Disabling AdBlock

For several years, I've used the most popular Google Chrome extension ever, AdBlock. It does just what it says: blocks the ads you see in webpages and youtube videos. I've cruised along in ad-free comfort for nearly four years now. I no longer have to tolerate the obnoxious floating ads all over some websites. I'm no longer distracted by banners proclaiming "Wisconsin Mom Has the Disgusting Secret to Whiter Teeth!" or "21 and Single? Click here to chat now!" or "This One Energy Trick Will Save You Hundreds!"

I also have been free from the ads most people sit through before youtube videos. When I'm watching a quick 30 second tutorial on how to use toggle bolts in a plaster wall, I don't want to be forced to watch an irrelevant advertisement that lasts longer than the tutorial itself. But the other day I realised something. And it has a lot to do with one of the most ever-present companies in our daily lives.

Google seems like a giant Santa Claus. I mean, they offer me 15 gigabytes of FREE web storage, for me to store whatever I want for as long as I want. They've given me Youtube. They've made this blog possible. They provide a suite of web-based tools I constantly use, like Google Docs, Slides, and Calendar. When I want to drive to a place I'm not familiar with, I do it with directions from Google Maps. When I look at ANY WEBPAGE, it's in Chrome, Google's browser. And did I mention that they run the most popular and useful web search engine on the face of the Earth? No? Well they do. All of these things are free. Or at least, they appear to be.

But the truth is, Google is not a maps company. They're not a search company. They're not a storage company, or a calendar company, or a video sharing company. They are an advertisement company. The vast majority of their massive income is from advertisements. They offer us free things like Maps, Youtube, Docs, Drive, Calendar, the Android OS, etc, all in return for our clicking on their ads.

I was thinking about this the other day. The ads aren't really that terrible on lots of websites. I'm getting the benefit of the internet for free, shouldn't I be giving something back to the websites I like? AdBlock gives us a choice of what websites we want to support. That's why I've started disabling AdBlock on a number of individual websites I visit regularly. These websites have to pay the bills somehow, that's why they have ads up in the first place. However, the websites that support ads that annoy or offend me get the AdBlock treatment.

I haven't disabled it altogether, though. For instance, I still have it enabled for Youtube. Sorry, Youtube Content Creators, but as much as I love the idea of you guys getting a paycheck when I watch your videos, the ads that roll in front of Youtube videos are just too obnoxious. I don't mind the banner ads at the bottom of the video, or the ones that appear next to the video. But the commercials that interrupt the beginning of the video I'm watching have to stay gone.

That's why I love using AdBlock. Not to completely cripple the Internet as we know it by blocking every ad we see, but to give me the choice of which websites I actually want to support.