If You Use An Adblocker You Hate Free Speech, Says Internet Ads Guy
from the swing-and-a-miss dept
Mother of God. You may recall that we recently discussed the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) unfortunate decision to refuse Adblock Plus' registration for its annual conference. At a time when adblocking software is seeing its greatest use, it seemed to us that the IAB and its members might have a great deal to learn from Adblock Plus and that, rather than walling off its conference to them, the IAB could instead try to learn why so many people are using that software and software like it. That is because I had thought at the time that the IAB's refusal had mostly to do with it seeing such software as a threat to its members' business. Well, the conference has begun and in the keynote speech delivered by IAB chief, Randall Rothenberg, we learn that barring Adblock Plus from the conference wasn't about ad revenue at all. It was about freedom of speech, an appreciation of diversity, pushing back on racist Republican presidential candidates, and good old apple pie America.
Yeah. Fucking seriously. Here is a transcript of the speech, but I warn you not to have eaten anything just before reading it, or else be prepared to wear your meal on your shoes. The whole thing starts off with a several-hundred word introduction on the history of the IAB and just how unimaginably awesome it is, at the conclusion of which Rothenberg states with a straight face: "Of course, we are not here, you are not here, to celebrate the past." Well, hey, thanks, how about giving us back the last twenty minutes of our lives then, sir.
But, no, Rothenberg then states that we're all listening to him to discover how online advertising is going to generate "The Next $50 billion", except only moments later we're not really talking about that and we're instead talking about how we're going to create something much more valuable through advertising: altruism.
But if money is your only goal, then you risk falling into relativism – a pernicious trap, for you begin weighing all potential returns based on the single metric of how much more money you can make. Truth, beauty, fairness, justice, honesty, civic pride, neighborliness – they become means to an end, rather than ends in themselves. That is debilitating, and ultimately deadens the soul. I want you to confront that challenge. I want you to remember that there are greater and longer-term values than the mere promise of financial wealth that attracts so many to the digital advertising industry.Those values are then outlined and explained. Diversity is first up, with Rothenberg decrying Republicans for the statements by some of their presidential candidates. Not sure what that has to do with anything, but okay. Freedom of speech is up next, with Rothenberg declaring that open access to speech is important for the internet and digital advertising. Which, fair enough. He goes on to note that free speech and advertising are linked, in that advertising is a form of content and should not be censored. Keep this notion in mind as Rothenberg pivots his speech jarringly into the following rant.
And this is why I hate the ad-block profiteers.He then, hysterically, goes on to deliver a whining anecdote about how Adblock Plus convened a meeting with online publishers to discuss how to improve advertising on the internet -- the very thing we here at Techdirt thought made sense -- and that at the meeting almost nobody showed and those that did felt slighted that Adblock Plus wouldn't hand over every last detail of its business model, centering around its "Acceptable Ads" program. In other words, Adblock Plus wanted to open a conversation with these people, didn't simply allow advertisers to dictate to them how to behave, and as a result the IAB wouldn't let them at its conference...and its Adblock Plus that's against diversity and free expression. Yeesh.
Now, you may be aware of a kerfuffle that began about 10 days ago, when an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes at a for-profit German company called AdBlock-Plus took to the digisphere to complain over and over that IAB had “disinvited” them to this convention. That, of course, is as much a lie as the others they routinely try to tell the world. We had never invited them in the first place. They registered for this event online. When we found out, we cancelled the registration and reversed their credit card billing. Why? For the simple reason that they are stealing from publishers, subverting freedom of the press, operating a business model predicated on censorship of content, and ultimately forcing consumers to pay more money for less – and less diverse – information.
He goes on to complain that these publishers didn't receive follow up calls or messages after Adblock Plus' conference. Gee, maybe they thought they'd be at the IAB conference you won't let them into?
After detailing several other barbarians banging at the IAB gates, he goes on to complain about their business model.
