Asklemmy

Of course. And I'll continue to do so as long as advertisement is detrimental to my online experience. If it wastes my time by forcing me to watch an ad before a video, if it distracts me from reading a text because of animations, if it tries to scam or shock me, I'm better off blocking it. I'm not against advertisement as communication that a useful product or service exists, I'm against advertisement abuse and greed.

I'll happily pay for, donate to, or otherwise support services important to me that need and deserve it.

I use AdBlock (and SponsorBlock on YouTube, and a cookie whitelist and a JavaScript whitelist) because only I decide what to see on my screen.

If you, as a creator, choose to use advertising to monetize your content you don't respect the limited lifetime of the people consuming your content or their security or about the way the marketing and advertising industry is destroying our society, such as (not exhaustive, just off the top of my head right now)

• building a surveillance economy, destroying privacy in the process
• manipulating people into voting in certain ways that are harmful to them and others
• protecting harmful products from scrutiny (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, products with too much sugar or fat or low quality ingredients, the car and oil industries, corporate climate change denial,...)
• encouraging overconsumption both in terms of quantity and in terms of items or services they don't really need
• destroying content platforms with their mantra "not advertiser friendly", leading to dystopian self-censorship on e.g. Youtube

And then there is the way internet advertising can spread malware and compromise the security of websites in general.

If you do want to monetize content in other ways there are models such as subscriptions or Patreon-style that are a lot more respectful of the user.

I have been with this idea for a very long time. But over time all the platforms got more and more greedy and I had the feeling that my privacy got more and more invaded.

Since that time, I have an Adblock and use DDG.

Sorry content creators.

Well if I want to support creators, I would rather give them my money directly either by buying their merch or any payment plarform.

Nowadays ads are so intrusive. Also the way ads are delivered by knowing what I prefer is capitalistic at its finest. Not everything that I search are something I want to buy.

Yes, because I don't like subjecting myself to propaganda and having to hope I'm smart and strong enough to recognize it and avoid succumbing to it.

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs." - banksy

Adblockers are absolutely necessary because ads are a malware threat, never mind the scams and invasive popups. The cReAtOrS didn't care enough to ensure advertisements were safe, legitimate, or not horribly obnoxious so they did it to themselves.

I used to allow ads for certain sites but after malware attempts and scam ads, I block them across the board. If that upsets anybody, go whine to the shady advertises who made this a necessity to browse the web safely.

Lmao what a stupid argument. If you want money paywall your content and see how many people really want to see it. You do not have the right to fill anyone's head with manipulative garbage propaganda just because you made a video about how much you love the second reich and want it to retvrn or wrote some shitty blog post.

People that call themselves CONTENT creators are the people churning out pure garbage for the bazinga-brained sake of contentcontentcontent and the quality of actually worthwhile shit would skyrocket if they would all just collectively quit because what would be leftover are the people who actually care and aren't in it for some ad views.

Artists, critics, musicians, designers, etc etc? They don't call themselves content creators like the bazinga-brained influencers in it purely to chase metrics. Tell the bazingas to fuck off.

• I don't like getting bombarded with ads.
• It hides scam ads.
• If the creator of something makes something I like I prefer to directly donate to them instead of giving up my privacy, and letting a company like google profit of it, and then they only give a small portion to the creator.

As the de facto IT guy for my family, I block ads on all their computers just as a basic safety measure.

I can usually spot a fake download button and avoid scammy sites, but my parents and grandparents seem magnetically attracted to them

I use ad blockers everywhere. I hate ads and wouldn't buy anything advertised there anyway.

Yes I use an ad blocker. With some sites I visit, not having an ad blocker could mean the difference between my computer being destroyed by malware or saving myself by not clicking on malicious ads/full screen non-visible ads.

Also, if the content is coming from someone or some entity I am fairly certain doesn't need my monetary support, why should I bother seeing ads? That's just them leaching off me like a parasite. If I want to support a(n) person(s) and/or entity, I'd rather go as direct in helping find them as I can (such as through pateron or some other way).

yes because fuck ads

The internet was always a place to share. The recent move to monetize everything is destroying the internet. So no, I don't care about content creators being paid. Even so, ads are annoying, they take up my time, bandwidth and break pages and are so completely irrelevant to me.

