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Read it first, then form your own opinion...
Personally, I think that's a bunch of rubbish. One of the links at the top goes to firefoxmyths.com, and among those myths are that Firefox has 25% of the market share. On that site, it pretty much proves that the 25% is an inflated number. So what's the big deal? It's not like EVERYONE is blocking ads from EVERY site. Anything and everything on the www is public domain, why complain when people block what they don't want to see? The people who don't use Adblock are the very people who click on ads when they're interested. The savvy net user will realize that more often than not, ads are just a waste of web browser real estate, especially those rediculous brightly colored headache-inducing flashing ones.
Another thing is those people who make the ads... everyone hates telemarketers, but why are they still around? Because people actually buy stuff from them. That's the thing about advertising... you'll always get some people interested, no matter how much you're hated. Because of this, net advertising will always provide traffic and revenue no matter how many people block it. It's not like 100% of the world uses Firefox, and not even 100% of Firefox users use Adblock. Also, the website makes it clear that they dislike the fact that Adblock's developers don't allow websites to run a script to block just the Adblock users. I think that's a good job from the Adblock team, because if the complainers had their way, that would be descrimination. like in this paragraph:
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While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus's unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative. Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers..
That is not the 'only alternative'. 'Honest, hard-working' website owners will know a bit about how Adblock works, and develop a script that will be hard to block, or just implement ads that aren't irritating in the first place. So what if Firefox users are not big spenders...anyone can use IE and splurge, but everyone I know who uses Firefox has enough brains to research what they're going to buy first. It takes brains to use an alternate web browser, just like it takes brains to be frugal. If you're gonna write an article about why Firefox is so bad, be consistent. There's more:
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Adblock effectively robs these free sites of their revenue. If Internet Explorer came with a feature such as Adblock, you would effectively wipe out thousands of websites, maybe more. These are the same free sites users of Adblock frequently visit. The irony is how this is self-defeating.
If a site I like has ads, I make sure I unblock their ads to support it. What's the point of google searching something, coming across a site that is either rubbish or no use to you at all, and giving them free money by having ads shoved in your face? The best sites I know don't complain if people block their ads, they focus instead on providing quality content like they should.
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“[Commercial-skipping] amounted to creating an unauthorized derivative work, namely a commercial-free copy that would reduce the copyright owner’s income from his original program, since “free” television programs are financed by the purchase of commercials by advertisers.”
People fast-forwarded through commercials on their taped programs because the vast majority of commercials were stupid, irritating, and/or generally a waste of time. What they pretty much want seems to be a world where advertisers take complete control of your life, making sure you sit through and watch or see every single commercial, every single time. We live in a democracy, why are they so convinced in the dictatorship of forcing ads upon us? I don't remember hearing this sort of fuss when TiVo or the VCR's before it had commercial-skipping features?
Basically, my politically-incorrect opinion of this website is that some biased, bitchy fags with nothing better to do went out and tried to persuade others to think like them. For me, it was somewhat interesting to read, but without a strong enough argument to back them up, it's just propaganda. Bottom line is, running and maintaining a website costs money, ads are just there to offset the costs; not necessarily to negate them (and sometimes with profit).
This post has been edited by Vejida: 22 August 2007 - 01:13 PM
Reason for edit: I took out the link so that he doesnt get pageranked from google
the old ones weren't that bad because they didn't have a million features that clutter up the window...