The ethics of AdBlock

I googled "AdBlock ethic" a few minutes ago as a joke, just to see what would pop up before I wrote this post. I was surprised (though I don't see how, honestly) to find that there were quite a few results. 241,000, exactly. This post by Andrew Taylor is especially good.

I didn't start thinking about this issue because of posts like that, though. It started with good old 4chan of all places (once upon a time I would have been surprised, but I've been on /tg/ for many years now). Moot mentioned, again and again, how blocking ads was hurting 4chan. Ads were how 4chan supported itself, and if you blocked the ads then 4chan was left dead in the water.

Started thinking.

Read Moot again, a different time, a different post.

Kept thinking.

Went to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, read some comics, read about Patreon and why Zach Weiner is so happy about it. Among other things, he won't have to worry about people blocking his ads anymore.

Thought a little harder.

And I have to say, at the end of my thinking, that I think I've thought up a solution. For myself, anyway. You have different concerns and a different chair that you're sitting in. But I do think that where there is a site which I enjoy, which has ads, then I should look at those ads. Some people pay a fee for internet access based on how much they download, including ads. I can see why they would use AdBlock, but I'm not one of them. On the other hand, my computer isn't very fast, and there are too many ads out there that take up too much of my computer's attention.

I'm going to go with a middle ground approach for now. If your site is one that I enjoy, then I will add it to the whitelist. If it is not, then its ads will be blocked. Its ads probably won't be relevant anyway. I'm looking at it as though ad impressions and clicks were a product you were trying to sell, and your website was your means of making me want to buy. If you hook me, I will buy, but if I am merely passing through your website, unimpressed and uninterested in returning, then I neither need nor want the extra delay that my computer will suffer from running your ads.

When I have a faster computer, I will reevaluate. I'll have a different chair to sit in then.

As for me and my house (blogs), there will be no ads here. No pop-ups, no banners, no nothing. I hope that we will get to a point where AdBlock is as relevant as dinosaur repellent (or that dinosaur repellent becomes as relevant as AdBlock is, which would totally awesome) and I intend to not delay that day.