I disagree with your point about ad blocking being just plain wrong, not only because the practice is legally defensible. Laws can change.

Commerce–in this case the buying and selling of clicks, but in the broader sense the mere process of buying and selling–does not ethically or legally bind anyone who is not involved in the transaction.

True, your start-ups wouldn’t be alive today without ad revenue, but think about this example:

Slavery had great economic benefits for generations in both northern and southern American colonies and states. It MADE the colonies.

The analogy sounds extreme, since slavery is seen now as a repugnant thing, hardly comparable to pop-ups or ads. But at the time it was acceptable business, and the wealthy owner-manager class it engendered went on to create the core institutions of the U.S.

Some of the more brainy people managing those institutions sought to declare some definitions about rights. In the debate, maybe someone argued that many flourishing start-ups wouldn’t be around if it hadn’t been for slavery, and they would have been perfectly correct. Anyway, it happened that the brainy declarers carried the day, non-individuals–slaves, women, anyone who didn’t own property–were tacitly excluded.

To return to the ad block point, in thorny matters of commerce, communication and technology, you should formulate cogent assumptions about individual rights. Your points make no reference to any basic rights of the user, only to rights being limited by terms of an agreement, which a user may or may not enter into.

In my understanding, if I want to block google analytics, ads, scripts, any of it, the effect on the commercial interests of another person or company is not my problem, and does not obligate me in the least. Not legally, not ethically.

By now we have probably all seen bloggers who say something like: “Your ad-blocker denies us much needed revenue.” A good message, full disclosure, in that they recognize who really has the choice.

But to browbeat the visitor is disingenuous, or at best presumptuous. It does not promote confidence. (Ask any ad house about public confidence. They don’t square off, they don’t browbeat, they sell ads, they influence lawmakers behind the scenes.)

I might even be prompted to un-block that blogger’s domain, but it is my decision, since I have not entered into any agreement the blog, or with Google. (I use “Google” to mean any ad-broker.)

It’s ultimately Google’s problem, and their vested–to say the least–interest which is in direct contact with individual (user) rights. They are the ones counting clicks, charging for it, and selling the information numerous times, for enormous profit. Not a bad thing in itself. Offering a piece of the action to Little Guys through Adsense is fine. But again, I am a user, I have made no agreement with the blog or the ad broker.

Want to be ethical? Proactive? Why not investigate and promote a way for the Little Guys to generate revenue independently?

The ability to create alternative structures is what you really have to thank the web for, not generating a few bucks from a microscopic sliver of Google’s enormous revenues.

I had deleted a paragraph talking about the issue not being “big enough” because not a lot of people do ad blocking, I took it out because I couldn’t express my feeling that –everyone– counts. It’s like a vote, it does count and it does affect the whole.

Pop-up blocking is similar to the adblocking I’m talking about but I’m perfectly fine with blocking pop-ups for three reasons:

1. They’re intrusive/interfere. Pop-ups tell my browser to do something I may not want it to, which is different than displaying ads next to the content I’m reading or looking at. Pop-ups can also crash your browser or your computer because websites can throw as many popups and popunders they want by you loading the page.
2. Pop-up blocking apps tell you there’s a pop-up you’re missing.
3. If site owners want to get around pop-up blockers they can; easily.

Ultimately I’ve made the decision it’s fine for me because of the above reasons amongst others and if anyone disagrees I’m fine with that but I don’t think it’s contradictory to block one without the other.

Also, pop-up blockers produced some of the most absurd flash and js ads to screw with. I’m sort of worried what adblockers will produce; probably some integrated windows advertising model.

I’ll give a quick summary of my opinion on the subject, but first, a discrepancy in something you claim above:

Please cite your source for claiming that commercial skipping is illegal. The ReplayTV case did not establish this. In fact, ReplayTV voluntarily removed the feature after the threat of the lawsuit, and a judge later dismissed the actual suit itself, so you’ll need some other evidence if you want to make that claim.

This is an important point since I believe commercial skipping (or even fast forwarding) is an excellent analogy to web ad blocking, while your example (hopping turn-styles on trains) is so clearly very different.

OK, with that out of the way, here’s my take on why web ad blocking is OK (in most cases):

I believe we’re hung up on the belief that there is an implied user contract between the consumer of a site (or TV channel) and the provider of that service.

The problem with that is (in both cases) the providers never explicitly state that you are *required* to view the ads in exchange for the use of their service, and the user consequently never accepts / acknowledges such an arrangement (since the details of such an arrangement were never presented to them).

Despite the fact that their revenue model - again, in both cases - does assume that most users will watch / see the ads, this “arrangement” is (1) never stated by the provider and (2) never agreed to by the consumer.

I understand your point on the revenue side of things, and that some sites do make some of their money from ad views. However, that is not my concern. Moreover, it must not be a *big enough* concern for the providers (at least at this point) either, otherwise they would at least add such language to their terms of service.

If a site that I have explicitly agreed to a TOS with (like Pownce or Twitter) were to state such requirements in said TOS, then I would certainly have to make a choice between using their service with ads and not using it at all (or unethically using it in violation of the TOS I agreed to use it under).

On the other hand, for the majority of sites that I visit without agreeing to any TOS, I’m in the same boat - having never agreed to view ads in exchange for the use of their site.

The way I look at it, if you want to be consistent with your “revenue robbery” theory, you had better go into whatever browser you’re using and disable the pop-up blocking feature that most major browser vendors have now built in to their browsers, because you’re preventing them from running their pop-up ads and stealing from their revenue stream. Let me know when / if you decide to do that, or (if not) how it’s different.