Journal ancientt's Journal: This computer is MINE. 2
You do not have a right to put your advertisements on my computer. You do not have a right to run scripts or movies on my computer. When I view a web page or an email, I am asking my computer to show me things that I want to see, and if I don't want to see something, I am not obligated to download it, even if it is part of "your page" I am not obligated to let my computer show it to me.
I use Mozilla Firefox mostly because it does what I tell it to. I tell it not to show me advertisements and it doesn't. I tell it not to run scripts or flash without asking and it doesn't. I tell it quit showing me all those games notices and it stops showing them.
Adblock Plus blocks most of the advertisements on the web.
NoScript lets me determine whether I trust a website enough to let it show flash or run scripts.
FB Purity hides all that fluff about games that I don't want to see.
If you want me to see advertisements, then it is your obligation, not mine, to make them advertisements that I am willing to see. When websites start giving me options on displaying them, and when they do not offend me, then I will allow them to display.
If you want me to trust your site, then you, not me, must earn that right. If you have earned that trust by not allowing hijacking, not popping up new windows that I have to expend effort to get rid of, not putting so much crud on your page that it takes forever to see what I came there to see.
If you continually show me stuff that I do not want to see, wasting my time by filling a page with stuff that I have no interest in, then I will stop having my computer show it to me.
Many websites are trying to stay in business by offering content like news or social interaction and selling opportunities to advertise to other companies. I do not begrudge them that business model, but I own my computer and I pay for the service that connects me to the Internet and I decide what my computer shows me.
I like slashdot.org and I paid a minimal fee, not because I had to, but because they offered me the option, in order to not see all the advertising. They offered me pages without advertisement and content earlier than I would otherwise get to see it, and I gladly paid a tiny fee for the option. Even so, I did not choose to pay for the option have all the advertisements hidden. AdBlock will hide the remaining ads for me, but I allow, deliberately and knowingly allow, slashdot to show some advertisements to me. They do not offend, they are not offering me pills or dating, and they do not take extra time to avoid. I trust them to not do bad things with scripts and I want to see the video they offer, so I give them a trusted status in NoScript. They allow me to choose the types of content that are displayed in their pages and do not try to fill it with fluff that I have no interest in, so I do not need to remove the stuff like I do with facebook.
Over 90% of all the email being sent is advertising that nobody wants to see. We call it UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email) or more commonly "spam" and we block it. Sometimes things that we might want to receive get blocked, and we have to put forth extra effort to see it in our "Junk" box or by clicking some "release from quarantine" option, but it is a small price to pay to keep from having to wade through 95 things we don't want to see for the 5 that we do. Slowly, we users of email, are learning how to have our computers show us only what we actually want.
Email will eventually be fixed. Because it was created in an environment where people could trust each other not to send unwanted stuff, it was created with flaws that make it very hard to fix, but eventually we will fix it because we decide what what our computers will show us. (This is a topic that deserves in depth writing but I will postpone that for now.)
We want our computers to let us play music and games. We want our computers to show us TV shows and movies. We will pay a reasonable fee, or view unobtrusive advertising in order to do these things, but if you make it too difficult, too expensive or require our computer to go through some complex process to "validate" our choice, then someone will make it possible for everyone to do it without compensating the producers for their effort. I do not endorse "piracy" but it is an observable fact that if you are not reasonable in your exchange, then people will be unreasonable in return.
Slashdot, Hulu, iTunes and Amazon have all come to this crossroads and found ways to offer reasonable options to consumers and consumers have been glad to support their business.
Facebook, music companies, movie companies and software companies have come to the same crossroads and thought that the better choice was to try to get the computers that consumers own to do things that the consumers do not want. They have not completely failed but any consumer, as a result, has a plethora of options to do what they want without entering into unreasonable agreements. I will not pretend that it is just and right for people to take what they want, but people want to be reasonable if you, the producer, are reasonable.
This computer is MINE. More Login
This computer is MINE.
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