THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE...websites...er, OK, that fell flat.

So I'm happily launching tab after tab of FiMFiction.net on my iPad...

...OK, so I may have a bit of a pony-fiction addiction problem, but that's not my point.

So I'm opening these pages on my iPad, happily reading a very interesting fic (review pending) when all of a sudden the App store opens up. Yes, without me tapping on anything. At all. Sure enough, it opens straight to some "I wish I were a REAL RTS!" free-to-play crapware game. What happened?

Banner ads!

So I use an ad blocker when I'm on the computer. Yes, I know that Nice Sites like this one might not do as well when there isn't ad revenue flowing into their bank accounts, but there's a little something called User Experience to take into account.

In fairness, I don't really blame FiMFiction. I know that when this kind of thing has happened in the past they're pretty much on top of it and clean it up right away. The problem isn't with the wonderful staff of this site, or EQD, or [insert awesome website supported by ads here]. In most cases, it's not even the ad providers. Goodle is pretty competent with their adwords and adsense products, and competing ad companies are varyingly competent at policing the content that goes out thorough their service.

But every time someone builds a better mousetrap, someone else goes and builds a better mouse.

Unscrupulous ad content makers WILL find a way to game the system. (note I said "unscrupulous") I don't think that Blizzard would shoot themselves in the foot by making iOS devices act wonky or pop-unders that launch iTunes, but there might be someone who's part of an ad company who'd use those tactics in an effort to artificially boost click-through.

Basically, I block ads because I value my computer's security more than the third-party contributions to this site and others like it.

I know that people don't like donations as a business model, but there's a simple law of compensation in the human psyche that says, "I was given something of value, I must give something of value in return." Authors, music groups, news reporters...all these content producers and more are starting to leverage that basic human compulsion and make a living off it by producing stuff that's of value to other people. Hell, Leo Laporte (look him up!) built a media empire after being fired by just producing content that people wanted to give him money for. (See: The TWiT Network)

OK, rant over.

Comments

[Sparkler]

I know that people don't like donations as a business model

I'm pretty sure that Fimfiction's tenuous permission from Hasbro forbids them from taking donations.

[PrincessColumbia]

2108497

While you have a point, my point still stands...although I'd have to go into rants about copyright law and abuse of power to support it.