Do you use adblock? Why? Why not?

Tsuki@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 233 points –

I posted this question because I once saw a tweet that said something like:

"If you use adblock, you don't care about creator's point blank"

What is your opinion on this? Do you agree with them?

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If you, as a creator, choose to use advertising to monetize your content you don't respect the limited lifetime of the people consuming your content or their security or about the way the marketing and advertising industry is destroying our society, such as (not exhaustive, just off the top of my head right now)

  • building a surveillance economy, destroying privacy in the process
  • manipulating people into voting in certain ways that are harmful to them and others
  • protecting harmful products from scrutiny (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, products with too much sugar or fat or low quality ingredients, the car and oil industries, corporate climate change denial,...)
  • encouraging overconsumption both in terms of quantity and in terms of items or services they don't really need
  • destroying content platforms with their mantra "not advertiser friendly", leading to dystopian self-censorship on e.g. Youtube

And then there is the way internet advertising can spread malware and compromise the security of websites in general.

If you do want to monetize content in other ways there are models such as subscriptions or Patreon-style that are a lot more respectful of the user.

Absolutely. I understand things aren't for free, but if you make my experience subpar I'm blocking ads.

I wish more creators would make content available across more platforms.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot to mention the way the advertising industry has basically ignored every feedback from users for two decades or more by making ads ever more intrusive and obnoxious. They reap what they sow.