Adblock Plus now selling ads

[beschizza]

Oh dear, that quote’s actually Jacob Kastrenakes at The Verge, not me.

Try … harder.

[pjcamp]

@beschizza

This was always the gameplan. AdBlock Plus marketed itself as about blocking ads, but it’s really about providing a temporary improvement in user experience to convince readers to insert it as a middleman between them, publishers and advertisers

Oh dear. That’s exactly the quote that you cited with approval as the evidentiary basis for your conclusion. Do you not understand that when you do that, it becomes part of your opinion? You go on to say

This was always the gameplan. AdBlock Plus marketed itself as about
blocking ads, but it’s really about providing a temporary improvement in
user experience to convince readers to insert it as a middleman between
them, publishers and advertisers

So there you go. What he said is contained as part of what you said. Or was it not your fingers that typed it?

Look, the only way for AdBlock Plus to operate as you describe is for it to have a monopoly. It doesn’t. If advertisers follow the acceptable ad policy, their ads are not blocked If they don’t follow that policy, they have an option to change their mind. They also have an option to not do so and continue to be blocked. Most pay nothing to be whitelisted. Fees are charged only if the advertiser stands to gain more than 10 million incremental ad impressions per month because of the whitelisting. I.e., the Craig’s List model. 90% of currently whitelisted sites are free.

Users, similarly, have the ability to choose other ad blockers if they don’t like ABP’s policy. One of them, Crystal, has instead chosen to adopt ABP’s whitelist.

If there is no monopoly and both ends of the chain have the ability to walk away, not only is there no gatekeeper, there isn’t even any gate to keep. Furthermore, ABP has proposed handing over the acceptable ads operation to an independent entity, separate from them.

There are only two reasons I can think of for your pigheaded arrogance.

1. You’re a hypocrite. That’s certainly possible. I turned off ABP temporarily to look at Boing Boing. You’re currently violating the acceptable ad policy in several ways. Your ads are not clearly marked as advertisements (that includes the ads pretending to be block posts). You’re also violating the size requirements, and the prohibition against ads that load new ads with no change in the primary content.

So you stand to gain rather a lot here and haven’t acknowledged the apparent conflict of interest.

2. Or you actually are stupid. You didn’t bother to learn anything before leaping to a conclusion, nor did you ever consider what YOU do on YOUR site as a factor.

Frankly, at this point, I lean toward 2. Beschizza is not known as the sharpest knife in the Boing Boing drawer. and you have demonstrated this with your series of vacuous yet Olympian pronouncements.

I don’t really care, At this point, I’m done with you, and I’m going back to blocking your ads.

Have a nice day. And do try harder.

1. You’re a hypocrite

[beschizza]

I believe you’ve now spent a good 1000 words arguing with an imaginary Rob in your head, but I’m still baffled about why you want me to speak for him.