Adblocker plus is theft

sanaxe1 · 2 May 2011 at 19:21

toon_mad said:
How many people get pizza / chinese leaflets through the doors, probably everyone. How many people rip them up and throw them in the bin? Any crap I didnt ask for that comes through my door gets thrown away, in a way this is the same as blocking ads on the Internet. I didnt ask to see it, so dont force it on me.

Its not the same. As your getting something in return.. Entertainment. That article you read , that video you watched , that picture your laughing at all cost money to host , create and manage. The pizza place makes its money by providing the pizza for a set fee while the website is free. The website would also need to charge a a fee to view the site for it to be similar.

fidget · 2 May 2011 at 19:21

Pinkribbonscars said:
By choice, so it isn't censorship at all .

It's your choice to install the plugin, yes - but once you turn it on, it's generally up to the software what you do and don't see.

Can you be sure it's only blocking ads? There are plenty of reports of false positives on Google.

BunnyKillBot · 2 May 2011 at 19:22

I actually agree with this sentiment. Free television pays for itself by advertisement revenue. The internet pays for itself by advertising revenue. Its not like using a PVR to skip the adverts, it would be the equivalent of using a programme that detects when the adverts start and end and cutting them off the broadcast.

If too many people outright block adverts, there will be no benefit to business advertising on the internet, which means an entire revenue stream gets totally destroyed. These websites will look elsewhere to get their money, including subscription and pay per use services.

Koalaboy · 2 May 2011 at 19:23

You request data from a website, and it returns that data.

Amongst that data are suggestions for other data you could request.

It is your choice if you also request that data (browsers do this by default - it's expected).

All ad-blocking is doing, is letting you filter the extra data that is retrieved automatically. It is definitely not theft, and anyone suggesting such has absolutely no idea how the internet works.

I also block most flash content, javascript and cookies. Is that some sort of crime as well ?

Obviously advertisers would like you to be forced to watch their marketing, and people who run worthless sites need to make money somehow. This doesn't put any obligation on those viewing the sites to have to see everything.

We're always encouraged to have a firewall, and more people should care about what their browser actually requests on their behalf.

BunnyKillBot · 2 May 2011 at 19:24

Koalaboy said:
All ad-blocking is doing, is letting you filter the extra data that is retrieved automatically. It is definitely not theft, and anyone suggesting such has absolutely no idea how the internet works.

And you clearly have no idea how economics works.

Nate--IRL-- · 2 May 2011 at 19:25

Changing channels while the ads are on is no different to using an ad-blocker IMO.

Nate

Koalaboy · 2 May 2011 at 19:26

BunnyKillBot said:
I actually agree with this sentiment. Free television pays for itself by advertisement revenue. The internet pays for itself by advertising revenue. Its not like using a PVR to skip the adverts, it would be the equivalent of using a programme that detects when the adverts start and end and cutting them off the broadcast.

If too many people outright block adverts, there will be no benefit to business advertising on the internet, which means an entire revenue stream gets totally destroyed. These websites will look elsewhere to get their money, including subscription and pay per use services.

So subscription TV has the adverts removed ?

Also, there are many of us with P(D)VRs that don't watch live TV, so that when we do watch anything we most certainly do skip all of the adverts. No difference.

I'm all for sites to go subscription based if they need income. That will get rid of much of the crap that clutters the internet, leaving only those with decent content, and those that people are willing to provide with no strings attached for free.

Pinkribbonscars · 2 May 2011 at 19:27

fidget said:
It's your choice to install the plugin, yes - but once you turn it on, it's generally up to the software what you do and don't see.

Can you be sure it's only blocking ads? There are plenty of reports of false positives on Google.

I expect it does give false positives but that is almost certainly accidental and non-malicious. If it blocks things you want to see, you can just switch it off.

Koalaboy · 2 May 2011 at 19:28

BunnyKillBot said:
And you clearly have no idea how economics works.

I couldn't care less about economics. That's not why the internet was invented, and not what it needs to be. Just because capitalists are constantly trying to monetise it, doesn't mean it has to be done.

Or do you think the internet exists purely for businesses to make money from ?

Macro · 2 May 2011 at 19:28

The upshot is that a lot of the "free" services people enjoy on the internet are actually funded by advertising. If it got to the point (and I doubt it would) that advertising revenue no longer produced enough income (though Ad Blocking or for other reasons) then you'd start seeing more pay wall services like the Times.

