sigh, nothing wrong with ad blockers and I've got nothing against them.
But, if you want to support the websites you use you should think about what you are doing. What is frustrating here is the lack of respect for people who create a lot of the web you use, and then you don't pay them. Ads are a way to fund websites, not all of them, but a lot.
My attention is mine. It is part of me, a part of my mind, my consciousness. There is not a single person on this earth that is entitled to it. It is not a currency they can pay their bills with. It is not something that they have any assumed right to.
So it's funny to see you talk about respect. Advertising's inherent property is its complete lack of respect for me, my choices and my attention. They don't ask if I want to see this crap, they just show it to me. They insert their noise into my mind without my consent. I block them and they double down on it by finding ways to get past my blocker. And to you this mind rape is okay just because it funds your site?
Those websites are creating something for you, and you are complaining that they are trying to get paid for their work? Don't browse websites with ads then.
Attention is not something you actively control, its a very complex issue between your subconscious and conscious. That is a much bigger discussion.
> you are complaining that they are trying to get paid for their work
I got nothing against you or anyone else getting paid. I'm complaining about the general lack of respect. People act as if they own my attention and can sell it off to the highest bidder. Blockers are merely self defense against these hostile websites.
> Attention is not something you actively control
It's still mine and nobody has any business selling it off for money. If they try, I'll stop them.
I don't have any problems interacting with people on the street, especially when they ask for help. In my experience they are always polite and respectful too. Unlike advertisers.
I'm in favor for websites being paid what they ask for.
The problem with ads is that people don't want to pay with their attention and personal data.
Another problem with ads is that website owners can not directly set a price, and they cannot set the price above a certain threshold where ads simply don't work anymore. It doesn't scale.
They sell by manipulating people into buying. Seriously stop being naive. Coca Cola doesn't need to raise awareness of its product, it's in every fridge ever. The ads are not there to inform people that Coca Cola exists, they're there to manipulate people into buying Coca Cola.
Are you so easily convinced you believe whatever political opinion Fox News is selling?
The dictionary says that to manipulate is to 'control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously.' If you want to tack on 'when they're not selling products" for your personal use, be my guest, but then 'advertising isn't manipulation' is tautologous. And you really should have brought up that you have a special, secret definition when you told someone point blank that advertising wasn't it.
Anyway the entire idea is flawed.
If ads pay for websites, then how is that so? Ah, by manipulating the user into buying stuff they don't need.