Ima be honest. I don’t run ad blockers. The way I see it, if I’m consuming content from a given source and that source invested time and/or money into said content then they deserve to be compensated for it. I am not willing to pay a subscription for every website out there, so ads are an acceptable compromise.
I run ad blockers. As a security measure. Ad companies collect insane amount of data and do a bunch of shady stuff whenever they can get away with it.
I want to support websites whenever I’m able, but the way ad companies operate just ain’t it.
If they clean up their act, maybe then I could stop using ad blockers, but it’s been decades and I don’t have high hopes.
Also using ad blockers for performance and usability reasons. For example, I used to use a bunch of Fandom wikis and couldn’t understand why people hated the UI. Then I saw how Fandom looks like without ad blockers and holy shit how can humans live like this
I do, but it’s less about the ads and more about privacy. I don’t use things like sponsor block because there’s pretty much no privacy violation there. But I do use an ad blocker because advertisers track me across websites to build up a profile.
I also don’t want to make a free account, again because of privacy concerns (both from the site and from any data breaches.
I’m happy to pay a little for content, but I haven’t yet seen a system that respects my privacy and is reasonably priced. If that was a thing, I’d totally pay.
I just use Safari and private relay for that. But yeah I can understand that particular point. I mean I’m not against ad blockers, it’s just that I don’t use them for the reasons I stated.
I’d really like some extension where I can compensate websites in exchange for not having ads. Let me load up a balance and present the option to deduct $0.0X to see read/watch past the teaser. The website wouldn’t need to track me to get paid, and the browser/extension could merely track balances and keep an anonymous accounting of transactions to send a single larger payment later (to save on fees).
At this point ad blocking is more about security and optimization than stopping ads themselves. If a site wants to run some banner ads to pay for costs, I have nothing against it, but once Javascript is involved, that just becomes a vulnerability for attack.
Also, websites that bury their content in layers of overlay and popup ads with loud audio and several unrelated videos can go fuck themselves.
Flattr was a Swedish-based microdonation subscription service, where subscribers opted in to pay a monthly patronage to help fund their favourite websites and creators. It shut down in November 2023.[1]
Flattr subscribers installed an open-source browser extension that records which websites they frequent and shares this data with Flattr.[2] Flattr processes this user data and pays out shares of the user’s subscription to each registered Flattr creator based on which websites the user consumed.[3] Flattr filtered websites by domains with a default allowlist of participating domains, but individual users could override and contribute to any website they want or withhold contributions from any website.[4]
I used it for a while, but not many websites and creators used it, so most of my money was going towards a select few.
Ima be honest. I don’t run ad blockers. The way I see it, if I’m consuming content from a given source and that source invested time and/or money into said content then they deserve to be compensated for it. I am not willing to pay a subscription for every website out there, so ads are an acceptable compromise.
deleted by creator
I run ad blockers. As a security measure. Ad companies collect insane amount of data and do a bunch of shady stuff whenever they can get away with it.
I want to support websites whenever I’m able, but the way ad companies operate just ain’t it.
If they clean up their act, maybe then I could stop using ad blockers, but it’s been decades and I don’t have high hopes.
Also using ad blockers for performance and usability reasons. For example, I used to use a bunch of Fandom wikis and couldn’t understand why people hated the UI. Then I saw how Fandom looks like without ad blockers and holy shit how can humans live like this
Bike cuck vibes
I do, but it’s less about the ads and more about privacy. I don’t use things like sponsor block because there’s pretty much no privacy violation there. But I do use an ad blocker because advertisers track me across websites to build up a profile.
I also don’t want to make a free account, again because of privacy concerns (both from the site and from any data breaches.
I’m happy to pay a little for content, but I haven’t yet seen a system that respects my privacy and is reasonably priced. If that was a thing, I’d totally pay.
I just use Safari and private relay for that. But yeah I can understand that particular point. I mean I’m not against ad blockers, it’s just that I don’t use them for the reasons I stated.
That’s totally fair.
I’d really like some extension where I can compensate websites in exchange for not having ads. Let me load up a balance and present the option to deduct $0.0X to see read/watch past the teaser. The website wouldn’t need to track me to get paid, and the browser/extension could merely track balances and keep an anonymous accounting of transactions to send a single larger payment later (to save on fees).
I’d totally use that.
You remind me of the old guy at work who called me a “FUCKING FREELOADER” because I told him about uBlock origin.
I’m never recommending it again to anyone and I have since kept it a secret that I use an ad-blocker. I guess it’s a problem for people.
Don’t let this one person stop you.
I’m still recommended it to everybody.
At this point ad blocking is more about security and optimization than stopping ads themselves. If a site wants to run some banner ads to pay for costs, I have nothing against it, but once Javascript is involved, that just becomes a vulnerability for attack.
Also, websites that bury their content in layers of overlay and popup ads with loud audio and several unrelated videos can go fuck themselves.
There have been very decent alternatives, but they never took off.
One such was Flattr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr
I used it for a while, but not many websites and creators used it, so most of my money was going towards a select few.
Good, click on them for the rest of us