Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: To AdBlock Or Not To AdBlock?
Is there an acceptable compromise to behavioral targeting? On the one hand, I don't want to be profiled by unscrupulous advertisers. On the other hand, I feel that the advertiser is the middleman between the things I care about (content) and the dollars that support those things. My compromise is to take a page out of BF Skinner's book, Walden Two, and view the situation as a sort of absurd behaviorist experiment. Basically, I Adblock everything, but whitelist the sites I support. Is this too much? Not enough? What should individuals do protect themselves, if anything at all?
Actually, your attitude IS pretty outrageous. Advertising != forcing you to buy it. It's still something businesses rely on so that people actually know they EXIST, and that's worth the occasional penis enlargement ad and the silly products you just listed.
Plus, like the OP said, if websites didn't get revenue from ads, they'd have to get it directly from you. Any website you visit with ".com" in it likely wouldn't exist or be the same.
oh, you got me! there's also investment, which they get a cut of from handling my money anyway. good job completely ignoring my point though, which is that I'm not stealing from my bank just by not paying 1 month late on all my credit card bills. The same can't be said for using a website's sole service while blocking their sole source of revenue. So no, it's not the same. Try harder.
I could sum up why you're just an altogether unlikeable person, but you seem to have done a pretty good job at that yourself.
Don't worry, it's just because you're too smart and ahead of the curve and whatnot.
Advertising may fetch you money, but if users are annoyed by that, you can forget about traffic to your blog. Make a not to review the Ad before you take up and check whether ad is usable to user at any context. Blocking ads is not a good idea! Many will discover things only by ads, why can't it be yours through ads? http://businessone.in/