1) Just about any web hosting plan has a fixed monthly payment and a allotated monthly transfer cap. You don’t pay for each byte transfered, ffs.

2) The bandwidth is already there if anyone can surf to that site, so stop incorrectly postulate that some people are trying to get something for free. Most people have to pay for their Internet connections, so they are in fact paying for a certain allotment of bandwith.

3) It is the responsiblity of who ever owns a website to pay the web hosting bill, and seeing as good business level plans can be under $30-25 a month, and similar level plans in the $10-15 range, anyone with a job would have no problem paying that or easily splitting it with other staffers; most of what comes from ads tends to be money made on the side and not really crucial to the bill. Combine that with regular donations and/or su scription fees in some cases, and ads really aren’t needed as much as some people are lead to belive.

4) Finally, what gets downloaded to a user’s computer is the user’s choice and NOT anyone else’s. Period.

Plain and simple: if you do not approve of what other people put on their property, don’t visit their property. Just because you are trying to get free bandwidth does not mean anyone should give you free bandwidth. After all, any site that you visit will be required to pay for the bandwidth you consume.

While it is “conventional wisdom” in the ad biz that “in your face” works, I think the fact that Google has made their fortunes specifically with small, unobtrusive ads should serve as half a lesson, the other half being the proliferation of ad blocking software.

Maybe, just maybe, people don’t like “in your face”?

That attitude was finally crushed even in this holdout as ad after ad converted to the annoying splash across the page every time my mouse accidentally ran near it . I started enthusiastically blocking with a vengeance entire ad networks the first time even ONE single ad exhibited that behavior .

Satisfied I was still allowing “considerate” sites and networks to ply their trade I never the less was pushed even further by scripts that would try to hijack my browser into staying on a site or some other jackass behavior . I added a script blocker and now run it in full mode as well UNLESS I see that a site isn’t run like that . I could now care less if the entire Internet goes pay or goes away for that matter . Push even the most tolerant user far enough and they WILL change their behavior and attitudes .

This is so simple I can’t understand why people have so much trouble with it. People block ads because they’re annoying. What’s the solution? Don’t make them annoying. If you instead try to further annoy your readers by interfering with their browser’s functionality, hampering their ability to read the content, or blocking them entirely, they’re either going to find ways around those annoyances, or just leave and find another site.

Is that a bad thing? Three words: word of mouth. When someone leaves your site because it’s annoying, they tend to tell their friends, and then when they find another site to replace it, they tell their friends about that too. You’re essentially driving people to your competitors.

There will always be those people who don’t care about ads at all, those who actually like them, and those who block everything that even resembles advertising. Ignore those. Focus on the people who currently don’t mind the ads, and keep them that way.

Mixing relevant product endorsements and recommendations with the content? Most people probably won’t even realize it’s an ad, but will take your endorsement seriously. Of course there is a limit of advertising:content ratio before it gets annoying and people just stop reading.
Text ads next to the main content area? I’ve been known to add exceptions to blocking rules to preserve those, out of respect.
Text ads in the content? Starting to be a bother.
Static graphical ads? If they’re distracting, very large files, or appear inside the content, they go byebye.
Animated ads? Popups? Instablock. Always distracting, always annoying, nearly always huge files. (I frequently see GIF banners in the 3-4MB range just so their animations look smooth.)
Ads that move around the screen? These are what drove me to install an ad blocker in the first place.
Ads with sound? There is a special place in hell for you.

TV is the same. When someone in a show is talking about paint, and recommends their favourite brand of paint, I don’t mind, unless they go on for a good while about it. When the show is interrupted for ads, I leave the room to get a snack, or just mute it. When ads start appearing over and drowning out the content, I turn the TV off. In fact I haven’t turned it back on since.

tl;dr: If your ads are annoying, people will ignore them, block them, or leave entirely, no matter what you do. Being more annoying is not the answer.

http://www.jetpackhq.com/blog/2008/03/22/ad-blockers-considered-harmful/

I have no problem with site owners choosing to block me. My browser provides them with a correct identity string which they can readily use to identify me as a user without support for their ads. If they choose not to, that is their problem.

The whole theft argument is inane. There is no contract, either express or implied when I access a web page. I have not agreed to view their ads, they have not informed me that there will be ads. There is no way for me to know before accessing the content whether or not I will be exposed to advertising, at which point it is too late for me to withdraw my consent.

I think the author has hit the nail on the head with this article. There is no reason I shouldn’t use an ad blocker. There is no reason they shouldn’t ban me if I do.

Look for “firefox user agent switcher” in Google.

Problem solved!

You don’t get to make something accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and then say “You can only read this if you also read something else that you’re not interested in.”

It is a business model that lets you “pay” by the way of looking at ads.

Then is it wrong to view a webpage without looking at any of its ads? If not, please show me the moral/ethical difference between doing so, and simply not loading the ads at all.

See, it is not freely available. Not the ad supported sites anyways.

You just pay it differently than your are used to. It is a business model that lets you “pay” by the way of looking at ads.

