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by jbigelow76 4256 days ago
Out of curiousity, if you were to go to one of your favorite sites that is currently ad supported, and the site admin presented a popup that states "We've detected you're using an ad blocker, we respectfully request not visiting our site." Would you respect the request or ignore it?
3 comments

I wouldn't respect it. Because they publish a free content, and are taking advantage of many other Internet services, which provides them with free marketing - search engines, aggregators, social sites, etc. I can download their content and then display any subset I want - that is how WWW works. If they want to prevent me doing that, they should implement a pay-wall.
I believe that you and anyone else should not have moral reservations to visit any site with an adblocker even if they request you not to do that.

>free marketing - search engines, aggregators, social sites

But, judging from this quote you don't know what you are talking about. Search engines and social network traffic is anything but free in any category that has significant competition.

"Free marketing", doesn't make the creation of the content effortless. If you found an interesting article via Google or Twitter, (ostensibly) "free" marketing channels, does that mean the article magically popped into existence or did the journalist/content creator still have to put in time and effort to create it.
In the long run, ad blockers should evolve to become undetectable by websites. I don't see any way to reliably stop that from happening, without making the internet more Orwellian.

That said, I agree that if a website respectfully asks visitors with ad blockers to leave, then leaving is the nice thing to do.

I actually have a subscription in my AdBlock Plus that also kills these "requests". It's called Adblock Warning Removal List.
Can you clarify, does that mean AdBlock Plus kills the http "request" as in your request to go the site is aborted (boo, no content), or the request that you not visit is automatically ignored (yay, free content)?
When you visit a restaurant in a country where tipping is the norm, do you leave a tip?
It's not the same thing, because leaving a tip doesn't cause any privacy or security issues. If all ads were just static images, no scripts/tracking, I wouldn't mind them.
well, there is a closer parallel than you'd think.

Every McDonald's you eat at, has the ability to track your purchases, likes, etc. You are, after all, swiping your card with your name, etc.

Not if I pay cash!