Yeah and I don't feel bad about it a bit. Few YouTubers have said that by donating one dollar they're profiting more than if you watch hours and hours of their ads.

“If you use adblock, you don’t care about creator’s point blank”

If I care about creators, it makes far more sense for them to run a Kofi tip jar of some kind and let us donate directly. Having thousands of viewers watch a cumulative 35 hours of ads so they can get 7c for it is ludicrous.

I'm not even kidding. The 'profit' creators get from ads is basically zero. If they want to monetise, they use Patron, Kofi, merch stores; or they line up sponsors that pay them directly (this comment brought to you by Raid™: Beats© by Legends®)

I would much rather pay a creator 10c a month and not have to watch 30minutes of ads of their platform. Way more profit for them, way better QoL for me, and it's not like I need to go out of my way to find ads.

If they care about creators and charities, they should donate money to them. They have very little use for your time, but your lifespan is the only resource you can never ever earn back. What a fucking waste to give so much of it away, and for nothing.

Yes. I hate ads that interrupt my experience. Whether they're midroll ads, baked-in ads, animated banner ads, cycling banner ads, or popup ads, I don't want them. The least annoying of the invasive ads are baked-in ads because I can skip them.

“If you use adblock, you don’t care about creator’s point blank”

Correct, I don't care. Run ads that don't bother me. Have a sponsor logo in the corner, do a video reviewing their stuff, whatever. Your options aren't just to annoy me.

ublock origin and libredirect are basically a must for browsing the internet. Reddit, Fandom, and Medium are the most unusable websites, those websites are parasites so it gives me joy that I deprive them of revenue.

The "If you use adblock, you don’t care about creator’s point blank" is such a stupid argument and complete misunderstanding of the economics. There are other far more efficient ways to support creators than watching ads. Watching an hour of ads will generate a few cents for the creators and orders of magnitude more for the monopolistic platforms that host the content. The ads model doesn't fairly reward creators. I guarantee I give more to creators (via various means) than the misdirected "creator saviour" that wrote that ridiculous quote.

Counter point: Any creator blindly putting random ad networks on their site doesn't care about their users. Every ad should be vetted and served by the creator, those kinda ads are impossible to mass-block. If an ad swindles a user, it should be the creators reputation thats at stake.

I stopped having a bad conscience for blocking when one blog who begged promised to not autoplay any audio. The very next day it of course showed a very loud ad, and the creator excused it with "he didn't have any control over what the advertisement network showed".

I've never heard that argument.

i use ad blockers everywhere.

As an autist, I have many challenges involving the mental filtration of information. Too much clutter or non-relevant items and I become practically blind. The internet has largely become unusable to me. AdBlock means I can still use it all.

TV-style sudden/obnoxious ads are a sensory hell that feels like someone put my brain on fire. In effect, I am too disabled to be able to watch normal TV.

Because of this societal imposed disability, excluding me from using common services without experiencing real suffering for the sheer benefit of making more money, I have taken the following extreme stance:

“Viewing of any and all ads should require consent!” My mind is mine and companies trying to hold my limited focus/concentration by using psychologically manipulative tricks is simply invasive and violates my chance to remain cognitively functional.

There are some that do ads right. For example, LTT always notifies about “segues to their sponsor [SPONSORNAME]” allowing me a brief chance to pause the vid and choose for myself if I want to watch, skip, or leave.

While I usually do skip, there have been times I consented and watched an advertisement because of genuine interest or even for my own entertainment. (Hermitcraft Grian and Mumbo produced a great ad for Mumble. I still wish I could buy those Scar audiobooks)

So yes, I feel 100% justified to AdBlock everything and saying I don't care about the creators is flat out wrong.

Yes I use graphine OS on a Google pixel and have nearly all FOSS apps. The few apps I can't get FOSS I cut off network access to. (Alwsome graphine OS feature)

On my home computer I use uBlock, sponserblock, and I have a piehole running.

My ethics on this mimic that of modern multiplayer games. Games make a much larger amount of money praying those willing to dump hundreds into cosmetic items so now the game is free for me. Eg. leage, overwatch, apex, halo etc. . .

I see other distributed content in this same way. If someone love a content creator so much that they will drop money on merch, or patron good for them. They make up the majority of the money the content creator makes anyway so I don't really lose sleep over it.

