When will people stop stealing content
This post is a rant. Yep, you may want to skip it. But just so you know it involves people who use extensions such as AdBlock (on FireFox) or AdThwart (on Chrome) to block out advertisements while browsing the web.
I have never used one of these extensions (never even tried it). The whole idea repulses me. Why, you may ask? Well, let’s examine this why. I go to the book store to buy a book and I am willing to pay money because I recognize the value that the author has created in the book through their talent. Notice, I buy and I pay.
Now, when I am on the Internet, almost everything is free. Having said that, some ‘author’ is creating this content. And since you at least consider reading this content when you visit a web page, it is of some value to you. When you repeatedly go to an author’s page, then you definitely get value out of the content that they are writing.
Are you paying for this content? Not directly. Is the author expecting payment for it? Not directly. However, if the author has put advertising on their website, they are expecting to make money on the value that they are providing through the content that they put up. And by blocking advertisements using such plugins, you are denying them this payment.
To me, that is the equivalent of stealing. It is like breaking the honor system. Imagine picking up that watermelon in the photo and walking on without placing the 2 dollars in the jar. If enough people did that, then the farmer will have to stop selling water melons this way. And whose loss will that be? Everyone’s.
Once again, I can’t repeat it enough: using adblock or similar is THE SAME AS STEALING.
I monetize my website, and my aim is to make enough from advertising so that I can pay for the hosting costs. That is it. I don’t have a world famous blog, and I probably don’t add that much value, but I still get some people once in a while who thank me for the content that they have put up. But imagine people who use their online properties as a way to make a living. They spend their entire waking hours writing content so that the readers can get some value out of it (I am not even talking about mega sites which have people that they pay for creating content). When you deny them their advertising dollars, you are basically slowly putting them out of work.
I would be interested in knowing why people thing that it is a good idea to use these plugins. You are welcome to leave comments explaining. Else, I simply request that you do not use these plugins at all.
“the excellent photo shown above was taken from Lisa B’s photostream on Flickr and is usable under Creative Commons”
UPDATE:
Kiran on Twitter pointed me towards this post on “approach to fair ad blocking” and there being a need for a middle ground. There is one basic problem with the entire argument in the post – he says that the control for this should be with the users. Well, control always has been with the users – you can control yourself NOT to view a particular website whose advertisement flavor you don’t like. Simple.
Saying that the user should be able to choose when they want to block ads on a site, is the same as saying, when the price is too high, lets steal, else lets pay. If the webmaster thinks that their content is valuable enough such that they can monetize it in an annoying manner, and still people will visit, then why not let them. They added that value to the content, and thus they should be allowed to make money of it.
IMO, if you do want to use an ad-block type plugin, and want to be fair, then the plugin should support a <nofreeview> tag which the webmaster should be able to put in their pages. If this tag is present, then the plugin should disallow the user to view that web page completely, unless ad blocking is turned off. Let’s see how many webmasters allow free viewing when such a tag is available.
A middle ground doesn’t make sense, since as a content producer it should be up to me to put a price on it. And as a consumer, if you don’t like the price, then don’t use it. But don’t steal my content, just because you don’t like the price.
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December 14th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Perhaps in India because of low internet speeds and high rates. With good speeds, people don’t bother about adblock. My experience.
By the way, how do you get an advertisement within the post?
December 14th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Put it in a div and set alignment to right.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
cheers
looks neat to me
December 14th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I have never used such ad blocking software. I don’t see the need.
Also, it’s kind of cool when advertisers show me stuff I really might be interested in. This especially applies to Facebook (well, to be fair it rarely applies to Facebook, but it does occasionally apply).
I am very grateful that browsers come with pop-up blockers, though (even though there are some really creative coders who get around those limitations–e.g. Snopes.com).
December 14th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Well, in my book you are one of the good guys…
December 16th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Pretty strong article prompted this comment – and agree with your points. Also agree that perhaps speed of download and web experience may increase by blocking ad divs…and last point for me if I am at a good site – I never bother if ads show up (unless they force me to watch it)
December 21st, 2009 at 1:39 am
Your post does raise some good points. I think static advertisements are not much of an hindrance but those flashy banners with changing pics are kind of distracting.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:05 am
It really doesn’t matter. The amount of advertising is just price tag – if you don’t like the price tag, then don’t consume the content.
If the content is not good enough to justify the flash advertising, people will stop visiting the site, and the site owner may then take down that type of advertising (thus reducing the price).
At the end of the day, the content owner should decide the price.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Yes. That’s right thing to do I believe.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
well, you are a content provider too, so its easier for you to believe
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 am
When advertising becomes non-invasive and does not cover up, pop up, roll over, fade, etc., over the content I am trying to view, I will stop blocking ads.