It wouldn't take many services to go that way for it to start to be seen as acceptable rather than an exception and that could lead to a very fundamental shift to a two tier internet. Free basic services funded by ISP subscription and premium content needing a further subscription.

So yes, advertising works at the moment, Google is a classic example - all that "free" software and services people enjoy from Google is in huge part funded by advertising.

Thinking about it instead of fiddling around with the Yahoo stuff to compete with Google, I wonder what would have happened if MS enabled an efficient Ad Blocker by default in all versions of IE from Ver 6 upwards. With the market dominance it once had it could have killed Googles Ad revenue in one shot.

Anyway, short term it's not likely to have an effect. On the flip side if you like a service or site enough to use it regularly it hardly seems fair to deprive the person/people behind it of income I suppose.

sanaxe1 · 2 May 2011 at 19:29

Koalaboy said:
I'm all for sites to go subscription based if they need income. That will get rid of much of the crap that clutters the internet, leaving only those with decent content, and those that people are willing to provide with no strings attached for free.

No. What will happen is that the large corporations will create a monopoly of content as only them will be able to create these sites which need vast amounts of money , time and skill. How is average joe going to be able to juggle his job and create a site with such a large amount of content that some body is willing to pay a subscription fee every month and then wait long enough for enough people to find out about it in a world without advertising? You best hope these corporation like the same things as you.

Pinkribbonscars · 2 May 2011 at 19:30

I do wonder about the effectiveness of advertising. We are bombarded by it constantly, but only about 1% of it is relevent, and I am probably only influenced by 1% of that.

Koalaboy · 2 May 2011 at 19:31

sanaxe1 said:
No what will happen is that the large corporations will create a monopoly of content as only them will be able to create these sites which need vast amounts of money , time and skill. You best hope they like the same things as you.

Really ? You obviously haven't seen much of the internet.

fidget · 2 May 2011 at 19:32

Pinkribbonscars said:
I expect it does give false positives but that is almost certainly accidental and non-malicious. If it blocks things you want to see, you can just switch it off.

How will you know if it blocks them

sanaxe1 · 2 May 2011 at 19:35

Koalaboy said:
Really ? You obviously haven't seen much of the internet.

I'm talking about in your no advertising world not now. Sure people can make amazing sites but they need time to add to them to get them to a point where somebody would be willing to pay a subscription fee. Advertising provides that income for these people to be able to juggle both. Not to mention the fact that people have limited amounts of money. If i had to pay a subscription fee for every site i went on i would be skint!

Pinkribbonscars · 2 May 2011 at 19:37

fidget said:
How will you know if it blocks them

I thought you might say that, it will probably be fairly obvious after a while, and as soon as one person knows about, everyone will know not to use that adblocker.

marc2003 · 2 May 2011 at 19:38

i'm free to block ads the same as sites are free to block to me from viewing their content when they detect it. i'll just hit the back button and go somewhere else.

RomanNose · 2 May 2011 at 19:41

Just look at it like this, the vast majority of internet users will not have ad block plus installed, it may sound harsh having it but I really doubt the advertising model is going to die soon.

LizardKing · 2 May 2011 at 19:41

Adverts aren't the problem, its the creators of them who thrust them in your face.
Google's advert are very subtle and low key for a company that relies almost solely on advertisement income. If they can get it so right why cant other company's.

Roll over keyword adverts are so ******* annoying!

If it wasnt for crappy advertising company's there would be no need for Adblock in the first place.

Lightnix · 2 May 2011 at 19:42

Pinkribbonscars said:
I do wonder about the effectiveness of advertising. We are bombarded by it constantly, but only about 1% of it is relevent, and I am probably only influenced by 1% of that.

I guess you could probably make a rough estimate of how effective it is by looking around the room you're in at various items, seeing which of those you have seen advertised at some point and which you have not. Even if you didn't buy those products specifically because they were advertised, say you bought based off of a friend's recommendation, it's probable that the first person who bought the product and then started recommending it was influenced by some form of advertising at some point.

It's pretty amazing how useless people claim advertising to be, yet at the same time it's a fairly huge industry (it's where Google made most of its money after all) and that pretty much every successful company advertises on more or less every medium it can get its paws into.