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On a fundamental level, your server is free to do whatever it wants with the requests I send it, and my browser is free to do whatever I want with the responses

On a fundamental level, your server is free to do whatever it wants with the requests I send it, and my browser is free to do whatever I want with the responses it receives. Because your server is yours, and my computer is mine.

johnward 11y ago
Is it easy to detect people who are using adblock and serve them nothing? Not that that is the best way to handle it but the OP does have a point. At least it would stop leaches. If you put content out for "free" because you make a few cents from advertising if they block the ads it's not much different than stealing.
- throwaway2048 11y ago
  no matter what the adblocker can always pretend to view the ad, this is not a fight advertisers can win.
  - johnward 11y ago
    Ad blockers should develop a way for sites to know if a user is using the ad blocker. It's not about advertisers winning it's about people that pay for hosting with the expectation they will make ad revenue from their content. I feel like ad blockers is pushing us towards the "comcast pay per channel" type internet. The fact is a majority of sites need to make money from their content. So they can sell ads, or related products, or paid access or just beg like wikipedia but there has to be some potential to make money or a majority of sites cease to exist.
    - johnward 11y ago
      I guess the counterpoint to this is if the site can detect ad blockers than they could attempt to use methods the blockers can't pick up yet.
- leejoramo 11y ago
  I have never done this, but technically you could do this. The problem I see how to implement this in a way that can not easily be countered with new ad blocking tools. For example, a year or so ago I saw that DuckDuckGo notices when you use ad blocking and very respectfully asks you to consider not blocking their ads. A few months later, the ad blocking software that I use, added a feature to block those respectful messages too. Note: I am not currently blocking ads on DDG
  - johnward 11y ago
    It's kind of a problem. If users should be allowed to choose not to view ads then content creators should be allowed to not serve that content.
    - leejoramo 11y ago
      To be clear, I am not against ad publishers taking this approach. I am just doubtful about how effective it will be.

johnward 11y ago

Is it easy to detect people who are using adblock and serve them nothing? Not that that is the best way to handle it but the OP does have a point. At least it would stop leaches. If you put content out for "free" because you make a few cents from advertising if they block the ads it's not much different than stealing.

throwaway2048 11y ago
no matter what the adblocker can always pretend to view the ad, this is not a fight advertisers can win.
- johnward 11y ago
  Ad blockers should develop a way for sites to know if a user is using the ad blocker. It's not about advertisers winning it's about people that pay for hosting with the expectation they will make ad revenue from their content. I feel like ad blockers is pushing us towards the "comcast pay per channel" type internet. The fact is a majority of sites need to make money from their content. So they can sell ads, or related products, or paid access or just beg like wikipedia but there has to be some potential to make money or a majority of sites cease to exist.
  - johnward 11y ago
    I guess the counterpoint to this is if the site can detect ad blockers than they could attempt to use methods the blockers can't pick up yet.
leejoramo 11y ago
I have never done this, but technically you could do this. The problem I see how to implement this in a way that can not easily be countered with new ad blocking tools. For example, a year or so ago I saw that DuckDuckGo notices when you use ad blocking and very respectfully asks you to consider not blocking their ads. A few months later, the ad blocking software that I use, added a feature to block those respectful messages too. Note: I am not currently blocking ads on DDG
- johnward 11y ago
  It's kind of a problem. If users should be allowed to choose not to view ads then content creators should be allowed to not serve that content.
  - leejoramo 11y ago
    To be clear, I am not against ad publishers taking this approach. I am just doubtful about how effective it will be.