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| Irony: Firefox Advertisement in the New York Times (2004) |
Again the idealists fail to understand how websites pay for their monthly server and bandwidth charges. For most "free" sites their revenue is generated through advertisements. Other sites use subscription services and the rest eat the cost. The ones eating the cost have another source of revenue usually not Internet based.
Since day one, I've understood the back end reason for banner ads. They are a necessity of free content. Lets be honest any web savvy user generally ignores all ads that they choose. So pushing features such as Adblock is harmful to the Internet, as we know it.
"Adblock is a content filtering plug-in for the Mozilla and Firebird browsers. It is both more robust and more precise than the built-in image blocker." - The Adblock Project
While Adblock is nothing new in terms of ad blocking software, it is significant in that it's current hype and price (free) is making it widely recommended and used as an extension to the Firefox web browser - this is a dangerous trend.
Adblock effectively robs these free sites of their revenue. If Internet Explorer came with a feature such as Adblock, you would effectively wipe out thousands of websites, maybe more. These are the same free sites users of Adblock frequently visit. The irony is how this is self-defeating.
The Future
If features such as Adblock become commonplace you will force an unnecessary outcome - one in which free sites deliver their content in a way that only disabling Adblock will display the content. Web sites that depend on advertising as their primary source of revenue should take notice.
53 comments:
Pop-up advertisements were clearly noted as a nuisance. Whether you like moviing flash ads is a matter of opinion. I honestly don't care what kind of integrated nonpop-up advertisements a website chooses to use. It is their site and they have to pay their own bills. So long as I am choosing to visit their site and they are not directing me there (Spyware) I don't honestly care.
You are missing a very big problem, the internet is not just about recovering operating costs, for many sites it is way to make a living.
Adblock and similiar applications that block non intrusive advertisements will directly impact the economics of the "free" Internet.
Either way, if some years from now this becomes a problem you will be getting all your free content from large corporations who can afford to not put ads on their page and all the "free" sites will only be visible with programs like Adblock disabled.
No one is talking about obtrusive advertisements. For the last time this was made very clear at the begining of the article.
I agree, but I never click the ads anyway, might as well optimize load time by not downloading them; for those of whom that host the ads on their own site, I am saving them bandwidth, too.
Very little revenue is generated from views, if at all. Click throughs are where the money is at.
Please you pay for Internet Access not the Internet. You meager Internet access fee doesn't even touch the basic costs the Internet's ifrastructure requires. Adblock robs revenue from free content sites.
Firefox is most surely not Superior to ANY Browser, including IE.
Wait until the Greasemonkey extension catches on. This this not only can be configured to block ads but even alter web pages.
I don't have a URL handy but if you search of r Greasemonkey you're sure to find some interesting things.
I'm not going to click the ads anyways, so why bother even downloading them?
There are ways of financing bandwith without eating up large portions of my screen space, such as Paypal donation, corporate sponsoring, offering additional content for a fee, etc.
Bandwith is pretty darn cheap, and if ads are the only/main way to generate revenue, perhaps the site owner needs to work on some thinking outside the box.
If ad free is such a bad idea, how the heck does this site survive?
"If ad free is such a bad idea, how the heck does this site survive?"
-> From Advertising. Blogger is owned by Google which generates revenue through advertising.
The average user will not take the time to custom configure ad blocking software and thus block all ads not just what some might find annoying. You can not blame the large amount of reputable sites for faults of the few who abuse things. In this way Adblock hurts the good sites.
Ads which take up a large part of the screen are unacceptable to me.
There is no need to custom configure Adblock, just use filterset G.
See my wiki page on Firefox extensions.
This particular site lacks AdWords ads, and it's still alive...
This site falls under the "supported by a large corporation" reason, I already explained this.
The average end user will not custom configure anything.
See, there's more than one way to skin a fish.
If a site has ad banners, I will block them. The content is for the user, if it can only be supported by ads which take up a nontrivial amount of screen space, and compete for my attention, then yes, there is nothing wrong with blocking it in my book.
Perhaps the average end user will not custom configure anything, so they have to put up with annoying, attention hogging ads. A pity.
I would find it embarrassing to admit that I could be so easily distracted and manipulated by advertising that the only solution would be to block it but hey to each his own.
