So each person who downloads a mod from an adf.ly links nets the modder $0.0025.
Any modder who does this is an idiot. I'd donate at least a dollar which is 400 times the amount they'd get from me if they would just use a paypal donation button.
One, it's actually lower as that's the highest rate, other countries have other rates. :wink.gif:
Second, you assume that the only motivation is money. In my case, I could put up a donation button - but honestly if people are going to throw around their wallets I'd rather it went to organizations like the Red Cross, UNICEF, whatever. However, with adfly I don't feel like a ****, and I can still get some money from the minimal waiting time.
If any senator wishes to read this, I suggest a SUSA bill. Stop United States Act. If the internet needs to babysit your lawmaking, Then there's something wrong.
The problem you guys dont seem to understand is this. The second you force someone to donate, whether it be through this adf.ly crap or by any kind of currency, it ceases to be called a donation and has become a payment.
I do not have a problems with donations for showing a developer I appreciate their work. It is being required to give them something in return for their work that I do have a problem with. Especially when its just a modification of a game they had no part in its development of..
If you can't take 5 seconds of your time to give a little back to the developers do you think you really deserve something they've spent hours/days/weeks/months working on?
You aren't paying for anything either, it's advertising revenue, you know that source of cash that powers the vast majority of the internet including sites like facebook and youtube?
That is all.
Advertisements don't power the internet. People [and hardware] do.
If you'd like to get technical, advertisements actually bog down the efficiency of the net.
I am incredibly shocked by the flippant and even defensive attitude so many younger people have toward advertising. I don't think there is any hope for us humans..
It's not about impatience. I bet I have more patience than 99% of you. It's about defying an insulting culture of consumerism and a culture where money is god. And where money so often prevents things from getting done. The excuse I always hear is "there's not enough money.. I can't support myself and do what I'd like to do without donations.." etc. etc.
I've had too many problems with infected ads to allow any to load on my computer. (If anyone has ever been a regular on the WoW forums, you're probably familiar with the issue.) If the ad hosts could actually be trusted to serve clean ads instead of ones infected with trojans/spyware, I'd have no problem clicking through a few to get to a download. However, if loading the ads is the only way to download a mod, I can simply do without the mod in the first place - that crap's not worth it.
And to all those who say that it's free cash to the modders, at no cost to the downloader... ********. Downloading the ads takes bandwidth that YOU pay for. It's no different than being inundated with telemarketing calls on a ppm cell phone plan. Only, you know... without caller ID so you can avoid paying to hear their advertising spiel.
While many people may be on an unlimited bandwidth plan, others are not. And it's likely to get worse in the future as more and more internet providers start looking into putting heavier handed bandwidth restrictions into use. A single ad may seem trivial, and it is... but they add up. It's incredibly unpleasant to hit your bandwidth limit - you're either forced to pay an outrageous amount of extra money to your provider, or you're cut off from the internet for the rest of the month (or restricted to near dial-up speeds).
I'd rather see a Donate button or even a direct purchase; I've donated a few dollars here and there to some of my favorite modders over the years for games like The Sims; it's an infinitely more acceptable method of rewarding the effort that goes into the mod.
The problem you guys dont seem to understand is this. The second you force someone to donate, whether it be through this adf.ly crap or by any kind of currency, it ceases to be called a donation and has become a payment.
I do not have a problems with donations for showing a developer I appreciate their work. It is being required to give them something in return for their work that I do have a problem with. Especially when its just a modification of a game they had no part in its development of..
I tend to agree, while they are probably within their legal rights to "force" people to acquire the file via a adf.ly link, to me it's still somewhat questionable ethically.
But- on the other hand, a lot of downloads come from places like megaupload, and they require you to wait a good 40 or so seconds so <they> can make money, and they never made whatever it is you are downloading...
Quote from chunes »
Advertisements don't power the internet. People [and hardware] do.
If you'd like to get technical, advertisements actually bog down the efficiency of the net.
I am incredibly shocked by the flippant and even defensive attitude so many younger people have toward advertising. I don't think there is any hope for us humans..
Basically, advertisements are hardly exclusive to a money-centric society, but rather the result of a stable functioning of a generally altruistic one. after all, officials running for elected positions basically use the same methods to persuade people to vote for them (arguably they are paid by those people through tax dollars, though). Con artists work by persuading the fool to part with their money. Advertisements On radio, TV and the internet are really no different then salesman- that is, they only have power of you think you are immune to them. People love to say that "ads don't affect me at all" and other such lies, but if you say "Ronald McDonald" or "Tony the Tiger" they can almost always name the company behind such avatars and the product they sell, so saying they don't affect you is more likely to mean that they do, since you disregard the possibility that any of your choices are influenced and thus aren't as critical of them.
