Why is it OK for you to STEAL from me?

[AllenCrawley]

If you business model relies on CPM, you should focus on this 8% and ignore everyone else.

Let's be clear, his business or revenue model does not solely rely on CPM. It's just one of the revenue models used. He's just trying to optimize the earnings for this one.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[healthstatus]

That's because no one is stealing from you.

no one took anything from you.

yes they did. bandwidth, disk space, CPU costs, development costs, programmers. How is my content any less valuable than someones book, @biophase product descriptions and suppliers, someones wifi?

This is Occupy Wall Street mentality, I will just take and ask for more and be horrified when the creator is upset and you have information I want so just give it to me.

Let's be clear, his business or revenue model does not solely rely on CPM. It's just one of the revenue models used. He's just trying to optimize the earnings for this one.

Let's be MORE clear, the title of the post is WHY IS IT OK TO STEAL? Many people claim, they can take my content and manipulate it any way they want and that isn't stealing. Nobody has really justified that.

 

[Mike39]

Nobody in the thread has gone, "dude that sucks you might be losing thousands of dollars a month, I wonder how big a problem this is? Here's a post about this on another site I saw".

Dude that sucks you might be losing thousands of dollars a month, I wonder how big a problem this is? This guy runs a YouTube channel and puts the following into every post: "Use AdBlock? Take a look at this: http://blog.chkilroy.com/post/36918679935"

 

[Mike39]

You can:

a) redirect them to another site/block them
b) ask them nicely with a message under the ads and hope they listen
c) chalk it up as a cost of doing business

At the end of the day IMO, it's the business's job to adapt to the needs of the consumer, not the consumers job to adapt to the needs of the business. Ad block is the product of some advertisers overstepping their reach, and now even the advertisers who played fair are suffering the consequences. Ad block solves a need in the marketplace, as did/does megaupload, as do torrents, etc.

I have a feeling Hollywood will try its best to attack Popcorn Time, but as a free, open-source project, it’s going to be tough to take down. The developers have shown that movie piracy can be intuitive and user-friendly. If movie studios can’t break down the release windows and old business models that prevent new movies from being available on-demand, they should be very afraid of apps like Popcorn Time.

This was on the front page of reddit: http://time.com/18867/popcorn-time-is-so-good-at-movie-piracy-its-scary/

Edit: It still sucks, I'm not advocating or encouraging people use ad-block. All I am saying is that people are going to do it no matter what, and you can combat it on whatever scale you deem necessary.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[healthstatus]

Dude that sucks you might be losing thousands of dollars a month, I wonder how big a problem this is?

I know, can you believe these rat bastards!!

 

[healthstatus]

I have a hard time connecting the soap thread issue to your issue.

Someone took biophases contribution and used it for personal benefit with no regard to his efforts and impact it would have on his business.
I see people using our manipulated (by adblocker) assessment software, quizzes, calculators and content for their personal benefit and by blocking ads have no regards as to the effort to create it or its impact on my business.

This is my intellectual property, people are saying it is a free website, it isn't, you show up at my website and should take the content as I present it to you, you are free to IGNORE any parts you want to ignore, but to intentionally manipulate my content so you get the benefit and keep me from being compensated isn't right. If somebody found a backdoor to the insider section, or was taking some of the many author's books here and spreading them around with compensating the author, people would say, no question that is wrong. But you put ads, and this I don't look or click ads mentality, so I can do what I want and it seems to be convenient morality. So morality is key, when it is convenient.

 

[mgore714]

From now on, every time you watch TV make sure that you watch every single commercial. Then when you change the channel question why you're "a thieving rat".

To add onto that, bathroom and snack breaks shouldn't be allowed during commercials. You can do that during the show/game. Otherwise it's stealing.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[snowbank]

I see people using our manipulated (by adblocker) assessment software, quizzes, calculators and content for their personal benefit and by blocking ads have no regards as to the effort to create it or its impact on my business.

Then have people submit their email to get access to those things, or do a free trial to XYZ offer, or create a solution that doesn't allow people to block ads on your site, or figure out a way to hard code(i'm anti-technical so don't know the right term but something alone these lines) ads onto your site.

This isn't rocket science.

You're making it harder than it has to be and ranting illogical things instead of just solving the problem you're having with a logical solution.

