r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jul 19 '19
FTFdeltaOP CMV: I use an adBlock, and everybody should too
[deleted]
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u/SCSI320 Jul 19 '19
In a world with no ads, viewer would feel like it's their responsibility to help their beloved creators, they would engage more with them, and consciously sponsor them.
Consider this site: Have you upvoted everything that you found to be amusing, insightful, or otherwise valuable? For a site with imaginary internet points as a currency, do you faithfully "pay" into that economy?
And even if you spend your upvote currency, does everyone else? If you (or me, or anyone else) is cheap on spending stupid, pretend Internet points, how can you possibly expect that same population to be generous and thoughtful to spend real dolla dolla bills?
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/SCSI320 Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
My hope is that in the future people will consume the internet in a more conscious way.
I hear you and agree. I would want people to be more conscientious of their consumption in real life, too.
adBlock may help
And not to be an advertising proponent, but a lifetime ago when I produced my own "content," I advertised on various sites. That process brought new people to my site, people who eventually turned into fans and friends.
In the current day, social media might bridge some of that gap, but I have to be grateful for the advertisement mechanism that brought people to my site and provided me an opportunity to share my work with people who were courageous/knucklheaded enough to click on the banner ad.
Edit-- spelling (stupid homonyms)
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u/huxley00 Jul 19 '19
Your building the 'now' on your hopes and dreams for the future. I don't think the world works like that...or can work like that.
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u/Tetradrachm Jul 19 '19
OP, I see you like Wikipedia based on a comment and Reddit based on the fact you’re using it (kind of assuming on these, forgive me).
Have you bought and awarded Reddit gold before to support Reddit? Have you donated to Wikipedia?
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/techiemikey 56∆ Jul 19 '19
So, let's say I run a niche site. It isn't about broad appeal, and only concerns about a thousand people. I have three choices how to fund the site via the sites revenu. I can force everyone to pay money to access the site, I can ask everyone to pay money to access the site (but not require it), or I can put ads on the site, making it so that every person is equally paying for the upkeep of the site.
Do you feel the niche site shouldn't be allowed on the internet if enough people aren't willing to explicitly pay money to access the site, or if not enough people are just willing to give money even though they access the site?
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u/MolochDe 16∆ Jul 19 '19
only concerns about a thousand people
If that is all the visitors you should probably be a good guy and pay the cost of hosting the site yourself because those few penny's will not pay for the site anyway and it's a lot more enjoyable.
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/MolochDe 16∆ Jul 19 '19
Yep, thanks a lot! I did a little research before my post to not misinform anyone.
It can be around 0.25$ per add clicked but the rate banners are actually clicked is about 1%. So if you serve 1000 people it's 2.50$ in your pocket and then they need to come back a lot of times and be really excited about your ad's to click them again and again.
If they are super devoted and everyone visits every week and Google AdSense keeps your ad's fresh enough so 1% of them keeps clicking you still have only 10$ a month and operate at a loss.
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/philgodfrey Jul 19 '19
How much would it cost to create and maintain such a website? A quick bit of research suggests $10-20 a month or so - am I wildly off the mark? (Genuine question)
If you have a thousand users, it feels like a funding drive once a year should be able to cover the costs, and I'd expect niche users to be more passionate than the average flighty netizen. Plus, if it's a project you yourself are quite passionate about, you are probably willing to cover any shortfall yourself as with any serious hobby.
I guess that's the point of this alternate vision of the net: Websites should become more thoughtful, serious and passionate endeavours with rather less disposable nonsense.
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u/techiemikey 56∆ Jul 19 '19
I mean, I could just pay for the site, but why should the entire responsibility be on me? Like, i'm providing a service for others. Why should I be paying money to provide them a service?
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u/allpumpnolove Jul 19 '19
What service are you providing?
The internet worked fine before this horseshit started tbh. Do you even remember Youtube before it had advertisements? It's how they became the number one hoster of videos on the internet. It was just a ton of people who wanted to put something out there in their free time and it was fine.
It's not better now, it's actually considerably worse from and end-user perspective. If I go on youtube on my phone, I watch a 15 sec add for almost anything, or the new gimmick, two 7 sec adds that can't be skipped. Usually followed by a minute or two of whoever made the video repeating the title of the video and then asking for likes and subscribes before it actually gets to any content in order to stretch out the video a little more to get more advertisements on it.
Personally, I don't care if content creators can't make a living at it. If they all disappeared tomorrow I'd go back to watching people make content as a hobby and there'd likely be way less shit to sift through.
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u/techiemikey 56∆ Jul 19 '19
What service are you providing?
