By blocking Web ads, am I stealing?
Most of the free content online is supported by advertising. But most advertising is designed to interrupt the content. Even Google's supposedly helpful text ads are, in the end, a distraction; otherwise people would just search for ads instead of real results. Most ads are worse, a moving distraction while I'm trying to read text. So since the dancing cowboy will never make me buy , is it wrong if I just block them?
Political blog Daily Kos asks ad-blocking users to buy a subscription. Technologist Nick Carr says that Google and other ad servers should ignore ad-blockers and bet that the habit won't become popular. The New York Times only teaches the controversy. How about you — got a good excuse for why you block ads, or a good reason that you don't?
