I have been running an adblocker on my web browser since before we moved to The States, so it’s been well over 7 years.
The reason is because I don’t feel like I am your typical web user. I visit personal websites far more than commercial sites and as such never felt that I was cheating anyone out of money. The main reason I was using it was to block scripts from running and thus slowing down anyones site, whether they were running ads or not did not matter, if your website wanted to run scripts in my browser, No. Just. No.
So for the past 8ish years, I have been, apparently, doing the web a great harm. I have been taking free content and not paying for by putting up with obnoxious ads (All my browsers run adblockers so I had no idea how bad it had got)….. I had no idea about this until a small company gave their device owners the ability to block ads…. Once they turned that feature on, it was like the universe imploded.
Yes, sometime in the past month Apple allowed iOS devices to block ads.
There has been many many articles written about said implosion of the Interwebs and how we are all selfishly putting great web content to the sword by blocking all sorts of ads and crap. So many words, I don’t need to add to the noise.
But, thanks to Apple, this popped up on my browser last week.
Wow, that’s not passive aggressive, that’s just aggressive!
The thing is, I got to the page with this on it by Googling for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics – another blog sometime) on WinCE (that’s enough out of you Gary… hope you spilt something on your shirt from that one!).
So yeah, ‘WinCE SVG’ took me to a 12 year old forum post and that little gem was waiting for me and my adblocked Chrome browser.
All this time, I have never had something like this pop up. Apple turns it on and now it’s all over the web.
The ultimate version? There is a German magazine (that I had never heard of, so had never visited their site) blocks their entire site if you are running an adblocker.
So there is a lot to discuss here. Have I been a boy all these years? Have I put great web content at risk by blocking revenu all these years? Have I personally been responsible for someone losing their job because I haven’t seen an ad for 8ish years? Are the ad companies to blame for making their ads more and more intrusive over the years? Are the companies themselves to blame for allowing more and more annoying ads on their sites so they can try and raise as much money as they can from each visitor?
Oddly enough I am not taking any of that away from this lesson.
Rather, I am stuck by this one thing. None of this was an issue till Apple flicked the switch.
Huh. Who knew a single company could raise such a ruckus.
(Now where oh where is my sarcasm font?)
