[username223]

To be precise, you don't want someone whose interests oppose your own controlling the ads. I don't use ABP, but paid "acceptable" ads make them a straightforward protection racket, beholden to advertisers who can pay. Google and the other big players can buy them off for pocket change, so they're useless.

[hahainternet]

> Google and the other big players can buy them off for pocket change, so they're useless.

Why do people post this nonsense. Their use is to block intrusive ads. They are very clear about it and every argument against this has been incredibly misleading.

Whether payment is required or not isn't even clear, because it is mentioned only as a potential.

[username223]

Like many others, I use an ad blocker at least as much to protect privacy as to reduce annoyances and malware. ABP's criteria for "acceptable" say nothing about tracking, so while they're a step in the right direction, they're mostly irrelevant to me.

The obvious conflict of interest from making payments even optional for advertisers makes them clearly untrustworthy.