Oh buddy I get you so well. I’m not german by the way, but I guess DACH is close enough.
I actually do work software development now, even though I said systems engineering in an earlier comment. Systems engineering is ‘just’ my past, back when I actually learned stuff. Funny enough, I work for the medical sector. Not IN the medical… oh what ze hell… We make software stuff for hospitals and whatnot. At least that’s what I’m up to right now and I don’t have to tell you, it doesn’t feel as good as it should. I am essentially hired for life. As decent people in IT do, I earn more money than one should reasonably spend and demand is so high, I could just sit back and relax 4 days a week with no major consequences other than my team hiring yet another person to compensate for my lazyness.
I don’t wanna work there anymore. I probably won’t be working there today one year later. Not because we scam people or anything, I just don’t think we do justice to what should be expected from us. Our oh so cool product saves lifes and that’s good. But shouldn’t we care a bit more about better quality control, more efficient workflows, more reliable products?
We’re good enough to “win” the capitalism game. People want the thing we make and the thing we make is a good thing. But is it as good as it could be? Definite no. Do others do better? Probably, they just invest more… higher costs. Could that mean that we are inactively killing people because we force them into buying our product due to cost efficiency? Yeah sure but it’s not that easy, is it? There’s no right or wrong here, really.
So… anyway.
I see your point about you not blocking ads actually being harmful for the advertiser, because you differ from the average Joe in terms of advertisement influence. But I don’t believe that’s for us to decide. By opting for advertising a product, companies risk approaching people like you (and ME if we are being honest… I guess it’s the high rate of autism in IT (I’m not gonna include a sarcasm tag here because they stink)), that don’t recieve advertisements well and might actively steer away from their product. They contractually do NOT risk their advert not being displayed at all… you see where this is going.
Genug Moralapostel. The existence of ads in modern media is okay with me. I don’t exactly wanna see them, but I understand their business model and it’s not really all that reprehensible to me. I do prefer straight up pay walls over ad walls… sometimes. At least for video streaming platforms. To be honest it’s probably the other way around for most situations. I gladly accept ads on websites if it means I don’t have to pay for each and every single website access all the time. Moral dillemmas everywhere.
I don’t think our opinions differ all that much. We basically had a “well if you feel like this, why don’t you do this?” “oh it was just a hypothetical, I actually already do this. But this and such…” “Ah yes, but no but, this and that”
I can’t say I had such a civilized discussion on reddit. At least I can’t remember. Typical reddit discussions always felt a bit more filled with emotion, maybe hatred. Lots of shitposting too. Might have to do something with the more targeted demographic of Lemmy.
Something being a business model actually doesn’t mean it’s right. Dropshipping exists after all. Paying everyone for their services can’t be a viable solution either. The main business model here usually consists of “pay to upgrade”. If you don’t pay, it kinda works. If you do want to pay, it works really well. BitWarden is my personal hero in that regard. Their product works really well as freeware. It works even better when you pay for it. But I believe many paying users don’t even need the additional functionality, they just pay to give something back. Moral retribution so to speak.
I see how blocking ads on freeware isn’t morally wrong, I mean there’s not much that’s universally immoral. It’s quite the topic in ethics, deontology says some acts are universally bad or universally good, no matter the consequences. A common example is honesty: being honest is always good, but I’m sure you thought of a dozen examples where honesty might not be the “good” way.
I still do agree with you. Blocking ads in specific instances can be completely fine. I mean we could construct setups where not blocking ads might lead to nuclear war. But I truly believe that it’s fine in everyday use. You don’t wanna see ads, they annoy you, you don’t feel like paying with your time and brain cells. An individual avoiding ads is so inconsequential for everyone else involved, utilitaristically, that’s a net gain of happines. On the other hand, ethics is not a study about individual actions, that’s morals. I don’t believe that any ethics could realistically support such a choice in the grand scheme. Assuming everyone acts by those rules, buying advert slots is wasted money.
Luckily we are indiviudals and like you said a day ago, there’s enough people paying their taxes for you to evade them without consequences for either party.
I, in this instance, decided it’s not about the company per se, it’s more about the individual action. I’m no sucker for Nestlé, but you can’t argue that they don’t do good things as well. They are quite the big player in vegan meat alternatives and they actually do seem to put in quite the work to make sensible products in said category. They superficially seem to be sustainable and healthier than many other comparable products. Even if that’s not true, even if their products are shipped around the globe eleven times a day, it’s pushing for something that’s ecologically sensible. If they themselves don’t produce an ecological product, they still help to establish shelf space for other, more ecological products. So yeah, I’d buy a Nestlé product in that case. Even just to show Nestlé and the stores that such a product is in demand.
There’s other scenarios where I don’t act by the same logic simply because I’m a human and humans aren’t known for being all that logical after all.
I’m a capitalist consumer and I greatly profit from my financial situation each and every day. I do live in a way too big apartment after all, and plans for individual housing are on the way. Not very ethical in the grand scheme xD