I don't do a thing without ad blockers. I decide what junk I open and what I watch. When a site has ad blocking detection, it's not worth my time, ever. Ads are the cancer of the current society. When I have something, ads are useless, when I don't have it, ads are equally useless, as I don't want and need it.

When creators of content create good content, I pay, same for apps. Ad companies leaching of the creators content need to be banned. (Those companies earn a lot more then content creators on those ads)

When there is an adblocker that will trigger the payment without me having to watch the ad (or even pull it over the web) I'm fine with it, else, no ads revenue. I pay for my data subscription, I decide.

But I care of now being flooded with invasive ads popup and other shit

the argument feels like guilt tripping poor people for not making their masters richer. if you only care about getting paid, I do not give any fucks about your content because it's probably garbage anyway. it seems the only "content" people like this produce are shitty hottakes of them ranting about something they don't understand.

tl;Dr if your content is just a recording of yourself then it's accurate to say I don't give a shit about the content creator in that scenario.

• between malware, phishing, tracking, bloat, bandwidth hogging, and whatnot, an adblocker is as necessary as an antivirus – advertisers have had multiple opportunities over the decades to behave and consistently refuse to do so
• most of us are perfectly willing to pay content creators directly (subscription, coffee, Patreon, merch, etc.)
• publishers are not content creators – and publishers are perfectly happy to screw creators over just as much as they screw visitors/viewers/readers (as an example, WGA strike is already on day 51 and counting)

The internet's practically unusable without it now. We'll always be in this rat race with advertisers and such. If I have the technical ability to circumvent every advertisement, I'll do it. Advertisers get plenty from the people without the tech know-how, and I directly support creators that I want to support. Maybe a bit of a "f you I got mine" position, but whatever. Zero guilt.

If I had to use the internet without ublock then I think I would prefer to not use it at all. And I'm saying it as a person who makes some money off ads on a website. I would never put an ad-blocker-blocker on my website though. I just assume users don't care about the ads if they don't block them.

Of course I do. Can't fathom how people still browse the web without adblockers. Especially when so many ads lead directly to malware. And ads are extremely distracting and annoying. Life is too short to be wasted on ads. Also creators are getting paid pennies on the dollar anyway.

I use adblock because it makes the internet usable. There's just so much crap shoved in your face these days. Not just ads that are blocked, but sponsored search results and SEO crap that you have to use your time and energy to filter out. I don't know how anybody actually buys stuff or responds to internet ads. I'm more and more on the Dead Internet Theory bandwagon.

I'm not a hardcore capitalist. Also i can't watch all the ads the corporations would like to feed me every day. So i'm fine with using an adblocker. Don't give stuff out for free on the internet if you don't like this. But since you ask: I really don't like that strategy to commercialize everything, to finance everything by selling ads and user data...

Yes. I don't give a shit if it's immoral.

"If you don't pledge fealty to your feudal Lord, you don't care about the artists for which he is patron."

I don't care about creators who demand that I surrender my privacy as the only valid show of support for them.

Yes, I use adblock. Most sites I visit didn't have ads on them 15 years ago. I don't want to see the ads now. As others have said, they are way too scammy and intrusive.

But your second point about not caring about the creator, i always thibk about this. YouTube. They will do two 15 second unskippable ads for a 5 second video... and then the creator of that video DOES NOT SEE A CENT FROM THE ADVERTISERS OR YOUTUBE! Why? Because its not monetizable, thats why! Why would I waste my time over that kind of crap? Or, worse yet, if I wanted to watch another advertisement on YouTube, I have to watch an ad to watch an ad? Why does that make sense? It's not the consumers that don't watch ads that don't care about the creators. It's a platform that monetizes its users and then doesn't pay them for it.

Which don't get me started on Reddit...

If you take a free newspaper out of your mailbox and move the ad insert straight to the trash without looking at it, are you doing something morally wrong?

I find it astonishing how many people fail to make the mental bridge from our physical world into the internet. Talking about spam emails with my mom, I once asked her: If you find a sandwich from an unknown sender that you didn't order in your mailbox, would you take a bite because it might be tasty?

I think she doesn't understand the analogy to this day ...

