Why you MUST not use an ad blocker - unless you want to pay for content

[Sporky111]

The ignorance . . . it burns me . . .

No, I don't use Ad Blocker. Part of me wants to, because maybe advertisers will take the hint and make their shit less invasive. I'm especially bothered by the ones that open a new tab and a new window on my browser as soon as I click the page (Mediafire) or the ones that bring up a fell coverage page with a tiny greyed-out X to close it.

But I know that it won't work. Ad blockers are the reason they're so invasive, because they need to make money regardless of what the people are doing to stop them. If I were to use an Ad Blocker, I'd be legitimizing the use of those obnoxious ads. Because the sites responsible for putting them up would still have to make money, and I'm sure they make plenty more cash from a tab-opening, screen-covering ad than they do for a banner at the top of the page.

 

[viranimus]

Edit: I removed all the excessive wordiness and will leave the relevant underlying point.

"Ads are bad, M`kay?"

 

[WOPR]

*snip*

I block ads because I honestly could care less anyways
and for TV, well I just don't watch it

and I don't have to watch ads for videogames

and another reason TO block ads is the trackers and other "malicious" methods they CAN use

plus, no ads means no mom clicking everything she sees
no mom clicking everything she sees means my computer won't be killed and I won't have to buy a new one!

So who's causing who harm?

me by not paying attention?
or them by maliciously attacking my machine!?

(note: although few ads "attack" per-say, a good number do, they also try to steal money in some cases by asking your cell phone number on which they add a small fee of $10/month they hope will go unnoticed... I've seen people fall for it time and time again)

 

[Dastardly]

- snip -

Totally on board with you. It's like eating my vegetables--when it's an ad for something I don't want, I'm all, "Dammit, not this one again." But I watch it, because I understand the necessity, and I know these folks aren't obligated to provide my sorry ass with free stuff.

What drives me nuts are the over-reactionary buttholes who pull the, "Well, these ads make me less likely to buy the product!" Please. Quit being such a douche nozzle. You'll buy it or you won't, based on your interest in the product and the perceived merits of the product (partly based on what you've seen in ADVERTISEMENTS.) It's just someone who doesn't want to watch ads trying to make you feel bad for using them, without offering an alternative.

I've even clicked on a few just to play ball.

 

[spartan231490]

Seem to be plenty of websites, like this one, that have found a way to make me see ads that don't inturrupt my content. It's called, putting the ad on the side of the website, and it seems to work just fine. I click ads on the sides fairly often, but I will never do anything related to an internet ad that inturrupts my content, even if it's interesting, because it pisses me off to be inturrupted. So, long story short, I will do anything i can to not be inturrupted by ads, so websites MUST use ads that don't inturrupt content.

 

[Wicky_42]

The issue is that there are no other browsers that suppport entire blockade of ad object. For instance, Chrome doesn't block the ad, it merely hides it while Firefox actually blocks it entirely from even downloading.

Incorrect now, but I can say no more here.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I am falling for this troll =)

OT: If you like something buy or donate something! keep blocking adds your brain is full of stupid stuff as it is.

You obviously don't know the purpose of an advert then. They aren't meant to make you buy one right away, they're there to try and convince you to buy one when the opportunity arises. They're propaganda.

We see thousands of car ads a year, its easily one of the largest markets in the world, yet we don't go out and buy one right away, but when we do need a car, we go out and we may remember the advertisement and it may sell us on that particular car for whatever reason.

This applies to everything, yes, the ads aren't that good, but you can't deny their effectiveness.

Kevin Butler's ads have increased Sony profits greatly. Over a 180% in fact.

The Old Spice ads have also been a major success. Increasing sales 107%

And what about the Believe ad from Halo 3? The marketing for that game made the Xbox the top selling game in September of 2007 and it made Halo 3 a hit.

They're not meant to drive you to buy something, they're just a little thing that goes "hey, our product does this, maybe you wanna try when you get a chance or something."

 

[thenumberthirteen]

This is why I have my ad-blocker turned off. I have one installed for those adverts that are REALLY REALLY annoying such as the ones that make loud sounds when you're trying to watch a video, or are wildly inappropriate such as showing naked ladies while I'm helping my mum book a holiday.

Basically ads make money for the people we love to watch, and it's not too bad. far better than TV.I mean a 20-30 second ad is no where near as bad as the 15 minutes of ads on an hour long TV show. I mean I've seen some good ads that are funny (I like the Norton ones) and ads for cool stuff that I have bought.

The bills need to be paid, and, unfortunately, advertising seems to be the best way.

