of a street portrait artist for half and hour, then whip out a digital camera, take a picture of the portrait and walk away saying "technology has changed the world, you just need to change your business model". In all three cases, you're doing the wrong thing.
It is not up to you to dictate how you will use a service, it is up to the person or company providing the service. And I believe that, by putting ads into your html, you have an unspoken agreement "here - take this content and view these ads".
Don't forget the main people profiting from this are doubleclick
So? What makes Doubleclick different from Bob? If you screw over Doubleclick, you're screwing over a couple hundred Bobs - the Bob who runs the company down to the Bob who empties the trash can. If it were a case of their business going away, I'd agree - you have no requirement to keep people in business by using their services. But when you downloaded the pictures of flowers, you agreed to participate in their business model. If you don't like it, don't use websites with ads.
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Evan
Bob takes pictures of flowers. He thinks they are nifty and other people might like them. He pays $10 a month for a website and puts them up online. Bob is paying to give you something for free. Bob's site becomes popular, and the bandwidth jumps over the course of six months to $200 a month. Whoa. Those are some high res flowers. Bob puts some ads on the site to try to defray the cost - to help pay for what he's giving out for free.
Bob is (implicitly) saying: "Hey, I went out and took these pictures, and you can have them! When you view them, I have some ads running so I can continue to bring them to you".
Now, you don't have to visit Bob's site. You won't see any ads. You asked when you agreed to view ads... when you chose to go to Bob's site.
You certainly have the technology to block those ads. But that's being rude to Bob who is trying to host these pictures for everybody to use. Not very polite. Thus the wrong thing to do.
Bob is being nice to you. He's giving you free pictures of flowers. Being nice to Bob and viewing the whole site is the right thing to do.
Now, where am I wrong?
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Evan
Oh, I agree. I see the more morally correct solution as not going to sites with annoying ads and shitty content. It doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's a horrible act to block ads, merely the less moral act.
And as I've stated many times in this thread, I'm not saying you have to be 100% moral, but recognizing that it's not the right thing to do is probably an important thing.
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Evan "I downloaded SG:Atlantis, sans ads. Not totally moral, but I wanted to watch it now."
Ironic, considering it's possible I've been using the internet (or the predecessors to it) longer than the grandparent poster has been alive.
I don't see it as a new style one; when you connect to somebody's server, you are accessing their data. I don't get the right to grab their data and do with it as I please. And I think that respecting their unwritten agreement (when you view this content, please display these ads) is the morally correct thing.
That's been the way it has worked for the past two decades plus. This newfangled "web advertising" thing, /etc/motd, login notices, etc - they all are part of the package when you access somebody else's site.
The very technology which these ad companies use to make money was invented for the free public use and exchange of information.
Hardly. It was invented for the sharing of information. That does not imply that said sharing comes with no restrictions, either legal (copyright) or invoked by polite society (do not spam, do not troll, accept the ads that support our site, do not mailbomb). You are free to violate these latter things with little reprocussion other than a potential ban from the service you are abusing. But if you do the later things, you're being rude and abusive.
I have a nice fat pipe. Really big, and I have full say over what happens. I could suck down a fellow's website sans ads to the tune of 15,000 requests a minute. Is that moral? No. Why is it okay when the masses do the same thing?
A site with ads is making an implicit statement: "Here, have this content. If you like it, enjoy. Those ads help pay our bills". I'm not sure how hard it is to see that simple fact. You're taking without giving in the manner that is generally agreed upon. That's rude, and thus wrong. Not terribly wrong, but certainly not the right thing to do.
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Evan
But I know that it's wrong to do so - like having dinner at Costco by snarfing a couple handfuls of each of the freebie stands. Not terribly bad, just... not the right thing to do.
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Evan "I know I should floss daily, too..."
When you connected to somebody else's server and requested content?
Pretty simple, really. HTTP is a request based protocol.
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Evan "Versus Spam, for instance"
Because either the owner makes no revenue from the ad that would have displayed (or gets kicked to a lower traffic category), or the advertiser thinks that their ad, which they paid for, has been displayed.
Either way, you're are the one who is deceptive. Sure, the businesses should be held responsible to not be deceptive - shouldn't the consumers?
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Evan
Neon beer signs in a bar or restaurant make sense
What about the ads in the men's room for things like window tinting or the table of business cards and band fliers? Those do not made contextual sense.
Internet advertising usually takes the "beer sign in a daycare" route.
Then don't use the daycare. Pretty simple - it's up to the host/author/owner, not up to you as to what ads are there. You choose who you patronize.
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Evan
Somebody bringing a bunch of sodas to the office will often leave a cup by the sodas. Drop some money in to help defray the cost of the sodas. If you're short today, no biggie. But if you swipe sodas without ever paying, well... you can do that.
But you're a dick.
Somebody posting... say... really cool pictures of how he made a car interface for his iPod is sharing. He's got a couple ads there to defray the costs of the hosting. If you're using a text browser via ssh or due to being visually impaired, no biggie. But if you block all ads so that all the people trying to defray their costs are screwed (or the ad company who paid for an ad that never got to your screen), well... you can do that.
But you're a dick.
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Evan
I never said that I read them. I ignore them, just as I ignore TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and magazine ads. And billboards.
The fact is, somebody wrote or hosted content, was paid for it, and (at least part of) that money came from an advertiser. The advertiser paid to have their ad displayed.
Somewhere, somebody is getting dicked, and you're getting something for free. I'm not saying that I don't do similar (I bittorrent tv shows without ads), I'm just saying that I recognize it as being wrong.
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Evan
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm just saying that it wouldn't be right. It is perfectly moral to walk out the door and cease being a patron of the establishment. But it's unethical to be an asshole back just because somebody was an asshole to you.
Or at least by my moral standards - not saying that I live *up* to them, but it seems to me that getting articles without the ads that pay for them is wrong.
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Evan
As the web audience has gotten more sophisticated, so have the both the advertisers and the sites that host advertising.
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Evan
No, but it is unethical to publish the articles without the ads. The ads pay for the articles by paying the authors.
Record a TV show and then fast forward through the commercials later?
Nope, but it is unethical to download tv shows with the ads stripped out. Something I do on a regular basis, I might mention... just because it's not ethical doesn't mean I don't do it. I download mp3s, too. I just don't say it's right. Easy, but not right.
Get up and get food/go to the bathroom during commercials?
Yep. I also don't read banner ads when they are on a web page. Nor newspaper ads.
Throw away mail flyers for products?
Yep. All the time. There is no reason to keep them.
Look - you're justifying. I'm sure you're fantastic at justifying how horrible these ads are, that they eat children and kill the elderly.
Doesn't matter. You are visiting a free site in such a way that you aren't paying for it. When you walk into many museums, they say "suggested donation of...". You don't have to pay $4 to walk in. But if you have the coinage, it's not the right thing to do.
This is not about how annoying the ads are, or how the site *should* be. It's just wrong to not let the site get the ad revenue. And if you block it such that it shows as a hit, it's wrong to the advertiser who paid money.
Basically, fundimentally, you're dicking someone over and getting something for free.
That's wrong, no matter how small it is.
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Evan
But if there was a singing beer ad (you see them around halloween occasionally), yes, I'd more than likely not go to the bar. I might even complain about it. But it's their bar, and I'm not going to unhook the sign and toss it in the garbage just because it annoys me. If it annoys me, I don't go.
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Evan
Flash ads are still around, as are interstials, but they are often for day passes at sites like Salon, which gives you the choice to pay or watch an ad. Makes sense to me.
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Evan