Because the site owner is not owed the revenue from ad impressions from its visitors. Where's the signed agreement that I have to watch X ads or earn the site owner Y dollars in ad revenue in exchange for viewing their articles?
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Example of ad-block in Safari
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Because the site owner is not owed the revenue from ad impressions from its visitors. Where's the signed agreement that I have to watch X ads or earn the site owner Y dollars in ad revenue in exchange for viewing their articles?
It is not stealing in any sense of the word. You are not taking anything of value away by using an adblocker. You may be depriving them of some advertising revenue, that is all. Some websites benefit just from showing ads, even when the user does not click on them. But that is not always the case. Stealing access to websites? How does that even make sense to you?
At best you can argue that this is a breach of contract between you and the website. The website offers access to you on the condition that you allow their ads. I assume that very few websites even stipulate that in their terms of use and even if they do, you cannot bind people to your terms just because they visit your website. The legal status of these terms and conditions is far from clear. Would they commit a breach of contract if they first approached your site with an adblocker enabled? Of course not, that would be dumb. Ads also rely heavily on JavaScript and Flash. You are not forced to use a browser with those technologies either. Would that also be wrong to you?
Ads are your payment to the site, if you are blocking ads your not giving your fair share of payment.
Javascript does far more than just display ads so I guess if you choose to use a browser without Javascript built in thats your choice
Ads are put on the site to generate revenue for the site. Viewing them is not our payment to the site.
You seeing ads as being payment on free sites such as this is baffling to me. I don't owe Macrumors and other sites a thing other than abiding by the terms of service. I am not here to make money for Macrumors or any other site, unless I have a financial vested interest in doing so. Not making money for Macrumors or any other site is not stealing from them.
So clearly there are situations where it's acceptable for you to block ads, either directly or indirectly. I'm curious now, what do you think about extensions like NoScript that allow you to block JavaScript on a per-site basis (without blocking any specifics on a given website)?
Think of it as a restaurant offering a loss leader (like an entree sold at below cost) to attract customers to come in and order the main course (which is where they earn). The loss leader is the free content on the website which entices people to come in and visit the site, while the main course is the advertising which brings in the bulk of the revenue.
However, unless the entree is specifically bundled with the main course as part of a set meal, there is nothing stopping a customer from ordering just the entree, and leaving without eating the main course. Sure, the restaurant makes a loss, but that's just all part of business. You can't accuse the customer of cheating the restaurant this way. They set the stage to entice me to act a certain way, but by no means am I obligated to behave in the manner that the restaurant wants me to.
Same here. The site owner hopes that by visiting their website and viewing their content, I also view their advertisements and earn them some revenue. And some websites do in fact go to the extreme of forcing me to disable my ad-blocker before allowing me to view their content (in which case I just leave and never come back).
I don't know if all this talk of ad-blocking as raised my awareness of not, but I find ads on my phone more and more irritating. Scrolling through articles on Reeder on my iPhone, it disgusts me how much screen estate is taken up by advertisements. Scrolling lags. I want to click on a link, an ad suddenly loads and I click on it, taking me out of the page and forcing me to reload it.
iOS 9 couldn't come fast enough. I can't wait for native Safari view in 3rd party apps finally offering me all the browser goodies like reader mode (which strips out all the non-content distractors), icloud keychain support and (yes!) ad-block for everything else that gets through.
I do have to add one point here. You are free to ignore ads on a webpage, just as you are free to turn the page of a newspaper or zap away to a different channel during the commercial break. However, by blocking ads entirely, you may be (not always) depriving the website of some revenue that they get just for showing the ads. Not every online ad is dependent on clicks alone. Even if you never click on an ad, you may still be helping the website.
I would also like to say that I am not against ads. If the content is offered for free then I am not in a position to complain about the ads. However, what I do mind is the big-data machinery that is behind all of this, with countless trackers and aggressive storing of personal information. In Belgium there is now a legal case pending about Facebook's use of trackers/social plugins (e.g. the like buttons on many websites) that allow them to collect and assemble personal data about people that don't even use Facebook and have never agreed to or even seen its terms of use and privacy policy. Websites are not always to blame, they often just don't have any options. Advertisers don't pay much for simple and traditional ads anymore, they pretty much force websites to let them work as they please. Blocking is the only reasonable option that remains to change this system for the better, including for the benefit of websites. By allowing this system to continue, and as much as I hate it for those websites that lose out in the long term, it will only get worse.
say this with a straight face when half the mobile sites on the web have super intrusive ads with tap targets so small that they basically guarantee you'll be whisked away to an ad or the App Store instead of dismissing it
-_- It's absolute ******** people can block ads and not get charged for it even when half the mobile sites on the web have super intrusive ads with tap targets so small that they basically guarantee you'll be whisked away to an ad or the App Store instead of dismissing it. -_-
Can't blame them. With so many people using desktop ad blockers you've got to make money somewhere.