Advertisements are just an extension of what we all do almost everyday- try to convince others to our viewpoint. Debates and arguments use one or both of logic and sometimes appeals to tradition, authority, or emotion to change minds. In many ways, I'm doing that right now. What is my goal? To convince you that advertisements are no more prevalent then they were say 40, 50, or even 100 years ago. The difference is that now more people understand the concepts upon which advertisements are based; nobody is going to fall for that old "I could get fired for telling you this" or "I'll let you in on a secret" salesman techniques; as the game learns, so too do the hunters. For example, Nobody nowadays would be willing to purchase literal snake oil; but plenty of people buy and use the figurative equivalent in the form of Windows Registry "cleaners" and "tune-up" utilities.
At it's core, there is one reason advertising exists.
Because it works.
Even societies that banish consumerism and the concept of private possession use the concepts behind advertising prevalently through propaganda. The fact that these persuasion factors are used to sell products doesn't necessarily demonize them; it just means that people need to be more aware they exist, and that they aren't immune to them.
And to all those who say that it's free cash to the modders, at no cost to the downloader... ********. Downloading the ads takes bandwidth that YOU pay for.
Ahh, the old "I shouldn't have to view ads because I pay for my internet" excuse.
Guess what. Cable and television cost money. But they still have spot advertisements. This is good, because in effect it makes your cable bill cheaper, since you aren't bearing the full load of the cost of things. That is no different when it comes to the internet.
You don't pay your ISP to serve you data. you pay your ISP to allow you to connect to other computers which can serve you data. Servers don't have 0 maintenance and 0 cost; file server sites have ads because they need to recoup the cost of running their service as well as make a profit to make it worth their time.
If you request that a web server give you a page- (and again, this is more generalized, and not relevant really to adf.ly links and those that use them) there is a implicit social contract that you also get ads; megaupload for example has advertisements when you go to download a file, both for other products as well as their own, and they have a minimum wait time as well. If you "block" the advertisements, you are in effect "stealing" the service of being served the file. When you watch a television programme, there are commercial breaks. Nobody seems to remember when this was not the case and the actual programme itself was an advertisement for the sponsors. These were NOT wholesome shows designed to dispense knowledge, they were nothing more then advertising mixed into a standard program. A show's character might drink a certain brand of soda pop, the family's fridge may have a fridge magnet for a brand of bubble gum, and their parent's might have smoked a particular brand of cigarette. With the introduction of "spot" commercials, it free'd up the programme creators to actually use their own material, without having to weave in some subliminal marketing. The reason spot commercials worked so much better was that people knew they were advertisements- this meant they thought they weren't effected by them and that any decision to purchase a product in those advertisements were purely coincidence. Why are Coca Cola and Pepsi the two most popular Soft Drink companies worldwide? It isn't so much to do with their product but their ability to market that product. RC Cola is a hell of a lot cheaper then either Coke or Pepsi but still people look at it with chagrin, as if it's Inferior, but they are exactly the same, this is the sort of misconception that is fueled entirely by ignorance of the fact that a lot of people think that "advertisements only affect everybody but me".
The fact that more and more people are starting their browsers instead of turning on their TV's is one reason that there are more advertisements on the internet. Additionally, as more and more people use ad-blockers and essentially deny the ad revenue forth their page views to the content provider whose content they feel entitled to, those content providers are forced to try to recoup those losses by adding even MORE advertisements, subjecting those of us who don't feel entitled to even more adverts, and so forth.
The thing is, advertising, marketing, psychology, and so forth are not cut and dried topics with an established morality that is anything but subjective.
Advertisements don't power the internet. People [and hardware] do.
And hardware isn't free.
Quote from Chunes »
If you'd like to get technical, advertisements actually bog down the efficiency of the net.
I am incredibly shocked by the flippant and even defensive attitude so many younger people have toward advertising. I don't think there is any hope for us humans..
There is good advertising and there is bad advertising, and a whole spectrum in between of more and less good methods and examples. Adf.ly is supported by methods (i.e., popups, and attempts to obscure content with more ads) and, I suspect, examples of advertising that fall firmly in the bad camp. That's OBVIOUSLY unacceptable. What's also unacceptable is saying that mod-makers deserve no recompense for their efforts. If there were an alternative to adf.ly that wasn't as predatory, it would be a better deal all around.
Quote from Chunes »
It's not about impatience. I bet I have more patience than 99% of you. It's about defying an insulting culture of consumerism and a culture where money is god. And where money so often prevents things from getting done. The excuse I always hear is "there's not enough money.. I can't support myself and do what I'd like to do without donations.." etc. etc.
Again, you're painting with a broad brush. I find that people who like to proselytize about money this way often have money to burn themselves and aren't living in any real hardship, though they're often able to frame it as such to themselves. Maybe not all people who run pay-to-play servers or who request donations strictly need the money, but who is to judge? If some people feel that they don't want to give away their labor and resources for free, forcing them to do so is theft, not generosity.
1. Some people don't have unlimited bandwidth! You can't ask them to load an extra 200 kB of data a month!
2. By forcing me to wait 5 seconds, you're forcing me to pay! It's no longer a donation!
3. Ads are infected with spyware/trojans!
One is to put adf.ly in your hosts file like this: 127.0.0.1 adf.ly
Another is to use ad blocking software. If you're using Firefox, get Adblock Plus.
