Seems like the time for each of us to create a policy re: websites that try to coerce us into turning off the ad blocker. Personally, I strongly dislike such attempts to manipulate me, when a site makes demands of this kind, accordingly my policy is just going elsewhere.
There's no site I have so great a need to visit that I will put up with it. I can't think of instances where the content was unavailable elsewhere, or if not available I couldn't live without it.
The sites insisting that I subject myself to their ad abuse are likely to find their viewership evaporate. I can't see how how those enterprises will survive, considering that the internet will very likely always provide alternatives that visitors find more acceptable.
I think it's totally fair game to coerce me into turning off my ad blocker. That's how they monetize. That's how I'm supposed to "pay" for the content.
I choose to use a blocker because I don't like ads. But if someone wants say "hey, the deal is ads or nothing" I think it's a pretty fair bargain.
Currently the ad blockers (my self included) are free loading off the system. The internet only works because most people are willing to suck it up and watch the ads in my stead.
Of course it's a valid choice to go along with turning off ad blockers, that's always up to the individual. It might well be better, and less hazardous, to pay for content than be subject to ads.
This issue comes up re: science journals and whether it's appropriate to keep articles behind steep paywalls. The trend increasingly favors "open access" rather than having such important content restricted and inaccessible to the community at large.
It's a different thing when talking about buying material items online, in that case it's clear what one is getting for the money. By comparison is the content of most websites really worth paying for? Mostly I'd say the answer is "no", and that's the reason I would rarely choose to pay for content.
Ads are a way sites try to extract payments from sellers or third parties, but ultimately it's paid by site visitors one way or another. Since I choose not to pay directly because the marginal entertainment value isn't worth it to me, why would I go along with paying indirectly?
I think it's perfectly legitimate to use an ad blocker. No one is obligated to put up with ads just because sites want to make money. If sites refuse to serve content because of ad blocking, the visitor's loss is negligible vs. sites taking substantial risk of losing viewers and jeopardizing site viability altogether.
Sites have choices too. They can "clean up their act", police the ads they run, demand the ad servers/agencies eliminate ad-malware and intrusive tracking, etc. Choosing to monetize subscriptions, well, good luck with that, competition is ferocious, and subscribers probably sparse. Perhaps the internet was not really built to be "monetized" by the kind of ads we're talking about.
Actually I don't. According to Firefox help, "private" browsing avoids saving history of pages visited, searches, cookies, etc. It also activates tracking protection, but otherwise doesn't stop ads which is the point of using an ad blocker.
IOW since I'm the only user of this device, there's not much reason to use private windows. I do have tracking protection set "on" and use ad blocking in order to make browsing the wide open internet tolerable and a bit safer.
There's no site I have so great a need to visit that I will put up with it. I can't think of instances where the content was unavailable elsewhere, or if not available I couldn't live without it.
The sites insisting that I subject myself to their ad abuse are likely to find their viewership evaporate. I can't see how how those enterprises will survive, considering that the internet will very likely always provide alternatives that visitors find more acceptable.