If you MUST use an adblocker use it on a blacklist basis where it allows ads except the ones that you like the least. If it really slows down your computer then maybe block it, but a simple static picture does little harm (and if it slows down your computer then you need a better computer).

I joined the Publisher's Club so I can have an ad-free time as well as the other benefits, and it helps the company rather than cutting off their revenue stream. Honestly. How much harm do advertisements actually do compared to the great shows and articles on the site?

 

[Trivun]

Thank you so much, Kathleen, for posting this. I keep seeing people being put on probation here for mentioning that they use adblockers, and my response is always that they are idiots. First, for posting that in the first place, and second, for ever deciding to use adblockers. I won't deny, I've been tempted by them in the past, but I've never used one, and you know why? Because I too recognise, as a consumer, the sense in what Kathleen has been spouting about in this thread.

I do things on the internet myself, and though I'm not 14 (I'm 20, actually), I am one of those '14-year-olds who puts up stuff on their Deviant Art profile'. I have such a profile, and I have a Youtube account, and I put stuff up on both. And I don't get paid, and why should I? I'm not talented enough to be worth paying for my stuff. Maybe, in time, I will become so (working on a webcomic idea right now, actually), but not yet. Those people who do quality content, though, such as the LRR team (and indeed the rest of the contributors to The Escapist), and people like Little Kuriboh, Jeph Jacques, Tycho and Gabe (well, the guys behind them), and many others, they are the ones who deserve to be compensated for what they do, both for the love of doing it and for the love of entertaining the mindless droves who spend so much time on the internet, day in and day out.

I'm about to begin work on a website myself. Not for me, but merely a society website for the film-making society I belong to at university. And as there's no way we'll be able to afford to maintain it for ages, we need some way of making money from it. To be fair, the only real overhead will be server costs and paying for a domain name, as I'll be the webmaster myself and won't take any money from it. But we're a small university group, we can't afford that on a regular basis, not when we have to finance things like member's projects and our day-to-day activities. So when I set it up, I'll be getting in touch with local businesses in our city, and trying to get people to advertise on the site. That money will finance us, and help finance the society as a whole. Adblockers won't just be preventing the ads from appearing, and appeasing you guys, but they'll be strangling the main method of making money for a small group of people who care deeply about making films, and doing what we love. Does that seem right to you? Does that seem fair, that we who care about a pastime should miss out on doing what we love just so you can avoid seeing a small banner across the top of your screen, or so you can avoid seeing 20 seconds of advertising that doesn't otherwise affect you in any way? Think about the small people, not just yourself, and stop using adblockers. That's what's killing creativity now, and you'll lose out just as much as everyone else.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

But what if these ads take up all the bandwidth? There has to be an in between for the consumer and the producer. Like the 5 minute ad breaks, perfect timing and a nice in between that works for both parties.

 

[RandV80]

I'm curious, do the video commercials feed in from a separate add server/script? Personally I don't block adds, I block scripts. I understand it's almost the same thing, and the need for websites to be able to run adds. But as has been mentioned plenty of times here already adservers are hardly trustworthy, often invasive, suck up your bandwidth and slow everything down. This is the best compromise I can come up with, I don't use adblock because I want the website to have the opportunity to feed me adds, but I only accept adds being fed directly from said website.

So back to what I started asking about, it seems like every other video based website I allow that specific page and get the 30 second commercial at the start, it may be annoying but I don't mind and never complain. On The Escapist however I never see them, so I'm wondering if they're being fed from a separate add server/script and if so which one?

 

[WOPR]

Regardless of whether or not the ads pay off, we've had the internet for over a decade now, and it is still flourishing.

Pop-up blockers are, btw, a safety issue, because for a while, Trojans on websites would hijack your computer via pop-up ad.

Agreed, and a good way to get around ads is to make a GIF ad

it's harmless, animated, and CAN'T BE BLOCKED

 

[master m99]

humm...never thought about that tbh tho i do think most sites should have the adds that go away if you click them, saving me time and hopefully earning the site more money as more people will actually click which at the moment...1 sec im gonna go get some numbers... ok 4 out of 442 people who have seen an add on my youtube vid (£0.40 today woop =P) clicked the add, if you got to skip the add by clicking it surly this number would increase expentenchaly? (yay my spelling sucks ass) just my opinion =)

 

[Caliostro]

Now I'm confused. I surf all over the internet and encounter all sorts of ads. Ads that play on their own (which I can turn off or mute)

Yeah... that won't stop my ears from bleeding because some retarded screeching sound came out of nowhere when I was listening to my music... And a lot of those had no "off" or "mute" option... At all...

but never pop up ads that give me viruses...