Emotional response= loss of money/mindspace
Logical response= mo money, mo problems

 

[AroundTheWorld]

There must be something in the fastlane forum air.

This is my second time posting this today:

The Scholar and a Zen Master.

The Scholar had an extensive background in Buddhist Studies and was an expert on the Nirvana Sutra. He came to study with the master and after making the customary bows, asked her to teach him Zen. Then, he began to talk about his extensive doctrinal background and rambled on and on about the many sutras he had studied.

The master listened patiently and then began to make tea. When it was ready, she poured the tea into the scholar's cup until it began to overflow and run all over the floor. The scholar saw what was happening and shouted, "Stop, stop! The cup is full; you can't get anymore in."

The master stopped pouring and said: "You are like this cup; you are full of ideas about Buddha's Way. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can't put anything in. Before I can teach you, you'll have to empty your cup."

(copied from: http://www.prairiewindzen.org/emptying_your_cup.html )

 

[Nate M]

Using content to drive traffic to ads is a bit like baiting people...

Why not put up a paywall and see how much your content's really worth?

How many people would pay for it directly?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[throttleforward]

This is my intellectual property, people are saying it is a free website, it isn't, you show up at my website and should take the content as I present it to you, you are free to IGNORE any parts you want to ignore, but to intentionally manipulate my content so you get the benefit and keep me from being compensated isn't right. If somebody found a backdoor to the insider section, or was taking some of the many author's books here and spreading them around with compensating the author, people would say, no question that is wrong.

It's mine to manipulate any way I want - you offered it for free to me as the consumer. You have no reasonable expectation of control over content that is delivered to my device. What if Chrome started to automatically remove all ads that weren't served by a Google ad platform? Would I be stealing from you, or is incumbent on you to start denying Chrome users access to your content?

For the Insiders work around: If someone coded a backdoor around the paywall, it would be a federal felony offense. If MJ said "everyone who wants Insider access must pay" but made the Insider forum visible to everyone on the internet without paying, no judge would rule that people were digitally trespassing. The law makes it clear that copyright issues not withstanding, it is incumbent upon the content provider to provide reasonable safeguards against manipulating content for personal (non-commercial) use.

 

[smarty]

well folks, it's story time ( following @AroundTheWorld ):

There is an ancient Chinese story about a young man named Han Xin who had a reputation as a skilled Kung Fu fighter. One day when Han was walking through the streets of his city, he was stopped by two men who had heard of his skill. The pair challenged him to a fight to the death. Han tried to decline the challenge, but the men would not let him walk away. They insisted he must either fight or crawl like a dog through the leader’s outspread legs. Although to the Chinese this is an unspeakable humiliation, Han Xin chose to crawl rather than fight. Word of his humiliation and his cowardice spread quickly through the city. He was laughed at openly, yet he never once offered any excuse or explanation for his seemingly spineless action. Later in his life, he revealed himself to be one of the most formidable and fearless warriors in the history of China. To him, the pair of unschooled ruffians had posed no threat. It was simply that they were unworthy adversaries. In his heart he knew himself to be a fearless warrior. He did not care what anyone else thought. Han’s Thick Face was a meek and cowardly facade, adopted to save himself the trouble of killing two such inconsequential hoodlums.

[taken from the book "Thick Face, Black Heart"]

Moral of the story: There is a times when you have to fight, but there are times when you have to surrender or change approach

 

[Formless]

This is a grey moral area with a large element of differing producer/consumer perspectives AND a 'conflict of objectives'. You want to maximize your earnings. I want to browse the internet without shit flying in my face. I'm not willing to stop sinning. I will continue to steal (in this context) for my convenience and experience. Because it is socially accepted.

It isn't fair. I don't have the moral high-ground. And (for the most part, although not all the time) I don't really care. This is how it is.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[jon.a]

Someone wake me when debate class is over.

 

[Runum]

Similar to @zen******* "Do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?" argument.

 

[Gale4rc]

The amount of trash I have to go through to visit 1 site that has legitament content, it's worth me 'stealing'.

