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> If you're reading Techdirt, and the ads we serve are not good, you have every right to use an ad blocker. It's your browser, do whatever you want with it. I,

> If you're reading Techdirt, and the ads we serve are not good, you have every right to use an ad blocker. It's your browser, do whatever you want with it. I, personally, do not use an ad blocker because I don't find most ads annoying -- but if you do, more power to you. You're absolutely welcome here on Techdirt. I know I'm in a minority so even posting this is absolutely pointless, but... if I don't like the adverts that a website runs I do one of the following: pay them to not have to view them (if they have a subscription option), don't visit the website again or begrudgingly view them. Yes it's "my browser" but it's also the websites content. If they didn't want me to view adverts they wouldn't have adverts, so the assumption is the adverts are there for me to view them. Either I view the adverts or I don't visit the website. If techdirt doesn't mine me blocking adverts, great, but why not make it a profile option? Sign up and get the option to disable adverts! Maybe I'm crazy, but I view access to websites, media and items (eg: biscuits) the same. If I want access / ownership / consumption of something and the owner wants me to pay $10, view an advert or give them my email address then I do that or I don't get the content. Just like I would hope everyone thinks the same of the content I'm involved in the production of (although I don't run adverts on the websites that I own...) As an aside I know of a website that has been around for a long time now that is suffering because of sticking to their guns regarding advertising. They don't want to sacrifice the "spirit" of the website so they're losing advertising options fast (some of the content is not advertiser friendly...) and this is going to lead to them shutting down soon, which is a shame because it's a website that matters a lot to me and has a significant userbase and is a part of the internet history. Sometimes sticking to your guns to the death isn't the best thing for your users...

