When will people stop stealing content

This post is a rant. Yep, you may want to skip it. But just so you know it involves people who use extensions such as AdBlock (on FireFox) or AdThwart (on Chrome) to block out advertisements while browsing the web.

I have never used one of these extensions (never even tried it). The whole idea repulses me. Why, you may ask? Well, let’s examine this why. I go to the book store to buy a book and I am willing to pay money because I recognize the value that the author has created in the book through their talent. Notice, I buy and I pay.

Now, when I am on the Internet, almost everything is free. Having said that, some ‘author’ is creating this content. And since you at least consider reading this content when you visit a web page, it is of some value to you. When you repeatedly go to an author’s page, then you definitely get value out of the content that they are writing.

Are you paying for this content? Not directly. Is the author expecting payment for it? Not directly. However, if the author has put advertising on their website, they are expecting to make money on the value that they are providing through the content that they put up. And by blocking advertisements using such plugins, you are denying them this payment.

To me, that is the equivalent of stealing. It is like breaking the honor system. Imagine picking up that watermelon in the photo and walking on without placing the 2 dollars in the jar. If enough people did that, then the farmer will have to stop selling water melons this way. And whose loss will that be? Everyone’s.

Once again, I can’t repeat it enough: using adblock or similar is THE SAME AS STEALING.

I monetize my website, and my aim is to make enough from advertising so that I can pay for the hosting costs. That is it. I don’t have a world famous blog, and I probably don’t add that much value, but I still get some people once in a while who thank me for the content that they have put up. But imagine people who use their online properties as a way to make a living. They spend their entire waking hours writing content so that the readers can get some value out of it (I am not even talking about mega sites which have people that they pay for creating content). When you deny them their advertising dollars, you are basically slowly putting them out of work.

I would be interested in knowing why people thing that it is a good idea to use these plugins. You are welcome to leave comments explaining. Else, I simply request that you do not use these plugins at all.

“the excellent photo shown above was taken from Lisa B’s photostream on Flickr and is usable under Creative Commons”

UPDATE:

Kiran on Twitter pointed me towards this post on “approach to fair ad blocking” and there being a need for a middle ground. There is one basic problem with the entire argument in the post – he says that the control for this should be with the users. Well, control always has been with the users – you can control yourself NOT to view a particular website whose advertisement flavor you don’t like. Simple.

Saying that the user should be able to choose when they want to block ads on a site, is the same as saying, when the price is too high, lets steal, else lets pay. If the webmaster thinks that their content is valuable enough such that they can monetize it in an annoying manner, and still people will visit, then why not let them. They added that value to the content, and thus they should be allowed to make money of it.

IMO, if you do want to use an ad-block type plugin, and want to be fair, then the plugin should support a tag which the webmaster should be able to put in their pages. If this tag is present, then the plugin should disallow the user to view that web page completely, unless ad blocking is turned off. Let’s see how many webmasters allow free viewing when such a tag is available.

A middle ground doesn’t make sense, since as a content producer it should be up to me to put a price on it. And as a consumer, if you don’t like the price, then don’t use it. But don’t steal my content, just because you don’t like the price.

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