How To Combat Harmful Technology: Should Ads Be Banned?

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

5 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

We expect ads to be in the magazines that we buy, and we still buy them, so we can have no complaints whatsoever that the magazines contain ads. Unlike websites, magazines would close down if they didn't have ads. Also unlike websites, we can look in magazines before we buy them, so there are never any surprises. I don't know why they are in this discussion in such detail.

Ads in general are very good things. They inform us that stuff that we are often interested in is available. Without them, we would be blissfully ignorant of such things. Everyone benefits from ads. It could reasonably be argued that, to a significant extent, we rely on ads in our everyday lives.

I honestly cannot understand the anti-ad thinking that is often expressed on the web. It's almost like the matter-of-principle thinking that some people have, that everything in SL should be totally free. I.e. I want to visit any website I choose but I object to ads being put in front of my eyes when I visit them. Such thinking is beyond my comprehension.

My answer to the OP's original question is NO! Ads should not be banned. We need them.

My man buys rail fan magazines or have subs to them. They have some ads, mostly related to railroad stuff are of interest to the readers. Those magazines due depend on those survive. A normal magazine like a beauty one  is a different story though.

4 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Nods, yes you do. (*Turn's on his Adblock.)

uBlock Origin is the one many use. AdBlock sold themselves to the dark side long ago. Plus they're in bed with Freakbook.

[Phil Deakins]

19 hours ago, Paulsian said:

maybe sell the ones with ads at discounted price

Slight aside here.

I bought my Amazon Fire tablet at a £10 discount because it gets some ads. If I'd paid £10 more, it could have been ad-free. I didn't know anything about it at the time.

Some TV streaming services are free with ads (that you can't ffwd through), and for a monthly subscription you can have ad-free programmes instead.

What you suggested is happening, but printing magazines is expensive, so it won't happen with them.

[Phil Deakins]

Something else to keep in mind is, when we visit a website, we are visiting someone else's private property. It's made available to the public but it is private property. What the owner puts in it is entirely up to him/her and nothing to do with us, as long as it's all legal. If there's a reason we don't like it, we can choose not to go back, but there is nothing for us to complain about.

[Arielle Popstar]

11 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Something else to keep in mind is, when we visit a website, we are visiting someone else's private property. It's made available to the public but it is private property. What the owner puts in it is entirely up to him/her and nothing to do with us, as long as it's all legal. If there's a reason we don't like it, we can choose not to go back, but there is nothing for us to complain about.

In those countries that still have free speech, one is still allowed to voice a complaint, but the company just does not have to do anything about it. Just as we have the choice to then no longer pay for their service or product. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

This is one of those situations where the "if you can't handle the pushback get offline" bit is the best choice to make. If you don't want to see the commercials, change the channel. If you don't want to see ads online use an ad blocker or just ignore them.

Whatever data they collect on me is useless since I never buy anything online. It may sound strange but a certain tv series in the 60s was pretty factually correct when it came to the advertising game. Very little has changed in advertising since then other than the tactics have gotten even more underhanded.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Krystina Ferraris]

On 2/13/2022 at 10:06 AM, StarlanderGoods said:

The bots I encountered are always trying to sell di*k pills and online casinos.

What have you been Googling, naughty giraffe 🦒 😜

 

[StarlanderGoods]

1 hour ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

What have you been Googling, naughty giraffe 🦒 😜

 

You know that troll that creates threads with incredibly racist titles, and shows up maybe once or twice a week, makes two threads with the same name, and then comes back with a new alt the next week.  Well, the same thing happens in other forums, but it´s online casinos and ED pills.

Imagine a Terminator, but Skynet branches from our current idea of AI, instead of a cold and calculating Arnie, it would be a guy screaming at the top of its lungs, trying to sell you whatever scamm Skynet has gotten into that week.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Something else to keep in mind is, when we visit a website, we are visiting someone else's private property. It's made available to the public but it is private property. What the owner puts in it is entirely up to him/her and nothing to do with us, as long as it's all legal. If there's a reason we don't like it, we can choose not to go back, but there is nothing for us to complain about.