Nursie 14y ago
It's not pointless to post, it's interesting to get a range of views. I do use an adblocker, because I think like the techdirt guy - it's up to me to decide what my browser displays, and I don't like noisy, colourful, moving distracting ads. It's not just the net though, I generally dislike ads everywhere and resent the way we let our world be taken over by them. That said, it's the site owner's right not to give me any service. To that end I fully support people that want to block the blockers like me. I don't have to load ads, you don't have to supply the content I ask for.
- stevesearer 14y ago
  What would you do if every website blocked you from visiting them? What would you do if every site online started charging money to view their content? To me, it is useful to extending these ideas to their logical extreme to see what type of internet I would want to use. And for me, I would much rather not have to pay a subscription to view content, but instead see a few ads in exchange for viewing content. On the site I run, which discusses office design projects and trends, my goal is to be much more magazine-like so that seeing an ad for a new office chair is basically the same as seeing content. Because my readers are interested in office design and learning about new products, seeing an ad for a new chair is not a negative experience.
  - Nursie 14y ago
    I don't think it would extend to every website. Some of my favourites already don't advertise. I do allow text ads through because they're not intrusive, and am quite happy that adblock added that option. So perhaps the internet and I would reach a compromise - I would go to sites for whom that is acceptable. There is another factor though - it doesn't matter if you serve me ads or not, I am so put off by any and all advertising that I will never click through. Not ever. So I'm probably a net loss to any site owner regardless. To me it seems a bit like the Do Not Call lists that so many advertisers seem so opposed to. Why is that? Surely the folks on those lists are the people most likely to yell obscenities at you and avoid your brand forever if you call them?
mylittlepony 14y ago
Ads can be stressing. I choose to be protected against that. And you don't know whether a site will have ads until you visit it, so not visiting it is not an option when surfing the web. More health for me, less money for someone else. The Universe stays balanced.
islon 14y ago
This is the internet not television. I'm not obliged to see their ads. Yes, it's their content but my viewport. By the same argument I shouldn't be allowed to surf the web using lynx (the console browser) because it doesn't show pictures and many ads are pictures or flash. On my client I can change the content all the way all want, if I don't want to see the word "fuck" I can replace it for "beep" with a greasemonkey script, if I don't want to see ads I use an adblock. Internet is about freedom, television is about not-filterable predefined content down your throat.
- Goronmon 14y ago
  This is the internet not television. I'm not obliged to see their ads. I don't think anyone is really saying that. But I agree with criticsquid in that if I think a site has content worth viewing, I want to do what I can to support that site, whether it means subscriptions or viewing ads. So I don't run an ad-blocker. If I run into a site with ads that annoy me, I just don't visit that site. A site decides whether or not to run annoying ads, even if they don't get to pick the ads specifically, so I show my frustration by not giving such sites my traffic at all.
  - dubya 14y ago
    There are sites that I visit regularly and many more sites that I arrive at only through search results. It's the second set of sites that keeps the adblocker turned on. There is an option in Adblocker Plus, I think, to allow non-annoying ads. If it comes to the Safari version I will try it. OTOH, every time I open a new tab, the Expose version of 12 most visited sites are retrieved with ads, so maybe I'm contributing enough.
- debacle 14y ago
  If you filter their ads from their content, they're completely within their rights to filter you from their site.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    That's an arms race the site owner will never win.
TallGuyShort 14y ago
In principle, I agree with you, however I still use an ad-blocker because I got sick of seeing sexually suggestive ads while looking for technical documentation at the office and at home. I would love for sites to be able to support themselves on advertising revenues and I do try to pay for sites that I find useful, but I'm afraid that from my perspectives, sites with poor advertising have ruined it for the rest. I need a way to my job done without bringing up unpredictable crap on the screen.
danielweber 14y ago
I wish it was just standard to pay for sites. Imagine every month you insert a $10 bill into your computer, and your browser automatically dispenses that value proportionately to the sites you used most last month. Such a system would probably be crippled within minutes of being deployed by people forging data and blocking payment to people they don't like and all sorts of associated bullshit. So we have to put up with sites harvesting our personal information, sucking out $20 of our information each month. Besides the ad networks, almost everyone is worse off under our current system, but it's too much of a Prisoner's Dilemma to get us to a decent state. . . . Or maybe I'm missing something and someone could get this to work. Explicit "microtransactions" are too much work -- I don't want to decide whether to send this site a nickel to view its content.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  Sounds like flattr. And Techdirt happens to have a button for it on every page.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Cool. Build it into the browser, and have websites say "if you are sending us flattr thingies we won't show you ads." That could even help bootstrap us there.
    - sometodd 14y ago
      The problem I had with Flattr is that not enough sites used it. I wound up putting the same money into Readability, which earmarked a chunk of change based on the domains of the sites I read that month. The catch is they had few sites sign up to claim that cash (among other reasons, authors had issues with the terms) and they caught a lot of flak for making money on the backs of others. I don't see a winning hand here. I would happily pay $X/month ($20? $30?) to strip ads from the whole web if money got to the creators. I don't want to pay $Y/month to each site I visit. My solution for most sites so far is to subscribe to the RSS feeds. At least the ads at the bottom of a feedburner'd feed aren't so bad, and I can sync the contents to my phone readily.
flyinRyan 14y ago
Couldn't disagree more. I hate aggressive ads and long to see them die off entirely. If a site wants to be paid for their content then charge me to view it. I have no obligation to look at your ads.

Nursie 14y ago

It's not pointless to post, it's interesting to get a range of views. I do use an adblocker, because I think like the techdirt guy - it's up to me to decide what my browser displays, and I don't like noisy, colourful, moving distracting ads. It's not just the net though, I generally dislike ads everywhere and resent the way we let our world be taken over by them. That said, it's the site owner's right not to give me any service. To that end I fully support people that want to block the blockers like me. I don't have to load ads, you don't have to supply the content I ask for.

stevesearer 14y ago
What would you do if every website blocked you from visiting them? What would you do if every site online started charging money to view their content? To me, it is useful to extending these ideas to their logical extreme to see what type of internet I would want to use. And for me, I would much rather not have to pay a subscription to view content, but instead see a few ads in exchange for viewing content. On the site I run, which discusses office design projects and trends, my goal is to be much more magazine-like so that seeing an ad for a new office chair is basically the same as seeing content. Because my readers are interested in office design and learning about new products, seeing an ad for a new chair is not a negative experience.
- Nursie 14y ago
  I don't think it would extend to every website. Some of my favourites already don't advertise. I do allow text ads through because they're not intrusive, and am quite happy that adblock added that option. So perhaps the internet and I would reach a compromise - I would go to sites for whom that is acceptable. There is another factor though - it doesn't matter if you serve me ads or not, I am so put off by any and all advertising that I will never click through. Not ever. So I'm probably a net loss to any site owner regardless. To me it seems a bit like the Do Not Call lists that so many advertisers seem so opposed to. Why is that? Surely the folks on those lists are the people most likely to yell obscenities at you and avoid your brand forever if you call them?

