141–150 of 218 posts
Once the bits leave the server, they're available to rewrite as the user sees fit. And I have no problem with doing so in an automated way, to remove content that I know I will never be needing.
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At best, it's a stretch to go from in-your-face, unsolicited advertisements to "promotional vehicle" which we all use willingly. In addition, there is a value associated with this website that you just don't get from ads.
The ads usually intend to add value. They just often aren't very good. I don't think advertising is inherently evil (though I respect that some may disagree), I think the problem is that we're still in the early days of Internet advertising. The technique isn't quite there yet.
Examples of passive ads: music discovery [pandora], news aggregation [HN], etc versus active ads: traditional ads (TV/radio/internet/magazine) and active product-pushing.
As an aside, I am aware that Pandora has ads which is kind of mind boggling - they are actually providing free advertising to the music companies by letting me discover new music, yet they still have to pay royalties, so they are forced to use ads.
Used to be the first thing I install, but no more. There was a transition period where I would not install it but had a flashblock; my reasoning being that the flashblocker took away most of the really annoying ones. My new policy is a clean install. So many advantages: I rather like experiencing sites as intended (as well as supporting sites) rather than trying to force my will onto sites. I used to run into so many…
Plus I've found an extensionless firefox is much less crashy than one with any number installed (and yes, I know chrome exists, but I prefer the way firefox interacts with the high contrast bright-colours-on-black type desktop colour schemes I prefer to use)
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I hate ads with a passion. If I had the power, I'd make unsolicited advertising illegal. If I hear or see an ad, I often make a mental note not to buy that product.
I feel you, but it's not really unsolicited is it? You're willfully visiting the website, after all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate ads with a passion. If I had the power, I'd make unsolicited advertising illegal. If I hear or see an ad, I often make a mental note not to buy that product.
I feel you, but it's not really unsolicited is it? You're willfully visiting the website, after all.
That would be solicited.
Banner ads pay my salary, so out of professional courtesy, no. It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads. Plus, if I see something egregious on my employer's site, I can let them know. I use Ghostery to see who's buying data from whom.
> It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads. So you do block ads, only with your brain ;) Fair enough, but can I ask why this is more courteous than blocking them in the browser? Are ad loads generally causing money to flow? I was under the impression that click-throughs cause revenue, rather than ad loads?
Sorry internet, but a few obnoxiously bad apples spoil the bunch. Websites I visit frequently I subscribe to (e.g. Ars Technica), but the massive amount of poor, distracting, or annoying ads, the poor layouts that are 60% ads and 40% content, and the pages that take literally 10-20 times longer to load because of all the (slow) external resources? Not worth it.
Banner ads pay my salary, so out of professional courtesy, no. It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads. Plus, if I see something egregious on my employer's site, I can let them know. I use Ghostery to see who's buying data from whom.
My thought is: If you can't afford me blocking ads then do one of two things: 1) No flashing ads. No flash ads (cpu time is mine!) No ads that blur content with ads. And I will turn off ad blocking on your site. If ads have sound and I can't block it I will never visit the site. This is why arstechnica has ads turned off for me, autoplaying video and sound. BTW I will not turn off blocking of the +1 button or Like or…
Nice in theory, but there are many markets where only 1 company will win, and it WILL be the ad-supported model. That's just how the math works.