The ad-block profiteers are building for-profit companies whose business models are premised on impeding the movement of commercial, political, and public-service communication between and among producers and consumers. They offer to lift their toll gates for those wealthy enough to pay them off, or who submit to their demands that they constrict their freedom of speech to fit the shackles of their revenue schemes.Here's how a free market, another value worth holding onto, actually works. Let's say Adblock Plus or another software provider was blocking useful ads with fun content from a publisher and instead injecting its own advertising to generate revenue. Advertising that wasn't as useful or entertaining as the original publishers. Why would anyone use that software? They wouldn't. It would defeat the entire purpose of using an ad blocker. The problem would solve itself. Or let's say the other practice was employed, with ad blockers getting publishers to pay to let the ads through that users were trying to block by using the software. Why would anyone use that software? The problem would, again, solve itself.
They may attempt to dignify their practices with such politically correct phrases as “reasonable advertising,” “responsible advertising,” and “acceptable ads”; and they can claim as loudly as they want that they seek “constructive rapport” with other stakeholders. But in fact, they are engaged in the techniques of The Big Lie, declaring themselves the friends of those whose livelihoods they would destroy, and allies to those whose freedoms they would subvert.
No, this ends up being about what it's always been about: the content and quality of the advertising. Content is advertising and advertising is content and the only way that ad blockers get used is by letting more good content in and keeping more bad content out. And Rothenberg knows it.
But the best news of all is that the ad-block profiteers have done this industry a favor. They have forced us to look inward – at our own relentless self-involvement – and outward, to the men, women, and children who are our actual customers.It goes on from there, noting just how shitty digital advertising has become. So then why in the sweet hell are you putting ad blocking software, for profit or otherwise, in the crosshairs at all? They're the symptom of the very disease you yourself have properly identified: shitty ads. You fix that and you fix everything.
IAB Senior Vice President and Tech Lab General Manager Scott Cunningham put it best and most succinctly in an October IABlog post: “We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience.”
But, no, instead we get a speech all about how awesome the IAB is and, strangely, how ad blocking software is in favor of racism and speech censorship, so long as it makes any money. We're here, after all, to talk about the next fifty-billion dollars we're going to make. But not because of the money. Because of our altruistic values.
Please.
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–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ad industry, adblocking, advertising, diversity, free speech, internet advertising, randall rothenberg
Companies: adblock plus, iab
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Umm. Ads are not content?
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And there you have it.
The unethical, immoral, mendacious coven self-identifying as the IAB regards children as "customers". In their own words. Somebody needs to protect the CHILDREN oh wait, there's an ad-blocker for that. Does the IAB not want to protect the CHILDREN ?
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Censorship?
If I buy a pair of headphones so I don't have to listen to the guy ranting out on the sidewalk while I'm trying to work, that's not censorship, even if the company selling the headphones makes a hefty profit doing it.
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Rothenberg just helped Adblock a little bit
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Also: if I have to search for the "content" between/underneath/etc. your advertisements, something has gone horribly wrong somewhere.
On mobile connections there's also the concern for the data caps imposed by the carriers. If I can stay fast longer by cutting out ads, I never wanted to see, I'm doing that.
And last but not least, I really do value my privacy. I don't have social media accounts, I don't enter raffles and avoid all the other traps of being permanently tracked, as best as I can. So, I'm not going to hand all that data out for nothing.
On the other hand I'm willing to pay for stuff I like and that includes news.
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FREE speech?
The cost to the user of malware can be astronomical.
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Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can shout "fire" in a theater and everyone must listen to you and panic, it means the government can't ban you from attending a play because it thinks you might shout "fire".
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Freedom of Speech != Forced Listening
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this is like the swinging fist analogy
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Heed well the wisdom of David Canzi
All children should be aptitude-tested at an early age and, if their main or only aptitude is for marketing, drowned. --- David Canzi, news.admin.net-abuse.email, 2001-03-21
Nearly 15 years have gone by since he wrote that, and every day that's passed groups like the IAB put more evidence on the table that this is necessary.
