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Editor-in-Chief of the Next Web: Adblockers Are Immoral
lemur3 writes: Hot on the heels of the recent implementation of Canvas Ads (allowing advertisers to use the full page) Martin Bryant, the Editor-in-Chief of The Next Web, wrote a piece that, ostensibly, calls out mobile carriers in Europe for offering ad blocking as a service. He writes: "Display ads are still an important bread-and-butter income stream. Taking delight in denying publishers that revenue shows either sociopathic tendencies or ignorance of economic realities." While referring to those using ad blocking as sociopathic is likely not to win many fans, this mindset seems to be prevalent in certain circles, as discussed previously on Slashdot. Martin closes his piece with a warning: "For all their sins, ads fuel much of the Web. Cut them out and you're strangling the diversity of online voices and publishers – and I don't think consumers really want that."
There is no right to make a profit. http protocol is displayed by a backend interpretation. I can do what I want with the data I fetch.
In addition I want the concept of ad revenue generated content to die.
Agree 100%. I installed adblock plus when slashdot started throwing URL blocks from the ad rotator. How do I know the next ad rotation won't be a driveby? The industry provides zero guarantees and relies too much on upstream ad providers to vouch for safety.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Customers hate them so much that one person started a blog called Tab Closed; Didn't Read highlighting the worst offenders. This has inspired a hashtag #tcdr in microblog posts like this.
While he has a point that ads do fuel much of the content on the Internet, where he goes horribly wrong is to think that it is advertisers RIGHT (instead of PRIVILEGE) to beam their messages into our brains. He probably also thinks you shouldn't go to the bathroom during commercials on TV.
No, where he goes horribly wrong is using a violent mental disorder as an illusion to people rejecting an ad. That makes him not just misguided but dangerous.
Yes the internet needs to be paid for. Ads were never the way. They always have been intrusive. Google has been the best of the worst.
What he's truly angry about is that we aren't forced to see them.
I will close this piece with a truth. "For all their sins, ads fuel much of the Web. Cut them out and you're strangling the diversity of online publishers – I think users really want that. Users want to restore the internet to what is was in the beginning. A resource of communication, knowledge and entertainment unencumbered by intrusive, unneeded, bandwidth eating bits of useless info."
If web sites can't find a way to pay for the content and hosting then they eventually will go away. The consensus on /. seems to be "paywalls and ads are bad and screw those that use them I have a right to ad free and free access to content..." The problem isn't so much ads as the intrusive nature of some and their increasing use as malware delivery mechanisms. pop ups, self starting, animated ads are a real nuisance and worthy of blocking, as are tracking cookies etc. The advertising industry needs to find a way around that that doesn't annoy users because, while ad blocking users are probably a small fraction of all users currently, as things get worse more and more users will block ads. Whisk they are at it, they need to fix the problem that if I do see an ad I am interested in if I leave the page and come back the ad is no longer there.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
and it gets worse forcing autoplay of that dancing singing crap, much of which gags my browser. take your Flash and HTML5 and go to hell.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?