"If a site has ad banners, I will block them. The content is for the user, if it can only be supported by ads which take up a nontrivial amount of screen space, and compete for my attention, then yes, there is nothing wrong with blocking it in my book."
->This sort of a selfish naive mentality is what causes these problems to begin with.
It will be a pity when free content disappears as we know it.
The basis on the article is on if the concept of a web browsers can block individual elements such as banners and flash ads from sites.
Currently this means Firefox + Adblock. Unless IE adopts some similar feature or an add on for IE sweeps the net users as a whole, were only talking at most 10% of the firefox market (and ALL have adblock or a future version of something like it built in). It's not that big of an issue unless there is a big shift on the browser market.
This is a valid concern with the current system but web advertising has evolved with the way the web has changed and the way users have surfed the web. I currently think marketing like google's ad-sense are the current future for advertising on the web. If a current system is offensive to most users, the smart one's find away around it, others just live with it until it reaches a point where the mainstream is forced to adapt.
"I will stop blocking ads when websites start reimbursing me for the cost of downloading them."
-> Ridiculous! Your choosing to go to free content sites, no one is forcing you too. All your paying for is internet access not the content.
"I won't cry when the last leach gets tired and gets off our bandwith. If you want to set up shop on the interweb ... pay for it."
-> No YOU will be paying for it if everyone thought like you.
"Id personally say Firefox is a superior browser when compared to IE."
-> A superior browser would not render incorrectly 15% of the internet.
"As for the internet infastructure being maintained, this is part of what the money I pay my ISP goes towards."
No it doesn't, you money goes to your ISP so your ISP can pay its own bills and make a profit for itself. None of which goes to the websites you visit or their support infrastructure.
"If you live in Europe and see the internet prices here, you'd know we get robbed and these companies get more than what the should. And ads certainly do not help these companies maintain their infastructure, consumer demand does."
-> Again Ridiculous! Your hurting good websites because because your upset with your ISP?
"15% of websites are coded very badly, hence they wont be rendered properly by a browser based on w3 standards."
-> And? This is the same old argument, no one cares. The average user only cares if the site renders properly or not.
You also have the freedom to not go to a website.
"No one is forcing me to download the ad, either. At best, I was asked nicely, and I chose not to. What's your point? Are you going to rant about people not donating every time they see a Paypal link?"
->No I was clearly discussing Ads not donations.
"I'm not hurting the websites. Perhaps I'm not helping, but I'm definitely not hurting."
->
"I also block SPAM e-mail, fast forward through the previews and ads on video cassettes, and get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials. Oh, the horror!"
->Spam is obtrusive and if you get up to use the bathroom for every commercial then you have a bladder problem and should see a doctor.
This is not about wether people should click on ads or not but wether they should be there at all.
"in the same sense im removing adverts from a page i wouldnt look at anyway, just like the billboards."
->It is not the same. You currently don't have to look at non obtrusive ads if you don't want to. I do it daily.
"theres no need to insult someone for making an analogy, it doesnt do much for your arguement. he was making a point."
->It wasn't an insult but a counterpoint.
"why should anybody expect to make a living posting to a blog?"
->For the most part you shouldn't but if some choose to it is there right. This has already been explained. Blogs are free because they are subsidized by companies like Google.
"free internet is and should be exactly that. free. nobody gets "paid" unless they provide a real service.. like selling a product. posting some pseudo-intellectual drivel to a web page isn't worth a damn penny in my book."
->Nothing is "free". Everything has to be paid for one way or the other.
Content can be paid for in much more effective ways than ads.
Oh yeah, feel free to be less 'selfish' by viewing ads which eat up your screenspace. So you aren't affected by ads at all eh? Even when you see them right there, and have to wait to download them? Why does the website's wishes dominate the viewers? Websites are not selfish but I am? Pfft...
"yes it is the same. and again no one is losing business."
->No its not your not having someone physically remove the billboards as you drive, you are not looking at them.
The comment I made was clear move on. I'm not going to explain it twice.
"these sites already exist."
->Your missing the point. What will happen is if programs like Adblock become popular all sites will move to a similar model.
"Why does the website's wishes dominate the viewers?"
