The Adblock Project

[sdennie]

I've been an Abdlock user since it was introduced. My question is simple: With so many companies moving towards a, "It's free but, we are going to bombard you with ads" busines model, and, the fact that with Adblock, you never receive those ads in the firstplace, how is that business model going to thrive?

Adblock isn't illegal, it isn't dodgy and it prevents you from genuine threats on the interent. Any sane human who is aware of Adblock will obviously install it. It's like pushing a button on your television to turn off commercials. Is an ad-driven business model based on ignorance of existing and widely available technology or on assumption of human ignorance? Or, can it actually work?

I'm actually interested to know the answer to this question even though it doesn't actually effect me. I run Adblock, I don't see the bullshit and I can browse in peace. But, how can portals that survive on ad revenue make money when all the adds are easily blocked? Is "making money" dead? Is, "If you like this, please donate" the way of the future?

[Trinithis]

The reason is that not many people (conpared to the entire community) know about and have Adblock programs installed (with their knowledge at least). And there are a lot of people in that group who know that programs like Adblock exist, but they still do not run it because they do not have the technical expertise to do so (people like "programming looks sooo hard", "this is too confusing", etc).

In general, the population that uses blockers is minimal. Not only that, but teh people who make a conscious effort to block ads are of the type who would not act upon the ads in the first place. Seriously, think about it. Know anyone who has basically NO computer skills other than that of looking up their emails, simple google searches, etc and who don't know how to create a new folder on the desktop? I bet you do. These are teh people that the ads are going to have a better influence over (or at least I would be led to believe).

Anyway, that's my opinion on the whole matter. Who knows, things may change in teh future and create problems, but at the current rate, I dont think business is hurt too much by Adblock (et al).

[sdennie]

[IceDogg]

[Ed]

As far as I'm concerned blocking ads is no different than using a junk mail filter to ensure that you don't have to wade through all the spam that gets sent out on a daily basis. If I had to read every single piece of mail I get spam included, I'd probably stop using email. Ads are the same to me, if I had to look at every ad to get to one site, I'd probably opt not to use the internet. Any application that helps make my internet usage easier is a winner in my book...Adblocker, Spamblocker, NoScript...etc. If and when it becomes illegal to use such devices, I will either
A) Become a criminal.
Or
B) Quit using the internet

Just my 1.92 cents worth (Gotta pay the uncle)
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Adblock v.5 d3 Nightly * 42
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotmy

[smashedpumpkin]

Ed, I can just agree!

I found Adblock a week ago (in the past I've been using tools like WebWasher).... do you know why I didn't look for such a Firefox plugin earlier? Because I thought that it doesn't exist, as it can be used against AdSense: Google is financing the Mozilla Foundation afaik. So, this might also be the reason why adblock will never ever be included in the default distribution of Firefox. Users will always have to install it on their own I guess. As long as I am able to block the ads, that's ok for me. Let the others click on the ads

What do you think about http://www.NoContextualAds.org/ ? I published that site yesterday in the hope that it will be useful to unexperienced internet users. Any help with improving the site is most welcome.
_________________
Michael
www.nulldevice.de