For the record, I'm the owner of that infamous website that always seems to get mentioned in this type of thread. I would have registered correctly to help confirm my identity, but the registration page's confirmation code image wouldn't display correctly (I did send an email to alert someone).
First let me say I like the pragmatic approach taken with Adblock Plus in that users can whitelist sites they want or need to allow ads on. I only wish that Adblock Plus would replace Adblock on the Firefox extension page.
Anonymous wrote:simple. dont visit that website.
This is probably the best advice I've ever seen on this issue.
I can appreciate not wanting to see ads the way some sites really abuse them (there have been times I wanted to punch something and it wasn't the monkey
). At the same time I would hope that users could appreciate why small time publishers like me don't like users blocking our ads.
In this imperfect world users expressing their desire for an ad free environment using something like Adblock and publishers like me using scripts to detect ad blocking and requiring those users to subscribe for ad-free access is really the only viable means for each side to express their requirements.
Even if it weren't so hard to implement, I doubt more than a small percentage of websites would ever implement ad-blocking detection, just like only a small percentage of users will ever use ad-blocking. As such on those rare occasions when these opposing desires meet, the best course of action is to simply go separate ways. There are millions of websites in existence and typically it is easier to simply find the information one is looking for by going to a different website.
Anonymous wrote:After doing it, I received many emails from adblock users who typically call me a <*removed*> and more.
It seems to me that people who use adblock are especially rude and vulgar! Anyway, after ranting on and on, the reader typically then says they won't visit my site anymore.
What I can't understand is, would anyone want someone who had called them a <*removed*> want that person as a visitor?
I've had many similar emails and I could fill in a dozen different words or phrases for the above censored comments. I just don't see how these users think this will help their cause. All it does is harden the publisher's position and create a lot of ill will towards users who block ads.
Because of threats I've received from some users, I now track users who trip my ad-blocking countermeasures to a degree that I'd never track for any other user (even to the point of flagging and doing reverse lookups on IP addresses). Ironically these same users who have threatened me would have never known about my site if it hadn't been mentioned in a thread like this, thus they weren't even part of my real user base.
Anonymous wrote:I respect the readers who don't want to read ads so respect the webmaster and don't visit the site.
Same here, while I could, I am not going to come up with tricks to circumvent users who try to block ads and force my ads upon them. Rather I have decided to simply detect when ads are being blocked and redirect these users to an ad-free page where they can decide for themselves whether to unblock my ads, register for ad-free access or simply go elsewhere without further delay.
Anonymous wrote:Finally, if someone can tell me, why I should pay for others to cruise the web for free then please tell me and I will stop my efforts to block adblock!
Another good point every individual who uses my site makes use of resources that cost me time, money and effort to produce. I have to pay writers to write articles for me and every hit upon my site consumes processor time and bandwidth that I have to pay for in order to make my site available on the Internet. By attempting to block ads, users are denying me the ability to generate revenue to pay my costs and earn a fair return on the efforts I have made. Asking users who don't want ads to pay a subscription fee for ad-free access is not unreasonable.
Anonymous wrote:Of course, I suspect my post will be deleted or the replies will just call me an idiot without any substantive response but I thought it would be interesting to see if adblock users could provide a rational response or simply ad hominem attacks!
This concern is unnecessary. If there is one thing I have learned from the other Adblock discussions I've participated in, it is that while there are a few rude individuals who like to email me obscene tirades, the vast majority of participants in Adblock related forums are very reasonable individuals.
For those who wonder how I find these threads so quickly, you might say your brethren who like to express their displeasure with my actions via my website make great indicators as to when a thread like this is active. You see I only get complaints when there is an active thread on the topic.
Google has become so efficient at indexing forums that after I get wind that something is up it only takes a little searching to find the thread in question that mentioned my site. Depending upon the forum I will decide whether or not to reply. In this case since I respect the way Adblock Plus works, I thought I'd participate.