Now, the advertising on your site doesn’t do that, and I have no problem with your ads. Visit sites like espn.com, yahoo, and fandango to see what I mean. It is no longer good enough for advestisers to simply have their ads viewable. Yea, you are looking at the web page, but there is no guarantee that you will actually focus your eyes on the ads, so we’ll make you!
That’s the mindset, right?
When these kinds of practices stop, I will stop blocking ads.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Hi Mike,
What you say is the most common reason that people give for blocking ads, and I can understand where you come from.
However, sites like ESPN think that their content is exclusive/expensive enough that they will levy such a cost on their viewers (cost=how painful the advertising is for you).
So, to your point, ideally if you don’t like the type of in-your-face advertising at a site that you visit, then don’t visit the site and consume their content.
Cheers.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:17 am
“So, to your point, ideally if you don’t like the type of in-your-face advertising at a site that you visit, then don’t visit the site and consume their content.”
I was expecting this reponse.
I think cell phone providers collude to keep prices and fees unjustifiably high. Should I stop using cellphones?
I disagree with labor conditions and wages for factory workers in China. Should I stop buying electronics with Chinese components? Or anything made in China?
I disagree with the imperialism of iraq and the middle east for oil. Should I stop driving my car or taking the bus?
I think genetically modified foods should be labeled but the law does not require it. Should I stop eating?
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Mike, not the same comparisons at all. The one that’s the closest is the one with cell phone providers. Because they charge an unjustifiably high usage charge, do you hack into their systems so that you don’t have to pay those charges? Didn’t think so. The point is because you ‘want’/'need’ to use the cell phone service, so you pay their unjustifiable charges. Similarly, if you ‘want’/'need’ to consume content that someone is providing on their website, then you should ‘pay’ whatever their charges are. And if not, then don’t consume the content, just as if you didn’t want to pay the charges to the cell phone company, you would limit your cell phone usage or switch to a provider with lesser charges.
The other examples are not similar. Since in case of web content and ad blocking, you are simply unwilling to pay the price that a content provider is charging for their content, and it has nothing to do with whether you like the advertising or not.
What do you think?
January 5th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
@Vaibhav – His comparisons are completely valid, though not perfect metaphors. The great thing about that web is that it is not like any of those services in nature.
Your metaphor is conversely inappropriate. The web is not like a watermelon market, it’s more like watching television with a DVR or service like Tivo. If you want people to watch the ads – you should make the ads unobtrusive or entertaining to watch. The advertisers during the U.S. Football “Superbowl” and large TV networks understand this, they know that by making funny commercials people will watch the ads instead of walking away or fast forwarding through them with a DVR. Would you consider these people to be stealing? Of course not, they are just getting rid of ANNOYANCES that you PUSH upon them.
You need to stop thinking that your readers need you, you need your readers and you need to adapt your content so that it is pleasurable to them.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
@George – I did compare this to TiVo as well – someone answered my post through his own post, and I have a lengthy discussion as a comment on his blog (where I do compare it to a TiVo): http://www.kiranjholla.com/myblog/ad-blocking-a-debate-about-ethics.html
To illustrate how the watermelon analogy is similar, let me change it slightly – what if the sign said, “if you want a watermelon, please first stand on your head for 2 minutes, then run three circles around a cart, and then you can take the watermelon.”
In this case, if you are an honest person, you would simply say that the cost of consuming this watermelon is too bothersome, so I won’t take it. Or if you REALLY wanted the watermelon, then you will do all that, and then take a watermelon.
If you were a dishonest person, you will simply take the watermelon.
The point is not how valuable the content is or whether the author thinks that they need their readers or not. The point is that being readers, if you find the advertising on a website too bothersome, you should just not consume that website.
As you say (and I agree), the onus is definitely on the content provider to make sure that the readers get attracted to their site and and stay. But that doesn’t mean that if they are doing a poor job of it, then they should be penalized by denying them their chosen mode of revenue. That’s like taking the watermelon without running the circles.
For the record, this rant of mine is not because I have a personal grievance against people blocking ads on this site – there are few enough who visit anyway. Its just that this behavior has always irked me at a conceptual level.
December 29th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I dislike ads on a blog/website. That’s why i use adblock to block them. I do blog and have a few ads on it. Am not sure if anyone bothers to click them or not. But it doesnt matter to me.
The info available on the net is free and i dont think that one is doing anyone a favour by writing a blog or disseminating info. That said, i dont mind if anyone comes to my blog with an adblock software and / or doesnt click on the ads on my blog.
If you want to force someone to click ads on your blog, you can deny any browser with an adblock software access to your site.
For my idea of “copyright is the right to copy”
December 29th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Liju, well with that definition, there is nothing I can say
January 4th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
I don’t think it is right for content providers to dictate what my computer will show me and what it will filter out for me. Just because content providers have chosen a business model that requires control over my computer and my very attention doesn’t give them the right to it.
