Privacy

32004 readers

897 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

-17

Should we gatekeep adblockers? (programming.dev)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Genuine question as I'm having a dilemma.

I've seen many of my friends using Chrome without any ad blockers. Most of them don't even know that there are things called extensions that can be installed. Whenever I use their laptops, I want to throw them away. I want to tell them about extensions and ad blockers.

But as much as we hate ads, they fuel the internet. Without them, the internet wouldn't be what it is today. If ad blocker users increase, there would be a massive change in the web, and everything may be paywalled.

So should we gatekeep ad blockers and enjoy an ad-free internet as a minority? It's not like they know what they're missing.

I advocate for FOSS, though. I will tell my friends to try Linux and dual-boot it, and suggest alternatives.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 64 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (10 children)

But as much as we hate ads, they fuel the internet. Without them, the internet wouldn’t be what it is today.

The corporate web wouldn't be what it is today, the internet would be fine. This is an important distinction to make. The internet is run by a bunch of nerds going to "internet peering conventions" and paying for BGP cross-connects in data centers. They would be fine, because ad-blockers don't hurt them.

The corporate web, on the other hand, would die. I'm very okay with that. In fact, I see that as a feature, not a bug. I hate the corporate web, and I think the world would be better without facebook and google creating monopolies on communication. But either way, if the only way technology can survive is ads (and it's not the only way), then let it die.

So should we gatekeep ad blockers and enjoy an ad-free internet as a minority? It’s not like they know what they’re missing.

lolno. We should be doing everything we can to protect ourselves and those around us from malware, surveillance capitalism, and predatory advertising. Even if you don't care about other people, herd immunity to malware and surveillance capitalism are very real things. It's a lot harder to get infected by malware on an immunized network, and it's a lot harder for facebook to surveil you (remember shadow profiles?) when nobody around you is having their every step tracked.

Consider why those people don't even know about extensions or ad-blocking. The web was built to be extensible, but ad companies (google) have done everything they can to keep people from realizing they can just change websites however they want, including blocking ads. People aren't ignorant about privacy because they want to be, they're ignorant because a lot of money and manipulation has gone into keeping them unaware and unempowered.

Solidarity and support are the only real weapons we have in the war against surveillance and malvertising. If not for those around you, then at least do it for the sake of your own privacy.

load more comments (9 replies)