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Comment by pgsandstrom | Hacker News Reader

I understand if you dislike adblockers, but calling them a scam seems misguided. I think most people are well aware that adblockers prevent income for the site owners.

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Although the example he gives (AdBlock plus) is definitly a scam, as you can buy your way into it, so your ad will not be held at ransom.

So far, one can still uncheck the "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" box in Filter Preferences.

aside from the fact that less than 2% of users actually do this, it is still quite arbitrary how they determine intrusive and non-intrusive. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt to improve on this. But the amount of trust given to Adblock Plus is ridiculous. They are a money-grubbing extortionist company that is in no way improving the advertising landscape at the moment. They are just taking full advantage of the fact that people hate ads and block them altogether, and unblock them for a big fee

Can you give a couple of examples of how you feel it is arbitrary?

And you are not really giving any "benefit of the doubt" by calling them scammers straight out, are ya?

> Can you give a couple of examples of how you feel it is arbitrary?

He can't, because it isn't. Their acceptable ads policy is dead clear, and yes, it takes time to verify new entries and maintain that list, so they charge money to get onto it.

Personally I use uBlock Origin for technical reasons, but I have no problem with AB+'s acceptable ads program.

While I see your point on the Acceptable Ads shakedown, the reason I chose Adblock Plus was because of the Flattr Plus integration, which seems like the first attempt to really fix things (ie sites that let you block ads in return for a Flattr micropayment). I avoided using an ad-blocker (and generally viewed people who used them as selfish cheapskates) until ads became a malware vector. ABP with Flattr Plus seemed the best alternative to block ads & protect my computer but still ensure publishers are compensated.

Incidentally, thanks for posting, even though it incurred a karma hit for you - good to hear both sides. HN has too much groupthink sometimes.

>aside from the fact that less than 2% of users actually do this

Source?

I'm personally okay with non-annoying ads, and ABP works for me with zero effort from my end. Do you have alternative recommendations that do something similar to ABP?

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