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When you're limited to say 10 gig of data, a being forced to watch a 30 second video on YouTube just isn't going to work.
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Re: Rothenberg just helped Adblock a little bit
Ads barely bother me at all; I installed my first DNS blocklist in the 90's.
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Guess there's more than one AC out there :D
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Someone needs to ln -s /dev/null/ /dev/freespeech/
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Content would not be blocked were it content the public wished to see. Simply most ads aren't content worthy of attention. That's why ad companies are so in your face about getting your attention. Otherwise there is no chance in hell the public is going to pay any attention at all.
The subpar content is so bad that advertisers are doing every thing in their power including blocking the content you came to see in attempting to get their ads noticed. It's gotten so bad that no one other than those making money off it want it.
The other sneaky not being mentioned is datamining. It comes hand in hand with advertising. No one wants to be spied no and tracked across the net for the furthering of profit motives. I call your attention to this same group doing everything it could to scuttle Do Not Track. Privacy seems to be the enemy of advertising but desired by a large portion of the public.
Nor are the advertising groups interested in you having a better surfing experience. Instead without our permission, they are stealing our bandwidth, loading our caps with excess traffic undesired and expecting us to pay for it.
There is a reason why ad blockers have become popular. It's because ad companies have become pest companies very closely resembling spam.
Part of the free speech that is also being ignored is that there comes with it responsibility for one's actions. Do not be surprised when you act like an ass people call you an ass and then treat you accordingly.
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I don't hate.
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Inviting and Disinviting
Um...posting a website that promotes an industry meeting, and offers an open invites people to register for the conference is not just the equivalent of "inviting" -- rather it is the definition.
Thus, cancelling their registration is also the definition of "un-inviting".
So, if that is the core of what Rothenberg sees as lies, I can only conclude that he is either a liar, or unable to use words correctly and perhaps worthy of ignoring.
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Including BAD information and BAD messages. Ads that are geo-targeted based on my ISP's node rather than where I'm at are bad enough (VPN's are fun for this!). But when an ad has no escape and you cannot access what you want unless you endure the ad goes too far.
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Re: Censorship?
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Re: FREE speech?
Here Techdirt we have Amazon Associates, Double Click, Quantcast for advertising and then there's a bunch of Beacons, Widgets, Analytics and so on and so on. I'm sure if I allowed some of this stuff, even more crap would try to come in the door.
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Re: Heed well the wisdom of David Canzi
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IAB wants Idiocracy
Oh, the irony... i think we might have just found our perfect definition of the RIAA / MPAA cartels and their head-in-the-sand approach in regards to internet distribution.
yes, what you have there is a fitting description of MPAA/RIAA.. one of the few good descriptions if i've ever seen one...
Also, wtf are they thinking?.. advertising used to be about educating and informing... not about consuming ads. Do they think that i have become so dumb as to become a consumer of advertisements without a backing product or relevant information?
Their CUSTOMERS are the content producers paying them for advertising, not the PUBLIC. The public is the one that CHOOSES to receive the information that is already paid for. If i choose not to be crapped upon by idiotic ads then i have the right to block and not look at them.
I suggest (re)watching IDIOCRACY at this point - and while watching it, keep in mind that these IAB guys are almost certainly the ones that will replace water with "Brawndo" for plant irrigation and for everything else - their budget bottom line depends on it, see their membership fees.. http://www.iab.com/iab-membership/
Finally, i propose renaming the Interactive Advertising Bureau to the Idiocracy Advertising Bureau... nobody will notice the difference anyway.
/end rant.
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That is not a particular problem of the Internet, but rather just a human problem that is more visible because the Internet allows access to much of human knowledge.
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Randall Rothenberg
For those who can't be bothered, it's much as Mr Geigner says: Rothenberg talks about diversity, freedom of speech and a great many other things. He has a single legitimate point to make about some of the more questionable ad-blockers out there, but that's it as far as truthful and useful contributions are concerned.
