Interesting topic of discussion here. Summary: well-known internet ad firm says systems that block their ads will remove opportunities for sites that want to remain free (their claim is a lot more outrageous, but of course they’re an ad firm so what do you expect?).

Like I mentioned a couple posts below regarding MSN Messenger, the real problem comes when you annoy people. Like most people remark in the slashdot discussion, I never have had a problem with Google Ads, and I have clicked them a few times. In fact, they are the ONLY type of ad I think I have ever clicked in a website. That alarmist company can take their popups, flash animations and *gasp* ads with sounds, and hide them where the sun doesn’t shine. They are facing stiff competition from a company that knows how to create a service that other companies AND their customers appreciate, and therefore their business is in trouble.

I remember discussing the issue of annoying ads back in 2000 when my boss was involved in creating an internet company. I told him I had just seen a site where clicking on the article I wanted to see took me to an ad page from which I could go to the actual article, and how dumb that was. He replied he couldn’t see that kind of cheap trick work. I guess he believes too much in building value for his businesses (he never floated his internet startup, and it has become a successful service in its own right instead).

Firefox is now my browser (again, after many years of going with IE), I don’t have flash installed on it and I don’t plan to, when I specifically want to view a Flash site I’ll use IE but that’s all. Call it a poor man’s ad-blocker, but it’s fairly effective.

To anyone who is in the business of annoying other people: understand that most of us WANT to see your company go bankrupt, and will do everything in our hands to help that happen.