Many people find ads and ad supported applications (adware) annoying. Mod creators considering using this would do better to solicit donations on their download pages.
Ahh, the old "I shouldn't have to view ads because I pay for my internet" excuse.
Funny. That's absolutely NOT what I said; you need to work on your paraphrasing, or perhaps reading comprehension. I made two points:
"I shouldn't have to worry about ads infected with malware."
"Viewing ads is not necessarily free to the viewer; thinking it costs nothing but time may be a fallacy depending on the viewer's service plan."
"Shouldn't" doesn't come into it. I never once whined about what "should" and "shouldn't" be payed for. I never once said you should cheat the system by using a service like the one that skips the adf.ly ads and takes you directly to the download. I specifically said that I simply wouldn't download anything that required you to view ads (or at least ads from ad hosts I don't trust.)
I'll thank you to not put words into my mouth. As the rest of your post pertains to that presumption, there's no point in replying to it - I mostly agree with the basics of what you said.
(Save for the comment about today's "wholesome" shows. I had to laugh at that - I want to see your channel line up if you can call even a quarter of the shows "wholesome". For one, product placements are still alive and kicking on many TV shows today, in addition to paid slots. Movies are even worse. If you do see products blurred or avoided on a show today, it's because showing them would devalue the actual advertising time slots as well as **** off any competitor sponsors that were paying for those time slots. It has nothing to do with being able to use their own material and everything to do with wringing out the last bit of profit from a show's popularity. )
I would like to bring up one point. You mentioned sites like Megaupload, yet you did not bring up the fact that they often offer a paid service that is ad free or nearly so. Blocking ads and "stealing" such sites' services is not the only way to avoid ads. I frequently buy a limited amount of premium time when I know I'm going to be downloading/uploading a bunch that week or month, mostly for the parallel downloads, but no ads is a huge bonus.
Quote from Spacecraft »
So far the excuses I've heard are:
3. Ads are infected with spyware/trojans!
It amazes me what people come up with.
I do hope you're aware that ads CAN directly carry malware or redirect you (through either actual scripting or social engineering) to a site carrying malware? Because that's an actual potential security issue that everyone should be aware of - not a fake bogyman of a reason to avoid ads. It is super important to keep both browser and OS updated, and even then zero day attacks can still nab you.
Again, you're painting with a broad brush. I find that people who like to proselytize about money this way often have money to burn themselves and aren't living in any real hardship, though they're often able to frame it as such to themselves. Maybe not all people who run pay-to-play servers or who request donations strictly need the money, but who is to judge? If some people feel that they don't want to give away their labor and resources for free, forcing them to do so is theft, not generosity.
I don't have any money to burn (I make less than 10k/yr and live in the U.S...), but I also don't whine about 'hardship.' I'm not sure where you got that from. I deliberately choose to live simply, so that I don't have to sell my labor at usurious rates more than absolutely necessary. I am not judging people who wish to be rewarded for their efforts. I am judging a society which is solely built around GDP and producing a dizzying array of anything you could imagine at the expense of things I feel truly matter.
I've had too many problems with infected ads to allow any to load on my computer. (If anyone has ever been a regular on the WoW forums, you're probably familiar with the issue.) If the ad hosts could actually be trusted to serve clean ads instead of ones infected with trojans/spyware, I'd have no problem clicking through a few to get to a download.
Precisely. The person who said this was just an excuse has no idea what he's talking about. One of my friends got a virus that made him have to restore from a single pop up. The time used in an ad isn't much, but the time lost from fixing a virus, not to mention potentially losing online accounts, bank information, and personal files, becomes enough that it's far more than just a hassle. I have no tolerance for this.
If any senator wishes to read this, I suggest a SUSA bill. Stop United States Act. If the internet needs to babysit your lawmaking, Then there's something wrong.
Downloading the ads takes bandwidth that YOU pay for.
This implies that the person viewing the ads is paying for the deliverance of those advertisements. In fairness, they do. But those advertisements serve to be the way the site pays for it's hosting and whatnot. I have digressed from the actual topic somewhat regarding adf.ly links and minecraft mods, but I think I wrote my personal opinions on that earlier.
"I shouldn't have to worry about ads infected with malware."
Agreed. Advertisements should be just that- advertisements. They way I like to think of it, is that much as we have spot commercials on television, the advertisements should only really comprise a "piece" of the total content; they get a box of a specified size, and their task is to convince you of something. (or to buy a certain product, or what have you). As long as advertisements stay on that side of the line, there isn't really a good reason to block advertisements (well, unless you are on Dial-up...). Flashy ads are annoying, but as long as they stay inside their little box of real-estate, it's fair game. Once they start doing drive-by downloading and/or showing popups, that's when they've crossed the line, turned back, crossed it again, and then rubbed it's ass on the line making it a brown smear. (or some more clever literary device).
"Viewing ads is not necessarily free to the viewer; thinking it costs nothing but time may be a fallacy depending on the viewer's service plan."
...