->Because they are the ones providing YOU with the content. Your wishes entail viewing the content or not, they determine how they want you to see it.
What do you think about using a text only browser? Then I would be blocking the precious image ads, denying people of their precious ad revenue, obiously. Or if I disabled javascript, to block those annoying intellitxt ads? Would that be fine? I guess not.
Next to no one uses text only browsers. It is a non issue.
What is the deal? Simple if everyone moves to using Adblock software free content as you now know it will change.
Contnt is always changing on the internet, what is your point? There are much more effective ways to fund 'free' content than ads, if everyone used adblock it would be beneficial to the internet.
And do you only publish your first name? Have something to hide?
Hey matey cool down. What you say makes teh internet look like a market place where you have to pay (in terms of at least looking at the ads) for what you get. Fair enough. Others see it another way as they feel it is a a Commons. That is just another fair opinion.
Now coming to point of it being a place where one needs to get paid you have to realise that as per capitalism consumer is king. And that consumer is me! So it is enitrly up to me to visit a page with or without Adblock. You are correct about the fact that many free sites may change their approach or go under. Well that is just the dynamics of the game. Sooner rather than later the only way sites can exist is because of their content. If their content is strong enough people will sit through ads. They may even remove the adblocks for that site and even-surprise,surprise- clickthrough. However most site which focus on ad pop-ups and such aren't really giving the content to warrant removal of the adblock.
And you are wrong about the cynicism of people. Lots of people make money out of adwords and ad block does not remove these adwords. So people do support the sites they like. Just don't ask them to support the whole Internet.
No one seems to read the article, which is not surprising. Validating using Adblock because your annoyed at Pop-ups is absurd. All Browsers have some form of Pop-up blocking or it can be added for free and very easily.
People will not be able to afford to run anything for free if they cannot cover the bandwidth costs. The more popular the site the more money that is required to run it never mind make a profit. Large free content sites require more work then most can do in their spare time, thus they need to make money off the site to be able to provide the continual free content.
Donations are a joke. You can not expect to survive off donations.
The more people try to push the web into something it is not the less you will find for free. Either accept reasonable advertising or deal with the fallout.
Andrew, you make some excellent points, however these are weakened by not accepting any of the critiques that were made with equally valid viewpoints.
It seems you distinguish between popup blocking and Adblocking. "No one seems to read the article, which is not surprising. Validating using Adblock because your annoyed at Pop-ups is absurd. All Browsers have some form of Pop-up blocking or it can be added for free and very easily."
The principal is the same in that, ads that are annoying can be removed. I know in your article you say you are not referencing the "annoying" ads. This is the beauty of Adblock, it works as a filter. I need to be motivated to go through the effort of adding the ad to my filter. For me that motivation is annoyance.
Hardly anyone uses text browsers so that's not an issue? So Adblock would be fine if hardly anyone uses it?
"The principal is the same in that, ads that are annoying can be removed."
-> No its not, Adblock is designed to block all ads. The people using it generally find ALL ads annoying. Thus the difference between that and a standard Pop-up blocker or a Flash Blocker.
"Yet they do, especially on the small and/or focused scale. Empirical evidence is not in your favour."
-> Small sites use next to no bandwidth because they get no visitors, usually because they do not have any good content. The sites I am refering to have a large audience, are completely internet based and generate all their funding through advertising.
"popular sites also tend to have a larger number of financial supporters, be that in the form of monetary donations, hardware, bandwidth or labour"
-> This is far from common. Donations are not what you are led to believe. Advertising pays the bulk of most purely internet based sites needs.
"Many free Internet sites and services are run on donations of this sort."
-> Come on, no one with any business or common sense would try to run a site begging for donations.
"into a future that is not controlled by monetary interests alone"
->This is just idealistic nonsense. The companies supplying the servers and bandwidth will never allow this. The infrastructure will always need money to be maintained.
If you really believe that using adblock is going to force companies to stop using ads, think again. I already explained they will simply move to a content form that requires the viewing of the ads to see the content. In the mean time what your promoting is damaging legitimate site's funding. The quest for everything free with no costs is unrealistic.
Spamming is not allowed. If Children continue to Spam the Blog (which I'm sure they will) I will meerly lock the comments.
