Unfreedom

I think most people would broadly agree that freedom is a good thing. By freedom I mean specifically being unrestricted in your actions: you can mostly do what you want. The times when you can't are usually when it would limit other people's freedom. Perhaps, in some futuristic virtual libertarian utopia, it will not be possible to interfere with people's freedom, so everyone will be able to do what they want completely and without consequence. The internet, with its lack of physical consequences or government regulation, is part of the way there already.

There's a neat philosophical problem I read about called Parfit's hitchhiker. Basically, a perfectly rational utilitarian hitchhiker is trying to catch a ride with a perfectly rational utilitarian driver. The driver won't do it for free (that would be irrational!), so the hitchhiker offers to withdraw some money at their destination. The problem is, a perfectly rational hitchhiker would have no reason to follow through with this once all the driving is done. The driver knows this, and thus refuses.

The problem is that you need a way to bridge the cause-effect gap. The driver only wants to give the lift (effect) if they get money (cause), but those two things happen in the wrong order! The effect has to come after the cause. In practical terms, of course, this is a solved problem; the two could just form a contract, and then the government would step in if the terms weren't being met. More generally, you can use any kind of enforcement system that brings the effect forward to its rightful place after the cause. However, doing this comes at the cost of some freedom.

Essentially, you always lose freedom every time you make an agreement, a promise, a deal, a contract, or any of the other various forms of voluntary constraint on your decisions. Perhaps that's obvious; by committing to doing something, you give up the freedom to not do it. However, what might not be as obvious is the consequence that the ability to be unfree is therefore a vital part of a stable society, even a utopian one.

I've been thinking about this specifically in the context of internet ads and ad blockers, which is a topic of some debate. It's actually quite similar to Parfit's hitchhiker. Internet properties cost money to operate, so their owners need users to watch ads to pay for them. However, from the user's perspective, what obligation are they under to download your ad after you've already provided them with the content? It's their computer, their network connection, and they have freedom over how it is used. The internet is not really designed for unfreedom, which makes ads a tricky proposition.

It may well be that advertising can't survive on the internet as long as we're free to ignore it. Depending on your perspective, that might be the internet working as intended. However, it is strange to think that there are certain kinds of transaction that we can't make, even if it would be beneficial to us, because we're too free.