There is probably 1000 websites doing shitty ads for shitty content// some dont even have content, it's just articles formed directly for SEO for every 1 good website and that is the main problem

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[OdorcicD]

It is not stealing to use an AdBlock, and to think that is pretty ridiculous (nevermind calling people thieving rats?)
If you put anything on the internet to be publicly accessed, it can be consumed in anyway the user wants. It's my browser and I can do what I want.

If you don't want a user to look at your content without 'stealing', then that is completely up to you to put a stop to it and make them pay.

 

[mikey3times]

You should be more upset at the environment that created a need for the blocking software than the people using it.

^This...oh so much.

I think of having ads on my site as a way to provide the visitor another route to get the info they want if I can't/don't provide it. If I have an article that is missing something, maybe that ad can lead them to what they need. I'm providing value to the consumer and getting a benefit from it as well - or so my naive little brain likes to believe. (Of course this only works with contextual advertising.) Those nasty pop-ups, pop-unders, breaking an article into 35 sections for the pageviews, etc all suck and make the rest of us look bad.

If content providers looked at the ads in the same way that they looked at content (to provide value) rather than to just get views or clicks, then I think we would be in much better shape - both the providers and the consumers. I think Native Advertising is the future, but then again, people will game that system for a few bucks of profit.

Anyone see a Fastlane opportunity here?

 

[Paleo]

I've been adblocker-less for about 2-3 years until my friend showed me the light. I never did buy stuff. I didn't buy the fantastic vodafone contract, nor did I get Ron Jeremy's secret to penis extension, nor did I buy that pimsleur course that guarantees to teach me Cantonese in 10 days - OR MY MONEY BACK, or the countless secrets to getting rich, or that DLL cleaner that will make my computer up to 4x faster, or Mike Chang's shortcut to sixpack abs, or the new World of Tanks game with the 'Chinese tanks' expansion pack, or the buy-one-get-one-free russian wife, or weightloss acai tea, or the single mum's trick to white teeth that dentists around the world hate her for.

Dang, I'm turning my adblocker off now- how could I have been so foolish?

All that stuff sounds awesome!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DennisD]

(note: I didn't look through the whole thread)

It's funny, I ENJOY ads... but I installed adblocker anyways.

Why?

I don't like seeing what basically equates to porn in my ads.
I'm reading about the new iphone, and I don't need to be tempted with the GIFs of the chicks in bikinis dancing around trying to advertise OK Cupid or whatever.

There's no way I'm turning off adblocker, even as a 'thank you' to the content provider. I would rather just NOT consume their content, to be honest.

Why such an adversity to turning off adblocker? I'd forget to turn it back on, and i'm too lazy to figure out how to manually add individual sites.

I remember seeing in the AdBlocker mission statement that they were trying to only block ads within certain parameters, ads that were cause for abuse. They don't want to block ALL ADS.

I'd talk to them and see what you can to do work WITH THEM to bypass their sensors.

 

[Likwid24]

Is this thread really still going on???? WTF

 

[healthstatus]

You're making it harder than it has to be and ranting illogical things instead of just solving the problem you're having with a logical solution.

I don't have a logical problem. I am seeing an ETHICAL issue. The ETHICAL issue is that a portion of users feel entitle to consume content I create and manipulate it in a fashion so I don't get paid, and LOTS of people see no problem in that.

Using content to drive traffic to ads is a bit like baiting people...

I don't do that, I create content, when people come to my site, I get paid if the ad is displayed on their browser, regardless if they look at it, or click it.

From now on, every time you watch TV make sure that you watch every single commercial. Then when you change the channel question why you're "a thieving rat".

This is not the same, a television station gets paid based on the number of average viewers they have during a specific time segment. Whether that number of people see the ad is irrelevant, AND there is no additional cost to the TV station on if leave the room while the ad is playing or not. When you visit my site, my bandwidth is used, servers have to perform functions SPECIFICALLY TO SERVE

It is not stealing to use an AdBlock, and to think that is pretty ridiculous (nevermind calling people thieving rats?)

Since everyone seems to be in denial....
http://courseblog.cs.princeton.edu/spring05/cos491/?p=145
http://observersvantagepoint.blogspot.com/2007/09/are-adblock-programs-copyright.html
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/03/08/the-ad-blockers-dilemma/

and for apps
http://hothardware.com/News/Google-Yanks-Ad-Blockers-from-Play-Store-Citing-Developer-Violations/

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[healthstatus]

It's mine to manipulate any way I want

No, see the copyright line at the bottom. I retain all rights to the content, you can use it under the terms I establish.

