[yakubin]

I find the entire analogy dubious. When I see a link, I don’t know what sort of ads or JS is on the page it leads to. By blocking ads I am not renegotiating any transactions, because I never entered any transaction. If anything, it seems the author of the post thinks it’s okay for website owners to unilaterally dictate the terms of transaction and force visitors into them.

When I buy a banana, I see the price beforehand. With ads on websites it’s more as if upon me taking the banana, the banana seller gained the right to search my pockets and take anything they fancy.

[safety1st]

Also, let's not forget what's really going on as a part of this "transaction," which is that a website is sending data to my computer, which I own. That data includes requests for my computer to perform certain operations, show me some ads, maybe hand over my online banking passwords, etc. etc.

I am absolutely within my rights if I instruct my computer to honor some of these requests and not others. Any other perspective is crazy when you think about it. I own the computer, I choose the programs that I run. I'm not leasing this computer from Google or from the business that owns the website in question.

This is really a matter of property rights. If somebody wants me to use a computer which is unable to block ads, they can offer to lend me a free computer which has that limitation, I suppose. I mean I'd say no, but other people might say yes.

[josephg]

Yep. I adore the philosophy behind the browser as “user agent” - the browser acts on behalf of the user who runs it, as an agent of the user’s will in the world.

I wish more technology worked that way.

[Joeri]

This is why it is perfectly fine to use an ad blocker by default, and perfectly fine for a website to refuse access with ad blockers enabled. At least then there’s a negotiation going on.

[RunSet]

Further reading:

https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-...

[jefftk]

> perfectly fine for a website to refuse access with ad blockers enabled

And yet ublock origin tries to work around this. About a third of their issues are "this site refuses service to people with adblockers": https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues?q=is%3Aissue+...

[nonameiguess]

Because they don't refuse access. They kindly ask you to disable, but don't require it, and the users of an ad blocker know damn well they're not going to voluntarily disable it if it's possible to browse the site at all with it on, so rather than rote click "continue" 90 times every two hours, let the blocker block the nagging popup as well.

If these sites really don't want you there with an ad blocker, they can actually block you. I imagine they realize there is value in getting more eyeballs even without ads, whether that be that users might still recommend and create links to your content that other people without a blocker then follow, or you actually sell something and some of those people might buy it. Whatever it is, by revealed preference, those site owners seem to be indicating it's worth it to allow people to browse with an ad blocker.

[gorhill]

By default we try to work around sites which require that the user disable their content blocker, as this is not acceptable since content blockers are used for more than to just block advertisement. In uBO, trackers and malware sites are also blocked, and thus it's not acceptable that sites require to wholly disable uBO.

By default, we do not try to work around sites which make a polite demand that the users disable their blockers without preventing access, this way the final decision is up to the users.

[jefftk]

> Because they don't refuse access

Nope; uBlock Origin will work around that as well. Skimming recent issues, in https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/15338 atozmath.com detects that people are running an ad blocker [1], explains what they're doing, and refuses access. The discussion is how to make the site think ads aren't blocked, though they haven't succeeded yet. In https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/13801 there's a simpler one with https://www.magicgameworld.com where it refuses access but doesn't provide reasoning, and that one was fixed.

[1] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/90739617/196804351...

[endgame]

With ads on websites, it's more as if upon glancing at the banana, the vendor went through your pockets, photographed your ID, and sent it off to who-knows-where.