[tomkarlo]

I agree with you that the MPAA claim is silly. But in this case, you're actually consuming the product - using their bandwidth, their servers, etc, all of which costs money - and denying them the revenue they use to support that service. The argument with the MPAA concept is that you're not denying them a sale, nor are you increasing their cost of doing business, but here you're you're doing the latter.

Do you really believe that advertising (which is only part of what marketing departments do) is "zero value-add"? How do you learn about new products? How do you think the press who review products learn about them? How does a product become available for your to buy at Walgreens on the corner? All of that is "marketing"...

[joejohnson]

That argument is false for a few reasons. With many online services, who's to say precisely what the product is. Aren't we (the users) the real product for a lot of large, free services (gmail, Facebook, etc.)? And for the bandwidth, I'm paying for that too. I pay an ISP every month to browser the internet. Shouldn't I be able to control what I use this bandwidth for? When I click on a link, I don't truly know what resources resolving that address will require; it only seems fair that smart consumers can decide to black/whitelist content that they don't want.

[tomkarlo]

I don't disagree that as a consumer you should have the right to choose what gets sent to you - but generally, if you're using a site, you're also consenting to its terms of service (which generally include accepting its ads.) As such, the product IS actually defined for you, and not up for you to define as you see fit. Using it outside of those terms is theft of service.

If you don't want accept those ads, fine, but from an ethical and legal standpoint you shouldn't be consuming its content or using its service, either. This whole "the users are the product" thing sounds great but it's an oversimplification; ultimately, it's the user's consumption of advertising that's the product for an ad-supported site; the user itself (ex ads) is often worthless or less than worthless.

You're making a deal with the provider of the site that you'll consume their product in exchange for also viewing the ads; if you don't like that bargain, don't accept it and don't consume the content.

The fact that you pay for your bandwidth, btw, has nothing to do with the fact that the site also pays for its bandwidth. Your ISP is not using part of what you pay to cover the bandwidth costs of the content provider.

[gradschool]

To take this line of reasoning a step further, you're not really acting in good faith if you view the ads without ever buying the products or services they advertise. The advertiser pays the provider of the site in the expectation of a reasonable conversion rate. If you don't want to buy a certain reasonable percentage of products advertised to you, fine, but from an ethical and legal standpoint you shouldn't be forcing them to waste their advertising budget on you. Doing so diminishes the advertiser's incentive to support the site whose content you're consuming.

Here are some terms of service for you. When you enter into any business venture, you accept the risk of it not succeeding. Wishful thinking notwithstanding, the consumer is under no obligation to indemnify you against it.

[tomkarlo]

Advertisers either pay for impressions (CPM) or clicks (CPC) or directly for conversions. They don't pay for conversion rates - if rates are too low, they might not buy CPC or CPM campaigns any more, but you can't generally get a refund for a CPM campaign because your conversion rate was too low (barring clickfraud.)

[klez]

It's like telling me I can't change channels during commercials when watching tv or listening to the radio. This doesn't seem reasonable.

[tomkarlo]

When you change channels, you're no longer consuming the content on that channel. It's closer to using a TiVo to skip the ads in a programming. I do it myself, but it's pretty obvious to me that if everyone did it, it wouldn't scale and they'd find some other way to create revenue like more product placements during the show (which is already happening) that's even more intrusive and obnoxious, because it's unlikely that providers or consumers are going to go a-la-carte.

(This is also why I liked paying for content on iTunes or Amazon - that seems like a more fair deal where I don't get both charged and ads (cable) and I don't have to mess around with using the TiVo to skip ads.)

[jodrellblank]

Is it legally agreed that connecting to a webserver and sending "GET /" and reading the reply is "agreeing to the terms of service"?

If the terms of service included a link to an audio advert, do I have to quiet other sound sources so I can hear the advert?

[tomkarlo]

If you're going to consume the editorial content of the site? The ethical and legal (if not practical) answer is yes. It's your obligation to understand and accept the terms of a service (not just a web site) before using it.

Is that impractical? Yes. But when I rent a car, I don't read the terms either, and they still apply. It's just a result of a world in which we undertake hundreds of "transactions" a day with business entities, all of which have to be governed by legal agreements.

[rglullis]

The thing is, if the product is actually valuable to me, I would spend more money on them that they could ever make from me through ads.

"But wait, what about freemium? Plenty of services remove the ads for paying customers", one might ask. The problem with it is that you now a have false sense of choice:

  1) Free product + ads
  2) Paid product and no ads.

There is a third alternative: free product, adblock, no ads.

Yes, marketing is much more than advertising. But I think that the "advertising" part is what everything else is based on, when it shouldn't. To take on your example, the "press who review products" is, most of the time, dependent on eyeballs to sell ads to. This model is so broken that you either have newspapers going bankrupt or Huffington Post-style blogs, with zero actual content.

If enough people started using adblock, perhaps we would get to a point where the current model would be unsustainable, which would producers to either:

  - Get rid of ad-based services and products, and start charging directly.
  - Improve their ads to make it more relevant to consumers.

[tomkarlo]

"There is a third alternative: free product, adblock, no ads."

By that logic, it's also possible to avoid high grocery bills by sticking some things in your pocket and not paying for them. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a scalable or ethical option.

