alt Hacker News> ads are not bad
Ads are noise deliberately added to the signal. They're content you did not seek out and probably don't want. All advertisements are inherently untrustworthy: they're getting paid to sell you something, naturally they will exaggerate the positives and downplay the negatives. Conflicts of interest doesn't even begin to describe it.
That's the charitable interpretation. One could describe advertising as mind rape. You don't consent to it, you don't want it. They just keep trying to forcibly insert the data into your mind anyway. You block them, they bypass your blocker, which arguably makes them malware as well.
They feel entitled to our cognition, memories, attention. They think it's theirs to sell off to the highest bidder. They make it even harder for people with attention deficit to concentrate by trying to forcibly grab their attention. It's not only an accessibility problem, it's also a form of aggression, which makes uBlock Origin a form of justified self-defense.
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If I put out a native ad - uBlock Origin won't work on it. since it's just an html <p> tag or any other element.
the ad industry at large has caused damage - for you to think ads are not beneficial and intrusive or mind rape as you call it - through excessive mining, data selling.
but like an example - I gave - there's an article about cars - and in there there's a text item that says BMW or Cadillac has released a new V8 or electric sedans. if you're a car enthusiast that's relevant to you, if you're not - it's still information that maybe a year down the line - you might find relevant.
not logical but it works. and that's what runs the world - whether you like it or not. see the world as it is.
>You don't consent to it, you don't want it.
By viewing ad supported content, you are inherently agreeing to see ads. That is the product being sold. If you don't want to see ads, don't load the content. It's very simple and plainly understandable.
People using all manner of backdoor techniques to sidestep the parts that they don't want, kills the demand to create a product they do want.
So rather than a paywalled news org that has no ads on the other side of the wall, we have ublock origin and archive.is
100% agree. Everyone is susceptible to ads, even if few believe it. The ad pushers know it. It's a form of information warfare, not simply business. If I'm looking for a product and ask a vendor to give me pitch, great. But if I'm doing something else and vendor propaganda is forced on me interrupting my task, that's not ok in any way.