Lots of new clicks today...
I submitted that firefox extensions post to digg on a whim, and it ended up getting dugg to the front page. It was interesting to read your comments, especially the number touting the benefits of Adblock.
For those who don't know, Adblock is an extension which removes ads from pages as they are displayed in firefox. For many sites, the result is a streamlined, reduced-clutter version of the original. Like fast-forwarding through commericals, I can understand the appeal of this (although net ads are far less intrusive than their TV counterparts). However, it defeats the rather elegant ad-based business model employed by much of the web, which could have some pretty far-reaching consequences.
We've already seen some pretty lame attempts by the capitalists powers that be to stop the practice of skipping commercials, the end result being an across the board lack of a 30-second fast forward button. No dvr manufacturer includes this feature, in large part due to pressure from advertisers and tv networks. The reasoning is simple - tv is provided free to you because ad revenue pays the producers of the content. This reasoning works wonderfully for broadcast tv, everyone benefits - the people get free tv (or, another way of looking at it is that you "pay" for your tv with the time you spend watching ads), the advertisers shill their wares, and the broadcasters make money for their effort.
Now, with cable tv, the end user
pays for the content once, on their monthly cable bill. They then "pay" for the content with the time spent watching the ads. To me, this is double-charging.
I understand the cable company's assertion that the end user pays for the transmission service, not the content. This is similar to an ISP charging for a net connection, regardless of the type or amount of content viewed. However, unlike an ISP fee, a cable fee varies based on not only the volume of content, but also the quality of that content (HBO, Showtime, etc).
This is not a transmission fee, it is effectively a content fee. Money from our monthly cable bills is paid directly to the content producers, even if the amount of money is small. Thus, watching, or skipping, commercials within content that has been paid for, is, in my opinion, ethical. If the advertisers don't want you to skip their commericals, they should perhaps pick up the fee for the cable to be delivered (as has always been the case with OTA broadcasts).
By providing the service, the operators could then insist that, unless the subscriber was willing to pay an additional price, they could not (or should not) refuse to uphold their end of the bargain by skipping commercials.
The internet is different. Unlike cable and satellite, there is no relationship between the isp and the content provider. Authors put stuff out their, supplemented with their own ads, and isp's provide access to the network that it exists on. If content providers did not include ads, they would not make money, period.
If you visit a site, no matter how often, you get whatever content you access free of charge (in most cases). In order for the content provider to continue providing quality content, they need an incentive to work. This incentive comes in the form of money paid for ads displayed on the site, proportinal to the amount of traffic the site receives. If the ads are not displayed, the incentive vanishes.
When the incentive vanishes, the site will either: a)institute a system of charging the end user for content, b)reduce the amount of or quality of the content they post (often increasing the number of ads they include as well), or c)go out of business.
I understand, ads can be obnoxious. I used to read IGN constantly, but the ads got so bad that I stopped. I found better, less ad-riddled sites. They have ads too, just not as many and they're not as annoying about it. So I have taken the tiny piece of incentive I control (my eyes and what they see) away from IGN and given it to sites that I enjoy, sites I support, even if just through a glance.
I don't use Adblock because:
1. The sites I visit are of high quality, and the people behind them deserve to benefit from the ad traffic I generate.
2. Even the sites I visit peripherally, through links (cnn, abcnews, whatever), have provided a service that I obviously find useful. I would like that to continue, so they get my ad impressions and I get free content.
I'm not saying that Adblock is immoral, just that, like mp3's or any of the other unexpected ethical debates that the internet has spawned, it is a topic that deserves careful consideration by each user.
I've obviously made my decision, and now you know why.