This is very different from the watermelon analogy. Content is delivered and then the consumer can view as much or as little of that content as they want. It is like having a sign that says “FREE WATERMELONS” and then getting upset when people don’t eat the seeds. You gave it away for free, that still doesn’t give you the right to dictate what people do with it.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Hang on. The sign doesn’t say “Free Watermelons”. It says, watermelons for $2.00. So, if you want to have the watermelon, i expect you to put 2 bucks in the jar.
Of course, since i am not watching, you can choose to take the fruit for free.
A lot of people would take the watermelon and put $2.00 in the jar. However, if the sign said $200.00, then those people who were willing to put the two bucks would probably skip taking the watermelon. Right? Or should they just take the watermelon and not put $200.00 in the jar?
Its the same analogy with ads. Most people say that when the advertising is not so obtrusive, then they will not block it, but when it is, they will block it – but regardless, they will consume the content (which is equivalent to taking the watermelon in the analogy). And that is the problem.
In your example, you are comparing both the advertising+content as being equal to the watermelon. But no, the advertising is the $2.00 (or $200) and the content is the watermelon.
So, if you don’t like the price, don’t eat the watermelon.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:43 am
My contention is that if someone *did* set up a “FREE WATERMELONS” sign they have no claim to control what people do with those watermelons just as if someone set up a server to deliver web pages to anyone who requested them, without authentication or some other pay-wall has no claim to control how those web pages are viewed.
It is a simple matter of rights. Just because you choose to give something away for free does not take away my right to use as much or as little of it as I want.
Now if a website had a sign at the top that said “Honor system $2.00 via paypal” I would say we have an analogous situation in which case it would be immoral to take the content without paying.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
I think therein lies the fundamental difference in view point. My argument is that when I put up content on my website which is accessible without any paywall, go ahead and skim through it, or however you want to consume my “content” do it.
However, I am not counting advertising as part of the said “content” – because that is how I am trying to make revenue off the content that I put up.
Which is why I am comparing this with the watermelon example – there is NO pay-wall there, since no one is stopping you from accessing the watermelon without paying. Nor does the watermelon seller care what you do with the watermelon, all she is asking is that you put 2 bucks in the jar – their method for earning revenue for the watermelon.
So, in my analogy – Watermelon = content and $2 = advertising.
January 5th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I never pay any attention to ads and they simply don’t incite me to buy anything from them. HOWEVER, i have a deep irrational fear of viruses, so i use adblock. Sorry I Made You Sad.
January 5th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
What can I say. I am too sad even to comment
January 6th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
I’m not using adblock, since I don’t see any need for it, I don’t really see the ads
But flash ads are really obtrusive, and they make my computer run slower, I am okay with people showing me some ads to get something back from what they do, but the line is going where they grind my pc to a halt, or throw things in my face.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:14 am
I hope you are being hyperbolic when say ad blocking is the same as stealing. If you are not, it is hard to respect your views on the subject.
Have you seen the Internet? You are lucky to have any visitors at all. Do you really think you produce a product that I should be obliged to pay you for? No. You produce eyeball bait. You are trying to sucker eyeballs into accidentally falling across third party content that you have interleaved with your own. The third parties pay you for this service. On the other hand, you and I have no agreements whatsoever. I am insulted that you would try to claim otherwise.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:27 am
…understanding that the same applies to everyone else on the Internet…
January 7th, 2010 at 2:39 am
Well, of course it’s a hyperbole. But the underlying message is what I feel very strongly about. Yet, I am not asking anyone to agree to my view (notice, I said it’s a rant
)
Nor is my primary purpose to lash out at people who use adblock on this site – i don’t care about revenue from here (I have a well paying full time job).
Having said that, you give me another chance to punctuate the point I am trying to make – you ask me whether I produce anything that you should be obliged to pay me for. Well, the answer is that I may be producing very useless stuff – but if I put a price on it, I ask you to pay for it, if you use it. And by reading a site’s content, you are “using it”.
So, if you decide that the product I am producing is not worth the price, please do not use it. That’s all I ask. The problem comes when after having decided that I am producing something that is not worth paying me for, you decide to use what I produce for free.
When I write something on ‘my’ website, its not the same as me singing in the street (where you have no choice but to hear me as you are passing me by). It’s like me singing in my own concert hall, and you dropping in to listen. Now if you don’t think that I sing well, then you will choose not to pay the ticket to the concert hall, right? So, why is it that you can’t do the same thing here.
If you don’t think that the content I produce is worth all the intrusive advertising on my site, then don’t visit my site. Period.
You see, to me ad blocking doesn’t matter on a personal level. But there are several content providers who depend on all this content that they produce, that you WANT to consume, and you go on and block ads on their sites which is a means to their livelihood.
Does that make sense?
January 11th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I will try to be less of a total jerk today.
