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Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

I never understood ad blockers or the people promoting ad blockers.

People complain about ads, yet they are unwilling to pay for content, with the popularity of something like ThePirateBay being testament to that.

And then, I can understand that many websites are showing distasteful ads, but if you don't like it, then don't use those websites. This gives a chance to competing websites, being practically like voting with your wallet. Because in truth, ad blockers help the companies that are showing distasteful ads, just like how piracy helped companies like Microsoft.

EDIT: if you're gonna down-vote, at least mention why, otherwise I'm going to assume you are a just freeloader that wants everything for free.

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> yet they are unwilling to pay for content

Hold it right there. The problem is that there is usually no way to pay. There is currently no way to automatically reimburse website owners when you just read a blogpost from them without going through the trouble of finding a donate button or emailing them for their paypal.

I do use ad blockers and I donate whenever I find something useful. I pirate books and music and I want to pay when I like it.

> don't use those websites

That's not always as easy as it sounds. I've tried DuckDuckGo for weeks but I just can't get the same results, so I'm back to Google now. I'd love to pay google, but I can't and they keep serving me ads.

Now Google is a pretty extreme example with all the data gathering, but you're almost forced to use some websites because it's a social norm (without Facebook, I'd miss a lot of events and messages from the school group). And you can't exactly decide whether ads on the page will be annoying before clicking on a link from Hacker News.

> ad blockers help the companies that are showing distasteful ads, just like how piracy helped companies like Microsoft

That is actually a good point, I hadn't thought of that before. Then again, I hardly use Microsoft products (just skype, but I could switch over to mumble any minute), but I see what you mean.

If you pay or donate for the content you like, I've got no beef against you.

Personally, I do pay Google for using Google Apps and I'm not getting ads in Gmail or the other services part of their Apps.

Indeed, I still get ads in their Search, but that doesn't bother me personally and AdBlock Plus from what I've seen is allowing those ads in their default configuration. YouTube is the one Google service that greatly annoys me, which is the reason for why I've searched for alternatives and so I eventually ended up using Vimeo, SoundCloud and Google Music - US citizens have many more alternatives available, unfortunately for me I'm being blocked because I'm not from the US.

> I never understood ad blockers or the people promoting ad blockers.

I block ads because they annoy me. Maybe I'm completely selfish but I don't give a shit that whoever I'm "freeloading" from isn't receiving any compensation.

I also download books, music and software because if I can get something for free, I'm not going to pay for it (don't care about the content creator, this is purely selfish). I also download movies because it's free, and series because it's free and devoid of ads (which waste my time and I don't care for). Even if you made paying easier, if there's a reasonably easy alternative to getting it for free, I'm going to use it.

Why? Because it leaves me with more money to spend on shit I can't get for free.

M'kay, thanks for proving my point. I can't help but feel annoyed because it is exactly this attitude that brought us DRM, Trusted Computing and that helped build the monopolies that we are seeing.

It's also not selflessness, because one can be both selfish and recognize that it would be in his best interest to not use ad blockers and to not pirate. This is shortsightedness and it is a pity that it's so prevalent.

Unfortunately people are only rational, not super rational.

DRM is mostly ineffective at curbing piracy, but it's very effective at preventing legitimate paying customers from exercising all their rights, like watching the videos they bought on all their devices without buying multiple copies. What makes you think DRM wouldn't be brought anyway?

the people who introduced DRM certainly didn't share the attitude of tbe GP.

I'm not going to click ads and, most importantly, actually buy stuff to feel better about leeching content, anyhow? How would that not be shortsighted nor shelfish?

I used to think like you... when I was a teenager. I remember one of the things that was attractive about cable TV was that it was ad-free. Now, can you name one cable channel without ads?

I am also firmly in the ad-block camp. You have to realize that there is no contract that forces us to follow the expectations of companies' business models. If my lack of cooperation is enough for them to fail at providing the service, they are the ones that need to change. Not me.

Personally, I use an ad blocker because I never click on ads. They're an ugly distraction and waste of bandwidth that I will literally never click.

For sites whose content I respect who I know rely on per-impression (not click-through) ads, I'll generally add an exception to my ad blocker, and/or buy some merchandise now and then to support them. I'm really excited about systems like Patreon that make this support easier because I don't need more t-shirts.

I respect creators as I'm a creator myself. But at the same time, I think if you're going to put content online and expect something like ads to support it, you need to rethink your business model.

To me it's like putting physical products on a stall on the street, and leaving it unattended with a little bucket for payments hidden in the corner. Yes, morally speaking, people shouldn't steal from it. I wouldn't steal from such a place, but I would not be surprised if others did.

The argument against ads (and thus, for ad-blockers) goes like this: Bob (the person providing/selling ad-space) is selling Alice (the advertiser) something (the reader's attention) that doesn't belong to Bob in the first place. It belongs to the reader, and the reader has chosen to pay attention to the article/whatever, not the ads.

That said, I like AdBlock Plus, and here's why: by default, it doesn't block 'acceptable' ads; i.e. if everyone used it, only the Website operators who show very nice/unobtrusive advertisements get through, and therefore get paid.

https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads

To tell you the truth, I haven't in the past used add blockers. There is one site that I've visited several times a day (Slashdot), which had started getting really annoying. I'd walk away from my computer, the screen would be locked, and an hour later I'd hear a video ad start playing through the speakers. Also when I was using a mobile hotspot, I'd go through my monthly data allotment in just a couple of days, due to their aggressive ads. Once I installed an adblock on Chrome, it apparently auto-installed the extension on my other PCs, and I haven't really bothered to take it off.

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