When people make this argument, it sounds to me like they are telling me to just steal my food from a restaurant if I don't think their payment processor is 100% secure.
I know that digital != physical goods in many ways, but the point is why does you not approving of their process, security, or price give you the right to just not do it?
That's not how the web works. Websites give you their website for free. Your web browser does a GET / and their server responds 200 OK with some content. How you view that content once it is transferred onto your computer is 100% up to you. You can block ads, you can make plugins click-to-play, you can change the styles using Stylish; whatever you want. For your own viewing purposes, it is now yours.
Websites are not giving you the content for free, they are giving it to you with an expectation that you take the ads along with them, or you pay for the subscription.
This excuse is so played out it's annoying. You could say this about anything:
That's not how the real world works. Stores offer you things for free on a shelf, you walk up and take the item, and the store responds by letting you have it. How you pay for that item is 100% up to you.
But that's not true. Just like how a store expects you to pay for something, the website expects payment in the form of a subscription/payment, or by running the ads. (and i'm just using the comparison as an analogy, I know digital vs physical is a whole other discussion, and i'm not implying that viewing a page without ads is the same as stealing physical items)
Where do you draw the line there? Is it okay to flip some bits in your bank account and give yourself money because the computer responds letting you? Are you allowed to download paid software for free because someone somewhere served it to you?
> Websites are not giving you the content for free, they are giving it to you with an expectation that you take the ads along with them, or you pay for the subscription.
No they aren't, if that's what they were doing they would present you with a contract stating that. A contract is not something that happens secretly or implicitly and putting a "terms of service" link in small print at the bottom of your website is not a contract. There has to be a meeting of the minds [1] where both parties understand the arrangement.
That's not what happens with ad-driven websites.
> Where do you draw the line there? Is it okay to flip some bits in your bank account and give yourself money because the computer responds letting you? Are you allowed to download paid software for free because someone somewhere served it to you?
No, that would be exploiting a bug on their server, knowingly. Blocking ads or changing styles with Stylish is not exploiting a server bug; your browser says GET / and their server says 200 OK. It really is as simple as that.
Does the situation change with HTTP2? When your browser says GET and the server responds with not only a 200 and the HTML, but also the JS, CSS, images, and more all pushed to your machine?
Their web server can just as easily send a 401 if you haven't logged in with your account after paying for access. They don't have to give you a 200 when you GET /. Nothing is forcing them to give your browser the OK just because your browser requested their site.
I don't feel any more guilty blocking ads then I do throwing away the advertising brochures unread that bookstores often put in your bag when buying a book.
"Expectations" don't inherently generate revenue. Performing activities that generate revenue... generates revenue. Put another way: expectations don't entitle you to revenue.
On the legal side, the store gets paid when I buy something because I risk arrest if I don't pay. On the ethical side, I don't steal because doing so deprives someone else of the good I have stolen.
You claim "I know digital vs physical..." and yet you still trot out that tired analogy... because yes, you are implying that viewing a page without ads is the same a stealing physical items, and suggesting that you aren't is just intellectually dishonest.
> Is it okay to flip some bits in your bank account and give yourself money because the computer responds letting you?
Again: adding money to your account necessarily deprives someone else of that money, so, no. There's also a legal deterrent (a fuzzy one, but a bank could probably get a CFAA violation to stick), and just the futility of it: the bank will notice the error and claw the money back anyway. If you spend it, you're still on the hook for it.
> Are you allowed to download paid software for free because someone somewhere served it to you?
If the creator of that software is the one serving it to me, sure! (Just as is the case with ad-supported web content.)
It is just completely baffling to me how people can equate serving up ads with any other form of, y'know, actual payment, and suggest that it's somehow unethical to avoid seeing ads.
If you put stuff up on the web, you should expect people to view it however they like. That's what the web is for; in the early days commercial content wasn't even allowed there.
I'm happy to pay for things, even digital files. But my browser is mine and it will do what I want with the content you put on the web.
Maybe because me clicking some link and getting loaded into a site is in no way a tacit agreement to be exposed to security concerns? I don't owe the creator of a site anything by default.
> steal my food from a restaurant if I don't think their payment processor is 100% secure.
restaurant payment processing is regulated by ACH/PCI/banking regs and I'll get my money back if their systems are attacked, up to and including a lawsuit if they dont act in good faith.
How about this, I allow ads to be served if they sign a contract making the advertiser liable for any and all damages incurred by the installation of malware ? Oh yeah, and I run Linux so the repair bill for a qualified Linux sysadmin to fix my system could easily run north of $200/hr (double the standard PC repair house rate, since fewer people are qualified to fix it)
If everyone thought like you, then I might be forced to guarantee my business's survival by assuming the worst of every user - that instead of using a web browser, they're sucking down my content using a bespoke client that strips out all of the advertisements that I get my revenue from.
My response could be to stop using web protocols and force my users to consume my content using my own thick client.
That might be economical for me.
It would be if my site offered tomorrow's stock prices.
It wouldn't be if my site streams home renovation tips.
So if your assertion is correct, it would result in the decimation of large parts of the internet - which seems unlikely.
If your model is restricting how people view content, then yes, using an open platform like the web is not a great choice. Instead try delivering your content as a native app. There you can do a much better job of preventing them from interfering with how content is displayed. They might still be able to disassemble the binary and modify it, but that would be quite a lot more work and would need to specifically target your app; whereas browser ad blockers use features built into the browser that work globally.
Of course, by not using the web you are putting yourself at a disadvantage as far as customer acquisition, but if you think you can compensate for that, then go for it.
You can actually do both. I have a subscription to lemonde.fr and I also block ads (which are particularly aggravating on mobile); that is simply good hygiene
I don't block ads to stop creators from getting paid... I block ads because 99% of them are irrelevant, waste my time and are a massive attack vector.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...