JavaScript Bloat in 2024 @ tonsky.me
This really is a disgusting exlusionary state of affairs.
I hate to be judgy, but I honestly wonder how the people behind some of these decisions can call themselves web developers.
The ethics of modern web ad-blocking – Marco.org
Yes! Yes! YES!
Marco makes the same comparison I did between the dark days of pop-up windows and the current abysmal state of bloated ads and tracking on today’s web.
This won’t be a clean, easy transition. Blocking pop-ups was much more incisive: it was easy for legitimate publishers to avoid one narrowly-useful Javascript function to open new windows. But it’s completely reasonable for today’s web readers to be so fed up that they disable all ads, or even all Javascript. Web developers and standards bodies couldn’t be more out of touch with this issue, racing ahead to give browsers and Javascript even more capabilities without adequately addressing the fundamental problems that will drive many people to disable huge chunks of their browser’s functionality.
Amen!
I have one more thing to add to this list…
But publishers, advertisers, and browser vendors are all partly responsible for the situation we’re all in.
…developers. Somebody put those harm-causing script elements on those pages. Like I said: “What will you be apologising for in decades to come?”
In a few years, after the dust has settled, we’re all going to look back at today’s web’s excesses and abuses as an almost unbelievable embarrassment.
Related links
Making bad ads sad. Rad! - O’Reilly Media
A great talk from Bruce on the digital self-defence that ad-blockers provide. I think it’s great that Opera are building ad-blocking straight into the browser.
Reasons to Use Ad-Blockers – Coyote Tracks
If you think people using ad blockers are just anti-ad or want to freeload on publishers, you’re completely missing the point. The online advertising industry has been abusing users for 20 years now, and we’re sick of it.
I Turned Off JavaScript for a Whole Week and It Was Glorious | WIRED
When someone’s web browsing experience can be so drastically improved by simply switching off JavaScript, you know it’s time for an intervention with web developers.
This is our fault. Client-side JavaScript gave us enormous power and we abused that power.
Why It’s OK to Block Ads | Practical Ethics
In reality, ad blockers are one of the few tools that we as users have if we want to push back against the perverse design logic that has cannibalized the soul of the Web.
If enough of us used ad blockers, it could help force a systemic shift away from the attention economy altogether—and the ultimate benefit to our lives would not just be “better ads.” It would be better products: better informational environments that are fundamentally designed to be on our side, to respect our increasingly scarce attention, and to help us navigate under the stars of our own goals and values. Isn’t that what technology is for?
Given all this, the question should not be whether ad blocking is ethical, but whether it is a moral obligation.
Related posts
Ad revenue
The myth of the effectiveness of behavioural advertising.
Responsibility
Fear of a third-party planet.
Prediction
What I’m hoping for in 2021.
Heisenberg
JavaScript and the observer effect.
Clean advertising
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that behavioural advertising is more effective than contextual advertising.