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178 points elsewhen | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.234s | source
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keb_ ◴[] No.41854693[source]
I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of malware and I don't have a lot of respect for the modern ad networks. However this culture of expecting websites to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly.

There is an unwritten social contract here. Websites are willing to host and organise a vast number of content because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then services won't host the content, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy the services they use in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target).

If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if a service's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use that service - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make their own service work or investigate the long list of alternative platforms.

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aaomidi ◴[] No.41854706[source]
You should have control over what content gets displayed on your screen.

This is an ad network using another unrelated product (chrome) to enforce its market dominance.

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jart ◴[] No.41855629[source]
Yes but what tipped the scales was when policymakers all over the place started requiring adblockers. For example if you manage a company with 100,000 employees, you can push a button in Google Admin that installs uBlock Origin on all their browsers. Those people didn't have a choice. Enough organizations probably did this that I imagine it started threatening the whole economy.
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1. ulrikrasmussen ◴[] No.41858587[source]
That's great, the ad economy can die in a fire and leave the space for alternatives that aren't focused on turning your brain to mush and promoting overconsumption. Some content creators will be hurt but the good ones will be fine.