Ad Blockers Should Not Be Used

Thank you. ----In Defense of My Arguments---- 1) My first argument--that ad blockers hurt the online industry--still stands. My opponent attempts to counterargue this point in two ways: (1) That it is not the place of webmasters to choose what you want to see; and (2) that ad blockers encourage ad makers to become more creative. To prove (1), my opponent enlists the "equivalent" example of being able to switch channels while watching television. However, television ads are vastly different because of two main reasons. Firstly, they (generally) reach a wider audience, and thus switching channels will not hurt the television industry as much. Secondly, switching channels requires an active thought process every single commercial break, which is simply not practical. Television is meant to be a passive activity, while Internet browsing is largely active. Obviously, your first counterargument does not hold. As you admit, "Ad blockers do take away ad revenue from certain people. " My opponent's second counterargument does not hold either because it is both ridiculous and contradictory. It is ridiculous because there are simply no other ways to deliver ads through the Internet other than that of text, pictures, and flash. And getting more creative? I thought you were arguing against ads! 2) My argument--that ad blockers often times disable several internet browsing functions--still stands. My opponent's only problem with this contention is my sources. (Which is funny considering John sourced a completely unsourced section of a Wikipedia article. ) However, I assure my source is reliable. Market Research is owned by a company known as GMI, one of the largest Internet research companies in the world. I'm glad that we got that cleared up. 3) My argument--that ad blockers will often times make websites look odd--still stands. Surely that blank section of odd lines bothered you when you visited newgrounds. com. And surely the big black space from ultimate-guitar looked strange and out of place. My opponent does offer a workaround, but workarounds only lead to more problems--more potentially infected computers, more user confusion, and even more wasted hardrive space. And furthermore, it is unreasonable to expect most people using ad blockers to download scripts just to get rid of a few ads. 4) My argument--that many supposed ad blockers contain malicious viruses--still stands. My opponent deems the people who download these programs as "idiots". How dare my opponent insult the thousands of innocent people who've had their files completely lost due to viruses and trojan horses! How dare my opponent! Clean and simple: Seeking ad blockers will often times lead innocent people to receive viruses. It is NOT their fault. Please address my argument without slander. 5) My argument--that Internet ads often help consumers find the products they want--still stands. I find it curious that my opponent uses an unsourced section of a Wikipedia article. What's more, is that my opponent uses a redirect to disguise his source. Could he be ashamed of not having a better source? He certainly had enough characters to post the real URL. .. I checked! Anyway, his counterargument that advertisements contain spyware should be ignored until proven. Also, he has not addressed my example about the two debate. org users Rezzealaux and PoeJoe. ----RE: Bandwidth limits---- "Today with flash ads, adverts can use up a considerable amount of bandwidth. " Are you kidding me? The absolute largest internet ads are 40kb. [6] Going over bandwidth caps occurs when users watch too many movies, download too many illegal files, and h3x0rZ too many websites. I'd like to ask my opponent if he is trying to be sarcastic. Otherwise, I'll ignore this contention for now. ----RE: Mobile Phones---- First of all, Internet browsing via mobile phones is still relatively new--very few people prefer mobile browsing to computer browsing--and therefore, the argument of mobile phone browsing should hold very little weight in this debate. Secondly, most mobile phones can not deal with flash ads, so the size of them should be of no concern. What's more interesting is that my opponent is more concerned about the minuscule size of text/pic ads, and not worried about other, heavier files like--oh, I don't know--html. ----Conclusion---- All five of my contention stand. Both of my opponent's arguments have successfully been refuted. Thus far, the winner is obvious. ----References---- [6] . http://www.iab.net...