[eva1984]

The war of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers will be ugly, I suppose.

Say, if Youtube is going to enforce anti-ad-blocking across the site, and I believe the could do that-their Chinese copycat, Youku, has already done this long time ago, will you give up watching? That might be a hard question to answer.

[userbinator]

The answer is that anti-anti-ad-blockers will start to exist. As long as users still have control over the software they run on their devices, they will have the advantage in this war. That control seems to be slowly disappearing, unfortunately:

http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html

[eva1984]

I am not that optimistic on that front.

Several things that might happen: 1.Use data mining or machine learning, I believe, the big networks will find ways to distinguish whether a user has enabled ad blockers or not, using only the data they collected. Google, as a network, already offers segments to publishers, called viewability, representing how the ads is viewed by the user.

2.Once they have the data, they could do a lot of things with it. Sending warnings, or service degradation, or if you are on the phone force you to jump to app in order to serve you native ads.

By any means, they couldn't 100% eliminate usage of ad blockers, but they could make it harder and more uncomfortable to use in the long term.

One thing I am more afraid of is that, it will means the death of the free web, and drive publishers/platform to serve their content through native client, like apps, where they have greater control. But what about small publishers? Well, maybe nothing but doom...

[kuschku]

Already existing.

After https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock was invented, and I got annoyed,

I reported https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26

and wrote this solution to the issue https://github.com/sitexw/FuckAdBlock/issues/26#issuecomment...

[anonred]

How is it a moral issue? If it's immoral to block certain behavior on sites, then it's just as if not _more_ immoral for users to block ads in the first place. The usual argument is that sites with ads constitute an implicit agreement, etc. If users have the prerogative (regardless of moral ambiguity) to block content they don't like, sites have the same prerogative to block unsavory visitors as they see fit. To say that using FuckAdBlock is forcing anyone to accept content is complete and utter nonsense.

[kuschku]

No, I mean: I do not care about a website showing me an ad as plain <a href="..."><img src="..."></a>.

I have no issues with those ads.

I have issues with ads running javascript, tracking me, and trying to abuse holes in my browser to install malware.

And it is immoral to force people into running those ads.

[anonred]

No one is forcing anyone to whitelist the site and view the DRM'd content. The site is simply offering an explicit choice to the user: go away or play by our rules. Whether or not serving the ads in the first place is morally correct simply does not matter—the price for admission could change to require the user's car, their livelihood, their life, and the premise is the same. There's an explicit acknowledgement of the cost and a conscious choice by the user.

An apt analogy would be a magazine on a table with a sign denoting the price. Without FuckAdBlock, the sign reads "Price: ___". Taking the magazine and not paying anything isn't immoral, it just shows you value yourself above others (nothing wrong with that). With FuckAdBlock, the sign now reads "Price: Your kidney". By taking the magazine and not paying, you're quite literally stealing, regardless of the price now on the sign.

[kuschku]

No one can force me to watch or click ads either. I can just glue something over my screen – or just mute the sound and watch some other video while an ad is running.

Many people even are okay with watching TV 15min delayed, and instead having their receiver automatically cut away the ad breaks.

You can’t force ads on users.

Now, with the web, we have ads that aren’t just annoying, but actively malicious.

And while I’m the kind of person that often gives people money because they need it – be it because they can’t afford a bus ticket, or whatever – or that I often if I am at a place with a sign "pumpkins 2€" (where you can take yourself, no one watches, etc) still pay more than those 2€.

So it’s not like I actually like doing this.

But advertising is not acceptable. And as long as someone can program computers, I will not see interactive javascript ads. Image ads with a simple image in a link? I even have a whitelist for such ad networks. Seriously.