Doug

I suspect something else is going on there. I made that switch years ago and haven't found a site that doesn't play nice with Firefox in that time.

prosthetics and bionics are taking leaps and bounds

Heh

In all fairness that actress showed up fairly often for playing a dead character

There were no adblocking extensions for early internet explorer so consider its share 0.

What you consider it to be is irrelevant. An extension wasn't any more the only way to block ads then than it is now. Ad blocking has absolutely been happening longer than there have been extensions to do it.

Adblocking increased at twice the rate of new internet users

Which means it's going to reach a critical mass at some point, no? What would you expect to happen then?

very obviously trolling or roleplaying

Damn am I sick of people falling on this regardless of what the disagreement is over or who it is with. Even if it were true, which it's not, you have a better picture of the situation, at least if you're willing to accept that someone legitimately disagrees with you.

I'm sorry to hear about your food

I don't know but if I did I might buy it

And I get the impression you weren't around for the first ad blockers. I recall it very differently and unless you have something to back up your end of it we're at a bit of an impasse.

I've been around far longer than you think.

You think no one has ever had to spend time and money dealing with a picked pocket or a pothole on a road they drive every day? It's not always as easy as you make it sound. Just like a lot of times you run an antivirus and it takes care of everything. Not always but sometimes your whole identity is stolen and it can be years later and you're still dealing with problems. Guess you shouldn't have gone to the gas station you always go to.

Why would sites go back to stock banner ads when they're so easily blocked. Why do you think they stopped? The same culture you're now defending pushed them out. Now it's an arms race with stronger measures on both sides all the time.

You lose nothing by blocking ads today. At some point the bill comes due and either you can't block them so easily or you lose access to the content you want to see. You're pulling pebbles away from a levee and telling everyone it's safe because nothing has happened.

Then it's not every ad. That's the whole thing I've been trying to establish to plenty of people this whole time.

Another argument against not my position.

If someone who does something for a living does that thing for you, do you pay them or scamper off beforehand? Why?

Great. I'm glad you think it's inconsequential. I think people being able to pay their bills is very consequential, so I raise my concerns where I see a problem.

Though you'd think inconsequential would go along with how you don't enjoy ads. Curious, no?

If donating weren't an option and there was, occasionally, an easily missed ad somewhere off to the side, what then?

Nice enough to be considerate of the low level employees who only have jobs because the company they work for has ads on their site.

There's absolutely something wrong with taking steps to get everything for free as it's going to come at the expense of someone. Companies and the rich are unwilling to absorb any costs when they can get away without, and they usually can.

Who are you willing to pass the cost of your consumption on to?

That's not at all the same situation. To even get close to similar we'd need to assume that we're getting either the console or the games for free. Even then it's still quite a road to even imperfect analogy.

In the current situation we buy every piece of that puzzle and are still locked out of modifications through obfuscation, proprietary knowledge, and security measures. So that makes the analogy even harder to sell.

It's more like ordering a package and being upset about the company's name appearing on the box/label/receipt.