The problem is perception.

First people think it is free. Then they think “since it is free it must be my right”. But infact it isnt a right at all.

And bad tasteless adertisements gets punished in the market. You dont visit sites that abuses ads. But using adblockers and bragging about it (and believe me people who use ff and adblocker think they are smarter and they keep bragging) is just silly.

The point is that neither has a duty toward the other.

“Ok you have a right to bloc the add blockers but I wouldnt recomend it”.

Wow. Threats too.

It’s not a threat; it’s an opinion about the efficacy of blocking viewers.

Internet doesnt mean millions of people who know how to use a computer has a right to enjoy all the content out there.

Their right is to do any nonviolent thing they want, and that includes viewing only a part of what is shown to them.

One side can not enforce its own view to the other party.

Exactly.

If site owners think people who visit and block ads are problem then they can get try to block those people.

Certainly. And I’m not so sure that’s a bad idea, either.

So you socialists must understand if you dont want to pay you dont get to enjoy the products of the other people.

Calling freely-available web content a “product” is deliberately misleading, but the gist of your sentence is correct, even if not in the sense you intended.

There are a lot of people who think the consumer is the king, and the producers have some duty towards them.

“Ok you have a right to bloc the add blockers but I wouldnt recomend it”.

Wow. Threats too.

Who gıves a f… what you recommend.

Internet doesnt mean millions of people who know how to use a computer has a right to enjoy all the content out there.

If producers doesnt produce, you dont have nothing.

This is a trade of equals like every other trade. One side can not enforce its own view to the other party.

Nothing is free in this universe. There are just different ways of paying.

If site owners think people who visit and block ads are problem then they can get try to block those people. They might not succeed 100% but adblockers are the same too.

In short nobody hasa right to anything in this life other than his poperty.

No right of surfing the web or education or health care.

So you socialists must understand if you dont want to pay you dont get to enjoy the products of the other people.

And since you refuse to be part of this business, your threat of taking your business somewhere else would just make people laugh and that would be all.

The thing is – ad blockers (in one form or another) have been around for as long as there have been ads on the internet (well, for a couple of days less maybe – just enough to piss someone off ). It’s been a technology warfare all along, and the fact remains that only those on the cutting edge (read early adopters) have been able to stay ad-free, and that requires technical skill and willingness to lose functionality. The average guy doesn’t have a clue.

You may say that this firefox extension is easy to install, well that doesn’t matter at all. There are simple ways to bypass adblock, they just require some efferot. The ad-providers had become too lazy, so the got what they deserved, as they did with pop-ups – easy way to get attention, but easy to block. For now adblock is not mainstream enough, but when it is – they’ll figure out another way to send you those ads, and someone will figure out a way to block those too. There’s no morals involved in the process – just convenience seekers, and profit seekers – it only matter who has more technical merit.

perhaps the ad supported sites could imbed the ads within the text bypassing pop-ups altogether.

if some taxis use illuminated ads on the roofs of cabs – im pretty sure that helps keep cab fares down somewhat.

If you want people to pay you for your content, make your free content so good that people will pay you for portions that you sell outright. If you are that damned good, they’ll shell out real money to hear what you have to say. If you aren’t that good, they won’t.

Guess what? Sturgeon’s Law is right. 90% of everything is crud, including the content on the Internet. The reason so darned many people are so eager to put ads on their sites, and get so torqued off when you block them, is that what they have to say isn’t really WORTH paying for in the first place, and they know that if they slapped a price tag on it, everyone would scatter like roaches when the lights go on.

But if you are REALLY “all that and a bag of chips,” then put everyone else’s money where your mouth is — get rid of the ads, and put up a tip jar instead. Or put up a premium content section, and sell the stuff you don’t want to give away for free. But don’t be surprised if you don’t get rich from it.

I sent off a short story for consideration. It’s going to be a month, minimum, before I hear if the FIRST publisher wants to buy it from me. If they don’t, then it goes to the next, and another month or so. If I get another rejection, then another month or two. If I’m lucky, someone will tell me WHY they don’t want it, and I can try to fine-tune it and send it back, and hope they like the changes. Maybe I’ll sell it. Chances are, I won’t, not for quite a while.

But I also posted a short story to Scribd.com, with a Creative Commons license, for people to enjoy. Why? As an *investment*. To be heard. So hopefully, maybe, one of those editors will have seen my work before, and I won’t be quite as unknown when they see my other work come across their desk.

Same thing. Free content on the net is your investment in the future, for when you get good enough and are in high enough demand to charge directly for yourself.

Ads are hubris, plain and simple. We’ve already paid for our access, to our ISP. We don’t owe you anything for the bits.

—Gwen

That might make it morally okay, but it doesn’t, necessarily, make it ethically okay. There’s a pretty big gulf there. Ethics are a lot more personal than morals. I’d personally find it ethically wrong to block non intrusive ads as I feel ethically bound to respect the content producer’s rights. That doesn’t mean anyone else does.