The use of ad blockers by web surfers has apparently increased a lot over the years. But, is it really the right thing to do? I want to shed a little light on it from both sides and offer up an opinion. It’s a bit of a tough issue, actually. It seems more and more people who surf the internet today are in the habit of partially or fully blocking advertising from the sites they visit. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox come pre-programmed with pop-up blockers, for instance. Then there are a myriad of add-ons and third party utilities designed to detect and block advertising.
I am an end user. I am also a web publisher. I might not like ads sometimes. I might find them annoying at times. But, I am also in a position where my livelihood and the ability for me to keep this very site online depends on the ads. So, where does the line fall?
From an End User
I regularly visit other websites. I see advertising all the time. Sometimes I get popups, sometimes floating windows or slide-ins. Most of the time, though, I get banner ads. Google Adsense seems to be most popular, so I get a lot of those. I also get graphical banner ads, all competing for my attention. As a web user, I am on a site because I am interested in the content. I am not interested in the ads. Most of the time I can’t say I ever pay any attention to the ads. I guess that is because I am online so much that ads just blend into the landscape for me. The most annoying types of ads, for me, are those which interrupt my flow. When an ad intercepts my surfing and displays full screen only to give me a link to skip the ad, for example. Or the sites which put a floating layer over the site which keeps you from being able to use the site itself. The really crappy ones are the ones that don’t give you any option to close the ad. They just sit there and ANY click on the ad (even to try to close it) take you to another site.
So, for me, most ads blend into the landscape and a few are annoying. I do not personally employ any ad blocking.
From a Web Publisher
I am also the owner of this very website, PC Mechanic. PC Mechanic plays a very key role in my business, and therefore a very key role in my own ability to provide for my family. If this site is not making enough money, me and my family have problems. It’s that simple. Not to mention that PCMech itself costs a good bit of coin to keep online every month. I have to pay other authors to write here. I have to pay Rich (who is responsible for most of our video content). I have to pay hosting, which isn’t cheap. The hosting bill I pay every month is more than most people pay for an apartment for a month. I am not hosted with the cheapest host in the world, but that is because anything less means this site is less accessible to you – the reader.
Advertising is very important to this site and, hence, to my business and family. Don’t I and the people who bring this site to you everyday deserve to make some money for all the effort?
Freedom of Choice
Some end users do not think there is any problem with blocking internet advertising. Here are a couple examples of comments on the AdBlocks Plus add-on for Firefox:
Blocking ads is in no way stealing. You pay for cable TV and changing the channel or walking out of the room when ads come on is not stealing.. You pay for the internet service.. therefore why should you pay for the ads that go with it? .. if you cant make money in any other way besides being an affiliate then obviously there is something wrong here… its not stealing.. its FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
I know some people have equated Adblock to stealing but I feel there is no need to justify the way I configure my own computer to browse the internet or control content that I view. Just as I filter out porn sites via Google’s safe search feature, I don’t want to see annoying ads that slow down or lock up my computer. Moreover, no one is forcing anyone to put up a website. That’s their business if they do it to get paid, but I don’t OWE them my dime.
OK, so the basic argument here is freedom of choice. I fully understand that. There is the annoyance factor, a potential security factor, and the fact that you do pay for your internet access. And, no, nobody can tell you how to configure your computer. If you choose to block advertising, that’s your call. Just like changing the channel on TV or getting up to walk out of the room.
That Doesn’t Make It Right
Now it’s time for my rant. Simply put, my opinion is that if you are viewing a website regularly while also blocking ads, you are stealing. Here’s the thing…yes, some webmasters overdo it and get overzealous with advertising. If you don’t like it, send them an email, complain, and don’t come back. THAT’S FREEDOM OF CHOICE. But, don’t keep on going to the site, consuming the content for free, eating up bandwidth and costing the owner money, while cutting him off at the legs by blocking all the ads. I’m not walking into your business and demanding free crap…why the hell are you doing it to me?
