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(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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No one would have adblock if the ad situation on websites never grew completely out of control.
This is absurdly inaccurate. I've been on the internet since AOL and adblockers have been around since the VERY beginning.
A company called Juno used to offer free dial up internet if you allowed a permanent banner of ads at the bottom of your screen. This was the early 2000s. Guess what existed even then, to block the ads? Just cuz a company was trying to get SOMETHING for providing something for free? Yup, adblockers. The narrative "oh, the companies started it!!" Is very easy to parrot, but companies advertising themselves is not wrong or unethical and blaming them for doing it is absurd.
They were niche back then. The amount of adblock users was effectively nothing compared to today.
And it would never have gotten completely out of control, if people didn't use ad-block.
We should never have tried to fund the web with ads in the first place. We're perfectly willing to pay for data plans, phone service, electricity. Web services should have been the same from the start.
Advertisers started this war.
Pop up ads came before ad blockers.
Nobody was doing this when it was static banners.
Oh, I fully agree, the moment we accepted the deal of ads for "free" stuff, it was always going to end this way.
There will only be a cease-fire when users start paying for what they use again. And even then, now that pandora's box is open, some will pull a hulu and try to double dip on both ads and a payment.
yea, it would have. corporations are an insanely greedy bunch.
Obviusly. But this was an arms race that was always going to pan out this way the moment we started expecting ads to fund the web.
"I wouldn't get so carried away beating you if you didn't make me so much angrier by trying to run when I smack you."
I agree. But here we are. And until it's illegal to do so (and, honestly, afterwards too), when a website I'm viewing politely asks me to download toxic ad content filled with psychological manipulation and malware, my computer will politely whisper "no." I might revisit this policy in the future if the entire advertising industry takes a huge step back to tone down their abusive shit, but in the meanwhile, I have no problem blocking malignant content from my presence. No means no.
A business plan that requires psychological abuse and exploitation of your customers is not an ethical, sustainable, or valid plan and the people who push it are not worthy of my consideration.
I have YouTube premium included in my pixel pass subscription, so this doesn't necessarily effect me. However, you have a grossly uninformed opinion on data and how it works. You think data caps and fast lanes would've saved us from advertising? I'm sorry but the sad truth is it wouldn't have, the money from the ISPs isn't going to trickle down to the website owners, that's not how it works, that's not how any of this works. That's kind of one of the big arguments against data caps and fast lanes, it limits those websites from receiving traffic and in turn ad revenue. If anything those data caps would make things worse.
I think he means that instead of everything on the early internet being ad supported, they should have just made people pay. Think about it; how much of our problems are because everything is a race to the bottom to capture the most eyeballs? Clickbait, recommended algorithms designed to make you angry, news as entertainment, etc.
This was always the outcome of ads. If you want it to stop, start directly paying for things. If you want to continue this arms race to the bottom, keep doing what we've been doing. (not you you)
You have a grossly misinterpreted understanding of my comment. We pay for things like data because it just being free would never work.
Just like youtube or spotify being free has never really worked. I'm saying we should start paying for services like those the same way we pay for our data plans.
Which part of my comment made you think I was suggesting our data plans should somehow pay for our web services? That would be fucking stupid.
Unfortunately people like things for free, so "Free" means faster user acquisition.
But what really sucks is now everything feels like it's a microtransaction haven.. It's not just "subscriptions" but "Ad ons" and more.
Paying for a program feels almost dead, paying for a service is on the way out, because you're now paying to be on a ad supported service, and they'll keep trying to push that as "how it should be".
There are 18 year olds who have never bought a piece of software before. And there's probably plenty that have only purchased games. Push Xbox Game Pass more and we may even have people who never bought anything, because the modern world isn't about you "Owning" anything, it's about leasing, licensing, and reoccurring payments.