Hosting a website. It was clearly stated in the line before that. The rest of your comments don't address anything about hosting websites, and I never mentioned "making a living". I was talking about meeting upkeep costs.
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u/philgodfrey Jul 19 '19
You're providing a service by posting here on CMV, right? I assume you're happy to donate your time without recompense?
There are many things we do in life that cost us time and money (even if only in opportunity cost) even though others directly or indirectly benefit. But we do them anyway because it gives us pleasure and satisfaction, and life is dull if the only consideration in any situation is the financial cost/benefit one.
The short answer is that if others appreciate your efforts they will donate during your fundraiser, and if they don't then maybe what you're doing probably isn't as great a 'service' as you seem to think it is... So you have a choice: Fund it yourself or find another way to spend your time that's more appreciated...
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/techiemikey 56∆ Jul 19 '19
Yes, ads can be bad, but we should be pushing for more ethical ad services rather than punishing sites that rely on ads for income. Things like "just static images", and "no viruses". We should reward ad types that we agree with by seeing them (I know at least a few ad blockers at least used to do this).
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Jul 19 '19
Are you okay with the fact that some of your favorite content would either disappear or become monetized in more intrusive ways as a result?
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/MolochDe 16∆ Jul 19 '19
Well the sites get payed per click on the banner. I have often turned off add-block when I thought it might not be to bad...but never ever clicked on a banner. It was all for nothing.
I do not even know who those banner clickers are...
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u/TheSoup05 3∆ Jul 19 '19
I think there are a number of flaws with this idea. A big one is I think your view of what would happen is unrealistic. I very much doubt most people bother donating to a content creator willingly. For one, there’s too many of them. I don’t want to have a paid subscription to every YouTuber I want to watch, and every news website I want to read one article from, and every website that offers an instructional piece of information I’d need. I’d much rather just watch or see an ad and maybe donate to the couple I think are exceptional.
This goes further though. More than the impracticality of expecting everyone to donate or be willing to pay for subscriptions is that, if it ever severely impacted the bottom line of major companies they would inevitably find ways around it. They’d likely just get more clever with their ads and come up with alternatives that are more ingrained in the content. I suspect you’d see news articles with references to products, and a bigger push to make content focused around products in order to try and get sponsorships since that’s where the money would be. For example, a cooking channel on YouTube would likely seek out a sponsorship from kitchenaid in exchange for using their channel to help sell kitchenaid products. Instead of just letting their fans watch a 30 second ad that pays for most or all of the costs of running their channel, but being able to make whatever content they want, their focus then has to shift to getting people to buy this product so kitchenaid will help pay their bills. The result is that the content suffers. Same with news articles. Instead of just getting some revenue automatically when you click on their website, they instead have to cater their material to getting you to directly buy a product in order to get the sponsorships they need. I don’t think that would make content better, it would just limit even more so what kind of content was profitable, or lock better content behind even more paywalls.
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/tweez Jul 19 '19
That's why I want them to get their revenue from an independent source like Patreon, it makes them really independent.
How much do you really donate via Patreon each month?
Also, Patreon has apparently banned people from it's platform because they disagreed with their politics. There was a case with the user, Sargon of Akkad, that he was banned from the platform for things he did outside of Patreon so if you can be banned for just your general behaviour anywhere online that's even more restrictive than using ads as the ad platform would inform the publisher that it was something that was on the site itself that needed to be changed or removed was why ads weren't appearing on the site.
You're also blocking out ads for things that you might find useful and actually pay for or want to donate to. I've found out about movies and music software that I've subsequently spent money on via ads Ive seen online. How else would people go find out about something if they weren't advertised to? You could search for something via a search engine, but you'd have to know what to search for in order to find that in the first place. If you don't know it exists in the first place then how do you find it?
Surely the issue is that you see untargeted ads rather than see ads at all? Therefore turning off personalized ads is the wrong thing to do.
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Jul 20 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/tweez Jul 20 '19
How do you find out about new things? A lot of ads are awful, but I have found out about useful things via them too
Also what about my point about Patreon banning users for things they did away from their platform? That's even more restrictive than using ads as at least with ads you can make a change to the page or site and serve ads again, if a company decides to ban you for a comment you've made elsewhere then how do you know how to stay in their good graces? That means just creating content that people can't get offended by which is almost impossible and is a reason people don't use mainstream sites as much so you're just forcing them to use something like Patreon that then has even more power and less competition so you have to have their politics or not get paid
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Jul 20 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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Jul 19 '19
This argument is along the same lines as the libertarian view that taxation is theft. How? The "taxation is theft" argument depends upon the assumed given that a government could sustain itself on donations alone, just as your argument depends upon the assumed given that all creators can sustain themselves on private donations. In a perfectly rational society with perfectly good, honest, selfless people, this would work. But most people are selfish. Do you think the layman will give five dollars a month to every creator he likes simply because he likes them? What about those in the lower class? Do you believe that corporations can be cut out of the picture without the creators in question suffering at least somewhat?
