[DanAndersen]

I agree there are some parallels between ad-blocking and piracy (though they do tend to be in the realm of the "piracy = theft" idea rather than copyright-related parallels).

However, I think it's also important to recognize that by similarly-strong analogy, advertisements in general are inherently a sort of mental manipulation or brainwashing.

Now, I'm not saying that mental manipulation is inherently a bad or evil thing. When I'm writing this post, I hope that those reading it will become in some way more mentally accepting of my point of view. But I think we don't look enough at how susceptible we are to advertising, and how much advertising depends on exploiting cognitive biases or implying untruths that are not explicitly stated.

We (humans) are really bad at not being affected by advertising, even if we know we're being advertised to, and even if we know the ad is deceptive. When sites depend on ad revenue, they're saying "We're offering this content for free, but in exchange we want to be able to bias/prime your brain so that when you see Product X, even far in the future, you are more likely to desire it." That's a very powerful thing, and while it's certainly necessary for many business models today, I think we should think of this as a "necessary evil."

There are sites where I disable ad-blocking, often in response to a genuine plea on the part of the website. If it's a site I particularly care about and feel that I trust, then I allow ads as a way of helping them out. But if ad-blocking is piracy, then ads themselves are brainwashing -- exploiting failings in human cognition to unconsciously guide people into actions or purchases that may or may not be optimal for them -- and with the subject having limited defenses against it once infected.

[adrianmn]

Completely agree with you on the points about the risk of brainwashing and impulse buying and people not realising how powerful and dangerous ads can be.

I would not go that far and claim all ads are brainwashing and manipulative. Going this route it means all communication is manipulative as there is an intention behind every word.

[DanAndersen]

I agree with you there about the difficulty of finding the line between manipulative ads and non-manipulative (or less manipulative) communication in general. It's not like we're all pure spherically-modeled creatures of pure thought and reason who can derive the optimal things to do and buy from first principles.

I think one issue with many ads is the matter of power disparity. Those who are more trained in marketing and advertising skills know how to present material in a way that is pleasing to an audience. The average person doesn't have this knowledge or a good sense of all the techniques that are being used on them -- or even if they do they are still susceptible. This means that it's far easier for "attackers" to "attack" than for "defenders" to "defend" (using the words here with an acknowledgment that not all "attacks" are a bad thing; a lot is simply communication). With further advances in data mining and with large amounts of funds being put into advertising, those who are advertising are becoming more adept at knowing what mental buttons to press to get the desired response, while the general populace is not getting better at withstanding it.

It's also a question of scale, and being paid to advertise. For example, I enjoy traditional wet shaving, and there are a few blogs I follow that have reviews of shaving creams, DE razors, etc. I have learned to trust these reviews and while they act as ads for these products (they do manipulate me into being more likely to buy those products) I trust that these reviews are more "genuine" and reliable. When there are more sponsored reviews or payments from third-party ad companies, then the appearance of endorsement (and trusted recommendation) is there but without the same fine control by the content provider. Maybe it's a utopian naive vision, but "I recommend this product because I've used it and like it" seems different in substance from "I recommend this product because the makers of the product have paid me to say that I recommend it."