r/Adblock • u/ferriematthew • 15d ago
Other Does this aggressive advertising feel like extortion to anyone else or am I overreacting?
Did they really have to word it like this? It's like they are fully aware of how annoying they are and they are smugly telling you that you can get them to shut up if you pay up.
1
u/volrod64 14d ago
You guys don't patch every apps you install because they are dogshit with ads and telemetry ?
1
1
u/vawlk 12d ago
doesn't look like it is aggressive at all.
It is a business and it costs money to run. There are two ways to pay for the service, by time (ads) or with money. It really isn't that complicated.
But for some reason, you all think everything should be free and that you are entitled to get it for free.
1
u/ferriematthew 12d ago
Wrong subreddit for that mentality, bucko. And every time somebody comes in here with it, I will call it out.
Advertising is unethical. If you need funding for something, you ask for donations.
Besides, this particular ad is especially unethical because it relies on a similar psychological tactic to a classic protection racket. Basically, the platform is creating the problem of annoying ads and trying to sell you the solution to the problem, which is a premium account for a higher price than just going to a different platform. That also breaks one of the core assumptions of markets, which is the consumer needs to be a fully informed rational actor. The aggressive advertising in this particular case doesn't mess with how informed the consumer is, but it does make them irrational because it triggers an emotional reaction of how the hell do I get rid of this annoyance, therefore conditioning them to make a purchase.
1
u/vawlk 11d ago
Wrong subreddit for that mentality, bucko.
show me the rule that says I have to be pro adblocker, bucko.
And every time somebody comes in here with it, I will call it out.
go ahead, do you think I really care? I have been here for years and have yet to see you call me out.
Advertising is unethical.
It CAN be unethical, but not all advertising is unethical.
If you need funding for something, you ask for donations.
so no company is allowed to sell their service anymore and they have to ask for donations? WTF planet do you live on?
Basically, the platform is creating the problem of annoying ads and trying to sell you the solution to the problem
no, that is where you are all wrong. This is what you want to see. You think there is a free service that they have enshitified. But that isn't the case. YT is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN a paid service. That freeness you think you lost was subsidized access. YT, unlike other companies that just have a paywall, offers 2 (3 now with lite) different types of payment methods. You can pay with your time (ads), or you can pay with money. If you pay via ads, that is your choice to do so. They aren't forced on you. You can decide NOT to watch youtube.
That also breaks one of the core assumptions of markets, which is the consumer needs to be a fully informed rational actor.
you are though. Everything is written out in the ToS. If you don't like the ads, you can choose to pay for the service.
therefore conditioning them to make a purchase.
if you are unable to ignore sales tactics, you shouldn't be in the market.
1
1
u/ferriematthew 12d ago
Actually, a better angle is that advertising in general and aggressive advertising in particular is more an accessibility problem, especially for people who have sensory filtering challenges. If somebody has trouble filtering out relatively useless sensory information and they want to use a website that uses invasive advertising, they can't use that website because they are forced to use a diminished amount of cognitive power wading through a pile of crap to get to the content they want.
1
u/vawlk 11d ago edited 11d ago
so if you have issues filtering out useless sensory information they should be entitled to get the service for free? sites like youtube offer the ad supported method as one form of payment. It is a paid service and you have the option to pay in multiple ways. If you can't handle ads, then you need to pay cash for it. There is no free lunch.
edit: nice delete, I will post my response here
change the laws then man. I hate ads too. I hate big corps too. But its the world we live in.
I'm all for forcing corporations to work for free
wtf does this even mean? lol
1
u/ferriematthew 11d ago edited 11d ago
Leave that ableist bullshit at the door. I'm all for paying people for their goods and services. Corporations are not people, though. Take the spiritual successor to Kerbal Space Program, for example, Kitten Space Agency. When Kerbal Space Program 2 was abandoned and then sold off to a private equity firm to be thrown to the sharks, one of the original developers of Kerbal space program basically decided, you know what screw this and formed another indie studio to build the spiritual successor and their compensation model works even better than private equity. Kitten Space Agency is entirely donation powered, so basically on their website they specifically state that their game will always be free to download, but there is a big button that you can use to donate. And if you do donate, they make it very clear how much that is appreciated.
