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Increasing the number of users will inevitably hurt the internet

Derek Bailey's Avatar

Derek Bailey

28 Aug, 2013 07:04 PM

I find it somewhat paradoxical that Adblock wants to drastically increase its number of users. The more users means less ads. Less ad clicks on websites mean less revenue. Less revenue for websites mean they will come up with new ways to raise revenue (paywalls, subscription services, lower quality content...). Currently, this isn't that big of an issue, since the number of users is relatively small (even if it is 100s of millions) . But if half of all internet users never see an ad again, it will drastically decrease the profitability of web-based commerce. And the biggest websites on the web (google, facebook, twitter, youtube, etc...) will find new ways to "advertise", if not banner ads, some other medium.

  1. 1 Posted by X on 28 Aug, 2013 08:14 PM

    X's Avatar

    I agree with this statement. AdBlock is an extremely well-meaning program that aims to improve internet browsing experience, but, to me, either it's much better thought out than it seems or focused blindly on a short-term (and admirable) goal. I appreciate what is being done, but I feel an obligation to disable this on my own device. I would rather pay for internet content with a few annoying banners than with my credit card.

  2. 2 Posted by Andrew on 29 Aug, 2013 02:26 AM

    Andrew's Avatar

    I totally agree, and they seem to be completely ignoring any and all of the discussions opened on this topic, including the one I wrote yesterday which looks like it might as well have been closed by an automated bot response.

  3. 3 Posted by nathan on 29 Aug, 2013 06:41 PM

    nathan's Avatar

    Derek, X and Andrew,

    Hi! We're definitely humans (not bots). And we understand what you're saying. We just don't agree that AdBlock gaining users is going to hurt the web.

    I've just written out some of our thoughts in a couple of articles:

    http://adblock.tenderapp.com/kb/about-the-project/isnt-adblock-dest...
    http://adblock.tenderapp.com/kb/about-the-project/wont-adblocks-pop...

    If we are wrong, time will tell. But we're going to try to bring AdBlock to more people because we think it's a good thing.

    In the meantime, I'm not sure that debating the issues on our support forum is the best way for us to spend our time. This site is here for users experiencing bugs or other issues, and we need to focus our energy on solving their problems and improving AdBlock.

    Thanks for your feedback, and we do wish you well.

  4. nathan closed this discussion on 29 Aug, 2013 06:41 PM.

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