To be clear, I don't currently work in the tech industry and have never had anything to do with any ad-blocking companies, beyond installing and using the things.
I am, however, the person in and amongst my family and friends who knows the most about computers, which means I'm the one they turn to for help when things go wrong. I'm the mug who has to sit there and plough through one anti-malware solution after another, through full system reinstallations, in the worst cases, all to clear off the crap that Rothenberg and his industry friends make a large part of their money from supplying.
Rothenberg talks about his industry earning billions of dollars and about extortion by ad-blocking companies. He doesn't talk about how much of those billions were earned from enabling criminal activity by real extortionists using his industry's networks to deliver malware.
Rothenberg talks about diversity and equality. That's actually fine by me, since he and his friends - be they black, white or sky-blue pink - are all equally a shower of parasitic shit-ticks who all equally deserve to go out of business and spend the rest of their miserable lives in equal penury.
Curiously, he doesn't seem to mention how many millions were earned supplying ad services to sites and companies peddling racist, sexist and homophobic propaganda.
He talks about freedom of speech, but doesn't seem to have a problem with his industry taking millions for crapflooding the internet with armies of corporate trolls and astroturfers, who shout down legitimate, grass-roots public speech in comments - and spam the likes of Amazon with endless fake reviews designed to actively defraud potential customers.
He talks about his industry needing to clean up its act - but until it actually does so, it's all so much hot air, designed to obscure the fact that they are still causing chaos, still enabling criminal activity, still engaged in fraud on a massive scale - and still making millions upon millions from doing so.
All the signs are that the next fifty billion will be just as dirty as the last one.
Mr Rothenberg likes to portray himself and his industry as pooor, misunderstood victims, but I think I understand them perfectly well:
they are the enemies of free speech, equality and democracy;
they are the enemies of law and justice;
they are the enemies of truth and legitimate business.
They are fraudulent criminal scum of the worst kind.
The sooner they all go to jail, the better.
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Advertising, per se, is not evil, its just a method for sellers to reach customers. The key is not to needlessly antagonize the customer. Ad-blocker usage should be a clue the customer is irritated at the many of the advertisers' antics.
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Re: Randall Rothenberg
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Re: this is like the swinging fist analogy
Note, if I do not perceive a value, I will either block ads, not visit the site, or never install (or remove) the software. These are my rules. To the IAB you must abide by my rules, it is my ISP account and my equipment you are using.
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Otherwise no dice.
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Re: Randall Rothenberg
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Which one was that, again?
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Re: Censorship?
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I'll stop using an ad blocker when...
Don't want to take on that risk? Then suck it up when people want to use an ad-blocker.
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Where do you think malware writers learned how to write malware that didn't require installs? Simply put, they learned it from the advertising groups who were so intent on capturing the data that they could not be concerned with security purposes of what else those methods might be used for. Advertising put the money into figuring out how to track users and capture data without the web surfer having to acknowledge and allow. Malware writers captured these methods to insert their crap on to the web surfer as well.
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On my PC adds block you
If I visit a site and the adds are annoying I stop visiting that site.
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Re: Heed well the wisdom of David Canzi
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Or an ad that infects the computer leading to hundreds in repair costs.
Or a system that rewards those who seek to game the system earning income for hacked clicks.
An entire industry that refuses to admit that shitty/hostile content has driven users to find ways to block the ENTIRE industry to avoid these worst practices that they keep fighting to find new ways to inflict on people.
You can dress it up in all the free speech rhetoric you like but the industry ignored consumer complaints and are now reaping the repayment of not giving a shit of what it does to the other guy.
We don't care about your business model because you shit on us... it worked out well for the **AA's so keep charging forward.
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If I decide to block his ads, that's not censorship.
If I use someone's tool to that effect, that's still not censorship, even if the tool provider is making a profit out of it.
