Digital Home Thoughts: How I Learned to Stop Blocking and Love Ads

"My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content."

Well, maybe not love ads, but come to accept them as the price to pay for viewing websites I enjoy. A long time ago, I too used ad blockers, but these days, I do not bother. I get the whole idea about ads being annoying and intrusive. They can distract from content, slow down your computer and in some strange way, some would make me feel violated. All I want to do is view a web page, and there is this banner that whenever I accidentally mouse over, it says "Hello!!!!!" When it comes down to it, I see it like a website saying, "Here's some content we think you might find interesting. All we ask is that you see a few ads in return." I think that is a pretty reasonable request. Sites that serve obnoxious ads consistently, I do not visit them for a few months, checking back every so often to see if they have changed their ways. Those sites that keep their ads respectful, I regularly visit. If the content of a site is so good that I want to read it, I figure it is worth the price of a few ads. That is my rationale. What is yours?