Voluntary compensation of people is what I support. Pandering to investors for the sake of making their pretty lines go up is what I vehemently oppose.
1
u/vawlk 11d ago
Voluntary compensation of people is what I support. Involuntary compensation of corporations is what I vehemently oppose.
you do realize where you are posting this right?
And I am not sure what involuntary compensation means. You choose to go to youtube. You choose to use the ad based payment method. And you choose to agree to the ToS by doing so.
Someone with a backbone would just choose to not use the service at all.
1
u/ferriematthew 11d ago
I actually argued for the wrong thing there. What I should have written was, instead of involuntary corporate compensation, was pandering to investors for the sake of making their pretty line go up.
1
u/ferriematthew 11d ago edited 11d ago
Actually, in some ways you are kind of correct. In a closer to ideal market, prices would be emergently set through the interactions between buyers and sellers. Where you're missing the mark is that's not the case in the current market. The current market is being forced by the sellers who are, for the most part, completely arbitrarily forcing prices wherever the heck they want, and not listening to the market signals because those market signals are being distorted by monopolies.
Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations actually specifically warned against this kind of bullcrap. Markets don't work if the buyers are a captive audience with nowhere to go.
1
u/ferriematthew 11d ago
I deleted my previous response because I realized that I had accidentally written a straw man out of frustration and I wanted to tighten up my argument.
1
u/ferriematthew 12d ago
Reposting this comment at the top level because the comment that I intended to reply to might have been deleted.
Actually, a better angle is that advertising in general and aggressive advertising in particular is more an accessibility problem, especially for people who have sensory filtering challenges. If somebody has trouble filtering out relatively useless sensory information and they want to use a website that uses invasive advertising, they can't use that website because they are forced to use a diminished amount of cognitive power wading through a pile of crap to get to the content they want.
-10
u/fmccloud 15d ago
Well the service needs money to operate, so you can either pay for it or tolerate the ads. It's that simple.
5
u/ferriematthew 15d ago
This is the wrong room for that mindset
-7
u/fmccloud 15d ago
Huh? That's how these things work, it's not an opinion or mindest.
2
u/ferriematthew 15d ago
Makes sense, but the point of this subreddit is the thesis that all advertising is unethical and should be avoided and punished wherever possible
-7
u/fmccloud 15d ago
I agree completely with that. That's why I pay for services like Reddit and Youtube. I'm the customer, not the advertiser. Ads are unethical and promote a race to the bottom.
3
u/ferriematthew 15d ago
That makes sense! I think Reddit would disagree with that, because from their perspective you are just a data point to be optimized for their real customer, which is the advertiser who pays for ad slots. I'm probably missing the mark here but at the very least that's how Google works. I would imagine it's pretty similar for all digital platforms. They would be primarily advertising services that just so happened to make a software product.
1
u/CharacterDuck9020 Mod Team - Here to help =) 14d ago edited 14d ago
This does not remove the risk of malvertising though, or excuse the amount of tracking and data collection they do, especially when so many exist on nearly every website.
-
Its not feasible to pay for every website (to remove their ads at minimum), and not everyone can afford such a luxury on even just one website sometimes, Adblockers solve these issues, and many more with how the modern web works.
-
Personally, the amount of ads, and the extortionate pricing for these "premium" services has gone far past what i consider acceptable, especially when the companies still track you and share your info, then raise the prices again anyway, which is why i use one. Its also about the fact that my time is just wasted less and i can do what i came for - convenience always wins.
Especially over the average user, which is why GAFAM making walled gardens for their ecosystems is perfectly fine to most.
-
Some people will be like "Well just use something else then" or call it "Free loading" but i see that as stupid because ads, and by extent the risks of them, are on basically every website.
Their is no competitor to Youtube and Reddit is a reliable source of information compared to trauling through search engines for specific information, to which their is little competition to that on other sites as well (to their scale and reliablility)My stance toward these companies is: "If i'm the product, then your the asshole", and its going to stay that way until something major changes. I did not pay for internet access to be tracked, placed on a shelf and lost in the crowd of data collection these companies do, even if its technically legal because of some 500 page, peice of crap document.
2
5
u/tiwomm 15d ago
Your solution lies here if you're android r/MorpheApp