And for the record, what he did - one-sided cancellation of someone's registration to the convention without any reason other than not liking that someone's opinions - is not censorship either. It's petty and it's exactly what he complains about, but it's not censorship.
To sum it up, "free speech" is not the right to force others to listen.
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Re: Randall Rothenberg
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Re: Re: Censorship?
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http://www.xkcd.com/1357/
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And for that matter, how does any ad blocker "steal" from anyone? Seriously? "Steal" is becoming as overused and irrelevant as other buzzwords like war, epidemic or pandemic.
For mere "techie wannabes", they must be doing a damn good job. People want AdBlock Plus. People don't want ads. See your problem here yet?
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I think that part of the problem here is that the internet comes with a sort of trade off similar to OTA television: To see the programs, you have to put up with the commercials.
People's solutions for TV generally is to use a Tivo style device to record the programs and then skip over the commercials when they come on. It's so common now that many networks have moved to change the timing and length of commercial breaks to get people to watch some of the ads. They also use more and more product placement, in stream ads (such as the announcers on a football broadcast mentioning the sponsors in a non-commercial break situation), and generally having sponsorship logos and messages in places where you cannot avoid them. It is the essential trade for services which powers and pays for the products to exist.
Online you have the same issue. Techdirt is paid for in no small way by your interaction with ads, which pay for the site to exist. It's such an important part that Techdirt has actually moved to using posts (which you generally won't ignore) to push a product of the day. Using posts means that this advertising also gets into your RSS feed and gets picked up by search engines as a post rather than just an ad. If everyone blocked all of the ads and never interacted with the pay for play adverpostings, Techdirt would pretty much run it's course and disappear unless there is some other means of support that isn't visible.
Adblockers may be good for you on an individual case basis, but they do break the basic business structures of the internet which allows so many of these sites to exist. More and more sites are moving towards "advertising articles" or adverpostings to pay the bills. Lots of sites also mention or refer to products and include links to their amazon accounts to try to entice you to buy, turning ordinary posts into a form of unmarked advertising.
Ad blockers may succeed in blocking out banner ads and video ads. However, that appears to be leading to content being subverted and turned into advertising. Over time, it may get hard to tell what is and what is not an ad.
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Without TOO much modification...
And now, the shoe is on the other foot. Walk a few blocks, tell me how it feels.
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Why would anyone allow acceptable ads when using an adblocker?
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Or switch channels, phone/text friends, go to the bathroom...
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The men, women and children aren't the customers. They are (or rather: their attention is) the product that is sold to the real customers: the companies that pay to advertise a product.
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There are acceptable ads on the internet. I went to a site recently and at the top of the page was a request to turn off ad block and click on a few ads to help them with their server costs. I gave it a try and all the ads were in a column down the right side of the page. Any videos were muted unless you clicked to turn up the audio. No popups, no redirects, no malware crap telling me to upgrade flash player or warnings that my computer is infected with a dangerous virus. Just unobtrusive ads for legitimate products. If all sites were like this one we wouldn't need AdBlock.
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Mike has already told us that this actually doesn't generate that much revenue. Besides, the regular TD reader is usually tech savvy and will be using adblockers. I do.
Techdirt would pretty much run it's course and disappear unless there is some other means of support that isn't visible.
Insider shop? Consulting the company does exactly because TD has become that famous? It's not a surprise to see you talking as if you've just arrived here but for the Mother of God...
More and more sites are moving towards "advertising articles" or adverpostings to pay the bills.
Yes and people are actively avoiding those articles. And eventually the site altogether. I've dropped one already because of this shit.
Ad blockers may succeed in blocking out banner ads and video ads. However, that appears to be leading to content being subverted and turned into advertising. Over time, it may get hard to tell what is and what is not an ad.
Eventually the inevitable abuse that will happen will either drive users away of the abusers or spawn the next generation of adblockers. The current state of affairs is just a symptom of the systematic abuse by advertisers in general.
