Why Using an Ad Blocker Can be a Bad Idea
Ad Blocking is getting to be a common sport on the internet. Now
there are some legitimate uses for an ad blocker. Some ad
companies resort to downright harassment when serving their ads
using annoying pop ups, flying ads, floating ads and the like.
Blocking these types of ads are not a problem. Using an ad
blocker though to block all ads on a site including text ads,
banner ads, etc is wrong and here's why.
Free Information makes the Internet Valuable.
Do you like getting free news from major news sources? How about
the latest weather for free? Do you like being able to use a
search engine to find information on a topic that interests you?
How do you think the companies that run these services can
afford to give this information away for free? It's because they
charge advertisers who display advertisements on pages where
this free information is found.
How useful would the Internet be if it was Ad
Free?
Without ads, there would be much less commercial business
transacted online. Would it eliminate it completely? No. But
there would be much less of it. Now, some people think that
would be a good thing but stop to think about it. If you take
away all free news sources like CNN, NY Times, and all major
news sources, then take away all Travel sites, then cut the
number of free information websites on almost any topic by 95%
and what kind of internet are we left with?
Would everything be a disaster on the Internet without
ads?
Having email being spam free would be nice but blocking spam is
a lot less precise than using an ad blocker to eliminate all
kinds of ads. If we had no pop ups to worry about the Internet
would be nicer, but most people already get this with the latest
browsers.
I am all in favor of eliminating intrusive advertising methods
like pop ups and spyware but I think the whole idea of blocking
all ads is short sighted. Tools certainly exist to block almost
all forms of advertising online. I would urge you though to
think twice before you activate ad blocking on all forms of
advertising.
Non intrusive, in-context advertising can actually help
you
I can't count the number of times I've been on a web page that
didn't have exactly what I was looking for but an ad on that
site did. Same thing when searching Google. Sometimes the
listings are not relevant to the kind of information I'm after
but the ads on the side or the top are.
Is all advertising evil? Of course not. Many forms of
advertising can actually be helpful. Next time you're thinking
about blocking that text or banner ad, think twice. You may need
access to an advertiser in the future. What's the harm in that?