I disagree with your analogy. In fact, I do not think there is an analogy for the Internet. That is very nearly the defining characteristic of a revolutionary technology. However, a much better one can be made.
I never decided to consume your content. I decided to “surf the web”. I am consuming the medium, as many people do. This page was just one of many presented to me in a stream that I did not assemble, full of items I did not know whether I would want to consume until I had consumed them.
In this way and in other ways, it is more like television. One often pays for television. Not to the content providers, but to the medium’s carriers. In this way it is identical to the Internet. I have a real, legal contract with my ISP, as I would with my television provider, had I one.
I suggest that is the more appropriate analogy.
There is also the issue of fair dealing, or fair use. You claim your ownership of this content give you the right to dictate how I may consume it. But you are also using your right of expression as a democratic citizen in order to share this content to begin with. Anything that you publicly express, I necessarily have a corresponding democratic right to comment upon. I may not be accessing your content as a consumer of your copy-written, commercial content for my own enjoyment, but rather as democratic citizen executing my duty to see truth disseminated.
And what if I lack the capacity to comprehend the ads? What if I am using Lynx because I am blind? Do I need your explicit written permission to consume your content? What if I am a robot indexing your content? Do I still need to pay for it?
I mean, it’s a “nice idea” and all, that I can pay for content by looking at ads, but that is all that it is. Something that would be nice, were it true.
January 12th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
First of all, thanks for being patient and taking the time to present you view.
Let me respond. I was hoping that someone would raise the point that you don’t know that you wanted to consume the content till you have actually consumed it. In that respect, it is definitely different from the analogy of watermelons.
However, the problem with people who use adblock (and I know a number of them) is that they will keep going back to the same site and continue to use adblock on these sites. So, you go to one website the first time because you didn’t know how good/bad the content on it is, and are not willing to “pay” to find out, and so you block ads. But if you go back to it again, then it is simply because there is “some” value you are getting from it. Will you then unblock ads on this website?
As for your point about me publicly expressing something on the Internet, of course you have the right to comment on it. But IMO, if I am posting this content on my own hosted website (as compared to a public forum), I do have the right to dictate how this content is displayed.
January 11th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
PS: This is not how one expresses hyperbole:
“Once again, I can’t repeat it enough: using adblock or similar is THE SAME AS STEALING.”
January 12th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Well, a hyperbole is supposed to be a sentence that
“may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally”.
So, I am not sure why this doesn’t qualify as a hyperbole..
January 27th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Man, god dammit. you use some kindo real life examples and fall into it.
When you go to a shop, you [b]buy[/b] it and use it, not the other way. OR if it is someone offering services, the buyer [b]agrees[/b] to pay after the service is offered OR open ground donations where you have something for [b]free[/b], like the anytime free food in golden temple etc (the person is [b]not[/b] obligatory to pay).
Now prove your rl theory here, when I go and have such free food, in your view I am stealing it right? Hells!! Police should lock me up! I am a criminal. OH god, I committed a holy crime right in your temple.
All this venting, after seeing those words stealing repeatedly, screaming in CAPITAL [b]bolds[/b]. I am actually controlling my words here, I am hell lot a bad guy.
When a person here in online world puts up an unrestrictable (i created the word) webpage he/she allows and knows that anyone can access to [b]view[/b] the webpage. That person has the umpteen control on how he wants top view that webpage, whether he wants to view it with ads disabled, use his own style sheet, print style, on lynx, screen reader etc. Nobody has the control to tell me that I should use x font to view this webpage, or see a flashing banner right at the top. All these things restrict to viewing content which your whole post talks about. It is when a person uses that content illegally, the question of [b]stealing[/b] arises.
Now something technically:
When a person wants money from his website, put up a pay and read system, people pay-login-read the goddam content. How dare someone tell that a person is stealing by viewing a webpage according to his likes. **** ***.
Your godamm update:
“when the price is too high, lets steal, else lets pay.”
mr, where have you set the price [b]here[/b]. read on..
Why blame on adblock systems and all those middlemen thingy.
[b]You goddamm have the control on who can read your content not how he reads it.[/b] [b] block users using adblock (hint use this for the next line) [/] Now for some advice thingy, take it or leave it, you want to block people using adblock, there is a great site: just****inggoogleit.com
Dammit, spent 15 minutes, but feel relaxed with BP’s calming down now.
Webmasters control [b]who[/b] views, users control [b]how[/b] (s)he views.
My parents didn’t want me to see matrimonial ads on educational websites when I was a teen.
May 18th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Thank you Eyeballs and Nitish for your conversation.We should stop stealing. [Chillmelody.com]
May 18th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Here is another kind of thief: the blog spammer.
On the original topic, Vaibhav, I don’t think you can have a useful conversation on this topic through the use of metaphor and abstractions. There is no use at all in talking about watermelons. Let us talk about the reality of the situation.