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.

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.

As a reader, I figure if you put up the website, you want me to read your stuff. I figure if you want me to pay to view your stuff you’ll offer me a contract. Like Consumer Reports does. Like your site does. Then, you have a chance of obtaining an actual agreement with readers.

As a reader, I will accept your contract or not, based on my respect for what you’re offering and the terms of the contract. For examples, I signed up with Consumer Reports based on my respect for what it offers, and the terms of the contract; and, I chose not to sign up with your site.

If the service or product you provide doesn’t pay the bills, I suggest you look at doing something that takes more of your effort and judgment than providing these ad spaces. And remember, you never have an agreement—even if you think you are entitled to one—unless someone actually agrees to it.

i don’t block ads directly. i use my windows hosts file to keep my computer from navigating to domains that i find particularly intrusive or keep the page from loading so my ie7pro userscripts don’t get a chance to execute. take a look at just a part of my hosts file:

127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 premium-antivirus-defence.com
127.0.0.1 defp.opt.fimserve.com
127.0.0.1 demr.opt.fimserve.com
127.0.0.1 ad-yt-bfp.doubleclick.net

i really don’t see anything wrong with not allowing my browser to navigate to specific sites. it’s nothing personal to you and i am sorry if you happen to rely on revenue from any of the sites i have listed above. you want to deliver content to me? fine, i’ll consume what you’re offering me. but i came to your site, not pagead2.googlesyndication.com. at the end of the day, i decide how i receive your content. i decide what web addresses my computer sends http requests to. i decide how many instances of my browser will run on my computer at a given time. stop complaining about ad blockers stealing and rely on a sturdy business model that does not involve ad revenue.

also, there is no “barter” between you and myself. there is no according-to-hoyle standard that binds me to any agreement wherein i am required to glance over your ads in exchange for your content. where do you people come up with this stuff?

so here’s some advice: want to feed your family? get a real job that offers a steady paycheck that you know will be there every payday.

It’s my right to put an adblocker in my browser.

I’m not sure that anyone has hit on a really important part of this discussion. Part of the reason bandwith is SO expensive, quite possibly THE reason it is so expensive, is the amount of unnecessary crap that’s floating around (spam mails, flash ads, jpg ads, etc). When I started using the internet, before google was around and excite.com was *the* search engine, ads and spam mail were non-existent. Yes, there was a time when there was NO spam mail, no anti-virus software, no spyware, no malware.

The way I look at it, I’m using less bandwith by blocking ads. I have never used ad blocking software, EVER. I came to your site, and I’m afraid that your newsletter popup, and the text underline ads were the straw that broke the camel’s back and I installed adblocker on firefox. Nothing personal, just happens to be my breaking point.

I may reconsider blocking your ads if I use your site more frequently, but like I said this is the first time I’ve been here and I don’t know if there will be a next time.

Good luck with your ad revenue.

Also, in print media, the ads are RELEVANT. In WWII Magazine (print version), the ads are for tours of battlefields, history books and videos, memorabilia, etc. But on your page, I saw an ad for a car. A CAR. On a *PC* page.

Finally, am I stealing if I am blind and so my browser doesn’t download images? Am I stealing if I’m at school and cross-site scripting (no external ad scripts) is blocked? Why should I have to have my browser download ads? You should (and I really, really hope that someone who calls their website ‘PC Mech’ knows) that an external stylesheet, or an external script, or a .swf, or an image, or anything from another site are NOT in the page source code. They are external files. All ads from another source are therefore seperate downloads. My browser doesn’t have to download them. AdBlock tells Firefox not to download the ad. Since when were webmasters allowed to force something to happen on MY computer? You do what you want on the server. I may do WHATEVER I want with it once my brwser saves it to my computer to display it. Face it. You have NO RIGHT to control MY computer. I can download EXACTLY what I want. I’m just excersising my right of complete control over Firefox to tell it not to download anything from, say, kontera.com. You may not, can not, and should not force me to. If you do, then you’re stealing my computer just as much as botnet operators would. Why should my browser have to listen to your links to other content (such as images)? When did I give you my computer?

Also, you do not have the right to profitability. You have the complete rigght to support yourself and a family, but you may not steal my time to get money. Solicit donations. Products – good idea. I’m fine if YOU pick the ads. But some of your ads so far have been irrelevant (car ad) and obnoxious (those ads on text that pop up when you hover over the text, courtesy of kontera.com). Also, there are too many video ads. If you tone down on those, the ads may be fine. Now, though, they are just annoying.

When you go into someone’s house, you abide by their rules. If they make a custom of taking shoes off and leaving them at the door, you do the same.

When you go to a different country, you give leeway for their culture. If you don’t, you might even break the law.

When you go to a website, especially one that is serving the purpose of bringing in revenue for a family, and one that offers LOADS of content that could otherwise be very expensive, we need to ask ourselves “Do we have the right to not abide by the rules of the site?”

This isn’t meant to be scathing, just realize what you are walking into.

To Stolisnaya,

You can’t ask DR to do something else. This website is his baby. Just read his short bio down and to the right of this block. He “eats and breathes the internet and technology”. You think you can come to a man’s website where he does the business he loves and tell him to change his life? Get real!

Mr. Risley and others believe that this site can give something valuable to people. Considering the content, the price of a premier membership is mere pennies. The cost to you having to look at an ad for a split second is nothing. The only reason it is so obtrusive is because you make it out to be. The site administrators aren’t out to piss you off with ads. They are out to offer you something you might need/want, and a FREE newsletter isn’t something you can complain about.

Basically, you are entering the PCMech office when you come on here. If you don’t do business by the rules of that office, well, it’s your conscience. There comes a time when you need to take some responsibility and stop heaping it on others. When you come on tis site that offers a service, you’d do better than to take advantage of it.

Here’s to system wide ad blocking.

Long Live Ad Muncher!

Ok, I wasn’t intending to start a jihad, here – in reference to some of the “Posted Comments” appearing on my e-mail notifications which don’t actually seem to be part of this thread.

To make it clear; yes, this IS a very good site. In my opinion, it IS probably worth paying some money to come here; the advice given, that I’ve read so far, is extremely proficient. In fact; now that I KNOW about Mr Risley’s views on the matter, I feel less inclined to actually block the ads (I haven’t done so, on any of my re-visits).

As Stolisnaya says above; the key issue here, for me at least, is the concept of “Stealing”. The owners/operators of this site making money from it, is not in itself a problem. Having unobtrusive banner and thumbnail ads is not, in itself, a problem.

But this attitude – as I said, extolled by the Google AdSense quote – that in some way a site owner has the right to “assume” some sort of contract between themselves and whoever views their pages, and then take the attitude that people are “stealing” if they don’t implicitly agree to the unspoken, unwritten and unpublished terms of this “contract”.

If I invited you around to my house for dinner, would you then feel obliged to honour some “agreement” I decided that you were implicitly accepting when you walked through the door?

Another example, then – let’s say that the owner of a site had chosen to make money by displaying links to porn sites – using pornographic thumbnails and banners.

Are parents, using “Parental Controls” to screen out this sort of thing, also “stealing” from the site owner? Or does the parent have the right to make their own moral call in this instance?

And if the second answer… why do those of us who fundamentally object to advertising on the internet not get the same right to make that choice…?

Once again, this is a great site. Best of luck with it. )

Best wishes,

–
Khrys.