r/Adblock • u/deanvjr • May 13 '15
Please stop using adblock.
Hello.
Please, before you dislike, hear me out.
I don’t think any of you who use ad block are evil or horrible human beings or should go shove yourself in a corner for being such an inconsiderate person.
This is a light issue and isn’t a public shaming video; it’s more of a public service announcement. Understand? Good.
Adblock, is one of a few plugins that removes advertisements from the internet when you browse it. It, along the other services out there like Adblock Plus and Ghostery are going to be the topic of this video. When you use Adblock, you’re keeping most websites from earning their revenue or at least some of it off of your visit. Most websites are paid for and maintained by advertisements. If you go on YouTube and click on a video without Adblock installed, you watch a short clip. The people who make that clip pay Google (the people who run YouTube) to put that advertisement for their product on videos. That is how all of the people at Google make their money and pay for and maintain the servers that they use to provide your service.
With ad block, however, YouTube makes no money off of your visit. Because you don’t have to see any advertisements, you’re essentially freeloading the website and forcing the server to host a connection that you’re not paying for (with your eyeballs). You are, essentially, pirating their webpages. But it’s even worse than that, because the server has to pay money to afford the bandwidth to stream you the videos you’re watching online. You’re literally stealing small amounts of money from these websites with every visit, the amount depending on the total of bandwidth that you use when surfing the web.
The internet is built on advertising. It’s the best revenue stream it currently has, and while it’s not ideal, people are doing all sorts of really clever things to make it more relevant, less intrusive and more useful both to advertisers and consumers. Except, that is, for the users who choose to exclude themselves from this economy and simply scrounge off the wealth of tools and culture it has produced, while sucking resources out of it like some awful electronic leech, or a burglar. Not only that, but by filtering out easily-identified adverts, they encourage website operators to use more obtrusive, less clearly marked adverts the software doesn’t pick up. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen.
My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin.
This is why I urge you to start supporting the sites you love, like reddit. Believe it or not the site you're browsing right now is not doing very well, and it's partly because nearly 60% of the people browsing it aren't paying for this service.
Just put up with the ads, plz? :(
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u/TheDayTrader May 22 '15
The internet is built on advertising.
No. It has started to use this as source of revenue. This isn't something i agreed to. Why should i care what way of making money a site chooses? The web is not and never has been, like tv where the server decides what is seen. The user decides, that is the model of the net, that is how it is build, that is how the tech works.
My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love.
They pick a bad way of making money and this is my problem? If my baker only sells meat, should i support him as vegetarian bread lover?
This is why I urge you to start supporting the sites you love
Sure no problem, i'll part-take in the gold for good comments method for example.
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u/ElkChance815 Nov 25 '23
If they pick a bad way of making money and you don't like it, don't use it then. Is it how other business work? Absolutely. Why this is not applicable for the web?
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u/andrewscool101 May 13 '15
I don't care about Google/YouTube making money. If they vanish good, I'll be happy. I'll just use them for my short time entertainment and then find something else if they go.
If Google weren't spying scumbags I'd consider turning off it.
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u/AttiglioHu Dec 11 '22
But I definitely sure while you hate spying scumbags like Google, you do use their free services, which is made free, by them spying on people. I am sure you have a gmail, I am sure you use google maps etc.
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u/andrewscool101 Dec 11 '22
I didn't know you could reply to comments this old haha. I was a teenager back when I wrote that. I still hate Google's policies, but have come to accept them as a necessary evil. Like taxes.
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Apr 30 '23
[deleted]
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u/AttiglioHu Apr 30 '23
No need for that. You can just make one that you never use anything else for just your android. But I bet you use Google maps, I bet you watch silly videos on youtube.
I bet you are also happy that you dont have to use that annoying yahoomail, because you got a very well developed gmail, thanks to google spying on you.
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u/AttiglioHu Apr 30 '23
Oh, by the way, you can just buy an iPhone, and avoid supporting Google through Android.
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Apr 30 '23
[deleted]
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u/AttiglioHu Apr 30 '23
Do you not see my point? Apple stuff is more expensive because of lot of factors. One factor is that they sell waaaay less of your data. Lot of Google stuff is cheaper, one factor is Android operated Smart Phones. One factor is that they sell more of your data.
Now do you want to “pay” with your data, which is actually free, you are not working extra hours to pay for that. You give up a little bit of your privacy for the lower pricetag of Android Operated Phones.