Which is why I completely agree with blocking pop-ups. While they may find ways to overcome them, the pop-up stopping software has managed to keep up.
"You're continually validating your points by referring to large, free "portal" style web sites operated for financial gain by large corporations - see MSN, Yahoo!, Netscape, Google, About.com etc"
-> Um no I'm not, do you read what I type? Large Audience can mean any site with a "large" audience. Numerous sites that are not corporate run fit this model. Examples: Anandtech, Toms Hardware Guide, Neowin ect...
"While I do recognize the services these sites provide, I must say that personally I could live without them"
-> Thats nice tell that to the millions of people who frequent these sites. The content provided by some of these sites is irreplaceable and can not be made up nor can the credibility that has been established just appear overnight by another site.
Salon is a horrible example and completely against what I am talking about.
Businesses constantly take risks. Idealism has nothing to do with innovation. Idealism leads to impracticallities which is the exact opposite of innovative ideas. Innovation is rooted in what is practical not how you wish it to work.
Considering Alcohol actually impairs the brain from functioning properly I don't think it has anything to do with innovation.
"There is plenty of bandwidth in the world, it's just misappropriated, is all."
-> Again Idealistic nonsense. There are alot of computers in the world, they are just misappropriated, is all. Please.
Lokitorrent.com?
LMAO! http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/02/11/lokitorrent_shuttered_by_mpaa_lawsuit.html
They were shut down by the MPAA for what else? Pirating Movies. Good example there!
"Lokitorrent did not get shut down by the MPAA for pirating movies. Lokitorrent chose to shut down their torrent site and replace it with the MPAA notice as part of a settlement with the MPAA to prevent them from being dragged to court for failing to moderate away copyrighted material from their torrent tracker."
-> AHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!! How naive are you? These sites are used to pirate copywritten material and the owners of the site knew exactly what was going on. You pirate stuff you get what you deserve. It doesn't matter your example is useless, the site is shut down, proving MY point.
"Tom's Hardware Guide is registered under "Tom's Guides Publishing LLC"
-> Do you have any idea how businesses work? LLC does not mean it is a corporation!
"purchasing decisions on a review in either Tom's Hardware or Anandtech."
-> You obviously do not read many of their articles. Technically they have always been sound and no they can not be replaced with a Blog, if you were in IT or an OEM such as myself you would be able to identify how accurate the reviewing is or not.
#1 I'm not going to continue tolerating long drawn out offtopic rambling responses.
You can play symantics games all you want. Lokitorrent was targeted and shut down for illegal activity. I'm not arguing technicalities. You don't like my response too bad. This argument is closed.
"Regardless, I don't see how their current non-existence, so-called criminal behaviour, etc in any way relates to their ability to, on demand, gather a considerable amount of monetary donations from its users."
-> Of course you wouldn't you don't get the article I wrote either. They were able to gather a one time amount of donations because all their users would not be able to pirate movies as easily without them. The fact that you seem so hung up on them suggests you did the same. This proves nothing and the fact that they are currently shut down makes your argument laughable.
"That sound like a community-driven, non-profit, "just-trying-to-recover-our-bandwidth-costs" operation to you?"
-> Look I am not going to explain everything over and over so you can spam long responses over and over. If you don't understand LLC go read up on it. I'm also not going to continue tolerating your lack of reading my responses and twisting what I say. Who the hell said Tom's hardware guide was community driven and non-for profit? If your responses continue to ramble offtopic or make implications twisting what I say they will be removed.
"they tend to think they should get a GeForce4 video card if they do digital photography, or that their system would somehow be more stable if they got a $300 Audigy2 sound card in it."
-> Anyway your claims against these sites are laughable and unfounded. Neither site would recommend a card for an application without providing test results and neither would claim a PC would be more stable with am Audigy2 sound card. The comment is idiotic. Your ramblings have worn thin, This is not the place to promote you idealogies.
"Andrew, you continously say "Adblock" removes adverts. It is originally configured to Hide adverts, and only those going to extreme lengths will set it to Remove them."
It doesn't matter, if you are unable to click on them then the website does not get paid for them. The majority of payments are done with Click-through advertising.
