Why I support adblockers!

Am I a hypocrite?

As a content creator, it might seem strange that someone like myself would be okay with people using adblockers, but there is rationale behind my thought process.

First of all, I use an adblocker myself, therefore it would be hypocritical if I told people not to use one when watching my content.

Secondly, being against adblock doesn't change the fact that people are gonna use it anyway.

Thirdly, if people wanted to support my work without being tracked by ads, they can use YouTube Premium, become a patreon, buy me a coffee, or donate Monero. Larger YouTubers even have things like sponsorships, cameos, and physical merchandise, plus the amount of their viewers who aren't using adblock will more than likely outweigh the amount who do.

Digital Privacy

Internet advertising is more invasive than radio or television advertising. A large part of this is because of third-party cookies implemented by companies like Google, which track you on other websites (not just their own) in a bid to serve you ads that are tailored to your interests.

In contrast, radio and TV advertising is not personalised. The ads that are played might be based on the radio/TV channel's target audience, but the ads played to you are the same ads played to everyone else.

Dodgy Advertising

Internet advertising is a double-whammy. On one hand it's cheaper, reaches more people, and doesn't have the same strict regulations that come with advertising on TV, but on the other hand, the lack of regulation means people are more likely to get away with promoting dodgy stuff through ads.

Adult content sites and news sites are notorious for being littered with pop-up ads, but dodgy advertising even exists on sites like YouTube. Examples of such content I've seen include crypto scams, BS "get rich quick" schemes, and random ads from sites like Temu (not necessarily a scam, but these are often cheap products with poor quality and questionable labour practices). Some of them even involve impersonation of people like MrBeast.

Of course, there are dodgy TV ads, "QuickQuid" was a UK-based payday loan company notorious in the early 2010s for its insanely high interest rates, but compared to the internet, they are relatively less common because of legislation enforced by organisations like Ofcom and the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency).

Distribution of malware

Have you ever gone to download a piece of software only to find a bunch of fake download buttons that have nothing to do with what you're actually trying to download? Yeah, all those buttons are ads. If an adblocker will prevent someone who doesn't know better from installing a bunch of bloatware (or even malware) on their computer, then I'm all for it.

Ads makes the internet feel slow

Web bloat is one of my biggest gripes, that's why this site is primarily just written in basic HTML and CSS. Some sites have so many ads that it makes them almost unusable, especially when they're pop-ups, unskippable videos, and/or they take up most of the page. This is especially annoying for people who can't afford or don't have access to high-speed internet.

Countries that are wealthier and more urbanised tend to have faster internet, but there are exceptions such as Australia and Romania, but even if you just live in a rural area, getting fast internet is not easy. Even if everyone had blazing fast internet, should we really just forget about optimisation just because we can?

Ads are annoying

Even if you disagree with every other point on this list, I think we can all agree that ads are at the very least annoying and we don't really want to watch them...unless it's a cringy infomercial we're taking the mickey out of :)

Also, most adblockers allow you to control what sites ads are and aren't blocked on, so I don't see any reason to not use an adblocker in ANY capacity.