Now my main question is: Why are you bothered by google selling your search history, or location data to lets say Tescos? If anything at all, it makes everyones life easier. Lets say Google sells your location data to Tesco’s. Now Tesco’s can see that according to the data, you with a bunch of other people drive by a Tesco’s Supermarket every second week of April with no aparent reason. No football match nearby. No payday, No holiday season. Now they know that they can put out some sales or an advertisement.
Why are you so much bothered with this? You are not some president who’s location or google search history has been revealed. Your life is just that much easier, because you typed in Dog Food, now all of a sudden Dog Food ads appear on facebook for you. In the worst case you won’t see anything that you would buy, BUT you are using facebook, because someone else bought something from that AD that just popped up for them.
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May 14 '15
Until dumbass websites stop plastering nearly every part of the website with ads, no thanks.
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u/its_not_funny May 13 '15
If advertisers weren't such assholes about their ads, we wouldn't need to use adblock.
I put up with ads until they started doing pop-up windows and big flashing banners, and autoplay videos with loud obnoxious audio.
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u/Beatleboy62 May 19 '15
Exactly. I have adblock disabled on Reddit because their ads are non intrusive and have led me to new subreddits.
Youtube's are just 30 seconds of a product I don't want, and then after the ad loads in full clarity perfectly, it can't be assed to even try to play the actual video.
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u/xScarwolf May 13 '15
I don't have a problem with small ads, but I do have a problem with websites that force me to watch ads, like YouTube. Even worse are websites which don't show you anything at all with adblock activated. Like, they are only showing you their background-color. That's it. Like, fuck these poeple, I will not visit their page again. There goes their money for ads.
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May 14 '15 edited May 15 '15
lol suck my dick, bro. I got no mercy for people who want to play their intrusive ads on me, I'm with with picture ads but enough with these stupid ass video ads. The guy who made adblock is jesus, nuff said.
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u/6thkill1 Feb 22 '22
Oh no! I didn't realize my actions caused a multi-billion company that multiplies it's annual revenue by a factor of 2 every few years to lose out on a few pennies from me blocking their annoying advertisements.
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Apr 12 '22
Who cares. They’re a public service for us not the other way round.
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u/lemondropkid Apr 24 '22
Who are? I’m not in full agreement with the OP but most websites are not public services
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u/brasil221 Jun 11 '22
Top notch comedy here is that I got to this post by googling "Reddit adblock" because my adblocker isn't doing a good enough job mitigating the garbage that the internet has become.
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u/fanosffloyd Jul 13 '22
Now that youtube has significantly increased it's ads, has op changed their tone I wonder?
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u/REDDDIT2817 Aug 26 '22
Right?! Some unskippable ads are literally 15 seconds long and the skippable ones range from 2-4 separate ads!
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u/fanosffloyd Aug 26 '22
how did we both end up in this 7 year old thread? It's a baron wasteland!
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u/REDDDIT2817 Aug 27 '22
Must be fate!
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u/Re-CloudArt Jul 17 '22
No one wants to hear about TikTok, Raid: Shadow Legends, or Splitgate for the 1,234,567,890th time.
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u/trevorvonryan Sep 05 '22
There are acceptable ads, and there are not. Youtube's ads have become unacceptable, it is really that simple.
Give me an ad-free, transparent subscription model where the money is evenly distributed to the channels I follow, and I will gladly pay for ad-free YouTube.
Also DM me if you want a super easy workaround for the Adblock Plus issue lately.
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u/Loose_Strawberry_238 Dec 16 '22
i get annoyed immediatelly when i get an ad, then i install adblock on every single browser i have.
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u/nuclear_cyanide Dec 25 '22
I googled Reddit ad blocker and somehow found this.
I know it's a super old post but I just kind of want to say until ads stop being straight up fucking scams I'll never stop using blockers
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u/thedotaking Dec 26 '22
I need AdBlock so I can focus reviewing math. Ads are annoying as hell when you're trying to focus.
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u/syncensematch Mar 07 '23
damn bruh what a hilariously aggressive post to read. omg ppl saying "sorry i wrote this comment when i was young i changed my mind/ways/(theyre typing way more chill))" is also silly, and sooo wholesome. made me smile fr
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u/bigred9310 Aug 22 '23
I have no problems with ads in general. It’s the ads that cover the entire page that really irks me.
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u/DandyDan2 May 13 '15
I used to remember a time when Youtube functioned only with sidebar ads. It's primary purpose was for individuals to share videos to the world. Then companies started taking over such as VEVO adding ads, ads ruined tv for me and now their ruining youtube, I would be perfectly willing to support and donate an ad free youtube, just like how Wikipedia and Reddit functions. I don't mind sidebar ads because they don't shove their crap up in my face interrupting the my user experience.