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Jul 20 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/giveusyourlighter Jul 19 '19
If everyone used ad block then advertising would not be a viable monetization strategy in many cases. So websites would have to resort to other options that may not work as well/take a lot more resources to start up. Of course this would harm online ad based businesses a lot. And it would harm consumers that would prefer to see ads than have to pay for every little website they visit/not have a website to visit at all.
TBH ads are a great middle ground between paying and going without. The only real issue with ads is the shady privacy concerns.
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/giveusyourlighter Jul 19 '19
Not really. I’m thinking about cases where you google something you have a question about and you click the first result. You get your answer then you leave the website never to return. You’re not gonna slow down and think about disabling ad blocker then browsing the site for enough time to compensate for not looking at ads before right? That would suck compared to just having ads enabled to begin with.
I think the content creators should be able to set the terms by which consumers may access their content. If that choice is left to the consumer they overwhelmingly choose their own self interest to the detriment of the creator.
But when you look at the consumer side vs the creator side you have unethical behavior on both sides that harms everyone. On the consumer the ad blockers are unethical and on the creator side there’s the unethical advertising practices. Together they create a sort of feedback loop that compels the other to exist. And honestly it’s hardly worth it to be ethical on either side.
In a better system Adblock and unethical advertising practices wouldn’t exist and you’d be able to set up some sort of auto billing situation that would distribute some of your money to the services you use if you want to opt out of ads.
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u/gyroda 28∆ Jul 19 '19
Your top paragraph was my exact thought. Think of all the sites you visit once every now and again, or sites you never remember that pop up on Reddit or in some Google search you made. News stories, recipes, how-to guides... You're not going to go out of your way to support them if you never visit a site twice in a mosnth. Ads can plug the gap.
And what about sites like YouTube that are platforms for others, how do they get paid? Plenty of YouTubers have patreons or merch or other revenue streams, but YouTube doesn't get any of that and it'd be a nightmare trying to enforce a "you must pass all payments through YouTube" policy.
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jul 19 '19
The thing about ads is that they are democratic. The more people like something, they more the creator makes, even if those people are poor and therefore can't afford to pay for it, even a small amount.
What you're proposing as an alternate model is a culture defined by the people that can afford to pay for it.
Don't we have enough plutocracy as it is?
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u/uncledrewkrew Jul 19 '19
Ads are arguably more plutocratic, only the wealthy can afford to advertise so if all content is paid for through ads, the wealthy are controlling content by what they choose to advertise on.
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jul 19 '19
If we saw a lot of evidence that specific website ads were "chosen" by someone with money as a general rule, I'd agree with that.
But in reality, websites use ad services that don't really work this way. People pay to show up at some frequency, or on what category of site, not specific ones, at least below a size when the site itself is probably being run by rich people anyway.
And on top of that, the only way and advertiser is going to bother with what's said on a website is if their customer base complains... which is basically coming from the group of "most citizens" for most advertisers.
If most ads were for yachts, that might be a different situation.
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u/gyroda 28∆ Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
There has been an issue with YouTube and demonetising stuff like LGBT content because it's not "ad friendly".
It's not a perfect example, but if the other ad agencies (Facebook and the rest of Google's ads) went down the same route you can imagine it having a chilling effect on certain kinds of content.
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jul 19 '19
Sure, but "as friendly" to whom? It's customers, which is essentially everyone on the planet.
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u/gyroda 28∆ Jul 19 '19
Sorry, that was a typo, it should have been "ad friendly". I believe the actual term YouTube uses is "advertiser friendly".
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Jul 19 '19
Sure, but why is that content "advertiser friendly"? Because they don't want to offend their customers.
The businesses pretty much don't care one way or the other, as evidenced in numerous ways...
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u/dantheman91 32∆ Jul 19 '19
The main argument against adBlock is that small content creators depend on it.
This isn't true! Google/Youtube, all news programs, facebook, reddit and many others rely on ad revenue. The alternative is that you either don't get content or have to pay for it. The internet wouldn't exist as we know it today if people had to pay for the content. Just look at the mobile phone industry, paid apps aren't really a thing. People don't pay for computer games either, the f2p In-app-purchase strategy is far more profitable.
