Why It’s OK to Block Ads | Practical Ethics

In reality, ad blockers are one of the few tools that we as users have if we want to push back against the perverse design logic that has cannibalized the soul of the Web.

If enough of us used ad blockers, it could help force a systemic shift away from the attention economy altogether—and the ultimate benefit to our lives would not just be “better ads.” It would be better products: better informational environments that are fundamentally designed to be on our side, to respect our increasingly scarce attention, and to help us navigate under the stars of our own goals and values. Isn’t that what technology is for?

Given all this, the question should not be whether ad blocking is ethical, but whether it is a moral obligation.

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Related links

An Apology for the Internet — From the People Who Built It

A hand-wringing, finger-pointing litany of hindsight, published with 11 tracking scripts attached.

  1. Start With Hippie Good Intentions …
  2. … Then mix in capitalism on steroids.
  3. The arrival of Wall Streeters didn’t help …
  4. … And we paid a high price for keeping it free.
  5. Everything was designed to be really, really addictive.
  6. At first, it worked — almost too well.
  7. No one from Silicon Valley was held accountable …
  8. … Even as social networks became dangerous and toxic.
  9. … And even as they invaded our privacy.
  10. Then came 2016.
  11. Employees are starting to revolt.
  12. To fix it, we’ll need a new business model …
  13. … And some tough regulation.
  14. Maybe nothing will change.
  15. … Unless, at the very least, some new people are in charge.

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The ethics of modern web ad-blocking – Marco.org

Yes! Yes! YES!

Marco makes the same comparison I did between the dark days of pop-up windows and the current abysmal state of bloated ads and tracking on today’s web.

This won’t be a clean, easy transition. Blocking pop-ups was much more incisive: it was easy for legitimate publishers to avoid one narrowly-useful Javascript function to open new windows. But it’s completely reasonable for today’s web readers to be so fed up that they disable all ads, or even all Javascript. Web developers and standards bodies couldn’t be more out of touch with this issue, racing ahead to give browsers and Javascript even more capabilities without adequately addressing the fundamental problems that will drive many people to disable huge chunks of their browser’s functionality.

Amen!

I have one more thing to add to this list…

But publishers, advertisers, and browser vendors are all partly responsible for the situation we’re all in.

…developers. Somebody put those harm-causing script elements on those pages. Like I said: “What will you be apologising for in decades to come?”

In a few years, after the dust has settled, we’re all going to look back at today’s web’s excesses and abuses as an almost unbelievable embarrassment.

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Making bad ads sad. Rad! - O’Reilly Media

A great talk from Bruce on the digital self-defence that ad-blockers provide. I think it’s great that Opera are building ad-blocking straight into the browser.

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