[dymk]

Who says it’s unacceptable? The incredibly tiny minority of readers coming from HN?

[brandmeyer]

I used to think this was a tiny minority, too. But a key takeway from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-n... was this statistic: "26% of Internet users are now blocking ads." Its a minority, but its not tiny.

[dymk]

Very, very probably only to declutter their screen. Does the survey collect intent about why they install it?

I doubt anywhere near 26% block ads because of tracking. I doubt even 1% if users even understand what tracking means.

[Skunkleton]

I doubt that even 1% of internet users understand the extent of the PII that is collected. I would guess if the general public understood how all this worked, there would be many more people who objected to the practice.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Many of them probably also didn't set the ad blocker up themselves - they have tech-savvy relatives handle their computer stuff, and those tech-savvy relatives have realized that fewer ads means fewer malicious social engineering ads means less malware to remove during the next visit.

[dingo_bat]

It's only my personal opinion, but I don't care at all about tracking. They can track me all they like. I block ads because they make my browsing slow, cause my CPU to turbo boost, interrupt my browsing, clutter the web pages excessively. I suspect a huge majority of that 26% is similar to me in this.

[DangitBobby]

Where do you get the impression that it's a minority?

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/most-americans...