Privacy

32517 readers

233 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

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

-16

Should we gatekeep adblockers? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 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] -9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The content creators(YouTubers, news writers) whose content you are watching should also be able to make money right? If they earn enough money to not think about it, they would be happily creating content for us.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

If someone is being finaned by ads, they are doing something wrong. That is not sustainable nor secure, especially if one wants to reamin truthful.

Ads are used to control media, and are a bad thing. Also ads are not problem, bit random JavaScript executed on my computer is.

Put paywall (just don't push it into my search without marking it as paywall), Patreon, sell hats and t-shirts... there are better ways.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Where did I say they shouldn't take money? First, your ad won't block? I'll block your content too. Try take money then.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Donating $20 directly to a creator or buying one item from their merch will more than offset a lifetime of ad revenue from just yourself if you use ad blockers for their content. The fractional pennies you are worth to them is completely eclipsed by directly supporting most of them a single time.