My Computer vs Your Ads

A lot of the free content on the Internet is paid for by advertising. Most of us understand this and accept some advertising in exchange for access to free services.

I accept some advertising in exchange for access to free services. I do not accept advertising that I find intrusive, annoying, offensive or overwhelming. I can do this because the web pages I see are being displayed in a program I choose, configured in a way I prefer, with the content being transferred over a service I pay for on machines I purchased.

This makes some people, particularly those who are relying on advertising as a source of income, very angry. Those people want me to accept advertising as a cost of doing business and they do not want me to have the ability to turn their advertisements off.

To those people, I say: Phbttt!

"Phbttt"

Okay, I don't usually start out with that, but well, you know some of them get really obnoxious about it and seem to be missing the absolutely essential point that my computer should do what I want, not what someone else wants.

If getting me to view advertising is really that important to you, then offer me terms expressly to do that. I'm happy to trade my time and effort and focus for money. I do it every day and someone pays me in exchange. I'd happily make similar deals with advertisers. I'll even instruct my computer to show me your advertising at no cost to you, so long as you show me things I might be interested in and so long as you don't offend me.

The moment, the very second, I see an advertising for a bogus anti-virus program or mail order bride is the moment I end that partnership.

I appreciate the ease of blocking advertising that Adblock Plus gives me. Annoying ads are blocked by default and I can block any that dodge the block which I still find offensive.

Further, I block in my DNS server by using a hosts file described in various places.