Google's core breakthrough in advertising was to close the loop and push advertisers towards ads that are relevant to customers, where they know exactly how much they're earning per dollar they spend on ads. Ads have, actually, improved quite a bit over the past 10 years. The famous line was "half of ad spending is wasted, we just don't know which half" (paraphrased)... now they know which half.

To go back to the OP's subject - the reason why retargeting has grown so popular is that it WORKS LIKE A MOFO. Retargeted ads are usually an order of magnitude more relevant and are immensely cost effective in terms of spend versus conversions. The best indicator that someone's interested in buying a Ford? They visited the Ford site.

[rglullis]

If using adblock is unethical, so is torrenting TV shows; and I thought you agreed with me that the MPAA claim is bullshit.

Google is better than the alternatives, sure. It doesn't mean that it is any good. The ads I get on my cell phone are still awful, to the point of discouraging me to use it more.

[storborg]

It's not contradictory to agree that the MPAA's "every pirate is a stolen sale" claim is bullshit, but still think that torrenting TV shows is unethical.

Some may believe that the ethical choice is just to not watch that TV show.

[niels_olson]

> Some may believe that the ethical choice is just to not watch that TV show.

Here's my dilemma: I don't own a TV, I can't be bothered to even try to download, let alone watch. I tried with The Wire, it became a suffering labor to t trough it, no matter how interesting. Mad Men? Good luck. I have no time.

[elithrar]

> There is a third alternative: free product, adblock, no ads.

You're absolutely allowed to do this if you choose, but you should also be aware that it's harming the sites/app that you're obviously visiting. If a site has incredibly intrusive ads, I just choose not to visit it. Most sites I visit respect the user enough to not have crazy pop-over/roll-over ads; as a result, I don't use AdBlock extensions and they get their CPM $.

FYI, here's the Arstechnica article RE: Ars vs. AdBlock, for those interested: http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-d...

[rglullis]

I addressed this in another comment. I have zero tolerance for ads, no matter how "un-intrusive" they are.

Also, it is a matter of signaling: I don't want to reward sites that have a business model reliant on ads. That would give them a very strong incentive to go to the lowest common denominator and just optimize all their work to increase page views.

Ten years ago, we used to complain about the state of "mainstream media" and thought that blogs would be our salvation. But instead of rewarding quality work of bloggers, we decided that it was okay to accept ads. When you get that, you get a popularity contest, and this is why we end up with crap like Techcrunch and Engadget and other AOL-owned "properties".

Ars provides the "premium" service, but what they offer for it? Full-text RSS? It is not worth $5/month. I will just adblock + readability the hell out of their articles.

To sum up: I don't want to hurt the sites, but I do want to hurt the business model. If the websites rely on this failed business model? I'm sorry, but it is just collateral.

[earl]

Dude, were you arsed to see what Ars offers for their $5/month? Because IN GIANT BOLD TYPE, they offer -- and I'm quoting -- "Ad free, premier page layouts."

http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/

So, to summarize:

(1) You don't want to "reward" sites that have a business model reliant on ads

(2) you want their content anyway

(3) when they offer you a trade: pay us $5 and we won't show you ads, you ignore them

Conclusion: you're a cheap dick.

[beeneto]

Please read this http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

[klez]

This is a ransom, not a business model...

[acdha]

Ransom would be if Ars editors stormed your house and forced you to watch their ads. Business models don't get much more textbook than offering free and premium versions.

[rglullis]

We both looked at the same page. But what is the point of "premier page layouts" if my preferred means of consumption is the RSS feed?

Full-text RSS is the only thing that would interest me, but not $5/month worth of interest.

Conclusion: yo mama is fat.

[acdha]

Conclusion: you don't actually intend to pay anything but somehow think freeloading should be respected. Quality content doesn't come for free: if you valued Ars' content either unobtrusive ads or $5/month are good options for ensuring that they'll be there next year.

[dubya]

It's technically possible for sites to not serve content to those who use adblock. I remember arstechnica.com did this once to make a point. I guess if this was widespread, it would turn into an arms race though.

[throw_away]

I'm pretty sure that washingtonpost.com does this now. This URL, for example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-governments-ou... serves content if you have adblock plus turned off, but a registration page if you have it turned on.

[floomp]

I have ABP and could view the article for a few times, then I tried again and I got the registration page. Disabling ABP didn't change that. I have a feeling it's based on how many times you've viewed their site rather than ad blockers.

[zmj]

What makes you think that you're qualified to judge what's relevant to you?

[rglullis]

I hope you are joking.

I am me. I guess that is a pretty strong credential.

[Peaker]

If you just mentally ad-block, are you still denying them?

[Duff]

It's your ethical duty to click!

Seriously though, my local weekly newspaper knows nothing about my habits, but offers ads 10x more relevant than Google, who has been tracking me for a decade.

[fpgeek]

I'm sure your local newspaper offers tons of irrelevant ads as well (mine did once-upon-a-time). I suspect you've learned to pick out the relevant ones and skip the irrelevant ones - which is arguably the dead-tree newspaper equivalent of this proposal.

[zanny]

But your local newspaper is not trying to provide relevant ads. They just take ads from whoever will pay them and put those in the paper. Or am I missing something, such as sarcasm. I am bad with that.

[Duff]

Google is great at targeting with search based ads, but the site-based ads are awful. Google thinks I'm really into gold coins based on me clicking on some story on reddit several months ago.