Adblock, and others like it will ruin the internet for all.
Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:38 pm
First, I'm interested in whether or not the mods here will leave this post up. I'm hoping they do, but not counting on it. Opposing ideas and opinions SHOULD be heard, however.
I would like to take just a few moments to explain a few things about web designing and websites in general. Please bear with me and don't just skip this part, Even if you already know all this, it bears repeating.
1. Websites are difficult to make.
Many websites take weeks or month to design. There is coding, testing, fixing, more testing and then deployment. All of this costs a great deal of time and money.
2. Websites cost money to host.
Webmasters are required to pay many types of fees in order to bring their content to you. This includes hosting, bandwidth if hosted on their own servers, advertising their site and more.
3. You, the end consumer, are getting information for free in most cases. You browse to a site, interact with it, enjoy the content, and then move on. Unless you are paying for a membership, you are not paying a penny out of pocket, other than your internet access.
So, now we have adblock, greasemonkey, and however many other methods there are for disabling advertisements on websites. So, what does this mean to most webmasters? A total loss of revenue.
Webmasters who own sites that do not charge a membership fee are not creating the site that you enjoy so that they can lose money. They have to pay, as I showed above, many different ways to bring this content to you. By disabling the advertisements, you are taking away the means which they use to pay the bills that allow them to keep their site up and keep bringing you that great content!
What do you think will happen when every month they end up losing money? They pay so you can enjoy it, yet they are getting NOTHING in return. Do you honestly think that website will remain active? No. Eventually it will shut down. Perhaps it won't be until their current year of hosting is up, but they will shut it down.
We, as I too am a web designer, depend on our advertisements to offset the costs of bringing you the content you enjoy. By blocking ads on our sites, you are doing nothing more than sending us a message that says you do not value our work, our effort to bring you the contents you're viewing, or you don't appreciate the content itself. Which is it?
If this continues, you will only succeed in making hundreds of thousands of websites vanish. You will also succeed in making more and more webmasters have to choose between shutting down or charging a fee for their content. Do you want to have to pay for almost every website you visit in the future? Is it worth that in the long run?
Please, if you value the websites you're visiting, disable your adblock for that site and support the webmaster. If you see an ad that interests you, click on it! I, nor anyone else, is asking you to click on irrelevant ads, that would not be fair for those who pay to advertise, but I am asking you to at least allow us the opportunity to show you an advertisement that might be relevant to you, in the hopes that you'll actually click something that does interest you and we can make 10 cents to help pay for keeping our site online.
Keep in mind, we're not all google, or ebay, or yahoo, or any giant sites like those, most of us are just hard working web designers that hope we can create something you can enjoy and appreciate, and we count on you to help us to keep our site up and running.
Adblock = anti-internet. Plain and simple. Support your websites, don't take money out of the pockets of webmasters everywhere.
I would like to take just a few moments to explain a few things about web designing and websites in general. Please bear with me and don't just skip this part, Even if you already know all this, it bears repeating.
1. Websites are difficult to make.
Many websites take weeks or month to design. There is coding, testing, fixing, more testing and then deployment. All of this costs a great deal of time and money.
2. Websites cost money to host.
Webmasters are required to pay many types of fees in order to bring their content to you. This includes hosting, bandwidth if hosted on their own servers, advertising their site and more.
3. You, the end consumer, are getting information for free in most cases. You browse to a site, interact with it, enjoy the content, and then move on. Unless you are paying for a membership, you are not paying a penny out of pocket, other than your internet access.
So, now we have adblock, greasemonkey, and however many other methods there are for disabling advertisements on websites. So, what does this mean to most webmasters? A total loss of revenue.
Webmasters who own sites that do not charge a membership fee are not creating the site that you enjoy so that they can lose money. They have to pay, as I showed above, many different ways to bring this content to you. By disabling the advertisements, you are taking away the means which they use to pay the bills that allow them to keep their site up and keep bringing you that great content!
What do you think will happen when every month they end up losing money? They pay so you can enjoy it, yet they are getting NOTHING in return. Do you honestly think that website will remain active? No. Eventually it will shut down. Perhaps it won't be until their current year of hosting is up, but they will shut it down.
We, as I too am a web designer, depend on our advertisements to offset the costs of bringing you the content you enjoy. By blocking ads on our sites, you are doing nothing more than sending us a message that says you do not value our work, our effort to bring you the contents you're viewing, or you don't appreciate the content itself. Which is it?
If this continues, you will only succeed in making hundreds of thousands of websites vanish. You will also succeed in making more and more webmasters have to choose between shutting down or charging a fee for their content. Do you want to have to pay for almost every website you visit in the future? Is it worth that in the long run?
Please, if you value the websites you're visiting, disable your adblock for that site and support the webmaster. If you see an ad that interests you, click on it! I, nor anyone else, is asking you to click on irrelevant ads, that would not be fair for those who pay to advertise, but I am asking you to at least allow us the opportunity to show you an advertisement that might be relevant to you, in the hopes that you'll actually click something that does interest you and we can make 10 cents to help pay for keeping our site online.
Keep in mind, we're not all google, or ebay, or yahoo, or any giant sites like those, most of us are just hard working web designers that hope we can create something you can enjoy and appreciate, and we count on you to help us to keep our site up and running.
Adblock = anti-internet. Plain and simple. Support your websites, don't take money out of the pockets of webmasters everywhere.