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While browsing the WinExtra forums today, I was appalled to learn of a movement to encourage webmasters to block users of the Firefox browser from viewing their sites, instead redirecting them to a message informing them that they are considered thieves. I'm not going to dignify the site hosting the message with a link to help their search engine rankings, but the gist of it is this. Firefox allows users to install a plugin, Adblock Plus, which, as one might have guessed, blocks the display of ads on web sites. Since the Adblock plugin does not provide a way for webmasters to block its users, and since Mozilla apparently endorses use of the plugin by featuring it as one of the top Firefox plugins in terms of popularity, this group of people's solution is to block all Firefox users from viewing their sites. Their argument is that they have a right to display ads on their sites in return for providing free content, and that by viewing the content while blocking the ads, a user of the Adblock plugin, and by their logic, any user of the Firefox browser, period, is effectively stealing their content.
What a load of male bovine excrement. I'm with these guys.
Obviously, I am a webmaster. And I do display a few ads here, via Google Adsense. And, I am a user of the Firefox browser and the plugin in question, and I have no problem with visitors to this site using it as well. You see, here's the thing. The display of those ads is of no benefit to me unless you actually click them. If anybody does know of an ad network that still actually pays for displays/impressions rather than just clicks, please tell me, because I am signing up. The reason such ad networks don't exist anymore is because those same types of people, those webmasters who would employ this new Firefox-blocking scheme, used to have another racket going. They would bombard their visitors with so many ads that their content was completely lost, all to maximize their earnings by getting as many ad displays from one visitor as they possibly could. The advertisers knew this was abusive toward the viewer - their potential customer - and it was costing them a lot of money with very little return. After all, who is going to actually click through and do business with these advertisers after being assaulted like that?
So back to my point. Internet advertisers these days only pay for action. Viewers who actually click through to the advertiser's site, and maybe a bit more for those that result in a sale. Those of us who use Adblock, or any of the ad blocking software out there for other browsers (You hear that, people? Internet Explorer users can block ads, too! Better just block everyone from viewing your sites, huh?), are not people who are going to click on an ad, even if we are forced to view it. You can't force us to click it... that is highly frowned upon by all of the ad networks I am aware of. So what good does it do you to force us to view it? If in order to view your site, I'm forced to view an ad, in an inferior browser no less, I'm definitely not going to click it, and I likely won't ever come back to your site again. I wonder how your advertisers would feel about that, knowing that you are once again abusing your visitors and driving your site traffic down... gee, they just might decide to advertise somewhere else.
Yes, I display Google ads here. I do my best to keep them subtle and unobtrusive. And if you choose to block them, I have no problem with that, as it would do me no good to have you see them - you're not going to click them anyway. I don't ask anyone to read them and I don't ask anyone to click on them, but if you do I am appreciative and grateful. The day that I require each and every one of my visitors to make a contribution to my ad revenue is the day that I might as well drop the ads and switch to a paid subscription model. Let the ones who are willing to view and click the ads support the ones who aren't. That's the whole basis of the ad-supported content model.
And don't worry, if you're a Firefox user and you find yourself blocked from one of these sites in the future, there's an easy workaround.
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