Not all website can survive on donation model. Some survive on ads. If ads are blocked like this I guess sites should disable access of firefox users.
Users can always shrug off saying find other way to make money but they are not being part of solution. Keeping ad indistry banter aside, sites should think of their own survival instead of playing pro-reader because not all users pay for premium content and giving content free trying to find other means to make money wont last forever.
-mahesh2k
Or possibly wake up to the inevitable realization that not everything someone is willing to read, look at, or listen to successfully overcomes the price/value barrier. Which is to say that not everything that's a good idea also makes for a good business. There are hundreds of incredibly interesting and "cool" things out there that have no commercial value whatsoever - and will continue to exist more because they're free than for any other reason.
In the past, many of these efforts were understood to be "labors of love" by both their creators and their consumers. But nowadays it seems almost everybody with an idea or a blog tends to see themselves as the next Edison or Hemingway. And they get resentful when people don't share that opinion. Or at least think enough of their talents to pay them to exercise their muse.
That has always been the way of things. And I doubt that's ever going to change no matter how much some people believe almost anything can be turned into an "info product" or "monetized." The average consumer is too aware of the many free "me too" and "just as good" alternatives out there to pay for anything they don't have to. So unless something on the web fills a genuine demonstrable need (as opposed to being a convenience or merely "nice to have") - or is truly
unique and
original (two things that are
clearly missing from most websites) - there is
zero chance of breaking even and making back the financial equivalent of the effort put into creating it.
I was once told: "Do it for love. Or do it for the money. But pick
one and act accordingly. Because you'll seldom get a chance to do it for both."
And I think that's especially true when it comes to websites. There's just not enough "unique value," or originality to make most of them worth paying for. So they become the equivalent of a "nice conversation" in the F2F world rather than something like the advice of a physician or similar expert.
IMMO, getting into a pissing match with ad technology will only delay the inevitable shakeout that will come for all those hopefuls that are seeking to make money off the web. Even the big players realize that - which is why any time a really good idea comes along, the savvy innovator seeks out major funding in order to make the biggest splash possible and grab market share as THE provider of whatever they're offering. Because if they don't, somebody with cash and resources who is watching and waiting on the sidelines will just come in and scoop their lunch right out from under them. Apple does that with their app developers. Come up with a genuinely revolutionary app that defines or redefines a software category and Apple will soon release their own version of it - and then boot your app right out of their walled garden. Because one of the things in your developer contract says your product can't directly compete with an Apple owned app - even if you came out with it first.
Same goes for the web. Pretty much anything that can make serious money is soon acquired by Google or some other giant. What's left gets to compete among themselves and try to make money off of ads. Such is the way of a mature market. And the web has definitely come of age since the days when two college guys in a dorm room with a PC could stand the entire industry on it's ear. Like the people who invent things like to say, if you tell your idea to ten people, and they all think it's a great idea - you're already too late.
So I don't think ads (and ad wars) will accomplish anything except to piss the public off in the long run. Because people didn't start objecting to ads on the web until the people that were doing them got intrusive and obnoxious about it. Ad blockers didn't come into existence because people were intrinsically opposed to the advertising. They were created to deal with things like pop-over ads and similar forms of obnoxiousness. So if the ad industry has a problem with the negative reaction they're getting, they have nobody to blame but themselves. The viewers didn't start this war. They did.
As far as the ad industry vs Firefox goes, this is pretty much how I'm gonna aproach with it:
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I certainly have missed those drawn out threads we've gotten into over the years. This place is the best!