Blocking ads is no different than going to the grocery store just for the free samples. It’s really not that much different from those who work to use the government to get free handouts. A site called GoogleCache stated it this way, and I agree…
When a content publisher places ads on his/her website, it is under the assumption that he/she is bartering with you. That barter is, in exchange for glancing over the advertisements (even if for only a fraction of a second), you can read all the content he/she has created. It is that simple.Some webmasters make you barter more – flashy advertisements with pop ups and pop unders. If you think this is a raw deal, don’t trade. No, don’t steal the content without receiving the ads. That wasn’t the deal. That wasn’t the contract he/she has put forward. The deal was ads for content. You can accept or decline that single proposition.
No, It’s Unethical
There are legit complaints by end users regarding some internet advertising. Some sites abuse their users by inundating them with ads. But, it should work like the capitalist system. If you really like what the site offers, you put up with the ads. You might even send them an email and complain. But, if you can’t handle the ads, you leave. You don’t do “business” with them. The answer is NOT to keep taking the cake and refusing to eat it. As a publisher myself, I can tell you quite literally that ad blocking steals food out of the mouth of my family. I don’t say that to be dramatic. It is 100% accurate.
On the flip side, publishers and ad companies need to respect the end user. Don’t over do it. Don’t get too greedy. Don’t use questionable tactics like spyware or adware. Those things give advertising a bad name and they lead people to feel compelled to steal. But, stealing it is, nonetheless.
I would be interested in what you think. Feel free to share your opinions in the comments.
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Good gravy. My logical centres are squealing from reading some of the comments. I won’t bother with the ones that extend an analogy so far that it not only breaks down, but does so as it’s being driven off the lot.
Trying to map the ethics of previous media, and the ethics of the advertising used on them, directly and literally, onto the internet, is what we might call “a failure of imagination”. The internet, as an emerging media, is not television, or walmart, or a Gutenberg bible or the steam engine.
I’m not sure what people mean when they say it is their ‘right’ to block ads on a site they visit. It is a decision, which one is free to exercise. People of late seem to state “it is my right to X”, X being whatever whim or impulse seems to carry them in the moment, and which the state hasn’t allocated resources to interfere with.
Which of course trivializes in a great many ways the hard won notion of ‘rights’, but, I digress. A ‘right’ is basically any action you make. Whether your rights are respected by a state, or others, is another question. What form their respect or disrespect takes another still.
Kant’s question, “What would happen if everyone took the same action or set of actions I am taking ?”, in relation to people blocking ads, will likely yield the answer (among many answers) “many content providers will need to spend time they would have spent producing content, instead chasing down or contriving new revenue models, or, alternatively, will produce less content”.
Which is to say, how many sites out there which are helped or funded by ad revenue would be less rich (in terms of content), or even nonexistent ?
Ironically enough, I only came to pcmech.com through a Google search of ‘ is ad blocking ethical ‘ . I probably won’t return, as the content isn’t really something that I personally would use, but I can’t say that the advertising was something I found horribly intrusive.
And if the non-inconvenience of having half-registered an ad for an 1/8th of a second has incrementally helped the author continue in a livelihood wherein there is a relative independence and dignity, then I am doubly served.
No ad blocking isn’t stealing, there is no accepted agreement between webmasters and users that specifically states that this exchange should take place, I’ve never agreed to anyone in any capacity that I will view their ads in exchange for their content, and as such I am under no obligation to.
When you build and host a website you’re putting that work into public view for free, there are options for ring-fencing content such as putting up a pay wall, but most people don’t do that, and the reason for that is because actually the content they’re serving up is usually not unique, and considering the alternatives is not worth paying for.
Of course this doesn’t even touch on the negative side effects of trying to battle adblockers, if you try and force ads on people when they’re actively blocking adverts then all you’re doing is trying to make money from the person who is advertising by serving their ad to people who have already proven they don’t want to see the adverts.
If I was an advertiser trying to sell my product, and I advertised on your website, and I have to pay you for every view of that advert, then it’s in your best interest to simply serve up as many views as possible. But it’s in my best interest for you to serve up views to an audience who is more accepting of the adverts. When webmasters plead with their audience not to block adverts, or to try and circumvente adblocking they actually de-value the deal that advertisers are getting. If 10% of your users block adverts and you plead to them to not block adverts because it’s hurting your revenue, so 50% of them unblock your site, it means that now your advertisers are advertising to 5% of your users who have explicitly taken steps to avoid seeing ads. So now I’m paying 5% more to advertise to people who don’t want to see my ads. If you ask me, that is more akin to stealing that blocking ads in the first place.