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This cat-and-mouse ad blocker game is quite interesting to watch, but it’s also a bit ridiculous. I can understand blocking terrible ads on some news sites tha

This cat-and-mouse ad blocker game is quite interesting to watch, but it’s also a bit ridiculous. I can understand blocking terrible ads on some news sites that make them practically unreadable (looking at you extremetech). But Facebook’s ads aren’t that bad. They’re intentionally unobtrusive. If you don’t want to see them keep scrolling. It costs money to run these sites, the people who use ad blockers are ruining it for the rest of us because they’re just making the web more complicated than it should be. This post is a perfect example of this. Maybe you won’t shed a tear if Facebook’s bottom line loses a few dollars when you block their ads. But a lot of smaller publishers absolutely depend on ad revenue.

SllX 8y ago
I sometimes make the mistake of going to a trusted site in a browser I don’t normally use for general web browsing so lacking an ad blocker, following a link from there and ending up on a 3rd party site. I don’t block ads because of the sites I like, I generally pay for them and support them in other ways. I block ads because if I make the mistake I described above, then as a first time visitor I will generally be bombarded with ads, offers to subscribe to their newsletter and if they have one, a subscription to that particular site. Which is fine that they have it, but I don’t know anything about this site yet, let alone if I want to give it money and so far my impression is terrible. I’m not shedding any tears here. Most of the ad supported web is junk and I shouldn’t even be on it in the first place, in the same way I should probably shouldn’t be eat junk or fried foods. The fraction of it that isn’t will generally take my money one way or another. Most worthwhile websites don’t actually demand any compensation at all. People with ad blockers are not making the web more complicated for you. Web developers with poor taste and/or their managers with bad taste are. If you have the means, pay for the things you value and block the rest. Even if someone doesn’t have the means, I’m not going to begrudge someone of lesser means for taking good care of their computers and not wasting bandwidth while also not isolating themselves from the web because every web dev and their mother thinks it is okay to trash someone else’s machine (at scale!) to make money.
maury91 8y ago
I find some ads quite bad and I think Facebook should do some quality control. On my phone I have no ad blockers so I usually see them. I live in London and the majority of ads are about scammers trying to sell courses on how to buy and rent houses. Then there are the borderline illegal like the student loan ad with 1000% APR. However, the point is that I didn't wrote the script to get rid of ads because I think are bad. I did it because Facebook added 30 dom elements to each post to confuse ad blockers. It's more like a puzzle game than anything privacy related to me.

SllX 8y ago

I sometimes make the mistake of going to a trusted site in a browser I don’t normally use for general web browsing so lacking an ad blocker, following a link from there and ending up on a 3rd party site. I don’t block ads because of the sites I like, I generally pay for them and support them in other ways. I block ads because if I make the mistake I described above, then as a first time visitor I will generally be bombarded with ads, offers to subscribe to their newsletter and if they have one, a subscription to that particular site. Which is fine that they have it, but I don’t know anything about this site yet, let alone if I want to give it money and so far my impression is terrible. I’m not shedding any tears here. Most of the ad supported web is junk and I shouldn’t even be on it in the first place, in the same way I should probably shouldn’t be eat junk or fried foods. The fraction of it that isn’t will generally take my money one way or another. Most worthwhile websites don’t actually demand any compensation at all. People with ad blockers are not making the web more complicated for you. Web developers with poor taste and/or their managers with bad taste are. If you have the means, pay for the things you value and block the rest. Even if someone doesn’t have the means, I’m not going to begrudge someone of lesser means for taking good care of their computers and not wasting bandwidth while also not isolating themselves from the web because every web dev and their mother thinks it is okay to trash someone else’s machine (at scale!) to make money.

maury91 8y ago

I find some ads quite bad and I think Facebook should do some quality control. On my phone I have no ad blockers so I usually see them. I live in London and the majority of ads are about scammers trying to sell courses on how to buy and rent houses. Then there are the borderline illegal like the student loan ad with 1000% APR. However, the point is that I didn't wrote the script to get rid of ads because I think are bad. I did it because Facebook added 30 dom elements to each post to confuse ad blockers. It's more like a puzzle game than anything privacy related to me.