Nearly everyone hates ads. But, there’s a reason.
I’d never try to tell you what to do — okay, I actually would do that, though I shouldn’t — but I will tell you what I did.
Over at my little blog. If you care. (SPOILER: I don’t use ad blockers; I avoid sites if it’s too much to deal with.)
Anyway, it’s time for you to tell what you think. About anything. The topic is wide open.
You know how it goes. You pick the topic. You talk about it.
Someone else comes along and talks about it, too. Or picks something else. That’s how it works. It’s Monday Night Open Thread, after all.
Who wants to start?
I read Basil’s article. . . .
Since I operate on analogies —
If there’s a free magazine past the checkout line at a supermarket, but it’s filled with ads which support its publication, it seems my options are:
Ignore the magazine altogether on principle (even though I know it has good articles), because I hate ads;
Pick up the magazine and read the articles but ignore the ads;
Pick up the magazine, and pay cash for a service that removes the ads for me;
Any of the above, but adding in complaining about the magazine’s policy of having ads.
I can only see options one and two being realistic, but that’s just me.
It was Oppo. I personally avoid or close sites that are too loaded up on ads. I support my favorite blogs thru PayPal which don’t rely too heavily on ads.
I wish the micro-payment services had caught on, though I never saw one that was quite perfect enough to work as a general replacement for ad-supported sites. What we need is a standard API that lets the browser run the ads for the webpage(upon website request), from a collection of user-permitted ad networks(giving better control over the security risks and annoyance-level permitted); the website gives an access-token in exchange for a micropayment; the micropayment comes from whichever ad-network has bid the most for the users’ next view(or whatever micropayment account the user chooses in lieu of ads). It would still be possible to run a browser that just fakes displaying the ads, causing the ad companies to see decreased effectiveness, but I think on the whole it would discourage many honest users from relying on ad-blockers for their security and sanity.
Abner Doubleday, a general for the Union side during the Civil War and a man frequently (and incorrectly) credited for inventing baseball, was born June 26, 1819, in Ballston Spa, New York, which is near Saratoga Springs.
He took the World serious.
I never used an ad blocker. Until the time I got a virus from an ad.