"Shouldn't" doesn't come into it. I never once whined about what "should" and "shouldn't" be payed for. I never once said you should cheat the system by using a service like the one that skips the adf.ly ads and takes you directly to the download. I specifically said that I simply wouldn't download anything that required you to view ads (or at least ads from ad hosts I don't trust.)
Yes, I have to agree with you there. I believe I may have misinterpreted what you said, or tried to shoehorn an argument where it wasn't really warranted; for that I apologize. In fairness though it was only a matter of time before somebody mentioned that anyway, so at least that is out of the way. And that is all very true; trust is a very important part of the entire arrangement, and if there is one business where earning trust is a epic chore, it is probably marketing/advertisement, so it seems counter-productive that they would do t he opposite and just say to hell with it and install **** on your PC. (I break from the discussion to mention that somebody will undoubtedly point out that Linux is "immune" to most of those types of things, and to them I say congrats, take your feelings of smug superiority elsewhere plz)
(Save for the comment about today's "wholesome" shows. I had to laugh at that - I want to see your channel line up if you can call even a quarter of the shows "wholesome".
I think there might be misinterpretations/miscommunications on both sides, I said:
These were NOT wholesome shows designed to dispense knowledge, they were nothing more then advertising mixed into a standard program.
I certainly didn't mean to (but I can see how it could be perceived) to make an implication that today's shows are in any way wholesome or provide the functions noted, I was basically arguing against something that comes up a lot, that "things were better in the old days". My point wasn't that newer shows were more "wholesome" then those of years ago, but rather that the older shows weren't more wholesome then today's. Of course again what is "wholesome" depends entirely on the beholder, too I suppose, but I mean in regard to advertisements.
For one, product placements are still alive and kicking on many TV shows today, in addition to paid slots.
True, but back then the entire show was financed by a single corporation, which often had control over quite a lot of the show, and naturally they used this for their own purposes, usually having their logo's banners displayed prominently on the set if it could be made to look natural. I mean, today, I guess you can locate a Pepsi can here or a can of pringles there, a specific game console in the background or a particular brand of television, but if you think about it, it would probably be more noticable if they used "invented" brands, like some shows do; It often breaks any immersion. Which you arguably don't get with newer shows much anyways.
Movies are even worse. If you do see products blurred or avoided on a show today, it's because showing them would devalue the actual advertising time slots as well as **** off any competitor sponsors that were paying for those time slots. It has nothing to do with being able to use their own material and everything to do with wringing out the last bit of profit from a show's popularity. )
it's all about demographics, too.
You mentioned sites like Megaupload, yet you did not bring up the fact that they often offer a paid service that is ad free or nearly so. Blocking ads and "stealing" such sites' services is not the only way to avoid ads. I frequently buy a limited amount of premium time when I know I'm going to be downloading/uploading a bunch that week or month, mostly for the parallel downloads, but no ads is a huge bonus.
yeah, I meant to mention that but I couldn't find a good spot to put it. Of course since the paid services don't have ads to begin with there really isn't anything to block, either. And if there are ads, it's questionable what you paid for :tongue.gif: (aside from, in the case of MU, higher speed).
Quote from Spacecraft »
I do hope you're aware that ads CAN directly carry malware or redirect you (through either actual scripting or social engineering) to a site carrying malware? Because that's an actual potential security issue that everyone should be aware of - not a fake bogyman of a reason to avoid ads. It is super important to keep both browser and OS updated, and even then zero day attacks can still nab you.
All very true. And while I might have given the impression of such, I wasn't defending anything but the more "reserved" type of advertisements- the ones that "know their place"- they stay in their little box, maybe flash a bit or whatever, but they don't "invade" your machine, open a new window, etc. Malicious Advertisements are however becoming more commonplace, for whatever reason (I'd like to think it's because more people are blocking them, but I'm not convinced that is the case). And there is of course adware, which presents itself as another new platform for companies who have more balls then ethics to advertise their product by basically force-installing demo versions on your machine without consent. Naturally these are almost all pointed towards windows machines, so Windows users have to be extra vigilant with regards to their browser sandboxing, security issues and settings and so forth.
of course, this sort of leaves the realm of advertising- and is more a general security concern, because while there are malicious advertisements that would just love to put that toolbar in your browser or install that helpful demo application that continuously pops up when least wanted to remind you that it's a demo version, they certainly aren't the only ones trying to do that sort of thing.
I will let it clear for all of you, you want something in return? Then don't do it. Moding is not a job, it's a hobby. We didn't ask you to do this, you are doing this because you like to do it.
You don't get to make that decision for other people.
If you don't want something, that costs money or costs viewing an ad, you have no intrinsic RIGHT to have that thing at all.
If a thing comes with a cost you are unwilling to pay ... DO WITHOUT THAT THING.
Vote with your wallet, not a five-finger discount.
That's like saying we should have no laws because then it'd be making decisions for people
It saddens me to see mod developers say that they only satisfaction they can get out of their mods is some ad revenue or donations on the side. Apparently gratitude means nothing to these people, nor does simple enjoyment.
Based upon these simple facts, why would anyone want to support a developer who clearly sees the people using their mods as nothing but a source of some monetary gain?
