Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"

Comments

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[scarboni888]

Look - I don't care. In these days of over-saturation of accessible media, information, and other distractions I can tune into something else. If the business model a particular artist or other outfit doesn't work out without me shelling out cash or refraining from blocking the ads then that's not my fault - I'll find another distraction or information source that has found a business model that works.

I'm getting so sick and tired of this dinosaurian party line that we should be expected to pay for content! Seriously - you know what I say? I say that as a content producer you should feel fucking privileged that I'm spending my precious valuable time sopping up your info-goop with my greymatter sponge as opposed to spending it on some other outlet/avenue/source of infostream.

It's called supply and demand. When the supply is infinite the cost is nil.

In fact if I had it my way content producers would throw in some cash to attract my eyeballs to their info-goop stream. let's get with the times, people!

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[TheCarp]

Sure but, theres two sides to this coin. I think that my own use case here illustrates this well.

I don't run ad blocking software, however, I do run noscript and requestpolicy. These are firefox addons that allow me to control what scripts and other risky (from the point of view of maintianing the integrity of my environment, including the security of my personal information) content run in my local browser by site.

As an example, fsdn.com and slashdot.org are both allowed to run their scripts right now, and fsdn is allowed to get requests from this site. So should someone manage to inject some content that would cause slashdot to tell my browser to run a script on some other random attack page... it would be refused unless I decided to allow it.

Now... anyone who knows much about how web ads work can see the problem here. This setup, done entirely for reasons other than ad blocking, blocks ads voraciously. Its not my fault, I didn't say "I want to block ads" but...the ads are all implemented in a way that makes it impossible to, wholesale, honor them, without risking honoring a malicous and common attack. Also, many of these ad sites attempt to track me from site to site, which, I do not condone.

They have every right to advertise and have advertising. They even have every right to close their site down to paying members, or just people who they can verify in some way view their ads, or run their scripts.

Of course, they don't do that because it would drive away readers if it became less convenient. Instead they have nothing that they can do but bitch and moan about the fact that other people aren't using what they are giving away publically for free in the manner that they intended people to use it.

Thats always a winnining strategy. Whining.

-Steve

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear a lot of talk about how annoying ads are from the perspective of people viewing the ads. I have seen numerous articles written by people like Ken Fisher which bemoan the fact that their companies need advertising revenue in order to stay afloat. Of course, I have also seen all of the marketing fluff from the ad networks talking about how great their services are for people like myself who are trying to sell a product.

I want people to block my ads -- as a ad buyer why the hell would I want to pay for an impression, or a click through, from somebody who is not interested in my product? Now, of course I sell something that is legit and my business plan does not depend on some poor bastard accidentally clicking my ad.

Anyway, as an ad buyer, I encourage people to block ads -- if you are not interested in seeing an ad then block it -- save me money.

Re:It's the freeloaders time

[Epsillon]

That's all very well, but these ad farms aren't just serving ads, are they? Most of the time they're also installing tracking cookies and collecting private information. You want me to see ads? Don't try to track me, then. Until this shit stops, I won't just be using AdBlock, I'll be blacklisting ad farms on my proxy and barring them on the gateway. Not only is this the primary motivation for me eschewing ad farms but it is also my fundamental right to retain control of what I allow in and out of my private network. Don't like it? Tough. My network, my rules.