I am sure it is offtopic.
Would you think this is too tough to fight for content creator while All other members fight for user?
I guess you also classify switching channel to avoid watching TV ads as theft?
Changing the channel is different. Advertisers are paying regardless of if you change the channel at not. They also are paying knowing not everyone is going to watch the ads, which is why they like to make the ads louder than the show. They do that to get you attention if you walked away or something.
Yeah I would say it's tough mostly because nobody else gives a single **** about the content creators.I am sure it is offtopic.
Would you think this is too tough to fight for content creator while All other members fight for user?
In any case.. I believe I've seen a few websites that detected AdBlock and were completly locked until I've switched it off. Can't you do something similar for your websites?
I've only found manual for WordPress: http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-detect-and-stop-adblock-in-wordpress/
Banning ad blocking would require you by law to execute code on your device from strangers on the internet without your permission. Unless I agree to it for each domain and am fully informed about what they are doing, this is not even remotely legal. It would never be enforceable anyway, legal or not. I will not allow my computer to contact servers I don't want it to or run code I don't approve of.
I'd love to see what would happen if users had to sit through popups with the terms and conditions for each ad domain andwere forced to click "I accept" for each in order to use the site. The outrage when people try to use Facebook or ESPN and get 20-30 of them would be hysterical.
Yes you can do this but there are reasons why websites don't, such as it makes the site slower for everyone else.
You talk about running ad code on your computer as if it is raping your computer.
I use a T42 and a PowerBook G4 as my main computers and that's a pretty accurate description.
However, it doesn't matter what the code does. There's a principle here that my computer is mine and I can't be forced to run code I don't want to run on it.
There's a couple options already to block ads on iOS. I don't know how you all managed to put up with mobile ads for so long.
I've been using mercury browser which has a built in adblocker. It's nice safari will finally block ads to but it won't sway me back from mercury. It's got to many features to pass up.
I also use weblock app which will block ads on all online content in other apps when on wifi.
Then if I'm jailbroken I've always used an adblocker from cydia to.
I've been using mercury browser which has a built in adblocker. It's nice safari will finally block ads to but it won't sway me back from mercury. It's got to many features to pass up.
I also use weblock app which will block ads on all online content in other apps when on wifi.
Then if I'm jailbroken I've always used an adblocker from cydia to.
This is actually a really good way to put it. If the site wants to mandate you to give them revenue, they need to put their content behind a paywall. Otherwise, you simply accept that some people are running an adblocker while many others will see your ads.
Edit: In the blog post linked, he says "If anyone wants to play around with my (very limited) Safari Content Blocker Extension, here is a copy of my JSON". Anyone know how to actually run this on an iPhone running iOS 9?
That's not your decision to make. If you would like to buy computers for everyone here, then you can feel free to dictate what they look at & run. A website is able to do this as well; they can put their content behind a subscription-only wall. You are not the Emperor of the Internet.
I feel like ads are just your main concern. There's also other content blockers like tracker blockers which pull your location, device, and a lot of other info for who knows what purpose. I personally don't want Google, Adobe, and random other trackers running without my knowledge. I understand if a website wants to run analysts but tell me in plain English what is going on, not doing **** behind my back.
Also i know for a fact everyone is annoyed when you click a link and are ripped out of your website and get sent to the AppStore.
Another thought is what about reader? On a website you can tap on the reader icon and it takes the pictures and text and makes everything look nice, but takes away all the ads. Is that ok or should that be illegal too?
As you correctly stated... it is your opinion. You are entitled to it. You are however incorrect that blocking ads is "stealing" access to a site.
Unless the website owner provides a portal-page that indicates the conditions under which a visitor may access the content and that visitor agrees, there is no expectation of what the visitor will see and not see.
Hmm. Everyone is selfish first, and generous later as long as they have spare resources. This is the law of nature. I am the same, and I believe you are the same.
If anyone can stand between content creator and customer, to provide a win win solution for everyone, I bet this would be great. However, it is also extremely difficult to do.