I find it surprising that people worry about a 5 second wait time for a download. Before I even begin to make my argument, I'm going to do a little math.
Let's say you're some successful businessman in America, and you make $60 an hour. So how much 'money' do you waste spending 5 seconds waiting on an ad?
60/60 = 1 dollar a minute
1$/60 = .01 cent a second
Assuming you work around the clock and every second you aren't playing minecraft or waiting for an ad, you're working, you only waste .05 cent waiting for this ad. And I don't think that all of you have $60 an hour jobs. It's miniscule, and what's sad is that $.05 is probably more money then 50% of the minecraft population are willing to donate to modders and texture artists.
Doing this stuff takes time. The people who put this work in have every right to embed advertisements into their links because it's their work. If you see an adf.ly link and you don't like adfly or are too stuck up to wait five seconds, go somewhere else. There's nothing more to it then that. If you want to download something off of rapidshare, megaupload, you wait for it. If you want to play a Flash game, you wait for the ad because that's the price the developer has told you to pay to see their content. And 5 seconds is not that much time.
And yes, those 5 seconds of wait aren't a donation, they are a payment. And if you aren't willing to pay the price then leave. If you think the developers work is worth more then $.0025 then send a donation their way, but until then just suck it up and pay the 5 seconds necessary to download your favorite mods. I stand by it until the mod manager comes out or Notch says you can't link to ads. And it's not like most of you don't use ad blockers anyway :/.
It saddens me to see mod developers say that they only satisfaction they can get out of their mods is some ad revenue or donations on the side. Apparently gratitude means nothing to these people, nor does simple enjoyment.
Based upon these simple facts, why would anyone want to support a developer who clearly sees the people using their mods as nothing but a source of some monetary gain?
As if. When developers see you as nothing but a source of monetary gain, they'll stop making minecraft mods because there is nothing profitable about them. Gratitude means everything, because if people didn't appreciate your work no one would click the links that'll make you a dollar over the course of a month.
In the developed world, all you are is a source of monetary gain for everyone except yourself, family and friends.
1) Nobody cares if you don't have proper security software/ a competent OS.
2) Yeah, let's ask Google take off their ads just because you find them annoying. There, one good company dead.
3) Okay. You don't want to wait 5 seconds? Then why do you think the author of the mod wants to spend his time fixing your problems? Seriously, I know how it feels when your mod/plugin works without any problems and the actual fault is the user.
4) Still don't want to wait? Don't download the mod, as it will also waste some of your "precious" (notice the quotes because you are still wasting time by playing the game).
Most of this post was just obvious flaming of his character and his mod making talents. Clearly you hardly even read his post, you just took chunks out that were weaker than the rest rather than combatting his full argument of "Modding is a hobby, not a job"
On another note, you failed to even debate that statement. You just simply looked for random quotes in the post and made up a reason for them being incorrect.
Nobody cares if you don't have proper security software/ a competent OS.
First off, yes, Linux is pretty much the safest thing you can use. Second, not all of us use it as our only OS or care much for Macs, quite a few of us dual boot. An antivirus is obviously necessary on Windows, but that doesn't always work. To avoid losing the functionality of the classically weak Windows, we need to block any risks. Noscript and adblock are parts of the "proper security software" (or browser extensions) that you mentioned.
If any senator wishes to read this, I suggest a SUSA bill. Stop United States Act. If the internet needs to babysit your lawmaking, Then there's something wrong.
One, it's actually lower as that's the highest rate, other countries have other rates. :wink.gif:
Second, you assume that the only motivation is money. In my case, I could put up a donation button - but honestly if people are going to throw around their wallets I'd rather it went to organizations like the Red Cross, UNICEF, whatever. However, with adfly I don't feel like a ****, and I can still get some money from the minimal waiting time.
I do not have a problems with donations for showing a developer I appreciate their work. It is being required to give them something in return for their work that I do have a problem with. Especially when its just a modification of a game they had no part in its development of..
Advertisements don't power the internet. People [and hardware] do.
If you'd like to get technical, advertisements actually bog down the efficiency of the net.
I am incredibly shocked by the flippant and even defensive attitude so many younger people have toward advertising. I don't think there is any hope for us humans..
It's not about impatience. I bet I have more patience than 99% of you. It's about defying an insulting culture of consumerism and a culture where money is god. And where money so often prevents things from getting done. The excuse I always hear is "there's not enough money.. I can't support myself and do what I'd like to do without donations.." etc. etc.
And to all those who say that it's free cash to the modders, at no cost to the downloader... ********. Downloading the ads takes bandwidth that YOU pay for. It's no different than being inundated with telemarketing calls on a ppm cell phone plan. Only, you know... without caller ID so you can avoid paying to hear their advertising spiel.
While many people may be on an unlimited bandwidth plan, others are not. And it's likely to get worse in the future as more and more internet providers start looking into putting heavier handed bandwidth restrictions into use. A single ad may seem trivial, and it is... but they add up. It's incredibly unpleasant to hit your bandwidth limit - you're either forced to pay an outrageous amount of extra money to your provider, or you're cut off from the internet for the rest of the month (or restricted to near dial-up speeds).