And I do believe ads would generate more money and be more valuable to companies in general if they weren't diluted by the widespread abuse.
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So many points I could raise, but...
Yeah, well, you're stealing my data allowance. Theiving motherfuckers.
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Of course, they call it "stealing" when you do that, you dirty thief!
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That's their specialty!
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No, no, no, a thousand times no. Content has always been advertising, and advertising has always been content. The reason why the posts about deals and specific product sets on this and other sites, where they are clearly marked, aren't received negatively is because they're both unobtrusive and USEFUL. Useful being the key part.
Ads can be one of two things: useful or entertaining. If they are not one of those two things, they will blocked or ignored. It's always been that way, nothing is breaking anything, and, again, if ad companies would simply make ads people found useful or entertaining, the problem would solve itself....
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We didn't disinvite them, we pre-kicked them out.
For the simple reason that they are stealing from publishers, subverting freedom of the press, operating a business model predicated on censorship of content, and ultimately forcing consumers to pay more money for less – and less diverse – information.
There's a massive difference between the right to speak and the right to be heard. We are Constitutionally guaranteed the former, not the latter. Nobody owes them an audience. IPR shills take note.
They offer to lift their toll gates for those wealthy enough to pay them off, or who submit to their demands that they constrict their freedom of speech to fit the shackles of their revenue schemes.
Is this guy projecting, much? My ad-blocker is free but I voluntarily donated to it (please do the same, people, these guys have rent to pay) to keep unwanted speech out of my browser so I could experience the content I was actually interested in. I actually boycott those products and services that are aggressively pushed on me. I wonder what they'd call that? Most of us would call it "Voting with your wallet."
Here's how a free market, another value worth holding onto, actually works. Let's say Adblock Plus or another software provider was blocking useful ads with fun content from a publisher and instead injecting its own advertising to generate revenue. Advertising that wasn't as useful or entertaining as the original publishers.
I'd stop using it, Tim. That's an ad-injector, not an ad-blocker. In any case, how in the world would you make such a comparison? You wouldn't be able to see the useful/fun content without taking off the ad-blocker. Sorry, that's a strawman. The truth is, I don't mind ads sitting in the margins or sidebars of websites. I can choose to click on or not click on them. It's the intrusive, in-your-face, instant looped video for your viewing pleasure! crap that got me searching for an in-browser ad-blocker. I also don't want them on my YouTube videos. I'm there to see kitties or pop videos, not ads for stuff I neither use nor want. Suggested correction:
Here's how a more free, open market, another value worth holding onto, would actually work: let's say publishers worked with the websites that host ads to provide useful or fun content that we can choose to investigate further instead of forcing interstitials, pop-ups, looping videos that won't let you skip till your eyeballs have finished melting, or malware-riddled scripts upon us. Advertising that is as useful or entertaining as the original publisher's. People would voluntarily click on those ads to find out more about the goods or services. Some ads are classics, posted on YouTube long after they've finished running on TV because they're entertainment in their own right. Make ads we actually want to see, then we will view them. The problem would then solve itself.
So they accept that the dire quality of their ads and the horrible user experience is the problem, but believe that the solution is continuing to force them on us? Cognitive dissonance, much?
Overall, I think you're right, Tim, but flip me, what a douche that man is!
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Re: Re: Censorship?
Did I prevent others from hearing you?
If I sell other people ear plugs so they can avoid listening to you, is that censorship? (Note: I'm not forcing anyone to buy the earplugs, and they could instead just put cotton in their ears, or their fingers in their ears.)
Is it my duty to ties people's hands to their sides so that they can't plug their ears?
If you could, would you put your advertisements on the insides of everyone's eyelids using implants mandatory at birth?
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I hate freedom so much that if I happen to watch an over the air news broadcast and an ad appears, I hit the mute button. Usually I see news recorded earlier on my TiVo and can just fast forward which demonstrates my deep abiding hatred of free speech.
