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Comment by dbelchamber | Hacker News Reader

I'm really disappointed in rockpapershotgun.com's adblocker strategy. They make you click on "I'm a bad person" in order to continue without disabling adblocker. While somewhat funny, I'm firmly on the side of ending bad ad implementation. The advertising industry needs to improve (I actually like the rare good ad), as most of them are trashy. Anyways, rant aside over.

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I'm willing to admit that I'm a bad person for blocking their ads if they're willing to admit they're bad people for potentially exposing their own readers to malware shoved through an ad network they've chosen to do business with.

But of course they won't do that. It is constitutionally impossible for anyone in their position to admit that malware comes through ad networks.

If you actually pay money for their content, the ads will (and malware in them) will stop.

Really? Because last I checked they didn't. I'm a subscriber and I use uBlock and feel totally justified in doing so.

I take a complaint about adblocking as a sign that the creators of the website do not understand how the Web works. Users get to choose what web browser they use and configure it to show or hide any element that they want. If you want to force some specific layout, use a page description language and render the output yourself. Otherwise you're just signalling you're clueless about the medium you're publishing in.

I'm also convinced that they haven't thought it through very far. The type of user who wants ads blocked is highly unlikely to click on one, and has been done a great disservice if forced to view the ad.

If the model is pay-per-impression, they are doing their advertisers a huge disservice (and will probably run impression value down to nothing).

Either way, the site is behaving poorly and for no obvious benefit to itself.

> I'm also convinced that they haven't thought it through very far. The type of user who wants ads blocked is highly unlikely to click on one, and has been done a great disservice if forced to view the ad.

No, they thought further than you. If they don't punish adblocking, they risk that eventually it becomes default in browsers, and then no one will see ads, not even those who would click on them.

Adblockers will become the default and sites that punish users will disappear.

I hope so, but I fear it's just a pipe dream. There's too much money involved.

Doesn’t the same idea apply to the creators? They get to choose what content they serve, and they can make that content complain about whatever they want.

Where did I say they couldn't? I just take it as a sign they don't understand the medium.

Since both sides can do as they please, serving code that attempts to change behavior when advertising elements are blocked is no more a misunderstanding of the medium than using code in the client that attempts to block elements that look like advertising.

brave (the browser) doesn't show this message as I tested. Safari + ublock will see the message.

Firefox with uBlock does not display it either.

Chromium + uBlock doesn't show it either.

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