I'd rather see a Donate button or even a direct purchase; I've donated a few dollars here and there to some of my favorite modders over the years for games like The Sims; it's an infinitely more acceptable method of rewarding the effort that goes into the mod.
I tend to agree, while they are probably within their legal rights to "force" people to acquire the file via a adf.ly link, to me it's still somewhat questionable ethically.
But- on the other hand, a lot of downloads come from places like megaupload, and they require you to wait a good 40 or so seconds so <they> can make money, and they never made whatever it is you are downloading...
You might like The Power of Persuasion: How we're bought and sold.
Basically, advertisements are hardly exclusive to a money-centric society, but rather the result of a stable functioning of a generally altruistic one. after all, officials running for elected positions basically use the same methods to persuade people to vote for them (arguably they are paid by those people through tax dollars, though). Con artists work by persuading the fool to part with their money. Advertisements On radio, TV and the internet are really no different then salesman- that is, they only have power of you think you are immune to them. People love to say that "ads don't affect me at all" and other such lies, but if you say "Ronald McDonald" or "Tony the Tiger" they can almost always name the company behind such avatars and the product they sell, so saying they don't affect you is more likely to mean that they do, since you disregard the possibility that any of your choices are influenced and thus aren't as critical of them.
Advertisements are just an extension of what we all do almost everyday- try to convince others to our viewpoint. Debates and arguments use one or both of logic and sometimes appeals to tradition, authority, or emotion to change minds. In many ways, I'm doing that right now. What is my goal? To convince you that advertisements are no more prevalent then they were say 40, 50, or even 100 years ago. The difference is that now more people understand the concepts upon which advertisements are based; nobody is going to fall for that old "I could get fired for telling you this" or "I'll let you in on a secret" salesman techniques; as the game learns, so too do the hunters. For example, Nobody nowadays would be willing to purchase literal snake oil; but plenty of people buy and use the figurative equivalent in the form of Windows Registry "cleaners" and "tune-up" utilities.
At it's core, there is one reason advertising exists.
Because it works.
Even societies that banish consumerism and the concept of private possession use the concepts behind advertising prevalently through propaganda. The fact that these persuasion factors are used to sell products doesn't necessarily demonize them; it just means that people need to be more aware they exist, and that they aren't immune to them.
Ahh, the old "I shouldn't have to view ads because I pay for my internet" excuse.
Guess what. Cable and television cost money. But they still have spot advertisements. This is good, because in effect it makes your cable bill cheaper, since you aren't bearing the full load of the cost of things. That is no different when it comes to the internet.
You don't pay your ISP to serve you data. you pay your ISP to allow you to connect to other computers which can serve you data. Servers don't have 0 maintenance and 0 cost; file server sites have ads because they need to recoup the cost of running their service as well as make a profit to make it worth their time.
If you request that a web server give you a page- (and again, this is more generalized, and not relevant really to adf.ly links and those that use them) there is a implicit social contract that you also get ads; megaupload for example has advertisements when you go to download a file, both for other products as well as their own, and they have a minimum wait time as well. If you "block" the advertisements, you are in effect "stealing" the service of being served the file. When you watch a television programme, there are commercial breaks. Nobody seems to remember when this was not the case and the actual programme itself was an advertisement for the sponsors. These were NOT wholesome shows designed to dispense knowledge, they were nothing more then advertising mixed into a standard program. A show's character might drink a certain brand of soda pop, the family's fridge may have a fridge magnet for a brand of bubble gum, and their parent's might have smoked a particular brand of cigarette. With the introduction of "spot" commercials, it free'd up the programme creators to actually use their own material, without having to weave in some subliminal marketing. The reason spot commercials worked so much better was that people knew they were advertisements- this meant they thought they weren't effected by them and that any decision to purchase a product in those advertisements were purely coincidence. Why are Coca Cola and Pepsi the two most popular Soft Drink companies worldwide? It isn't so much to do with their product but their ability to market that product. RC Cola is a hell of a lot cheaper then either Coke or Pepsi but still people look at it with chagrin, as if it's Inferior, but they are exactly the same, this is the sort of misconception that is fueled entirely by ignorance of the fact that a lot of people think that "advertisements only affect everybody but me".
The fact that more and more people are starting their browsers instead of turning on their TV's is one reason that there are more advertisements on the internet. Additionally, as more and more people use ad-blockers and essentially deny the ad revenue forth their page views to the content provider whose content they feel entitled to, those content providers are forced to try to recoup those losses by adding even MORE advertisements, subjecting those of us who don't feel entitled to even more adverts, and so forth.
The thing is, advertising, marketing, psychology, and so forth are not cut and dried topics with an established morality that is anything but subjective.
And hardware isn't free.
