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Another funny thing, as I was talking about the Penis Enhancement, Homer Simpson said "The internet was useful when I wanted to learn about Wang Enhancement." I found that to be funny and ironic.

I don't mean to sound like a stupid kid who think's he knows what hes talking about or immature or anything, it's just that I guess I don't understand the importance of earning money yet or something.

Because I don't see how my blocking 5 popups every day for a year, will cause Jeff a major loss in revenue.

Oh well, I'm glad I learned something from this, and I hope I didn't sound like a pushy little kid. Thanks to all those who contributed, and tried to teach me something.

I was going to ignore this thread, because if you are going to use a pop up blocker, no one here will convince you otherwise, but that last analogy is just wrong. First of all, Jeff, unlike Walmart, did not provide a coupon to the site or store (for example, a month of no ads). Even if the coupon did not come from walmart, they get reimbursed by the manufacturer that did. Jeff does not get reimbursed from the popup blocker makers.

Second, it doesn't matter what the reason you bought the software for is, it matters what you are using it for. For example, (granted, it is an extreme example) if I buy a gun to go hunting, an acceptable reason (without getting into a debate on the morality of hunting), that does not mean that I can use the gun to rob a bank.

Yeah, well I didn't know they got reimbursed, ignore my teenage stupidity. ;)

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Kyle Fobe said:

So if I go into Wal-Mart using a coupon provided by the company that's stealing there profits? But it's not my fault, it's the company's for offering the coupon.

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but the sites arent offering ad blockers. so its not the sites fault.

Regardless of the media format, everything costs something. That's just the way the world works. In my case, it's not just a hobby, it's what I do for a living. If it offends you that I can make a living off of the Web sites I operate, that's your business. Don't be a hater just because I get to do something I enjoy.

I offer a product with the intention of getting paid for it. In this case, I intend to be compensated in one of two ways, either by premium subscriptions (club memberships) or by the ads that appear on the site. I don't think either one is asking for much in the grand scheme of things. I could just as easily go back to working for an insurance company and bank ridiculous money to buy crap that temporarily fills the void of having a meaningless job. Then I could just blow off my sites.

However, I choose to do this instead, even if it means an 80% pay cut, because it makes me happy. That's why I feel so strongly about it. If you can't suffer through a couple of ads so I can generate a couple of dimes, honestly, I don't want you as a "customer."

Take a hard look at the Internet and compare it to five years ago. Any subject you could think of, there were dozens, if not hundreds of sites. There were small businesses with online stores, online magazines run by a couple of people... so many good niche sites. Many of them are gone now, because there was no incentive, financial or otherwise, to continue them. Even in the space of coaster sites, the space has drastically thinned out. (Then you've got people thinking they're actually going to get $10k for rollercoaster.com.)

So you can give the small business a reason to continue, or you can keep living with this fantasy that all of the great niche sites will be around forever while you deny them of revenue. Good luck finding the coaster section on CNN.com.

*applause*. Very well said, Jeff. And that's why I continue to let the ads load completely before closing them and moving on (until my income picks up and I can afford the club membership. I know it's only $20, but that's how tight my budget is right now!)

Perhaps I understand this a little better because I run a site of my own which is also ad-based. Not dedicated to roller coasters or otherwise amusements, although I *do* have personal pics of a couple parks I've been too (primarily Cedar Point, Six Flags Great Adventure, and a couple from Dorney Park)

Tim, long-time reader; brand-new-registered-user

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Lord Gonchar said:
I don't understand the use of any ad blocker. What's the point really? I've been online for almost 8 years - never used one. In time your mind simply begins to automatically skip over any banner (or box) ad. They're everywhere and they do no harm. Blocking an ad doesn't put something else in the screenspace normally occupied by the ad. Now instead of a silly graphic that you are allowed to totally ignore in that spot that helps a webmaster keep his or her site alive, you have empty space that makes it harder for that webmaster to keep things going. The difference to you - really nothing at all expect mabye the time to load the small ad graphic (1 or 2 seconds at most).

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The one thing that I would have to say is that in the past 10 years, online advertising, be it banner ads or popups, have increased a lot. It gets a little aggrevating at times, but the one thing that I hate more than anything is when I used to use AOL (long gone, but was still a problem) and popups would still open outside of AOL, in Internet Explorer. I dont know how that happens, because ads used to pop up inside of the AOL program/browser, but man, that was probably the only "truly" aggrevating thing about ads to me. So, does anybody know if that is a user-side problem or the intentions of scripts on the server?

Those "popups" were slightly different. Those were not based on any website or browser, or even spyware. Windows XP had a private messaging service built in to the OS where you could send a text message to another IP (NT actually had it as well, but most home users never used NT). The problem was, you had to know the IP, and know that it was valid. Spammers knew the range of dynamic IP addresses that AOL used, and would just periodically send messages through that system to the AOL IPs. I used to get the popups all the time at home during breaks (my family used AOL) but didn't get them at Villanova on the same laptop - the spammers didn't know the IP my computer uses at Villanova since I didn't connect through AOL. Those "popups" were just evil, and thus AOL responded by plugging the hole so that NO ONE could send messages through that - legitimate or otherwise. No negative repercussions since most home users didn't use it, and the people who needed to use it weren't connected through AOL.

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Jeff said:

(Then you've got people thinking they're actually going to get $10k for rollercoaster.com.)

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Ha! Classic.

Actually the last auction for it just ended on the 11th and was started at $25,000 - needless to say there were no bids.

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Kyle said:
So you support Pop-ups that come up to enlarge your penis, and other sexually suggestive ones that show up on sites that kids could accidently (or purposely) surf to everyday? I know that this doesn't happen on Jeff's site, but it does happen on others.

