Why are you desperately trying to control the public and what they have to look at?

What a daft thing to say. Maybe it sounds good, but I’m patently doing no such thing. Anyway, that’s Google’s department….

Actually, I agree with most of your comments on advertising, especially the deceptive practices that have become so prevalent these days that many marketers seem to think their job is to trick and manipulate people.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that a website owner has the right to set any (lawful) conditions they like on visitors to their site, because it belongs to them, not the visitor.

If obnoxious advertising is the condition a webmaster sets to view their content, that has to be their prerogative. You are not forced to enter.

If surfers acted as you have in stopping watching the TV, there wouldn’t be a problem.

You should simply not visit websites that contain stuff you don’t like.

“Vote with your feet”

But instead, the surfer running an ad blocker wants to “have his cake and eat it” as they say in the UK.

He wants the content, but refuses to accept the terms of access. That’s wrong. If you won’t pay the price, you have no right to the goods.

I really can’t fathom why so many people seem unable to grasp this.

If a website owner charged for access in order to be remunerated for his work, I’m sure you would agree that someone hacking into that website to get the content for free would be stealing.

Why is there a 180 degree reversal of the rights and wrongs of the situation if instead, the webmaster decides to use ads to be remunerated for his work and someone blocks the ads to get the content for free?

In both scenarios the surfer has taken the content for free against the owner’s wishes …

That is not the same as retro-fitting your TV with a device to block the ads. If you could do that, the free TV would just disappear. Even when you don’t intend to, you still end up seeing (or hearing) a certain amount of the advertising.

Why are you desperately trying to control the public and what they have to look at?

I have google ads on many of my websites and in fact earn enough from them that I don’t really work anymore. So with google ads being my only source of income you think I’d be beside you wanting to get rid of adblockers. But I am not!

I found TV ads getting more and more insulting to the point I got rid of TV and now I only use my TV for watching DVDs. Ads tell us that without their product we are stupid, ugly, lonely, appear poor, or are somehow not good enough. Even worse they are getting obnoxiously insulting where they show their product compared to a competitors yet it is so obvious they are not even giving the competitors a chance it just insults our intelligence. You know the ads… like the TV ad comparing their cleaning product to another top seller product but in the demonstration they put a little of their product on a dry rag and wipe mustard off a counter top and then for comparison they take an oversoaked sponge with way too much soap of the competitors product and of course it is going to leave the counter top all wet and soapy. However any idiot will already know you could of wiped that mustard off the granite counter top with a 2 cents worth of kleenix.

So I am worried that too many people will use ad blockers to block google ads and that affects my income, yet I am more concerned that people have the right to block this nonsense.

Instead of putting your efforts in lobbying to stop the spread of adblockers or try and enforce some sick sense of morality on the public that they have to watch these insulting ads, why do you not instead put pressure on advertisers to not go overboard. We’ve all been to the websites where ads take over the page and slow it right down. Or they have the annoying ads designed to fool internet newbies such as “You’ve got a virus, click here to protect your computer!”. Or how about the ads that actually try and install spyware on your system.

Until marketers are made to be more responsible, I don’t have any problem if people want to block every single ad ever created in order to avoid these ever increasing annoyances, even if that means I’ll have to go back to work.

The argument you make about having an obligation to not block ads makes as much sense to me as making the argument that I am obligated to watch commercials on TV. When an ad comes on, I go to the bathroom, toss in a load of laundry, go make a sandwich, etc…without feeling any sort of moral obligation to watch the commercial.

That is not the same as retro-fitting your TV with a device to block the ads. If you could do that, the free TV would just disappear. Even when you don’t intend to, you still end up seeing (or hearing) a certain amount of the advertising.

Thus, I shall continue to use my extensions to block the most annoying ads, ignore the plain text ads on the sides of the screen, and continue on my merry way.

And if the majority of surfers do that, soon you’ll have nothing to view free of charge except product sales pages. Because those who provide free ad supported content will no longer find it viable and will either charge for access, or close the site.

I have to disagree with this. Web content is pushed or pulled (depending on your perspective) the same as television content. I pull TV content in that I choose which channel to watch and the content comes to my location. Web surfing is the same thing; I “tune” into a web page and the content come to my location.

The argument you make about having an obligation to not block ads makes as much sense to me as making the argument that I am obligated to watch commercials on TV. When an ad comes on, I go to the bathroom, toss in a load of laundry, go make a sandwich, etc…without feeling any sort of moral obligation to watch the commercial.

The web is the same way, except the ads and content come at the same time. Thus, instead of turning my attention to something else while the ad is present (which I can’t do while getting the content that I want) I use extensions to block the ads.

Now, I will also state that there are some TV ads that I will watch, as I find them interesting for some reason (musical score, comedic content, etc.) TV has the advantage in that the ads don’t distract from the content, as TV is either showing content or ads–not both at the same time. The web’s corresponding disadvantage is that the ads, however interesting or entertaining, are a distraction from the content and thus regarded as annoying, hence the ad blocking software you decry as “warez.”

I have no problem with simple, unobtrusive ads off to the side that are in plain text, as long as they don’t distract from the content. I also believe that most people will feel the same way, and that it’s the extreme “It’s my Machine and I’ll block what I want to block” web users that will make efforts to block those ads. In my opinion, they will take more time and effort to block those ads than the ads are worth. The type of people (such as myself) that use available extension to block ads aren’t going to click through them anyway, so in a sense the ads are more targeted, in that the only people likely to click through them are also the ones more likely to see them in the first place.

Thus, I shall continue to use my extensions to block the most annoying ads, ignore the plain text ads on the sides of the screen, and continue on my merry way.