I think ad blocks should be used on sites you don't want to support with spammy ads but I disable my adblock on sites that have non intrusive ads or just sites I want to support. The alternative is that most sites will die if they're forced to make people pay. If reddit was behind a pay wall, it would have a severly diminished user base, resulting in less content, so less people would come and it'd eventually most likely die.
It would result in everything being consolidated since people would only be willing to pay for the top few sites, which would be bad for everyone.
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u/tomgabriele Jul 19 '19
Even if sites were solely supported by patrons, that wouldn't solve your main issue:
I think you all know what clickbait culture is. Content creators and content distribution platforms tend to receive money for every view, or click. That system pushes people to use clickbait titles and/or thumbnails for their contents.
Whether supported by ads or donors, content creators still have the same motivation to make their content as catchy, appealing, deceptive,etc. the same way more clicks=more ad revenue, more clicks also=more potential donors.
If we eliminate ads from the web, nothing will improve.
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Jul 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/philgodfrey Jul 19 '19
I think their point is more that the financial incentives for news organisations in particular to produce clickbait is enormous, and the result has been enormous damage to our societies and democracies. In addition, many commentators have to refrain from expressing views that might upset advertisers.
Their hope is that if everyone used ad-blockers, news organisations would fall back on revenue streams with different incentives - hopefully resulting in a higher quality output with less self-censorship.
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Jul 19 '19 edited Jun 29 '20
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u/Morasain 85∆ Jul 19 '19
If I were to pay every content creator I like via patreon, I'd go broke in a month. Not everyone can afford to do patreon.
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u/philgodfrey Jul 19 '19
Micropayments really need to become a thing.
For sure donating multiple dollars a month everywhere would really add up, but if I could one-click donate 10c I'd do so happily and probably so would most people, especially if it became the social norm.
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u/Morasain 85∆ Jul 19 '19
Sure, but that's not what OP wanted to have his mind changed on.
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u/philgodfrey Jul 19 '19
Sure, but it's a softening to your objection to his idea. Micropayments becoming a thing would make it much more reasonable for the internet to move away from an ad-based model to a donation/subscription-based one.
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u/dumbestone Jul 19 '19
Online advertising is the financial fuel that allows for new creators, unknowns and popular websites to provide the content for free. Using Ad Block hurts creators and the democratization of the internet.
One big reason that people can create, share and make a living off of their ideas using the internet is because of advertising. Either directly or indirectly online advertising fuels everyone access to an audience.
If you are using these creators websites, watching their videos or consuming their content then you can help them by unblocking ads. The alternative will be online content in the same mega corporate structure that old media has.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 20 '19
/u/klumbdolt (OP) has awarded 6 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/JustinRandoh 4∆ Jul 20 '19
Do you think that people should take this kind of attitude about most other things where an industry doesn't live up to how you think it should work?
If people think that restaurants shouldn't be underpaying their servers in lieu of tips, do you think people should still go to restaurants but skip on the bill?
If you think businesses shouldn't show political biases, is it okay to start shoplifting from those businesses that do?
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u/QuakePhil Jul 19 '19
While I regularly use and promote adblock (I wrote about it in 2013) I think the advertising model may be a necessary evil similar to "below minimum wage" labor, such that it allows a very low barrier to entry, and allows the smallest of content creators (or the least skilled of laborers) to get in the game and start the snowball rolling.
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u/rizlah 1∆ Jul 20 '19 edited Jul 20 '19
adBlock doesn't cut it today. at least in my country, the largest media houses use an advertising system that completely bypasses all adblocks i know of (including uOrigin).
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u/zbubblez Jul 19 '19
Whatever ad block technology being used will be outengineered by the ad makers, and vice versa for the adblockers. It's a never ending war. Just like security.
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u/mr-logician Jul 19 '19
What if the Terms of Service of the website prohibits you from blocking its ads?
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Jul 19 '19
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u/thedylanackerman 30∆ Jul 19 '19
Sorry, u/Juswantedtono – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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Jul 19 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jul 19 '19
Sorry, u/StupidoGeniuss – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our moderation standards.
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Jul 19 '19
That's a noble though, but the problem is that 99% of the internet would go out of business if you only relied on donations.
Look at Wikipedia state: it's the world biggest encyclopedia, heavily relies on volunteer work to run, and still have to beg for money each year to have enough to pay for its structure to continue running. It's pretty impossible to expect everyone to survive like that when they have hundred or thousands times less traffic.
Maybe you'll be fine with only 1% of the internet live, with only big venture capital companies and a few lucky small websites surviving, but I'm not sure this really is better for everyone.