No, it's not really "someone else" the vast majority of the time: it's a giant, impersonal billion dollar megacorporation that literally exists only to milk as much profit as it can. And when they shoot ads on to my computer, they are invading my space.

And I've never got this complacent "nothing to complain about" thing. Of course there is! First of all, if they're at all bright, they'll listen to the complaints, and address them in order to have more happy customers, and a higher profit margin. And secondly, the fact that it's someone else's property doesn't mean I can't judge or criticize it. My next door neighbour might have the "right" to fly a Confederate flag from their property, but you can be damned sure I'll "complain" about it, and loudly.

Stop treating impersonal corporate machines as though they were people, with human feelings and rights. They aren't. They are protected in many ways by existing legal structures, as they should be, but behaving as though they had human rights is just pandering.

Don't be a sheep, Phil. Stop buying into the system.

[Phil Deakins]

55 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

No, it's not really "someone else" the vast majority of the time: it's a giant, impersonal billion dollar megacorporation that literally exists only to milk as much profit as it can. And when they shoot ads on to my computer, they are invading my space.

Sorry, Scylla, but it IS someone else's private property. It doesn't matter how big or how small the owner is, it is private property that is open for the public to visit. And it is entirely their business what they put into it. They don't invade your space. You are in their space when they shoot ads at you, not yours. If you don't like their property, don't visit it again.

Nobody is entitled to go through this world, or the web, and not see any ads.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[Istelathis]

@Phil DeakinsJust the same, our computers are also private property and as such blocking the ads would in such a system of ethics be justified.  

What bothers me about many websites now is the tracking, imagine having to give your ID at every store you went to, and then that store sold your information so far as what you had purchased to other stores.  Take it up a few notches, and you have a complete profile of your purchases stored somewhere, everything you have bought, everywhere you have been has been been recorded and can be sold to anyone for the right price.

What has occurred is that you are now the product.  Insurance companies now notice you enjoy a bit too much sugar on your cereal, therefore your premiums are raised, likewise car insurance notices you like hot rods, and you are now considered a liability.  Your landlord notices you purchased some raid products in the past, and thinks perhaps you would not be a good fit for his property, and your potential employer notices you enjoy to buy a 12 pack a week and decides it is in his best interest not to hire you.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Istelathis

[Theresa Tennyson]

53 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

You are in their space when they shoot ads at you, not yours. If you don't like their property, don't visit it again.

Theresa Tennyson looks at her chair in puzzlement. It's hers, inherited from her grandparents. And it sits in a space that she's signed a lease for.

And it's this chair that she's sitting in when an ad is "shot" at her.

[Nick0678]

9 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

uBlock Origin is the one many use.

Personally i use BANCUH Adblock DNS+Family Safety as DHCP default for devices connecting on Wlan...

 

... and for Firefox AhaDNS Ads Filtering (DNS-over-HTTPS) combined with Ublock. (AdBlockPlus was good way back in 2000-2010)

[Krystina Ferraris]

10 hours ago, StarlanderGoods said:

You know that troll that creates threads with incredibly racist titles, and shows up maybe once or twice a week, makes two threads with the same name, and then comes back with a new alt the next week.  Well, the same thing happens in other forums, but it´s online casinos and ED pills.

Imagine a Terminator, but Skynet branches from our current idea of AI, instead of a cold and calculating Arnie, it would be a guy screaming at the top of its lungs, trying to sell you whatever scamm Skynet has gotten into that week.

