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Comment by byrneseyeview | Hacker News Reader

Banner ads pay my salary, so out of professional courtesy, no.

It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads. Plus, if I see something egregious on my employer's site, I can let them know.

I use Ghostery to see who's buying data from whom.

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My thought is: If you can't afford me blocking ads then do one of two things:

1) No flashing ads. No flash ads (cpu time is mine!) No ads that blur content with ads. And I will turn off ad blocking on your site. If ads have sound and I can't block it I will never visit the site. This is why arstechnica has ads turned off for me, autoplaying video and sound.

BTW I will not turn off blocking of the +1 button or Like or whatever. I just don't wanna be tracked.

2) Don't give free content. Make me pay for it. If I like it I would.

> 2) Don't give free content. Make me pay for it. If I like it I would.

Nice in theory, but there are many markets where only 1 company will win, and it WILL be the ad-supported model. That's just how the math works.

Definitely agree with that. Although I would add a personal #3.

3) I've been using the internet since 1990 and how many items have I purchased from an ad? 0.

You may have unwittingly purchased an item because somebody else purchased it after seeing it on an Internet ad though...

> 2) Don't give free content. Make me pay for it. If I like it I would.

You might. 99% of the population would not.

1) The industry is finally realizing that a massive amount of people got pissed by flashing display ads. Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker (much more on HN :). Last month, the IAB published their new guidelines, including max CPU usage for Flash banners: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676... I'm working on a product that helps publishers verify that CPU usage from ads served on their site does not exceed their specs, http://www.clarityad.com Adobe is also investing in this, with their project Adthenticate http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/adthenticate/

"Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker"

I would bet you anything that far more of the general population would use ad blockers if they knew ad blockers existed, and if installation and use of an ad blocker could be made very simple and understandable to them.

My suspicion as well. I was talking to my boss yesterday about the results of this poll, and he had no idea there were addons for blocking advertising.

And, being the contrarian he is, he didn't install one after I told him how to find them on the intertubes. Go figure. :-)

> It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads.

So you do block ads, only with your brain ;) Fair enough, but can I ask why this is more courteous than blocking them in the browser? Are ad loads generally causing money to flow? I was under the impression that click-throughs cause revenue, rather than ad loads?

It can go either way. CPM ads are for display, and a lot of sites charge for CPM.

That's what lots of advertisers are pushing for. It makes in some cases, but in others it's a bit disingenuous. Lexus doesn't really care how many people click through to its landing page; they want to get their logo in front of your eyes as often as possible so that when it's time to buy a car, their brand is fresh in your mind.

The difference is that from time to time you see an interesting ad and click on it, if you don't have an ad blocker.

Some online ads are just general brand awareness ads, in the way that the big Pepsi sign at a baseball stadium isn't talking about a new product or trying to get you to buy a Pepsi right now.

Part of it is competitive intelligence. I want to know who's doing big ad buys on Huffpo and FoxNews and the NYT.

Agencies have gotten very clever at measuring the indirect effect of ads; most of them don't get a direct click, of course, but you can still look at things like how likely someone was to search for your company's brand name the week after they saw the ad.

Problem for me is not seeing ads, it's that they take too long to load and block the rest of the page. Perhaps strictly a browser problem, but until a better solution I just use vi /etc/hosts

I block flash and popups which prevents a lot of advertising. IMO, professional courtesy only goes so far, and the fact I clicked on a link does not mean you can do whatever you want.

A compromise position for those who don't mind ads is "Fanboy's Annoyance Block List" (for Adblock Plus). It blocks annoying social media buttons without blocking ads.

They pay mine, too, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. It also means I try and not view them on my own site to cost our advertisers money.

> Banner ads pay my salary

Do you mind if I ask which companies are your favorite?

Completely agree...plus knowing who is running what where keeps me on top of my game.

I write porn blocking software, so should I view porn out of professional courtesy?

If the logic follows, you should use the software you make and not watch porn out of professional courtesy. After all, that is what is paying your salary.

my logic was that my job exists because of the porn industry; I know it doesn't match entirely.

You could just use adsweep, which loads them, but then hides them.

I disable adblocker for independent blogs I read regularly.

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