See, I'm Not the Only One Complaining About Ad Blocking
Ars Technica's Ken Fisher has a thoughtful piece on how ad blocking is killing high quality web sites.
If you read a site and care about its well being, then you should not block ads (or you subscribe to sites like Ars that offer ads-free versions of the site). If a site has advertising you don't agree with, don't go there. I think it is far better to vote with page views than to show up and consume resources without giving anything in return.
Fisher offers concise and truthful responses to some of the common defenses for blocking ads. For example,
Invariably someone always pops into a discussion like this and brings up some analogy with television advertising, radio, or somesuch. It is not in any way the same; advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results. […] On the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such. Comparing a website to TiVo is comparing apples to asparagus. And anyway, my point still stands: if you like this site you shouldn't block ads. (Emphasis is mine.)
It will be interesting to see how readers respond. More food for thought for those who were dubious about my own musings on the subject here or on OFB.
[HT: John Gruber]
Quality of content is in the eye of the beholder. It has become an advertiser's euphemism for popularity, when the argument is not how good, or even useful, the content is, but how popular it is.
This gets us to the crux of the problem. There is no middle ground: The hard core hobbyist users want content, and some will do anything to get it. Advertisers say they want eyeballs, but actually it's money, and they'll do anything to get it. There is no moderation of either side of the equation, and certainly no moral high ground. It's purely mercenary.
Most people prefer a middle ground, because most of us are decent. There is virtually no such thing as a decent advertiser, but the only limits they observe are purely what is forced upon them. Historically, they have led the way into moral depravity, so the balance of the whole thing favors users who don't want to see advertising. Most of us sit on the sidelines, calling for moderation, but the nature of the Net itself is to follow the newest and brightest technology trends in both forcing manipulative ads and blocking them.
It's really hard to play fair when you are fair minded, and the people who run the show are divided into two extremist camps.
I remember when this debate came up a number of years ago. My view remains the same. If a site has too many ads or ads I don't want to see, I stop visiting that site. It's the only honest response I see. To block the ads is to take.
Ed: you do have a point. I think Google has done a good job of “don't be evil” on this with their promotion of text ads that actually work.
Caedmon: I couldn't agree more…