For the last time I am not talking about sites that barrage you with advertising obscuring the content but provide it in addition to the free content. The world is changing and you are seeing more not less advertising.
Again this is not the place to discuss the validity of Torrent linking, I don't care I know what they are primarily used for, which is pirating media.
"I also noticed in this thread of comments that you do not once acknowledge anyones points as even legible."
Because they are not, they are all from people who leech off sites and have a very idealistic way of looking at the internet. They also don't understand the simple economics of how the internet works.
I am also not going to take personal attacks against myself. You comment has been removed.
I'd say it's analgous to the TV situation
If you don't like the rules don't reply. Any personal attacks on myself will be removed, any arguments about them will be removed.
I think Lachek's position would be humourous if it weren't so serious. I like to call the argument the "self-centered" argument. I'm not trying to offend or make a personal atttack, I'll explain my rationale.
He's arguing that since he doesn't care about the content on the other sites, they are irrelevant. "I must say that personally I could live without them".
Yes, so obviously everyone else should HAVE to live without them. That or it's inevitable that everyone will eventually see things his way. That's just so stunningly solipsist it's shocking. Is his reality the only reality?
His comments on lokitorrent are delusional, because the site maintainers got 40k in donations for a legal defense fund. In other words, his example is really saying that people have to face huge lawsuits in order to get funding for their website (whose only content is the tracking and discussion of where to get illegally copied materials)
For some reason, I don't think there are going to be many people who want to run site's off Lachek's "I'm getting sued for everything I own, so give me money" 'donation' model. I don't know what he thinks he's proving by the example, a legal defense fund isn't exactly the same thing as a tipjar for regular operational costs. In fact, I'm being kind, there is no similiarity.
I'm also amazed that he implies that it is wrong for people to want to make the living off the web, that they should only want to 'cover costs'. Why stop there? Why not insist that every business worldwide only cover their costs? What's the point of artificially stopping with just the internet?
Oh, that's right. Hardly anything would ever get made/done if people couldn't make a living off of it.
What is so fundamentally unreasonable to a social contract that says "If I put ads on my site that you ignore so long as you don't block them, then I will supply you with free content." Given his support for lokitorrent, a subscription model wouldn't work either because I doubt Lachek would do anything about people illegally disseminating the content the subscription provided.
Let's look at his example about people making a creative commons film using cheap camera equipment and bittorrent after the MPAA and big studios fail.
The thing about that example is that 1. It can happen now
2. It eliminates a lot of what people LIKE about movies.
Anyone can do exactly what he's purposing today. The thing is, no one cares because very, very few of those films contain elements that are popular. People like big blockbusters with epic scenes, famous casts, and neat special effects. Lachek is essentially saying that if we made it impossible to make cool films like we used to, people will watch amateur student films because there isn't anything else.
What a utopia.
I hate blinkies.
This social contract between advertiser and viewer has always been an asymmetrical relationship with advertisers pushing things as much as they can. I recall hating commercials on television. In high school I learned that the more annoying the commercial, the more memorable it was and thus they designed ads to be annoying.
That was before television remote controls. After TVs got mute buttons, advertising changed became less annoying and more interesting.
If I'm reading something I don't want my eye wandering away to some distraction on the page. I don't want a pop up or pop-under cluttering my desktop.
When advertisers discovered flash animation I contemplating uninstalling the flash plugin.
I hate blinkies. And I never Adblock any banner advertisement that doesn't blink.
My likelihood to block an advertisement varies according to its annoyingness vs interestingness. The John Cleese ad for the backup solution captured my attention and I watched it closely. I'll return when I need a chuckle. (attention advertisers: this is a clue.)
Don't blink and flicker.
If you have some way cool flash game where I might win millions by shooting the monkey, put a static non-offensive image on a banner and if I want to give it a try, I'll click on it. If it's cool, it'll have a viral appeal and we'll talk about it over the supper table. (Like those United Healthcare ads http://www.adweek.com/aw/creative/best_spots_03/index_0703.jsp)
What is written goes under the assumption that the current "free internet" in the right internet. (I'm not particularily disputing this.. I'll return to it later).
Generally, the internet has been following the American business model. If you look at other mediums, such as radio and television, we have seen models that require fees or(as with the phenomenal BBC) taxes. In North America, we see examples with specialty channels, such as HBO. In the States, however, most profit comes from advertising.