There is good advertising and there is bad advertising, and a whole spectrum in between of more and less good methods and examples. Adf.ly is supported by methods (i.e., popups, and attempts to obscure content with more ads) and, I suspect, examples of advertising that fall firmly in the bad camp. That's OBVIOUSLY unacceptable. What's also unacceptable is saying that mod-makers deserve no recompense for their efforts. If there were an alternative to adf.ly that wasn't as predatory, it would be a better deal all around.
Again, you're painting with a broad brush. I find that people who like to proselytize about money this way often have money to burn themselves and aren't living in any real hardship, though they're often able to frame it as such to themselves. Maybe not all people who run pay-to-play servers or who request donations strictly need the money, but who is to judge? If some people feel that they don't want to give away their labor and resources for free, forcing them to do so is theft, not generosity.
1. Some people don't have unlimited bandwidth! You can't ask them to load an extra 200 kB of data a month!
2. By forcing me to wait 5 seconds, you're forcing me to pay! It's no longer a donation!
3. Ads are infected with spyware/trojans!
It amazes me what people come up with.
One is to put adf.ly in your hosts file like this: 127.0.0.1 adf.ly
Another is to use ad blocking software. If you're using Firefox, get Adblock Plus.
Many people find ads and ad supported applications (adware) annoying. Mod creators considering using this would do better to solicit donations on their download pages.
Funny. That's absolutely NOT what I said; you need to work on your paraphrasing, or perhaps reading comprehension. I made two points:
"I shouldn't have to worry about ads infected with malware."
"Viewing ads is not necessarily free to the viewer; thinking it costs nothing but time may be a fallacy depending on the viewer's service plan."
"Shouldn't" doesn't come into it. I never once whined about what "should" and "shouldn't" be payed for. I never once said you should cheat the system by using a service like the one that skips the adf.ly ads and takes you directly to the download. I specifically said that I simply wouldn't download anything that required you to view ads (or at least ads from ad hosts I don't trust.)
I'll thank you to not put words into my mouth. As the rest of your post pertains to that presumption, there's no point in replying to it - I mostly agree with the basics of what you said.
(Save for the comment about today's "wholesome" shows. I had to laugh at that - I want to see your channel line up if you can call even a quarter of the shows "wholesome". For one, product placements are still alive and kicking on many TV shows today, in addition to paid slots. Movies are even worse. If you do see products blurred or avoided on a show today, it's because showing them would devalue the actual advertising time slots as well as **** off any competitor sponsors that were paying for those time slots. It has nothing to do with being able to use their own material and everything to do with wringing out the last bit of profit from a show's popularity. )
I would like to bring up one point. You mentioned sites like Megaupload, yet you did not bring up the fact that they often offer a paid service that is ad free or nearly so. Blocking ads and "stealing" such sites' services is not the only way to avoid ads. I frequently buy a limited amount of premium time when I know I'm going to be downloading/uploading a bunch that week or month, mostly for the parallel downloads, but no ads is a huge bonus.
I do hope you're aware that ads CAN directly carry malware or redirect you (through either actual scripting or social engineering) to a site carrying malware? Because that's an actual potential security issue that everyone should be aware of - not a fake bogyman of a reason to avoid ads. It is super important to keep both browser and OS updated, and even then zero day attacks can still nab you.
I don't have any money to burn (I make less than 10k/yr and live in the U.S...), but I also don't whine about 'hardship.' I'm not sure where you got that from. I deliberately choose to live simply, so that I don't have to sell my labor at usurious rates more than absolutely necessary. I am not judging people who wish to be rewarded for their efforts. I am judging a society which is solely built around GDP and producing a dizzying array of anything you could imagine at the expense of things I feel truly matter.
I quote:
This implies that the person viewing the ads is paying for the deliverance of those advertisements. In fairness, they do. But those advertisements serve to be the way the site pays for it's hosting and whatnot. I have digressed from the actual topic somewhat regarding adf.ly links and minecraft mods, but I think I wrote my personal opinions on that earlier.
Agreed. Advertisements should be just that- advertisements. They way I like to think of it, is that much as we have spot commercials on television, the advertisements should only really comprise a "piece" of the total content; they get a box of a specified size, and their task is to convince you of something. (or to buy a certain product, or what have you). As long as advertisements stay on that side of the line, there isn't really a good reason to block advertisements (well, unless you are on Dial-up...). Flashy ads are annoying, but as long as they stay inside their little box of real-estate, it's fair game. Once they start doing drive-by downloading and/or showing popups, that's when they've crossed the line, turned back, crossed it again, and then rubbed it's ass on the line making it a brown smear. (or some more clever literary device).
Yes, I have to agree with you there. I believe I may have misinterpreted what you said, or tried to shoehorn an argument where it wasn't really warranted; for that I apologize. In fairness though it was only a matter of time before somebody mentioned that anyway, so at least that is out of the way. And that is all very true; trust is a very important part of the entire arrangement, and if there is one business where earning trust is a epic chore, it is probably marketing/advertisement, so it seems counter-productive that they would do t he opposite and just say to hell with it and install **** on your PC. (I break from the discussion to mention that somebody will undoubtedly point out that Linux is "immune" to most of those types of things, and to them I say congrats, take your feelings of smug superiority elsewhere plz)
I think there might be misinterpretations/miscommunications on both sides, I said:
I certainly didn't mean to (but I can see how it could be perceived) to make an implication that today's shows are in any way wholesome or provide the functions noted, I was basically arguing against something that comes up a lot, that "things were better in the old days". My point wasn't that newer shows were more "wholesome" then those of years ago, but rather that the older shows weren't more wholesome then today's. Of course again what is "wholesome" depends entirely on the beholder, too I suppose, but I mean in regard to advertisements.