I use uBlock Origin and just directly donate to creators I follow

Browsing the internet without content filters(adblock) is like going through a dungeon naked without armor. Too many risks which are not worth it.

I use Adguard and ublock origin. There's too much tracking, ads, crapware and even malware if you choose to not install one.

Even the FBI recommends to install an adblocker. https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/fbi-recommends-ad-blocker-online-scams-b1048998.html

Here's a hacker news discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005

Personally I use ublock origin. Adblock sold out years ago and now companies can pay them to get around their blocker.

Recently tried a couple sites without an Adblock and it felt like the "good old days" of constant pop ups and garbage loading in the background while trying to read an article. The best are those autoplaying videos that don't start muted.

So with that said, yeah, I think I'm gonna keep that Adblock on!

It’s a bummer that blocking ads prevents some creators from getting money, but I’m not losing any sleep over it.

I don’t mind sponsored segments in videos and podcasts. However, the ads on YouTube and on many websites are invasive and annoying. That’s why I block them, and I won’t be turning it off.

I don't understand how anyone can live without adblock

I stopped caring about the ethics of ad—blocking, I got sick of seeing scams, gambling ads, and shitty mobile games, crappy services that no one actually benefits from, and malware. I have ZERO tolerance for these sorts of ads. If an app has ads, I immediately uninstall it; if a website blocks adblockers, I stop using it.

The type of ads I might be willing to accept would be contextual ads (rather than personalised ones), and they should be individually vetted by either the content creators, or their community. If I visit a Linux forum, stuff like Linode or Tuxedo Computers would be effective, if I visit a Kendo forum, ads for shinai and other kendo supplies make sense, since we are the target audience, and there is no need to violate people's privacy for this ad model. These ads would need to be non-intrusive, and not take too much space as well, and not over content, and certainly not staying on the screen as I am scrolling.

This is why when watching YouTube videos, I block ads, but I don't block sponsors.

The story of internet ads is a classic greed to ruins fable. People put up with static picture and text ads for a very long time, and many, myself included, still don't mind them. In fact, self-hosting picture and text ads is almost guaranteed to get through adblockers.

But then the ads started moving. They started playing sound. They started executing code and phoning home to third party servers and collecting user data without consent. They started consuming more system resources than the webpage itself. Malware started being distributed through it, and there was even a recent breakthrough of ad cryptominers, because, again, they literally execute arbitrary code on your computer!

At this point our trust in ads are irreversibly broken. We will never tolerate ads again like we did when they hadn't done all this, even if they promises to clean up their act. Adblock was developed as not just something to remove unsightly ads, but also, and I do not exaggerate when I say this, as a line of defense for the security and usability of your computer. It's like an antivirus, but it kicks in before the virus even reaches your computer! For this reason, I think adblockers are not only okay to have, but essentially a mandatory item for browsing today's internet. If you want revenue in spite of that, maybe set up a tip jar and/or go back to self-hosted text and picture ads, I'm not disabling adblock and opening myself to harm because, no offense, I genuinely do not trust you.

Reminder that AdBlock doesn't block all ads. It blocks ads that hinder usability across the web. Without AdBlock, I simply would never visit 3/4 of the internet.

Do I use adblockers? Yes

Why? Honestly it's not about the ads, nor the tracking, or user privacy (though it is a perk). Nope I block ads for simple device security.

Fake links to sites I never wanted to visit with fake download buttons, or play buttons which download viruses or malware to my machines. I remember having a machine with Norton, and having to re-install the OS every year or so since too many accidental clicks caused me to download the wrong things.

And don't get me started with those old grotesque ads found on the bottom of pages. Nor the cleanup of my Grandparents machines with Viruses that live in RAM, or Ransom Ware which a cousin installed while looking for minecraft skins.

An AdBlocker is a security tool on the internet, it makes sure that the links you are clicking are from the site itself. It helps simplify the decisions needed since now instead of 2-10 download and play buttons, there maybe 1 or 2.

My Grand Parents don't have viruses any more, I don't get viruses any more. Sure it sucks that the site I visit doesn't get the $0.05 which it might get from ads if I visit. But after trying to do it legitimately for years, I just can't trust ad providers (even on Google) to get me the correct links or information any more.

It’s not just ads though, it’s the tracking that bugs me