I hope the people who think trolls only lurk in these fora actually read that. That’s so annoying and yet nothing can be done other than an IP ban… which they can’t do as I believe IP addresses IP get reassigned around to different users. 😞

[davidventer]

On 2/11/2022 at 5:40 AM, Matilda Melune said:

Well if they paid my bills I would be more then happy to watch them. 😁

Use the Brave browser. You get a share of the ad revenue from ads displayed to you. I think Microsoft is also doing that with Edge now but they offer gift cards instead of crypto or cash payouts.  

Edited February 15, 2022 by davidventer

[Phil Deakins]

10 hours ago, Istelathis said:

Just the same, our computers are also private property and as such blocking the ads would in such a system of ethics be justified.  

I haven't said anything against blocking ads.

10 hours ago, Istelathis said:

What bothers me about many websites now is the tracking

I'm in favour of preventing tracking. I said that earlier.

 

9 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson looks at her chair in puzzlement. It's hers, inherited from her grandparents. And it sits in a space that she's signed a lease for.

And it's this chair that she's sitting in when an ad is "shot" at her.

But there are no ads on the chair, Theresa, or in the space that you occupy when sitting in it. The ads appear in the image that's on your monitor when you have guided it to view other people's private spaces (websites), where they are free to include anything they like as long as it's legal. Not only that, but you chose to visit those places, fully knowing that you are likely to see ads unless you block them. It's your choice, and yours alone.

All I'm saying is (1) in general, ads are good things and we need them, and (2) we don't have any right to ad-free surfing on the web, so we can have no complaints about seeing ads when we use the web.

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[Mollymews]

i am good with ads in my SL. Like my attached media-on-a-prim player Is tuned to a online web streaming music provider and plays digital ads on the moap surface, and plays voice ads on the stream same as RL radio and TV stations do

is not something I think much about really.  I have no idea what the advertisers could gather as useful from this. Seems when a moap player first links to a web url the host (music stream provider in my case) does get info that my computer is establishing some kind of handoff thru a Secondlife domain server. Not sure what the host might make of this either and am not really fussed about it myself

[Maryanne Solo]

As an aside, well, a drive through actually..... stopped into Mac Dongles this morning for a coffee on my way
to colleges and "would you like to support blah blah blah blah" which I didn't even hear WHAT it was because
my brain switched into "unwanted junk mode" immediately @6:30am in the morning. (butt kicking sound system
in ye-olde vintage toyota hilux), I said to the girl: "that (cause) didn't even register I am sorry, I don't have a clue what
you said. Tell your supervisor this is Australia not America lol". *huff🙄
Sorry to USA friends lmao.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

I hope the people who think trolls only lurk in these fora actually read that. That’s so annoying and yet nothing can be done other than an IP ban… which they can’t do as I believe IP addresses IP get reassigned around to different users. 😞

Sorry but yes, they can IP ban and do. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

Seems I must be the only one left alive that remembers when there weren't any ads on the web. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Sid Nagy]

If someone (private or company) has a website with content and they want to make some money out of their effort, they either have to charge for viewing, sell something, beg for money or use ads. Or a combination of those.
It's as simple as that.
No news or serious content site will provide their news completely free.

What is there not to understand?
It isn't exactly rocket science.

[StarlanderGoods]

3 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Seems I must be the only one left alive that remembers when there weren't any ads on the web. 

I do, instead of ads it was banners to other related webpages.

[Sid Nagy]

But not a good professional news site in sight in those days.
And a lot of sites still experimenting instead of being an online business.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

28 minutes ago, StarlanderGoods said:

I do, instead of ads it was banners to other related webpages.

And it was simple banners --- not the ones that pull sound, etc from 3rd party sites that slow the page down. Why all the adblockers came about.

[Silent Mistwalker]

@StarlanderGoods

 

Juno and Active Worlds.

In the 90s.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Extrude Ragu]

I view it as a well-being issue.

Ads have in the past contributed towards stress due to intrusive or distracting behavior, attempts to make me feel inadequate in some way or other or attempts to tamper with my computer and install malware.

I won't pay for my services with my mental health or my computers health. They can find some other way to make money off me.