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Ad blockers and double standards

Why is the Napster-loving media so quiet about ad-blocking software?
Written by Stephen Walker, Contributor
Warning: The following article may contain offensive language if you are a Webmaster, work for an IT company, or are in the advertising industry.

For those people, Adfilter, Squid, and Atguard are among the most offensive programs currently available on the Internet. Why? Because they block advertisements that are embedded in Web pages.

To anyone who has to pay an ISP for a high-bandwidth Web site, these programs are a nightmare come true. By blocking the advertisements on Web sites, these programs cut into their revenue streams. Ask most Webmasters or writers for popular Web sites where to get a good ad-blocking program, and you're likely to see an intelligent, well-mannered, and calm person undergo a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation.

No surprise there: After all, you have just asked them to help you put them on the unemployment line.

But it's funny how these same people are so willing to help spread the word about programs such as Napster or Gnutella, programs that do the same thing to members of the musical community.

Even funnier, these people use almost the same arguments defending their stance against ad blocking software as the musical community uses about Napster:

"If everybody starts to use ad blockers, you might ultimately face an Internet without any content."

"So basically people who use ad blockers are saying that we should pay to publish articles."

"Can you understand that you will be looking at 'my cat, my dog, and my pony pictures galore' sites if high-quality sites can't even cover their hosting costs?"

When musicians who were offended by Napster and its ilk used these very same arguments, we were told by so many Webmasters and IT people that it was time we found new jobs that it made most of us quite angry.

Now, it's your turn, IT people. If you're a Webmaster or work for a company that is Web-based, I guess it's time for you to look for a new way to earn a living.

Now that you're faced with the same problem that you were so happy to heap upon the creative community, how are you going to deal with it?

Are you going to walk slowly into the dark with your head held high in noble silence? Or are you going to fight? Maybe it's time you looked around to see who your allies might be. If I were you, I'd be wondering if the artistic community is willing to help.

After all, you're both in a fight for your financial futures, a fight that has come about because of a piece of software that threatens to kill both of our sources of revenue, that is becoming very popular with the average person browsing the Web.

It was easy to come up with excuses why musicians deserved Napster. Can you look in the mirror and avoid making those exact same excuses about yourselves now?

Stephen Walker started playing guitar at 14 and got his B.F.A in music in 1986 from the United States International University in San Diego. In 1991 his band Dorian Grey formed its own record label (Loud Records) and released a four-song EP; it sold so well that Loud Records promptly went bankrupt. After Dorian Grey's breakup, Walker has worked on his own material, much of which is available in MP3 format.

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