mylittlepony 14y ago

Ads can be stressing. I choose to be protected against that. And you don't know whether a site will have ads until you visit it, so not visiting it is not an option when surfing the web. More health for me, less money for someone else. The Universe stays balanced.

islon 14y ago

This is the internet not television. I'm not obliged to see their ads. Yes, it's their content but my viewport. By the same argument I shouldn't be allowed to surf the web using lynx (the console browser) because it doesn't show pictures and many ads are pictures or flash. On my client I can change the content all the way all want, if I don't want to see the word "fuck" I can replace it for "beep" with a greasemonkey script, if I don't want to see ads I use an adblock. Internet is about freedom, television is about not-filterable predefined content down your throat.

Goronmon 14y ago
This is the internet not television. I'm not obliged to see their ads. I don't think anyone is really saying that. But I agree with criticsquid in that if I think a site has content worth viewing, I want to do what I can to support that site, whether it means subscriptions or viewing ads. So I don't run an ad-blocker. If I run into a site with ads that annoy me, I just don't visit that site. A site decides whether or not to run annoying ads, even if they don't get to pick the ads specifically, so I show my frustration by not giving such sites my traffic at all.
- dubya 14y ago
  There are sites that I visit regularly and many more sites that I arrive at only through search results. It's the second set of sites that keeps the adblocker turned on. There is an option in Adblocker Plus, I think, to allow non-annoying ads. If it comes to the Safari version I will try it. OTOH, every time I open a new tab, the Expose version of 12 most visited sites are retrieved with ads, so maybe I'm contributing enough.
debacle 14y ago
If you filter their ads from their content, they're completely within their rights to filter you from their site.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  That's an arms race the site owner will never win.

TallGuyShort 14y ago

In principle, I agree with you, however I still use an ad-blocker because I got sick of seeing sexually suggestive ads while looking for technical documentation at the office and at home. I would love for sites to be able to support themselves on advertising revenues and I do try to pay for sites that I find useful, but I'm afraid that from my perspectives, sites with poor advertising have ruined it for the rest. I need a way to my job done without bringing up unpredictable crap on the screen.

danielweber 14y ago

I wish it was just standard to pay for sites. Imagine every month you insert a $10 bill into your computer, and your browser automatically dispenses that value proportionately to the sites you used most last month. Such a system would probably be crippled within minutes of being deployed by people forging data and blocking payment to people they don't like and all sorts of associated bullshit. So we have to put up with sites harvesting our personal information, sucking out $20 of our information each month. Besides the ad networks, almost everyone is worse off under our current system, but it's too much of a Prisoner's Dilemma to get us to a decent state. . . . Or maybe I'm missing something and someone could get this to work. Explicit "microtransactions" are too much work -- I don't want to decide whether to send this site a nickel to view its content.

mkr-hn 14y ago
Sounds like flattr. And Techdirt happens to have a button for it on every page.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Cool. Build it into the browser, and have websites say "if you are sending us flattr thingies we won't show you ads." That could even help bootstrap us there.
  - sometodd 14y ago
    The problem I had with Flattr is that not enough sites used it. I wound up putting the same money into Readability, which earmarked a chunk of change based on the domains of the sites I read that month. The catch is they had few sites sign up to claim that cash (among other reasons, authors had issues with the terms) and they caught a lot of flak for making money on the backs of others. I don't see a winning hand here. I would happily pay $X/month ($20? $30?) to strip ads from the whole web if money got to the creators. I don't want to pay $Y/month to each site I visit. My solution for most sites so far is to subscribe to the RSS feeds. At least the ads at the bottom of a feedburner'd feed aren't so bad, and I can sync the contents to my phone readily.

flyinRyan 14y ago

Couldn't disagree more. I hate aggressive ads and long to see them die off entirely. If a site wants to be paid for their content then charge me to view it. I have no obligation to look at your ads.