Back in the day, I believe, development of a technology within a small country, could be handled by the government, due to less physical demands. In a country as large as the United States, however, it would be impossible for the government to put up telephone poles or cable lines all over the country. So, the responsibility is given to the corporations: and Adam Smith's philosophy that greed motivates the world is put to work. When profit is the motivation, and even more with the threat of a competing company getting that profit, a company will go as quickly as possible, and reach as many places as they can in order to capitalize on profits.
The business model stayed in place. As is well known, the United States still favours corporations as the building blocks of the company over the people. Once again, I am stating a fact; take it as you will, for this philosophy has progressed the US into the most powerful and rich country in the entire world. The truth is, once a people receive something for free, they will not want to pay for it, so you can't change it back. With the rise of the Internet, North America's dominant power resulted in this model growing, and spreading with the net.
Now, why does this difference matter? Well, when the people pay for it directly, it becomes a medium for the people. It is high culture, it's purpose formed to reflect the best of what society has to offer. Why else would it exist, if not for the people that are paying for it. However, by giving the power into the corporation, the focal point changes. Suddenly, it is not for the people, but for profit. Is that understandable enough? Rather than us having control, the idea is how to control us and get the most money out of us.
I agree with your title: Adblock does pose a threat to the free internet. However, it also gives the power back to us. Now, the corporations have to adapt to us. I don't know the solution. Since the internet is worldwide, a cost-structure will be negative for poorer nations. It's adapt to survive however, so you can be assured than many will use their minds to find something new that works.
As I said, once you get something free, you don't want to pay. This, while seemingly a bad thing, is beneficial in a situation like this, as adaptation to the new environment will most likely take costs into account.
Of course, some won't survive. That is unfortunate, but generally, still intellectually beneficial to society. We have seen truly important and stimulating projects, such as Wikipedia, swamped with donations to keep it going. Other sites, such as Flickr and Livejournal, promise eternal free services, making their pay services simply a product that they sell for advanced users (while the free version suffices for the laymen). In these examples, we see profit driven by need. At a go cart track, if some people go 1 lap and some go 10 laps, it's illogical to have a fixed charge for 5 laps.
So, maybe that's the adaption? Make money, for being effective (Wikipedia), or only pay for services you use (livejournal). The cost of running smaller sites, meanwhile, I still don't know. I guess we'll see.
p.s. I'm quite tired, so make sure to dispute all my flaws, so that I can later consider them
Instead your just a nobody posting, sad.
Personal attacks will be removed. As for IE, it is elementary to not get infected with Spyware and Viruses. Look into it.
*shrug* How a website owner pays his bandwidth bills is not my problem, and I will not allow third parties to send unsolicited content to my computer. If I send my browser to www.foo.com, I do not want content from ad.doubleclick.net. If I wanted to view doubleclick.net's content, I would have directed my browser to that URL.
If you can't pay your hosting bill without advertising, then to the void with you. You don't matter, and the web is probably better off without you.
Just to point out to all the Firefox users out there, Opera is more secure and more standards compliant, and is a faster browser by far. So unless you are using Opera, you really can't say these are the reasons you use Firefox, especially since IE7 is about as equally compliant as Firefox.
If you chose to make your living through a website, I surely hope you didn't plan on your revenue coming from ads. If that's the case, I'll be glad to see your website disappear.
To me this raises the question of what level of ads are good for the internet?
None or free for all! Neither policy will work. It has to be somewhere in the middle.
The net is not entirely run by advertising and it doesn't have to be, but clearly advertising supports a lot of sites.
Tim
The main problem with adblock plus is that it's too effective and it's free.
I run a small site at retrovision.tv. It gets a small profit and pays it's massive bandwidth bill for serving TV.
I just use plain old google ads. Not only does adblock plus kill simple Google ads, it especially kills Google ads.
If these blockers are adopted widely, the first casualties will be small sites like mine. You might not care, but 3000-5000 people a day like free TV.
I like an extra part time job.
100% adoption of this program tonight and I'm done tomorrow.
I have some ideas on how to prevent adblocking. The basic idea is to selectively encrypt a webpage. Please see:
http://www.killadblock.frihost.net/kab/
There is a live demo that encrypts your HTML!
