Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: I tire of that argument...
Author: Adam Trachtenberg Posted: 5/19/1999; 4:52:10 PM Topic: Check your pages in iCab... Msg #: 6490 (In response to 5884) Prev/Next: 6489 / 6491
I don't like ads because third parties collect data on me through them. That's the value proposition of advertsing on the Internet -- profiling. I hold that to be unethical.First, ads don't collect information about you, Bill Humphries, they collect information about you, the person who has a cookie with a certain large number. If you want to create a disconnect between historical information and future information, delete the cookie. Additionally, while we find that all sorts of advertisers want the ability to target users by random attribute "x," we've never had one actually take us up on the offer beyond the trivial ones, like browers and/or OS for something like Microsoft IE for Mac. And as far as ethics go, given that you're clear on this tradeoff, don't you think stealing content is more unethical? At least in your case you have a choice.
I want anonymous, non-traceable micropayment systems for content. Because I'm happy to pay for your editorial, comic or MP3 file. I just don't think you, nor the government have any business knowing who is paying for it. All you need is a third party to say yes or no to the question: "is this a valid transaction."
Hey. That's a great idea. As soon as it has widespread acceptance and implementation, I'll be glad to use it. In the meantime, I'm stuck trying to pay my salary with crappy banner ads that clutter-up my designs, cause my pages to download slowly and look weird, and make my users unhappy.
Honestly, I think every site on the planet would love to be able to make you pay $5, $10, $50 a month (or $.01 a page) in exchange for running ads. Unfortunately, once I'm done processing the two transactions from you and another guy, I don't have anyone else who will use the service.
And again, I'll be very happy to let a "trusted" third-party handle all this. Of course, that'll cost you a little more -- privacy has a cost, but that's cool. Then again, now you've created a giant company that knows about every transaction you and everyone else has made and has probably collected all sorts of good profiling data. But, hopefully it'll work out fine.
What the argument boils down to in the end is that there is an implicit exchange involved in viewing Web content. I want to have a job. I offer you something you maybe interested it. You have the choice to read/view/download that object. Right now, if you want to read/view/download it, you have to look at a banner ad. The company that serves the ad (not necessarily me) may try to infer things from information they may be able to gather from you as part of this transaction. They will then send me a check for $.002 for allowing them the opportunity. If you don't want this to happen, you can choose to not accept look at the page. Looking at the page and blocking the ad is not only stealing my content, but causing me to incur expenses (servers, line charges) for the privilege. That's not fair. And whether you're tired of the situation or not, this fact doesn't change regardless of how you can rationalize this in your mind. Honestly, this economic model doesn't work for me; I don't think most sites can turn a profit on banner ads. Therefore, I'll be the first in line to try a new approach, but in the meantime, this is what we're both stuck with.
(BTW, for the purposes for the above paragraphs, "me" equals a site with ads and "you" equals a viewer of said site. Please don't read this as a personal attack; it's not meant that way. It's just a reaction from a person trying to make a living on the Internet against people/companies actively trying to make their livings from denying me mine and claiming it's okay since banner ads suck. I know they suck. I have to deal with them all day long.)
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