Comment by mbell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mbell | Hacker News Reader

I'm sort of torn on this.

On one hand I do want to support sites that I like and I know that for many this occurs through advertising.

On the other hand, I am honestly confused by what the web looks like with ads. Its been so long since the very first thing I did on any new computer, vm, or even non-technically inclined friend's machine wasn't to install ad block.

In many cases this wasn't really to not see the ads, but rather to make things appear where I'm used to seeing them. While I probably wouldn't find the "non-intrusive" ads themselves annoying. What I would find annoying is that the removal of the ads in many cases changes the layout of the page. All of a sudden what used to be the top right "module" maybe with recent posts or something is now the middle right module with an ad above it. Or even worse, some div that i'm used to seeing 'above the fold' now requires scrolling to see. All of a sudden my intuition and learned behavior for the interface has changed.

But your initial decision was to turn off ads, in opposition to your desire to support sites you like, which led to your current notion of where things should be on the page.

Indeed and the reasoning was mentioned in another poster's reply to this thread. There are sites which are simply obnoxious in terms of their ad usage and I'd prefer to avoid it initially rather than opt-in to avoiding it on each site. There is, of course, always was the option to disable ad-block on a particular site but the reality is that I frequent lots of web sites, many from when I was younger and didn't care at all about how the site made money thus would never consider allowing the ads. Now I'm trained to not see the ads, not to say I can't change but I think the take away here is that the addition of ads, even if 'non-intrusive' has a significant impact on the UX of a site.

In no way trying to say my view point is 'correct', completely rational or that I'm the best 'web user' for dealing with it the way I have, but rather simply pointing out a contingent impact on the change from my perspective.

> But your initial decision was to turn off ads, in opposition to your desire to support sites you like, which led to your current notion of where things should be on the page.

Basic sanity determines where things should appear on the page. Ads, by definition, try to draw your attention from useful content. If they provided the content you wanted, we wouldn't call them ads.

Allow me to offer a different take on this. I spend a lot of time looking for companies who will fabricate printed circuit boards for my small business. So much time, in fact, that I often see ads for circuit board companies.

And these are actually welcome! I click through, check their prices, and sometimes in the course of doing so I find good deals on other related products (business cards, shipping materials, etc.) How else would I know where to find some of these things?

I'm not saying that all ads are good, but that I sometimes benefit from companies advertising to me for services which I am actively looking to purchase. Sometimes, when I don't hit an exact search query, ads are indeed content I want!

Only by chance, though, not by design. The ads you see don't represent the most relevant results; they represent the results provided by someone willing to pay for an ad. Given the choice, I'd prefer to see faster-loading pages and no extraneous paid listings rather than seeing a sea of ads in the hopes that one of them might prove relevant. And thanks to Adblock Plus, I have that choice.

Regarding companies who can do small-run circuit board fabrication, I highly recommend Screaming Circuits: http://www.screamingcircuits.com/ . They do both fabrication and assembly. Also check out Sunstone: http://www.sunstone.com/

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