Rant: Social Contracts and the Web
If you use this tool, be aware of a sensitive issue. Although you may feel that your enjoyment of some Web sites is marred by the presence of ads, these ads represent a revenue stream for the Web site. If you block ads, there are those who would assert you are not holding up your end of a “social contract” between yourself and the Web site that you are browsing.—Chris Lynch, NewsForgeI saw this on Slashdot today. Here is someone that gets the web advertising situation perfectly. While many people are oblivious to it, much as they are other ethical situations, there is an unspoken “social contract” to viewing web sites. If you view my site and it has ads on it, it does not require a serious ethical consideration to understand that a barter situation is going on under the honor system, and the honorable thing to do is to download the ads.
As I have said before, in most cases, the person viewing a site has unmetered access and the person providing the site does not. Therefore, when you download an ad, it costs you time, but when you view my site, it costs me money. And it still costs me money when you do not view my ads. If we were dealing with any situation other than web site viewing, I really doubt someone would feel it was ethical to not uphold their part of the bargain despite the fact that they were materially costing the other party. And TiVo analogies do not hold water: NBC is not materially impacted in any way when I watch a show like Revelations. While it still may be right to view the ads, they do not have to amplify their signal more because I am tuning in; therefore, the web developer's situation is much more like that of a shopkeeper selling goods than the television network broadcasting a show.
I continue to insist that the moral thing to do if you do not like the ads on a site is to quit viewing that site. It is simple and ethical. If I don't like how much the grocery store charges for an apple, I do not steal the apple, I go somewhere else to buy apples. Likewise, web surfers should examine the cost of a given site and then choose whether to “shop” there or elsewhere, not give themselves a five finger discount because it is easier than “driving to the other store.” Remember: if everyone did that…
A frequent argument is that the web was fine without commercialized sites. Perhaps it was. Those who feel that way should simply refuse to use commercialized sites rather than trying to force commercialized sites to become non-commercial by raiding and pillaging them. Nothing is stopping users from ignoring the boom of sites that have appeared thanks to advertising revenue.
And that, my friends, ends my rant of the night.
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Name: Timothy R. Butler
Birthday: Sep. 24
Favorite Color: Green
Education: BA, M.Div
Blogging Since: Feb. 2002
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Re: Rant: Social Contracts and the Web
I personally don’t block any ads, apart from pop-ups and the like, for the very reason you mention. And if the site has too many pop-ups, I normally either don’t use it, or alternatively (if the site is really good) I might subscribe if there’s a function to do so.
For example, I have a subscription to RinkWorks, which stops the ads while still supporting the site. And while Slashdot doesn’t use pop-ups, I subscribe to it anyway, because it’s cool.
Likewise, I occasionally try to compensate in other ways. For example, one site I used had a lot of big ZIP files that I wanted - about 378 of them, weighing in at 25MB total - and it had a PayPal button for donating. So I downloaded them all with wget, and compensated the guy a bit for me being the idiot that downloads all the files at once.
I can’t really tolerate pop-ups and pop-unders, though. Normal ads are good, and I even click them sometimes. But I will block pop-ups no matter what.
Re: Rant: Social Contracts and the Web
Is there a way, server side, to block ad blockers? To where the surfer would only see a blank page or something like that?
Re: Rant: Social Contracts and the Web
Specifically to popups, and the like, I feel that any thing on the page is the cost of viewing the page. Any thing that pops outside of my browser window is intruding into my system and can cause problems, somewhat like a tele-marketer, and therefore game for blocking.
Blake: I’ve thought a lot about that. I think it is doable, but since ads are usually served by a third party network, the individual site would need some way to “hook” into that network’s computer to query whether ads were being blocked or not.
Re: Rant: Social Contracts and the Web
The paradox with popups, of course, is that by their very nature, advertisers pay more for them than they do normal ads. Meaning that by blocking popups, you deprive the site owner of even more revenue than with normal ads.
I’m still blocking them, though.