 

[HarryR]

From one of the articles you linked to:
"The path Ars Technica chose seems likely to be the best. Though it initially blocked ad blockers, it instead chose to educate those users about the harm they were doing and ask them to either disable their plugins or whitelist their domain."

I get that your pissed man, but taking an approach like ars technica might be more effective than calling folks thieving rats.

 

[Miniado]

You put content up without any barriers to access (not to mention do everything you can to get people to come access that content), then accuse people who access it of stealing? I could understand if you charged a fee for said content, but you don't. There is no ethical issue. It's like Walmart complaining that people only come in to try their free samples and leave without buying anything. Those thieves! How dare they take what I offer for free?!

Consuming free content doesn't make you a thief. I mean, what if some people browse the web together? Is person #2, who is looking over the shoulder of person #1, also a thief? What about all the people they transfer that information to via word of mouth? Sounds to me like your greed gland is getting a little inflamed, man. Better get that checked out.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DennisD]

(Now that I've had the opportunity to read the rest of the thread...)

Is it ETHICAL to:

• Watch TV and then channel surf during the commercials?
• Listen to radio and then change channels during the ads?
• Fast forward through podcast ads?
• Hold superbowl parties making it impossible to view ACTUAL ad reach?

Ultimately it's not about RIGHT or WRONG.
It's about human behavior, and trying to fight human behavior when you're living on earth is an OLD WORLD IDEA.

It's an OLD WORLD IDEA.

It's the Brits using linear firing squads instead of guerrilla warfare,
It's being Henry Frick instead of being Larry Page.
It's buying CDs instead of downloading spotify.
It's using the USPS instead of using automated drones.

John D Rockefeller fought his entire life to hold onto his monopoly.
He became most profitable when it was officially dissolved.
Instead of owning 100% one OLD BORING company,
he owned pieces of hundreds of smaller ones.

Is ad-blocker unethical? immoral? "stealing?"
Maybe.
Doesn't really matter though.

It's an old world complaint in a new world economy.
Working against the flow of human behavior is counterproductive.

 

[Rawr]

Why is it OK for you to steal 5 minutes from each one of us as we click the intriguing title, with nothing there?

You want it to be one way. It's the other way.

 

[mgore714]

This is not the same, a television station gets paid based on the number of average viewers they have during a specific time segment. Whether that number of people see the ad is irrelevant, AND there is no additional cost to the TV station on if leave the room while the ad is playing or not. When you visit my site, my bandwidth is used, servers have to perform functions SPECIFICALLY TO SERVE

Bullshit. Companies pay for people to see the ads. If no one watches the ads then companies will stop advertising. If companies stop advertising then your show/game will be gone.

Stop being a thieving rat.

Stop calling people thieving rats when convenient.

Stop being selfish and build businesses to create value - not force people to look at your shitty untargeted CPM ads.

Only when you stop being selfish will you make real money, and only then will you be able to not complain on fastlane and stop being a hypocrite.

P.s. As for your other thread about people not swearing, F*ck off. Create a swear-block for that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[codo3500]

I see your point, but you're completely neglecting the end advertisers point of view. It seems a bit hypocritical to be honest.

These users couldn't give a damn about your goals, just like you clearly don't give a damn about your advertisers goals - and you know what, that's fine!

At the end of the day, the advertisers gets a better return from their campaign on your site because the tire-kickers aren't seeing the ads. They then in return continuing investing in advertising on your site and push more dollars that way.

At the end of the day, the odds of these people were clicking ads is very low; so yes you don't get paid on a CPM model, but you're a much better client to your advertisers because of it, even if it's unintentional. This has non-tangible benefits I don't think you're taking into account - it'll bump up their CTR, lower their CPC and ultimately lead to them wanting to advertise on your site more - try look at the positives, because you're sure as hell not going to change user behavior easily.

 

[Syyrius]

What a fantactic idea to insult potential site visitor, just because they are not agree with a so-20th century economic model

Question: If we are rats, what is a site owner that is using tracking cookies and tracking scripts with visitor personal IP to sell them to any companie that pay for it?