People who use adblock are just entitled. They are manipulating the tragedy of the commons and then absolving themselves of any responsibility.
They'll defend their right to use adblock militantly and then go pirate a game using the same defense. It's a personal moral defense rather than a logical justification.
Or, you know, we just don't want to have to deal with bad ads cluttering up our content, or ads that spy on and track us, or ads that start playing sound for no apparent reason, or ads that break our browsers.
Yeah, no, on second thought--it's probably that we're actually pirates. That's a much more obvious answer.
This isn't a rebuttal against the tragedy of the commons argument. Commercial fisherman "just don't want to have to deal with" catching less fish, but overfishing is still a problem.
If I put a bowl of M&Ms out on my front lawn, and then complain that nobody else refills it from time to time, is that the tragedy of the commons, or me just being a fool?
there's no point at which you putting M&Ms on your lawn can be self-sustaining. Both professional journalism and fish populations CAN be self-sustaining (from the perspective of individual consumers).
Also, even if your analogy did make sense, the end result would be no more M&Ms (aka no more professional journalism). That's the outcome we're trying to avoid.
>They are manipulating the tragedy of the commons and then absolving themselves of any responsibility.
The tragedy of the commons is entirely about that lack of responsibility. This is why we try to use social structure in lieu of 'free for all' decision-making.
A. If you think vehemently defending adblock is 'militant', grow up.
B. Using adblock has nothing to do with pirating games.
Make better ads. People might want to see them. Don't be so repetitive, abrasive, deceptive, obnoxious, etc. (Google made quite a lot of money by offering text-only ads, if you'll remember.)
You can't make a completely useless and shitty product and demand that people eat it, either. Talk about 'entitled'.
IMHO ad blocking is good security practice. There have and continue to be plenty of instances of malware being served up via ad networks. "Malvertising" even has its own Wikipedia page.
They'll defend their right to use adblock militantly and then go pirate a game using the same defense. It's a personal moral defense rather than a logical justification.