... At the moment there are no reliable way of detecting adblocking software (and really, there never will be) ...
-Dirhael
Kind of true and kind of not... It boils down to it all being a game of cat and mouse.
There are ways to defeat adblockers. Especially ones written in script that expose code (trivial at that point).
Just for example with image ads - You request a page - I prioritize how I want to serve it to you - ads first... (this is on a 1 page visit)
You get some content like layout and the like, but no 'real' content until I see that you've asked to have the ad downloaded. When I see there's no request for it, I dump you and serve up a message saying that ads pay for the content of the site. No ads. No site.
Ok - that briefly describes special web server system that's much more than just your average site. However, that kind of thing - the streaming of content - has been done in the past and there's no reason why it can't be done again. But most people can't afford to create that kind of technology as there's a significant amount that you need to know to do it. Knowing how to write a PHP script isn't going to cut it at that level. However, on a more than 1 page visit, this all becomes very easy to do even in script.
Now, you could simply download the content, then display black shapes over the ads to cover them. The system above would think that you're seeing ads. For their CPM ads, they'd still get paid. But they'd never make a dime off of CPC. Soon, the CPM advertisers would drop in favor of CPC. Guess what. The site would never make any money then. They'd drop like flies and your favorite sites would slowly disappear as adblocker software gained popularity.
Be careful what you wish for. If you don't want ads, then you may end up throwing the baby out with the bath water.
But really, getting around ad blockers isn't that hard to do. There are a trillion tricks you can do. But it will always be a game of cat and mouse.
Ok - here's another off the top of my head...
You request a page. I've got ads on it. Instead of directly serving the ad to you, I subsitute in all my own URLs and serve the content from there. Now you can't tell whether or not it's from an ad server. When you click on one of the ads, I simply redirect to the URL from the real ad.
I'm sure others can come up with more cat & mouse games for defeating adblockers.
As for my sites - I don't have any ads on them at all. None. I might change in the future, but I don't need to serve ads. (I really should though as I've got a lot of highly targetted traffic that would be valuable.)
For the whole ad blocking thing, I'm going to have to side with the 'let the ads display' side. I think I've got some pretty good reasons for it - content - GOOD content is expensive to produce. Somebody needs to get paid for that.
For me just to quickly look at a short 400 word article and make minor corrections costs $16.00 to start. That's just for a quick proof & edit and only takes me a few minutes. Now, what will it cost to write and create the content for a major web site? A lot. Graphic designers cost money. Flash animators cost money. Programmers cost money.
When you block their source of income, you're effectively freeloading in a
purposefully mischevious way.
Now, some people give out content for free. That's fine and that's their choice. I give a lot of things away for free because I can. Those things I do give away don't contribute to my income. Others give things away for 'free with ads'. I don't think that it's necessarily always honest to take that source of income away.
Then again, there are a lot of sites that I wouldn't have a problem stealing their income source away from them. Warez sites. MFA sites. etc. They're just bottom feeders and I have less than zero respect for them.
I would not want to block ads at a site like
http://www.codeproject.com though. I love that site and want it to prosper. It's a truly fantastic site that I get a lot of value from. For me to take away ads there not only hurts them, but hurts me as well.
Well, I suppose I've blathered enough.