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Re: Heed well the wisdom of David Canzi
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About those Security Issues
STOP using any form of executable content. No Flash. No JavaScript. No ActiveX. No Silverlight. No Java Applets.
Your ads should be static content. Text. An image. An animated image.
An ad network could eliminate security issues by making sure that those three things are the only acceptable form of content from an advertiser that can be run on their ad network.
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Bzzzzzt. Wrong.
I will not watch ads. Period.
I pay to watch TV. Netflix. Hulu Plus. Prime. Etc. And there is other excellent free content like PBS and TED. And you'd be amazed at the educational content you can find on YouTube.
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Re: Inviting and Disinviting
So what do you expect from someone who represents such an industry?
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Free Speech
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is it trrrism ??
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Free to ignore
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I don't block ads because I hate them.
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Re: Re: Re: Censorship?
Well, that depends. If I am a millennial, then absolutely, you are engaging in censorship. Not listening to anything I have to say is oppression. Unless I'm in my safe space, in which case you aren't even allowed to be here.
Otherwise, no.
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i hate spam, this is my reason
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HOLY SHIT!!!
I swear I thought I was starting a reading of another bullshit defensive response over another mass shooting, and it was kinda eerie. Most of his speech - IAB's Randall Rothenberg (has to be made up 'cuz he could soon be a target for Malibu Media) - reads like it came straight from the a̶n̶u̶s’ annals of the NRA.
That's so fucking weird...
At least Scott Cunningham's expertise and insight isn't lost in the kerflooey. It means whimsical revelry... :D
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Re: IAB wants Idiocracy
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Re:
Sorry folks, you get to keep your dystopia. We got one of our own.
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Re: Re: Censorship?
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Re: Re: Re: Censorship?
TL;DR: If a tree falls in a forest and hits a marketeer, does a stopping chainsaw still make a sound?
If I can't force you to listen then I won't make a potential sale. If I can't make a sale I can't stay in business. So I/we will spend any and all resources making everyone listen, since that's exactly equivalent to a sale. After all, every one of our sales pitches are exactly targeted to promote our perfect products to exactly the right customer at the right time. Or, to promote one of /.'s taglines: "Support mental health. Or I'll kill you."
And also: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
It's the same problem the MPAA/RIAA has: ANY thing watched that you didn't pay them for reduces their sales -- even if they didn't make what you're watching in the first place. And if they did; that just makes it worse. Your distracted attention is the absolute worst thing in the world, followed by not giving them money.
But why is that the money one not first? Because they've already got you and lose the opportunity to show yet MORE ads. Go to a movie theater and count how many previews you see. Twenty-five (30?) minutes later and the movie actually starts.
Just because you didn't use their available services doesn't mean you don't still owe them for all of that time they didn't supply you with.
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Maybe off topic: a decade or so ago I read an article (that I now can't find) about Walt Disney and early (before the standard wars) "VHS" tapes. The promoters showed him the great (for then) quality and sound of his own movies in the comfort of your own home. When it was done, he looked at the presenters and confusedly asked: "But how do I charge each person in the room for every showing?"
Needless to say, that meeting flopped.
$s per residual performance is where it WAS, IS, and WILL BE at. That I can charge for something live is one thing, easily duplicating it a billion times over is even better. (Just ask the US Treasury Department.)
The only thing partly negating this is NetFlix/Hulu with an AYCE approach. It's cheap enough so that "renting" only 1% of the movies you want to watch and can easily locate is worth it. Like the base tax on all blank CDs that Canada has for music, NetFulu has most movies on most of the time except for the last few months.
I presume I'm just cheap. Someone else can pay for new movie development costs unless I decide to support the producer. (Exception: I saw 2 movies the day they opened: 13 Hours: Benghazi (2016) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012))
Yeah, got WAY way off topic there. Sorry; haven't yet talked to anyone today.
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So?
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