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AdBlock-Plus has made ads virtually irrelevant for me. Sometimes I forget that people are even subjected to them. Last year, while traveling through eastern A

by ChaseB 16y ago

AdBlock-Plus has made ads virtually irrelevant for me. Sometimes I forget that people are even subjected to them. Last year, while traveling through eastern Asia, I would occasionally drop by an internet cafe. I couldn't believe the amount of ads non-ABP users had to see. It still baffles me.

MikeCapone 16y ago
Getting content for free because advertisers are paying for it is pretty great, though, right? As Heinlein would say, there's no such thing as a free lunch...
- randombit 16y ago
  However in this case the missing free lunch may be for anyone with an expectation of making revenue off ads, rather than the people who won't even notice when site X happens to not update too often anymore due to decline in ad revenue, because sites A, B, and C came along and filled that attention gap nicely thankyouverymuch. (And if people do actually care enough to notice and care if site X stops producing, then X doesn't need ad revenue to make content creation profitable)
- potatolicious 16y ago
  I turn ABP off for domains that have made it a point to never have abusive ads (popovers, moving, flashing, expanding, generally being a nuisance). I'd highly recommend this to others. The advertising economy is crucial to maintaining free (as in beer) access to information on the internet, and complete rejection of it is just going to mean more paywalls in the future. I don't mind banner ads or text ads so long as they are neither deceptive (mixing ad content with real content or masquerading as such) nor abusive (flashing! look at me! you're the 1 millionth visitor! tiny dismiss buttons, or worse, no dismiss buttons!)
  - barrkel 16y ago
    I don't think it's my responsibility to ensure third-party companies' business models work. I have a TCP pipe open to a remote web server; however I manipulate the data after it has come out of that TCP pipe is up to me, providing I don't violate copyright etc. Trying to prop up businesses in spite of economic forces - free-riding in this case - is usually pointless. Economic forces are too powerful; it's a waste of effort. It's better to work on more sustainable models that aren't as weak.
    - AdamTReineke 16y ago
      What about terms of use for sites where they specifically disallow the use of ad blocking software?
      - rhizome 16y ago
        Such as?
      - _delirium 16y ago
        I'd take terms of use more seriously if they were presented as something resembling a real contract with a choice to accept/decline, e.g. they showed me an up-front page with the terms, and made me check that I agreed to them before letting me view the site. Obviously sites don't do this, because they would lose a bunch of readers who would just close the window. I don't consider fine print buried in a footer that I "implicitly" agree to to be an actual contract.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      Even in a completely self-serving frame of mind you may want to "prop up" a business model. The idea is that either you look at some ads, or you pay directly for content. Moral or issues of principles aside, that's simply the way it will go. Personally, I choose to look at ads instead of paying for content, but that's a personal preference. If you don't like paywalls it would benefit you in the long term to turn off adblockers for sites that "behave".
      - 16y ago
  - pzxc 16y ago
    That's the exact reason I don't use an ad blocker at all. I use the internet with such frequency that I know what is an ad and what is not, and as a result I am pretty much ad-blind with or without an ad blocker. It's been years since I've clicked on an adsense ad for example, but I don't use any adblockers because they provide essentially zero benefit to me but I know they take away a lot of benefit from other people (the people that make money off the ads and use that revenue model to provide free content).
Tutorialzine 16y ago
You do know that there is a special place in hell for ABP users? On a serious note, I've also pulled out my hair waiting for TechCrunch to load. My solution is to hit Esc as soon as the main content is loaded (or use RSS instead).

by ChaseB 16y ago

MikeCapone 16y ago

Getting content for free because advertisers are paying for it is pretty great, though, right? As Heinlein would say, there's no such thing as a free lunch...

randombit 16y ago
However in this case the missing free lunch may be for anyone with an expectation of making revenue off ads, rather than the people who won't even notice when site X happens to not update too often anymore due to decline in ad revenue, because sites A, B, and C came along and filled that attention gap nicely thankyouverymuch. (And if people do actually care enough to notice and care if site X stops producing, then X doesn't need ad revenue to make content creation profitable)
potatolicious 16y ago
I turn ABP off for domains that have made it a point to never have abusive ads (popovers, moving, flashing, expanding, generally being a nuisance). I'd highly recommend this to others. The advertising economy is crucial to maintaining free (as in beer) access to information on the internet, and complete rejection of it is just going to mean more paywalls in the future. I don't mind banner ads or text ads so long as they are neither deceptive (mixing ad content with real content or masquerading as such) nor abusive (flashing! look at me! you're the 1 millionth visitor! tiny dismiss buttons, or worse, no dismiss buttons!)
- barrkel 16y ago
  I don't think it's my responsibility to ensure third-party companies' business models work. I have a TCP pipe open to a remote web server; however I manipulate the data after it has come out of that TCP pipe is up to me, providing I don't violate copyright etc. Trying to prop up businesses in spite of economic forces - free-riding in this case - is usually pointless. Economic forces are too powerful; it's a waste of effort. It's better to work on more sustainable models that aren't as weak.
  - AdamTReineke 16y ago
    What about terms of use for sites where they specifically disallow the use of ad blocking software?
    - rhizome 16y ago
      Such as?
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I'd take terms of use more seriously if they were presented as something resembling a real contract with a choice to accept/decline, e.g. they showed me an up-front page with the terms, and made me check that I agreed to them before letting me view the site. Obviously sites don't do this, because they would lose a bunch of readers who would just close the window. I don't consider fine print buried in a footer that I "implicitly" agree to to be an actual contract.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    Even in a completely self-serving frame of mind you may want to "prop up" a business model. The idea is that either you look at some ads, or you pay directly for content. Moral or issues of principles aside, that's simply the way it will go. Personally, I choose to look at ads instead of paying for content, but that's a personal preference. If you don't like paywalls it would benefit you in the long term to turn off adblockers for sites that "behave".
    - 16y ago
- pzxc 16y ago
  That's the exact reason I don't use an ad blocker at all. I use the internet with such frequency that I know what is an ad and what is not, and as a result I am pretty much ad-blind with or without an ad blocker. It's been years since I've clicked on an adsense ad for example, but I don't use any adblockers because they provide essentially zero benefit to me but I know they take away a lot of benefit from other people (the people that make money off the ads and use that revenue model to provide free content).

Tutorialzine 16y ago

You do know that there is a special place in hell for ABP users? On a serious note, I've also pulled out my hair waiting for TechCrunch to load. My solution is to hit Esc as soon as the main content is loaded (or use RSS instead).