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Yeah, but what site geared towards kids young enough for those ads to be "inappropriate" shows those ads? As long as you're generally monitoring your child's internet use, that's pretty much a non-issue.

I've still yet to see someone really give a solid answer explaining what great evil website ads possess that makes everyone have to block them. As long as your surfing is age appropriate and you visit credible sites that don't offer non-content as an excuse to blast users with multiple pop-up's that never seem to end just to turn a buck, it shouldn't change your internet experience beyond a few extra mouse clicks.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but no one seems to really explain their reasons for blocking ads, they just do.

Lord Gonchar, its just built into the browser I use, and I mainly use Firefox because the page loading seems to be faster, especially comparing it to IE when you hit the backward or forward button. There, I gave an explanation (not that anyone really cares)

$25,000 for a domain name. Hmmm... I think I should go and register every domain that I can think of with the words "Hillary" and "2008", if I get 'em all, maybe I can make some money in a couple of years :)

And thank you dannerman, I think that there is some sort of thing with MSN Messenger too, because my firewall blocks its access atempts and rates it as "high risk". *** Edited 12/13/2004 7:01:09 AM UTC by RamblinWreck***

Well, see that falls into the category of "included features". There is the option of turning it off totally or specifying which sites to allow it on. I believe the default has it on for all sites.

That's a perfect example of "Firefox says I should, so I do"

I still maintain, "But Why?"

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Kyle Fobe said:

Because I don't see how my blocking 5 popups every day for a year, will cause Jeff a major loss in revenue.

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You are not just blocking 5 popups a day. How many times a day do you click on a message link? How many times do you hit refresh to see if there are new posts? How many times do you click on a news item?

Add those up and multiply by the number of banner ads (I don't know how many there are because I pay the $20.) then multiply that number by 365 and that is how many different times you are blocking REVENUE to this site.

I got an idea for you. Why don't you just not buy two candy bars a week (75cents each) for 14 weeks? You then can take that money to your local grocery store and have them make a money order and send it to Jeff. Everyone makes it sound like $20 is a lot of money...it isn't as long as you do a little financial planning/budgeting.

You need to learn how to budget...If I hadn't learned how to budget money as a kid (Mommy and Daddy didn't give me everything...) I wouldn't be where I am today - having a marvelous house on 2+ acres, two cars - and also have a plan to have it all paid off in less than 10 years.

Lord Goncahr, I don't really know how to change the settings, I'll try to figure it out.

I'm not telling you what to do. That's not my intention at all.

If you still prefer to block pop-ups or ads or whatever, that's your choice.

I'm just wondering at this point why people block the ads.

Yea, and how many people block the banner ads, because I don't know how to do that (mainly because I don't care about the banner ads)

I block pop-up ads because I don't like clutter in my life. I mean I am a neat freak at my house, (you won't find my room ever messy) and at school (locker is the same way) So my desktop I choose to be the same way.

I do understand how to budget things, my point is what if I don't have an income, its hard to budget nothing.

Jeff, I am not angry at you or think it's unfair that you do this for a living, I mean if you have a way to have a job that you enjoy doing and get money from it, more power to you. I think it's a great idea actually.

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Jeff said:
Don't be a hater...

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:)

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Kyle Fobe said:
I block pop-up ads because I don't like clutter in my life...So my desktop I choose to be the same way.

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Since when do popups affect your desktop? A popup is simply another browser window that opens up to show some advertisement. Do you really surf the net with ONLY one window... ever? Especially when I'm reading forums, I generally have 5 or 6 browser windows open at once - even on dialup!

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Kyle Fobe said:
...if I don't have an income, its hard to budget nothing.

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If you have "no income", it's impossible to know how to budget at all, because that means that someone ELSE pays for everything and you're not learning respect for money (and odds are you're lying - even my 10-year-old sister has an income even though she doesn't have a "job"). Christmas money? Birthday money? Lunch money? Change found on the street? Allowance? I don't care how old you are, either. When I was growing up, I didn't get anything handed to me either except for not-fastfood-food and a roof. I had to save and budget birthday money, Christmas money, and lunch money to buy things like clothes and school supplies (and an occasional game/toy). I was in heaven when I turned 14 and could work at my local amusement park in the summer for "real money." Oh, and for the record, I'm only 22 so this wasn't years and years ago, either. It was during the "prosperous 90s". We weren't poor - my parents were just teaching me the value of money so I wasn't spoiled or stuck up. Budgeting isn't some esoteric art form to channel thousands of dollars from a job that happens to churn out extra money, and isn't constrained to money at all. Budgeting is taking what you have, and using it to it's full potential. It results in less waste, which leads to more money in the long run because you're not wasting money. *** Edited 12/14/2004 12:26:02 AM UTC by dannerman***

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"But Why?"

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I'll divide things into two classes: pop-ups, and everything else. Pop-ups are annoying because they never go away on their own. Interstitials and overlay ads do.

There exists obscure theory about user distraction being related to the square of the distance to move a mouse to perform some action, yadda yadda yadda. I'll spare you the HCI underpinnings, but the short answer is that popups (===anything that creates a new, persistent window) require disproportionally more user attention to dispatch.

Which is, of course, why they generate more revenue.

My normal browsing habits: I'm happy to play in-frame ads (including interstitials/overlays) because they resolve themselvers. Popups/unders/what-have-you are generally blocked. I do pay for content from several sources: cbuzz, zagat, and consumerreports are representative.

If I might be of help McAfee Privacy Service is a great pop-up blocker along with AOL Toolbar put together, now if it was blocking something there should be an option to allow that site through, and let aol take care of pop-ups. The software you use is for massive pop-up, which is strong, considerint the average user doesn't get that much, although I'm not considered the average user ;) These are some suggestions, the AOL toolbar installs into IE so you don't really have to take care of anything. Again, Its only a suggestion! :)