None of you ad blockers own a website, do you?
Free content for user, but someone has to host it.
Ads aren't for profit, ads are for counter-expenses. I run a free game, but it's only free to the players.. it costs me over $200 a month to run it. And believe me... I don't get $200 in donations every month.
I dont even ask anyone to click on ads. The rare person that finds an ad honeslty interesting is enough. I also get paid per impressions. So by viewing my ads you pay back for the bandwidth that you use to download my content.
80% of my ads are text and links. Images are rare (comment to those who are on dialup)
I do not, and will never block ads. In fact I click an ad when it displays information that is relevant.
Andrew is 100% right!! You like youtube? You like free online games? you like free social networks? Then you don't block ads.
If you don't like the number of ads on a webpage, don't access it. Walk with your feet.
You don't see supermarkets giving bread away for free, so don't expect the same from webmasters.
If you don't like our ads DONT ACCESS OUR CONTENT!!! End of... use the little people who do it for a hobby instead!
I'm a webmaster and user. I use ad block. I know that there have been over 70 million download of adblock but there are sooo many webmasters that it will always remain competitive and I will never charge for my content. There will always be millions who don't have adblock plus so I don't really care.
Just now I’ve been googling anti-ad block scripts.
I’ve found some sites – http://anti-ad-blocker.blogspot.com/ .
I definitely agree that it’s not nice to force users to disable ad blockers.
On the other hands, someone has to pay for their hosting bills, part-time sharing stuffs which are all about costing time and money.
This should be returned in some forms. As for me, I have 10000+ page views per day for one of my freebie sites in my webanlyzers but in my adsense panel I get only 500+ page impression per day.
My coworker is a die-hard adblocker. He has confessed that some certain things make him turn the adblock off. I would like to share his story with you.
His typical site of choice includes absurd pop-up type ads, which forced him to start using an adblock to begin with. Since then he has blocked every ad on the web, kind of by "inertia" of ad blocking.
He says that there are 2 main reasons he disabled adblock for a website.
1) The website provides free content, and is overall friendly and it detects adblock use and disables its functionality.
2) Instead of the advertisement (behind the image/iframe) there's another image or a text that pleads for help.
I have implemented #2 on my website, so that when an adblock is used, the text behind the supposed ad is displayed: "By using Ad-Block you oppose our efforts to keep this game free" (and a drawing of a crying baby panda)
The use of adblocks has gone down from 24% to 19% (I've been tracking it for a while)
AdBlock Plus Is Evil form me .
I Use it by accident when I looked for plugin that block Porngraph .banner from some torrent site
After months from using it I notice some ads regularly see are disappear Like Adsens text ads etc .
Which Is not the reason I use that Plugin For .
I that's time know that plugin are far strong from being banner blocks
Specially whit EasyList That block all kind of ads .
For Firs comment taking about greedy site This plugin will not hurt that big sites that much like small sites ..
Because they have thousands way to make money other then ads you know nothing about it ..
This Plugin hurt small companies and small developers who can't pay for Others Ads material Like TV radio Magazine ads Street banners you name it .
^^ so do you have authority stop all that kind of ads you seen everyday ? of course not .
I ask you how you heard about "General motors" And "ford" "Nokia" "Samsung" "Apple" "Pepsi" "Mcdonald" "IBM" "Microsoft"
Back to web site owner side of story ..
I Had take about this Plugin in some Linux web form I register with in 2008 Before I think to build any web site that time .. I told everyone that plugin are hurting websites owner .
Now I have my own web site which provide free contents to users from all the web .
And of course I use ads on it .. from Page view analyses I count that about 20% from my site visitor use that Plugin .
although My ads are away from being buggy ads .
but are blocked because of EasyList That Installed automatically with adblock ..
I know that Most of plugin users are not care about EasyList or anything else they just see some banner or pop-up window on some web site and hit "block ads" on search engine and the the story begin .
Any way I'm not count on ads for living .And I can bug my site visitors with ads that they can't blck easier .
Or Show them Ugly Message to Disable Adblock from my site .
But won't do it because it's not their fault it's Adblock developers fault and EasyList team fault .
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