What kind of sites are you people going to? ^_^

Not too long ago fpsbanana, a well known website for source-engine based mods (like skins/models, sprays, maps, etc) was under fire because one of their java ads was mining people with trojans. Turns out, a good deal of other websites using the same advertiser networks were too. None was the wiser till a lot of people got fucked over.

About 2 or 3 months ago there were issues on the escapist because a couple of the ads running were triggering serious virus alerts. Those ads were quickly dealt with, but you can see how other, less "caring"/lazier webmasters wouldn't have done anything anytime soon. Or at least before a lot of people got infected.

You really don't need to visit "shady" hacksites to get viruses. Particularly, java-based advertisment is a fucking security nightmare.

So for those of you who don't want to see any ads, ever, and will adblock for a variety of reasons (too annoying, too repetitive, too dangerous), I can't tell you what to do, but I can ask you how you think people will people make money for their efforts?

There has to be a reasonable compromise. I LOVE The Walking Dead so far. I would not play russian roullette to see it. I love LRR, but if the only way to keep it going is by me hitting myself in the balls with a hammer everytime I wanna see one of your videos, then I'm afraid you're going under.

Likewise, it's unreasonable to expect people to do anything for nothing. There is no such a thing as a free lunch, and you should always support the people doing things you like in any way you can: watch ads, buy merchadize, tell your friends, donate money, etc... As Gabe Newell would put it: It's all about getting your investiment's worth, whatever your "investiment" is.

 

[Caliostro]

Now I'm confused. I surf all over the internet and encounter all sorts of ads. Ads that play on their own (which I can turn off or mute)

Yeah... that won't stop my ears from bleeding because some retarded screeching sound came out of nowhere when I was listening to my music... And a lot of those had no "off" or "mute" option... At all...

but never pop up ads that give me viruses...

What kind of sites are you people going to? ^_^

Not too long ago fpsbanana, a well known website for source-engine based mods (like skins/models, sprays, maps, etc) was under fire because one of their java ads was mining people with trojans. Turns out, a good deal of other websites using the same advertiser networks were too. None was the wiser till a lot of people got fucked over.

About 2 or 3 months ago there were issues on the escapist because a couple of the ads running were triggering serious virus alerts. Those ads were quickly dealt with, but you can see how other, less "caring"/lazier webmasters wouldn't have done anything anytime soon. Or at least before a lot of people got infected.

You really don't need to visit "shady" hacksites to get viruses. Particularly, java-based advertisment is a fucking security nightmare.

So for those of you who don't want to see any ads, ever, and will adblock for a variety of reasons (too annoying, too repetitive, too dangerous), I can't tell you what to do, but I can ask you how you think people will people make money for their efforts?

There has to be a reasonable compromise. I LOVE The Walking Dead so far. I would not play russian roullette to see it. I love LRR, but if the only way to keep it going is by me hitting myself in the balls with a hammer everytime I wanna see one of your videos, then I'm afraid you're going under.

Likewise, it's unreasonable to expect people to do anything for nothing. There is no such a thing as a free lunch, and you should always support the people doing things you like in any way you can: watch ads, buy merchadize, tell your friends, donate money, etc... As Gabe Newell would put it: It's all about getting your investiment's worth, whatever your "investiment" is.

 

[Imp Poster]

I don't mind ads that are contained in the website. Like you say, sites gotta make money somehow. I am fine with that. What I don't like is ads that pop up in its own window. For some reason, it bothers me that something happens on my computer that I didn't do. There should be a disclaimer for that because it feels like an invasion. If you click this, you will get an ad in a separate window warning. Click yes to continue. Lastly, is the trackers,cookies,etc. Can we do away with that? Is that really necessary? For me, it is one of the main reasons, I can't trust pop up ads. I may be looking into my monitor at websites but what is looking back at me, looking where I go next?

 

[YukoValis]

Actually ad blocking can help stop spyware from getting on your machine, what's more when I see an ad over and over I would be less likely to buy. Especially if it's an annoying one.

 

[Danpascooch]

If ads play sound or music they deserve to be blocked, and I don't feel wrong about using an adblocker for that.

(LAY OFF MODS! I'm pubclub, my adblocking isn't hurting the Escapist)

 

[Delock]

On this site and a few others, I don't block ads, if only because I understand the whole system of watch an ad, get money for the website. However, other sites I frequent seem to have much worse problems than the occasional ad before a video in the form of automatically playing vocal ads (which make page loading take longer as well as absolutely annoy the fuck out of me) or popping out of their little bar, or in the case of some social networking sites contain a hidden virus. If the website wants me to help them get money, they have to make it so that ads don't interfere with my browsing experience.