True, but back then the entire show was financed by a single corporation, which often had control over quite a lot of the show, and naturally they used this for their own purposes, usually having their logo's banners displayed prominently on the set if it could be made to look natural. I mean, today, I guess you can locate a Pepsi can here or a can of pringles there, a specific game console in the background or a particular brand of television, but if you think about it, it would probably be more noticable if they used "invented" brands, like some shows do; It often breaks any immersion. Which you arguably don't get with newer shows much anyways.
it's all about demographics, too.
yeah, I meant to mention that but I couldn't find a good spot to put it. Of course since the paid services don't have ads to begin with there really isn't anything to block, either. And if there are ads, it's questionable what you paid for :tongue.gif: (aside from, in the case of MU, higher speed).
All very true. And while I might have given the impression of such, I wasn't defending anything but the more "reserved" type of advertisements- the ones that "know their place"- they stay in their little box, maybe flash a bit or whatever, but they don't "invade" your machine, open a new window, etc. Malicious Advertisements are however becoming more commonplace, for whatever reason (I'd like to think it's because more people are blocking them, but I'm not convinced that is the case). And there is of course adware, which presents itself as another new platform for companies who have more balls then ethics to advertise their product by basically force-installing demo versions on your machine without consent. Naturally these are almost all pointed towards windows machines, so Windows users have to be extra vigilant with regards to their browser sandboxing, security issues and settings and so forth.
of course, this sort of leaves the realm of advertising- and is more a general security concern, because while there are malicious advertisements that would just love to put that toolbar in your browser or install that helpful demo application that continuously pops up when least wanted to remind you that it's a demo version, they certainly aren't the only ones trying to do that sort of thing.
That's like saying we should have no laws because then it'd be making decisions for people
Based upon these simple facts, why would anyone want to support a developer who clearly sees the people using their mods as nothing but a source of some monetary gain?
Let's say you're some successful businessman in America, and you make $60 an hour. So how much 'money' do you waste spending 5 seconds waiting on an ad?
60/60 = 1 dollar a minute
1$/60 = .01 cent a second
Assuming you work around the clock and every second you aren't playing minecraft or waiting for an ad, you're working, you only waste .05 cent waiting for this ad. And I don't think that all of you have $60 an hour jobs. It's miniscule, and what's sad is that $.05 is probably more money then 50% of the minecraft population are willing to donate to modders and texture artists.
Doing this stuff takes time. The people who put this work in have every right to embed advertisements into their links because it's their work. If you see an adf.ly link and you don't like adfly or are too stuck up to wait five seconds, go somewhere else. There's nothing more to it then that. If you want to download something off of rapidshare, megaupload, you wait for it. If you want to play a Flash game, you wait for the ad because that's the price the developer has told you to pay to see their content. And 5 seconds is not that much time.
And yes, those 5 seconds of wait aren't a donation, they are a payment. And if you aren't willing to pay the price then leave. If you think the developers work is worth more then $.0025 then send a donation their way, but until then just suck it up and pay the 5 seconds necessary to download your favorite mods. I stand by it until the mod manager comes out or Notch says you can't link to ads. And it's not like most of you don't use ad blockers anyway :/.
As if. When developers see you as nothing but a source of monetary gain, they'll stop making minecraft mods because there is nothing profitable about them. Gratitude means everything, because if people didn't appreciate your work no one would click the links that'll make you a dollar over the course of a month.
In the developed world, all you are is a source of monetary gain for everyone except yourself, family and friends.
2) Yeah, let's ask Google take off their ads just because you find them annoying. There, one good company dead.
3) Okay. You don't want to wait 5 seconds? Then why do you think the author of the mod wants to spend his time fixing your problems? Seriously, I know how it feels when your mod/plugin works without any problems and the actual fault is the user.
4) Still don't want to wait? Don't download the mod, as it will also waste some of your "precious" (notice the quotes because you are still wasting time by playing the game).
Most of this post was just obvious flaming of his character and his mod making talents. Clearly you hardly even read his post, you just took chunks out that were weaker than the rest rather than combatting his full argument of "Modding is a hobby, not a job"
On another note, you failed to even debate that statement. You just simply looked for random quotes in the post and made up a reason for them being incorrect.
First off, yes, Linux is pretty much the safest thing you can use. Second, not all of us use it as our only OS or care much for Macs, quite a few of us dual boot. An antivirus is obviously necessary on Windows, but that doesn't always work. To avoid losing the functionality of the classically weak Windows, we need to block any risks. Noscript and adblock are parts of the "proper security software" (or browser extensions) that you mentioned.