I hate ads with a passion. If I had the power, I'd make unsolicited advertising illegal. If I hear or see an ad, I often make a mental note not to buy that product.
At best, it's a stretch to go from in-your-face, unsolicited advertisements to "promotional vehicle" which we all use willingly. In addition, there is a value associated with this website that you just don't get from ads.
The ads usually intend to add value. They just often aren't very good.
I don't think advertising is inherently evil (though I respect that some may disagree), I think the problem is that we're still in the early days of Internet advertising. The technique isn't quite there yet.
We could categorize ads into value-added, passive ads versus brute-force, active ads. Passive ads don't only push a product, but provide some useful content for the user, be it music discovery or news aggregation (I guess calling it intellectual stimulation would be reaching, though). The purpose of active ads is to simply push a product and entice the user to buy now. As such, they vie for attention and usually interrupt the user's workflow.
Examples of passive ads: music discovery [pandora], news aggregation [HN], etc versus active ads: traditional ads (TV/radio/internet/magazine) and active product-pushing.
As an aside, I am aware that Pandora has ads which is kind of mind boggling - they are actually providing free advertising to the music companies by letting me discover new music, yet they still have to pay royalties, so they are forced to use ads.
Maybe in the advertiers' and their bosses' deluded minds.
I'd estimate that 90% of ads I saw were lying either directly or by omission. They don't add value, they try to trick you in to buying crap you don't need, that's often no better (or even worse) than the competition, products that can even be harmful (like various prescription drugs that you'd often be better off not taking in the first place).
The people that peddle this crap are slime. But I'm not at all surprised that a large contingent of HN members would defend them and try to justify their miserable, lying, parasitic existence. After all, many of them own companies which depend on advertising. So they try to apply some moral balm and pretend that they're "adding value".
What is actually more offensive to me is the tracking. Ads, I can choose to ignore them. But I don't like the idea of being tracked, and having my every move online watched under a microscope in the name of selling me a targeted product. That's why I make every effort to block ads and scripts.
However, I don't think it's fair to say that "HN members defend them" since (as of this comment), there is a 2:1 ratio of blockers vs. non-blockers. OTOH, this survey doesn't distinguish users who block ads AND use them on their own sites.
While maybe unsolicited advertising is annoying, good luck with your mental notes though. I assume you are writing your posts on a computer? Sure hope Intel or AMD never ran a commercial...
Would you prefer to pay for your online content? Without ads, that's the only sustainable business model I can see for things ranging from the NY Times to Penny Arcade.
There's no shortage of free, non ad-supported content out there. I would gladly ditch whatever ad-supported content there is, if that's what it took to get rid of ads.
There are only a handful of industries (like movies and tv shows) which take a fair bit of money to create high quality content (though overwhelming majority of the time the money's wasted on utter garbage). Books, stories, news, and music can be created and distributed on a shoestring budget. They don't need the ad-supported creation or distribution model to thrive. The days of content shortages are practically over.
From what I can see, there is a shortage of free, non ad-supported news of the level of the NY Times. The only two venues I can think of that qualify are the BBC and NPR - both take government subsidy, and one does do infrequent pleas for money.
Then there are some of the webcomics I like, which has no alternative. If I want to read Penny Arcade, substituting another comic won't help.
So do you not read the NY Times, Washington Post, or any online newspaper that has ads? Do you not read print newspapers because they have ads?
There's definitely some good content in the mainstream media, like the NY Times, Washington Post, Independent, Guardian, Spiegel, Japan Times, etc. But there's also a lot of propaganda and slanted journalism (witness all the disgusting cheerleading for the pro-war side during the lead up to the Iraq war).
Advertisers, corporations, and the government have a corrupting influence on the media. I'd much rather the media be 100% listener-supported, like Pacifica Radio is. Then there'll be a lot less conflict of interest.
I think that's tenable - I actually have an NY Times subscription for this reason. I think it's important to pay for good journalism, and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. But I ask because it's possible there are people who don't want to pay for content, yet want it to be free. I want to understand their thinking. (Assuming, of course, they exist.)
I hope you also enjoy paying a fee for every single website you enjoy, because without ads, this would be the only way anyone would be able to keep the lights on.
I offered to pay a higher monthly fee in order to watch content on Hulu commercial free. There's no commercial free option, so I cancelled. Bottom line is I hate being exposed to commercials and am happy to pay for content.
I prefer having ads during a film, so that I can get a break and go make tea or whatever. Watching films on the BBC, which has no ads, used to irritate me a bit, as there are no breaks. But I guess you can hit pause on Hulu, unlike on regular television.
