Sounds like you would not consider it unethical to exploit a flaw in a website that allowed you to order products without paying. After all, the website is public, and you weren't asked not to exploit the flaw...
If the company ships your order then I'd say the ethical onus is quite low on your part. This is a company that has made not one, but two errors that seem to reinforce each other. How could a reasonable person tell if the company intended to give away their products or not?
Nowhere did I imply that. Everything I mentioned was webpage reading/viewing content that the publishers themselves announced across the world, hoping to get readers - who in turn would view their ads.
My point is that your argument is ludicrous. "What, these people that have been promoting their stuff everywhere have advertising on their site?". It's not like it's unexpected. The idea that each website would have to get your consent to show you ads is outright silly.
I don't have a problem with people using adblockers (I use NoScript myself, which has a similar effect), but let's not pretend that it's some kind of ethical action you're taking; that because a website hasn't entered into a formal contract to show you ads, that it's ethically fair that you block them.
And while you didn't imply the situation I described, that situation is using the same arguments you are using - "it's public" and "I wasn't asked not to".
I'm not a party to the contract between the advertiser and the content provider. In principle, I don't necessarily even have an expectation that a given content provider uses advertising revenue to support the provision of their content — they may use a subscription-based revenue model, and offer some number of "free" page views per day/week/month/whatever, as a teaser to encourage new subscriptions. They may just have stupendously deep pockets and like providing that content out of the goodness of their hearts.
Whatever; doesn't matter.
To make the leap from "I chose to view that page" to "I chose to view the ads on that page" is specious and unsupported, and I'm under no obligation whatsoever to enter into an agreement between two other parties on the basis that they happen to have a standing agreement.
To suggest otherwise is tantamount to suggesting that because I chose to walk down a specific street at a specific time, I somehow also chose to see a specific dude taking a specific dump.
I can promise you, I didn't. Just as with ads on the web, however, my consent is apparently not a factor in this equation.
(Why, yes, I do live in San Francisco. How ever did you guess?)
EDIT: And, yes, before you judge or jump to conclusions: I do have paid, auto-renewing subscriptions on subscription-model websites, and I use ad and tracker blocking plugins. It's not my fault that some of the sites I view have chosen (what I think are) shitty revenue models.
As "AdblockingAndMorality" notes, ads are also potentially dangerous content. Let's say that you're a small business, and CryptoLocker nukes everything, including your backups. Would the content provider be liable? How about the ad distributor? Why shouldn't they, if you've been given no opportunity to opt out?
> I'm not a party to the contract between the advertiser and the content provider.
> ... an agreement between two other parties
It's irrelevant what the behind-the-scenes relations are. The party you are engaging is providing the webpage with all it's content; that some of it is outsourced doesn't matter. Using your rationale, you should also be blocking any work done by freelance journalists.
If a company outsources it's billing, does this now mean that you can ethically access their services for free? After all, if a different company is the one posting you the bill, "I didn't agree to anything with them", so you don't need to pay up. It doesn't work that way. If you've ever been chased by a debt collection agency, you'll know that argument is no defence.
Perhaps walk into a diner and have a big meal. Then refuse to pay because you don't have an existing contract with any of the point-of-sale EFT providers or the manufacturer of the cash register. Those are contracts that the diner has with other parties and you have not consented to a contract with them, so you are within your rights to ignore them.
> I somehow also chose to see a specific dude taking a specific dump.
If you know a street is extremely likely to have a dude take a dump, then yes, choosing to walk down that street is accepting that you're also going to see a dude taking a dump.
Regarding your edit, I really don't care. I just think that talking about blocking ads as some sort of morally pure action is nonsense. It's not. You're consuming the content without the full bundle that the content provider put together - if you want to see the article, you're expected to see the ads along with it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't block ads, I'm just saying that if you do, don't pretend like it's actually an ethical action. If you want to be ethical, then don't use the site at all.
Using your rationale, you should also be blocking any work done by freelance journalists.
No, using that rationale, I should be blocking any work done by anyone I choose to block.
EDIT: As far as the "ethics" of ad-blocking, I'm not the one arguing ad-blocking is an ethical position. For me, it's an aesthetic position (ads are ugly), and — as The Fine Article does point out — one of choosing to have my browsing habits remain untouched, unmolested, and unanalyzed and re-sold by the demonstrably unclean hands the advertisers are grabbing at me with.
I guess you can call that an ethical position if you want, but it's not about what's right or wrong in my behavior, so my ethics are pretty much moot.
No, using that rationale, I should be blocking any work done by anyone I choose to block
You were complaining above that you were presented with content from a third party that you hadn't consented to, and didn't have a contract with.
I'm not the one arguing ad-blocking is an ethical position.
If you're not arguing about the ethics of it, why have you been talking about consent and the structure of contracts between parties? Nothing in your first, largest comment has anything to do with aesthetics, it's all about consent. Why, in the same paragraph as this statement, do you demean advertisers quite heavily about issues other than appearance? (deservedly or otherwise)
I'm still interested to hear your opinion on walking out on a bill because you don't have your own contract with the third-party EFT vendors.
Actually, I don't think it's a fair point to say that "I chose to view the ads on that page" is specious and unsupported at all. Those ads are part of the markup and makeup of that page.
But that's exactly my point: without loading an arbitrary page, I can't know whether or not there are ads embedded in its markup.
If a page's headers could somehow tell me, "Hey! This page has ads! Do you still want to load it?", and I choose to continue viewing the page, then I've consented.
Absent that kind of exchange, I am in principle being involuntarily subject to unwanted content.
The same is true of every element on the page, from the menu system to the related articles box. Shall we have headers for every single element on a page?
You claim that you were never presented with an agreement that the content is provided in return for you viewing the ads, and yet you're very clearly aware that's the deal being offered, as you state here.