Re: [projectvrm] "I am not a brand."

[Joe Andrieu < >]

Alec,

Your persistence is admirable.  In some disturbing way, it's an honor that you still find my post so troll worthy.

If you don't like what's on a web page, don't visit the website. You're not being forced to download it. To accuse websites of forcing content on you is disingenuous. You request the HTML, you download the images, you display the images. In fact, the very possibility of running ad-block proves that you're not being forced to do anything. SPAM and pop-ups are out-of-context interruptions into your life.  But web pages exist for the very purpose of defining the content on a page. It's part of how it works.

However, if you still like to block ads on sites you visit, I stand by my original position: what you are doing is not good for the net. No matter your political disposition, your position doesn't scale. It is simply a selfish refusal to acknowledge the reasonable expectations of the web page author or site owner.

The ethics are simple. Does the activity work at Internet scale?  If everyone used ad blockers, the bulk of the content you obviously want to consume would no longer be produced and displayed for free. That's why blockers will never be built in to any major browser. It breaks down at scale for a vast number of people and organizations who help make the Internet and the web an interesting and useful part of our lives.

You, are, of course, free to violate whatever social contracts you want. As you say, you never "signed" it. And it'll remain rude, selfish, and ineffective. That's why its a social contract... the consequences aren't civil or criminal, just social. You aren't forced to do anything. You can always go elsewhere to get your content. Or continue to be an ungrateful consumer.

If you don't like display ads, find a more constructive means to get rid of them or to transform them into something valuable rather than offensive. Running ad blockers isn't really changing anything except your own isolated experience. Find an alternative that makes more people happier, including those who produce and package that content that brought you to the web page in the first place.

-j

Joe Andrieu

 
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On 6/23/2010 12:36 PM, Alec Muffett wrote:

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But give people tools to manage their experience effectively and I think they'll use them.
    

Yes.  

Nobody [eg: no corporation or individual] should be empowered force any particular content [eg: spam] upon any user [eg: me].

Nor should anyone [eg: corporation or individual] receive sympathy for a user's [my] electing not to partake in their content.


I hereby now direct everyone's attention to Joe Andrieu's spirited excoriation of my use of AdBlock+:

	http://blog.joeandrieu.com/2008/07/20/notes-on-user-driven-search/comment-page-1/#comment-1506

...which he deems to be "violation of a social contract":

  

AdBlockPlus is a violation of your social contract and terms of service. You may not like that your website of choice has chosen a business model that offends you, but it doesn’t give you the right to access their content without addressing the quid-pro-quo they clearly expect you to participate in.
    

So somehow a "social contract" - one to which I have not signed - makes it all OK; there must be a very shadowy line between going to a website and having adverts foisted upon me, versus going-there and suffering popups, versus going-there and being auto-signed-up to a maillist.

The whole thread is worth reading, incidentally, and at the end - as you suggest, Christy - you may find yourself wondering who are the good, and who are the evil.

	-a

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