Adverts, AdBlock and Assholes.

I use Adblock.
Let's just get that out in the open.

I also happen know widespread Adblock usage is bad for internet content providers.
But, I still use Adblock.

Before I continue, for those unaware, let me explain how the internet works and why so many people make a living on it without selling anything to you.
In every business exchange- every case where someone is being given money in exchange for something- there is a customer, a seller and a product or service. In the unusual economical systems of "free" websites that still make money, well, you usually aren't the customer.
In writing this I assume you are a Facebook user, because most people are. If you aren't, imagine you are. Or think of another free website you use for anything except buying things.
Now, there is a difference between a Facebook user and a Facebook customer. You are not a Facebook customer. You are a Facebook product. We are the collected demographics that Facebook sells to anyone who has something they want to sell to us.
You will notice on Facebook that the adverts you see are usually tied to the information you give to Facebook about yourself- the whole reason Facebook cares so much about what you "like" is so their customers- the advertising agencies and marketing departments- can find customers of their own (you). Other more specialised websites usually have a more specific demographic and are sought after by anyone wishing to advertise to that demographic.
YouTube bloggers make money off their audience through adverts.
Half the webcomics I read (well, the ones that don't have lucrative merchandising gigs going) make money on adverts.
Heck, I'm using Google AdSense on this very blog to squeeze precious pennies out of the two dozen or so views I get per post.



So yeah. We're usually not buying or selling, we're the product being sold.
I don't have a problem with this, personally. If it means content providers I like can afford to do what they do and still be able to eat, that's grand.

But, what a lot of them don't want you to do (and a certain YouTube blogger I follow has ranted about) is use a certain well-known browser extension called AdBlock.
It does what it says on the tin. Hides adverts.
The reason they don't want you using it, of course, is that for most of these websites, their revenue is generated based largely on the number of views and clicks the adverts get. So AdBlock, by being used, has an impact on how much money your favourite websites are making, and whether or not their writers get to eat this week.

So from this, the selfless, moral thing to do is to not use AdBlock, right? Right?

I tried that for a while.
And most the time it's grand. But sometimes, without AdBlock, I'm greeted with page-filling unskippable video roadblock ads. Hell, once I got a video advert on YouTube, right in the middle of a video I was watching. The video in question was a film trailer. Which already exists for the sole purpose of advertising.
Not to mention I'm forever traumatized by those. FUCKING. EMOTICON. ADVERTS. You know the ones, from the mid-2000s, that would play those God-awful annoying "HELLO-O!" sounds every time you had the misfortune of accidentally mousing over them. And some web pages have video adverts on that start playing automatically, with sound. And you can't always tell which tab they're coming from.
And the less said about popups, the better.

There comes a point where advertising is just plain invasive.
It's one thing being the product on sale, but is a little respect too much to ask? That's why I use AdBlock. And it's probably why a lot of other people use it, too. AdBlock usage is being encouraged, forced even, by so much annoying advertising.

I don't hate content providers or advertising agencies as a whole.
When I like a website and see myself going back to it, I make a point of disabling AdBlock for that site (it has that function, I highly recommend people use it, really), and let them get their well-earned money.
As long as they don't actively annoy or inconvenience me to get it, in which case I turn it right back on because fuck you, assholes.

So that's why I use AdBlock. Sometimes I feel bad for using it, but then I don't, because it seems like the only way to actually browse the internet without raising my blood pressure.
Once advertisers get a grip on how to try and sell me things without shoving them halfway down my throat while I'm busy with something else, I swear I will stop using AdBlock.

Until that happens, well, zero profit is still more profit than some of those people deserve.