Asklemmy

Of course, why wouldn't I? If I want to support a creator then I'll donate or buy some merch.

I do, I hate fucking ads.

I use adblock (uBlock origin) because the internet is nigh unusable otherwise. It's incredibly risky (even irresponsible) to not have adblock turned on given the danger of malware, or malware in the guise of advertisements. However, I'd whitelist sites that are decent about it--though in practice, I find it risky to temporarily disable my adblock just to test things, much less to whitelist them.

Most of all, there are other, better, ways to support content creators in the internet.

Ever since my Unifi Dream Machine Pro router was updated with VPN and pihole functionality, I haven't needed to use any adblocking. I can route all my traffic through my home network and it blocks ads in every context, including in apps.

As might be obvious, I completely disagree with the tweet. I hate ads. They're predatory and abusive and they ruin the internet. Anybody who is willing to be responsible with ads has a donate/subscribe option anyway. The auto play video people with dark patterns etc. need to be obliterated. But I probably hate them even less than I hate sites like the New York Times, which charge a subscription fee and then fill their site and apps with ads anyway. Fuck off.

I use ad-blockers because I'm not a masochist. 🤨

I use Brave Browser much of the time on mobile, in which case I am blocking ads.

On the desktop, I only block trackers. I find it does seem to break some of the less palatable ads.

I started getting YouTube Premium (formerly "Red") when I subscribed to Google Play Music back in the day, and find it well worth it.

If a site is a mess of ads, I will take my attention elsewhere.

Otherwise, seeing responsibly-implemented ads costs me little/nothing to offer a little bit of support to someone who has offered me a little bit of content.

This is probably the totally wrong audience for this (good day for no karma), but I don't think ads are inherently evil. I'm on Lemmy because I love open source and community-controlled projects!

I can’t imagine surfing the internet without adblock (ublock on desktop and adguard on iOS)

Yes. I once was using an old laptop for travel and didn't care if it got lost. It hadn't been updated years but I got a nasty virus from visiting Spotify once that embedded itself into the tcp/ip stack. Not that I cared much for the laptop but it was a wakeup call that ads contain viruses. I've ran adblockers before that incident on my main computers but since it was old I didn't I have everything up to date. Since then I've made sure to install ublock origin on any computer I touch. Even friends and family with their permission.

I could write an essay on why I block ads but the other comments sum it up pretty well.

As I can remember I have always been using ad blockers. The few times I don't is when I buy a new device and I have to setup the browser, but the first thing I search is the browser store and install uBlock Origin. The internet is unusable without it, too many ads, too many sponsored sites. Without an ad blocker I would probably not use internet this much since the experience is awful

Sometimes I see how some friends and relatives browse the web. From googling a recipe to watching hours of youtube videos. Shockingly, they spend like 10% of the time staring at advertisments, waiting for them to pass by. Sometimes, when they are close friends, I "confront" them about it and 90% of the time their answer is "I didn't even know you can block them". Not once have I heard "I do it to generate money the creators and or websites".

My girlfriend used to show me youtube videos on her phone and she used a "trick" where you report the unskippable ads or whatver and then you get through them quicker. Having to wait for HER ads to pass started to annoy me so much that I upgraded my YouTube subscription to family. Now her and her siblings get to enjoy ad-free YouTube content.

If I really like a creator, I’ll donate to them. Ads are an intrusion on privacy, and everybody has the right to block them without moral backlash.

I use AdBlock because I don't want to sacrifice 70% of my viewport to obxonious and intrusive targetted ads. I never click on ads anyway.

As Louis Rossmann said, supporting a creator directly via patreon Kofi or other means has way more impact than watching ads.

Probably close to 20 years ago at this point, when visiting the official forums for a game I loved, my computer was infected by malware delivered by a malicious ad. This was not some seedy part of the internet, but a website hosted by a major game publisher whose product I enjoyed.

Try as I might, I could not revert the damage caused by the virus, so the only recourse I had was to just blank slate wipe it clean and start over.

Today, I acknowledge that most websites more tightly control the ads they host, but the trust is forever broken. As soon as the option became available to me, I installed the best adblocker I could find and never looked back. No exceptions.

The truth is that every ad is malicious, to small degrees. They want to commodify your eyeballs and take up space in your mind. They're trying to create a need where one does not exist, and will use whatever tactic they can to try to part you from your hard-earned money. They're a barrier between you and the content you want to enjoy—in many cases content that you paid to enjoy.

Even if it's in the name of supporting a website/service I enjoy, I can't confidently turn off my ad blocker anymore. It only takes one malicious ad to sneak through the cracks to cause disaster.

There has got to be a better way of running an online business without having to completely fill the space with ads.

For the longest time I use:

• for blocking ads: uBlock Origin, Disconnect, Privacy Badger, Ghostery
• for search: DuckDuckGo
• mobile ads blocking: AdGuard

I donate or buy merch from creators directly. Many of them voiced that majority of the revenue doesn't come from ads, but from sponsorships and direct donations/purchases.

