[perching_aix]

> Does the lifecycle matter much, though?

How could it not? It's essentially the same issue as an unmaintained phonebook or a map. What's at a given address or phone number changes, and if your solution is not equipped to handle that change, your solution is bad.

[cj]

I agree.

But that’s not a fixable problem in my eyes. At least not without extreme and sweeping changes driven by some kind of government regulation or ICANN mandates which, if enacted, would probably be highly criticized on HN.

There are just too many block lists for domains (literally thousands if you include open source ad blockers).

The lifecycle “should” matter in a perfect world, I agree.

[perching_aix]

Oh I don't think it's full-on fixable either. What I wanted to challenge was just the characterization of the issue itself.

As you say there are plenty of volunteer maintained blocklists as well, and there are also the countless privately deployed filters using those lists, which may or may not get updated properly. That's the "little man" part, and is why I think the characterization the thread starter was trying to push is ill-fitting.