I block all ads, I rather tips some moneroj or sats to creators, buy some merch, etc. From my point of view giving 5$ to a creator will be more profitable for him/her than watching a hell lot of ads

I do, and I don't care if creators and companies that are already rich aren't getting 50 cents more.

Honestly, everyone should give up on ads and instead start making quality content and add a donation page so we can freely donate if we find the content helpful.

I use Pi-hole, which is great since it is network wide. Doesn't do much for youtube, so for that I just download videos using yt-dlp. Downloading the video has the added bonus that you get the highest video quality for 100% of the video.

If someone wants me to read their site, they won't have it overloaded with intrusive ads, hammer me with popups, and plant tracking cookies in my browser.

If they do have all that stuff? I'll still read their site, but they aren't gonna make any money off me doing it.

I use adblockers wherever possible. For instance, Iceraven with Ublock Origins in my phone, Firefox with Ublock Origins in PC, Infinity for Reddit (will stop using on 30th June), XManager for Spotify and Revanced Extended for YouTube.

Lmao yeah uBlock Origin reks the internet fr. After chromium shifts to manifest v3, I'm switching to librewolf and uBlock to retain the same experience I've been having

I used to disable ad blocking on Youtube so creators don't get screwed until Youtube decided to play an ad in the middle of a concert recording. I use both UBlock Origin and AdGuard now, not because I don't care about creators, but because I want the internet to actually be usable. Unintrusive ads are fine, but I don't trust sites to not start with popups and auto-play video ads so they all get blocked.

Yeah, I use ublock origin. I don't like the ad model and many ads on the web are privacy invasive. I'm not averse paying for content (something I'm doing for some of it) but I won't watch ads to fund creators.

I use a mix of uBlock Origin and NextDNS to block ads. I would support creators if they or the platform itself can clearly mark which part is an advertisement. I also donate to creators I think are adding value with their contents. Unfortunately, majority of creators aren't being very upfront on whether or not they're sponsored, platforms are mixing advertisements with legitimate contents/results.

I use adblock almost everywhere, except for a few sites with decent ads and creators I support.

Apart from that, I try to support the few creators I appreciate the most in other ways.

Neurological warfare with a side of malware? Where do I sign up

Yes, I use uBlock Origin. Back in the day, I didn't bother with adblockers, but by late 2009 the ads grew so intrusive I couldn't take it any more. If creators can't fund themselves without ads, they should find a new business model.

I use adguard.

Yes, I use an adblocker (several, actually). However, as someone who pays a number of 'creators' / media sources directly rather than watching ads, I don't agree that I "don't care about it". Ads are:

• pointless for me, since I rarely if ever follow up on them;
• annoying because of the repetition;
• a good way of losing my attention. If something irrelevant interrupts (e.g., mid-roll ads on a video) then I will stop paying attention to the ad and forget to come back to the video;
• potential security issues (in case of active content on web pages);
• slow down the web and reduce usability, which I get very impatient with.

If a website serves ads, then using ad blockers will give me the opportunity to have a look and see if I like it without getting annoyed and closing it without looking. If I want to keep using it and there's an option to pay a reasonable fee to a reasonable organisation that will use the money appropriately to remove the ads, then I'll do it. If there's an ad-free site that I end up consistently using, then I'll consider sponsoring it if that option is available.

But if something is only available ad-supported and no other option is available, then ultimately I just don't agree with their business model and won't buy into it. If I have the opportunity to provide that feedback, I will, but if a website/"creator" just says "tough, you have to look at my ads (or some other unreasonable option)" then the reply is simply "tough, I won't" and that's that. Things don't usually work out that way though. Most sites I use are not in that category and in the future I aspire to make that no sites at all, so theoretically the ad blocker is not required, but remains there as a security/anti-tracking safeguard.

So far for every project that I care of, creator, software or news, I pay for. Everything else, like YouTube or Social Media are mostly alive because of my content or my user data. If that's not enough then I won't really miss it. I grew up with much smaller communities and so far every site that was complaining about AdBlock, also wasn't worth disabling it. For some streams I turn off adblocker once in a while until I can't take the ads anymore. Sites that complain undervalue sharing of articles, a click doesn't cost them as much as a possible ads viewer would gain them.

Yes, I do. And I do since I don't want to watch ads and being interrupted with the video. I also have a sponsorblock extention. I use those since ads are always the same. I know what NordVPN is and I won't sign up for that thing. Also, ad revenue on YouTube is near zero for creators but fir YouTuve itself I imagine it's pretty huge. So I'm bit damaging my creators. If I want to support them, I'd rather sign up for Patreon.

i block a lot of the excessive tracking, but not all ads specifically. i think its better to not go to the site at all and find a competitor that does not have as many ads. going to the site when you have that bad of an issue with it sends a bad signal to the people running the site.