On the original topic, Vaibhav, I don’t think you can have a useful conversation on this topic through the use of metaphor and abstractions. There is no use at all in talking about watermelons. Let us talk about the reality of the situation.

When you go to a shop, you [b]buy[/b] it and use it, not the other way. OR if it is someone offering services, the buyer [b]agrees[/b] to pay after the service is offered OR open ground donations where you have something for [b]free[/b], like the anytime free food in golden temple etc (the person is [b]not[/b] obligatory to pay).

Now prove your rl theory here, when I go and have such free food, in your view I am stealing it right? Hells!! Police should lock me up! I am a criminal. OH god, I committed a holy crime right in your temple.

All this venting, after seeing those words stealing repeatedly, screaming in CAPITAL [b]bolds[/b]. I am actually controlling my words here, I am hell lot a bad guy.

When a person here in online world puts up an unrestrictable (i created the word) webpage he/she allows and knows that anyone can access to [b]view[/b] the webpage. That person has the umpteen control on how he wants top view that webpage, whether he wants to view it with ads disabled, use his own style sheet, print style, on lynx, screen reader etc. Nobody has the control to tell me that I should use x font to view this webpage, or see a flashing banner right at the top. All these things restrict to viewing content which your whole post talks about. It is when a person uses that content illegally, the question of [b]stealing[/b] arises.

Now something technically:
When a person wants money from his website, put up a pay and read system, people pay-login-read the goddam content. How dare someone tell that a person is stealing by viewing a webpage according to his likes. **** ***.

Your godamm update:
“when the price is too high, lets steal, else lets pay.”
mr, where have you set the price [b]here[/b]. read on..

Why blame on adblock systems and all those middlemen thingy.
[b]You goddamm have the control on who can read your content not how he reads it.[/b] [b] block users using adblock (hint use this for the next line) [/] Now for some advice thingy, take it or leave it, you want to block people using adblock, there is a great site: just****inggoogleit.com

Dammit, spent 15 minutes, but feel relaxed with BP’s calming down now.

Webmasters control [b]who[/b] views, users control [b]how[/b] (s)he views.

My parents didn’t want me to see matrimonial ads on educational websites when I was a teen.

So, I am not sure why this doesn’t qualify as a hyperbole..

Let me respond. I was hoping that someone would raise the point that you don’t know that you wanted to consume the content till you have actually consumed it. In that respect, it is definitely different from the analogy of watermelons.

However, the problem with people who use adblock (and I know a number of them) is that they will keep going back to the same site and continue to use adblock on these sites. So, you go to one website the first time because you didn’t know how good/bad the content on it is, and are not willing to “pay” to find out, and so you block ads. But if you go back to it again, then it is simply because there is “some” value you are getting from it. Will you then unblock ads on this website?

As for your point about me publicly expressing something on the Internet, of course you have the right to comment on it. But IMO, if I am posting this content on my own hosted website (as compared to a public forum), I do have the right to dictate how this content is displayed.

“Once again, I can’t repeat it enough: using adblock or similar is THE SAME AS STEALING.”

I disagree with your analogy. In fact, I do not think there is an analogy for the Internet. That is very nearly the defining characteristic of a revolutionary technology. However, a much better one can be made.

I never decided to consume your content. I decided to “surf the web”. I am consuming the medium, as many people do. This page was just one of many presented to me in a stream that I did not assemble, full of items I did not know whether I would want to consume until I had consumed them.

In this way and in other ways, it is more like television. One often pays for television. Not to the content providers, but to the medium’s carriers. In this way it is identical to the Internet. I have a real, legal contract with my ISP, as I would with my television provider, had I one.

I suggest that is the more appropriate analogy.

There is also the issue of fair dealing, or fair use. You claim your ownership of this content give you the right to dictate how I may consume it. But you are also using your right of expression as a democratic citizen in order to share this content to begin with. Anything that you publicly express, I necessarily have a corresponding democratic right to comment upon. I may not be accessing your content as a consumer of your copy-written, commercial content for my own enjoyment, but rather as democratic citizen executing my duty to see truth disseminated.

And what if I lack the capacity to comprehend the ads? What if I am using Lynx because I am blind? Do I need your explicit written permission to consume your content? What if I am a robot indexing your content? Do I still need to pay for it?

I mean, it’s a “nice idea” and all, that I can pay for content by looking at ads, but that is all that it is. Something that would be nice, were it true.

Nor is my primary purpose to lash out at people who use adblock on this site – i don’t care about revenue from here (I have a well paying full time job).

Having said that, you give me another chance to punctuate the point I am trying to make – you ask me whether I produce anything that you should be obliged to pay me for. Well, the answer is that I may be producing very useless stuff – but if I put a price on it, I ask you to pay for it, if you use it. And by reading a site’s content, you are “using it”.

So, if you decide that the product I am producing is not worth the price, please do not use it. That’s all I ask. The problem comes when after having decided that I am producing something that is not worth paying me for, you decide to use what I produce for free.

When I write something on ‘my’ website, its not the same as me singing in the street (where you have no choice but to hear me as you are passing me by). It’s like me singing in my own concert hall, and you dropping in to listen. Now if you don’t think that I sing well, then you will choose not to pay the ticket to the concert hall, right? So, why is it that you can’t do the same thing here.

If you don’t think that the content I produce is worth all the intrusive advertising on my site, then don’t visit my site. Period.

You see, to me ad blocking doesn’t matter on a personal level. But there are several content providers who depend on all this content that they produce, that you WANT to consume, and you go on and block ads on their sites which is a means to their livelihood.

Does that make sense?

Have you seen the Internet? You are lucky to have any visitors at all. Do you really think you produce a product that I should be obliged to pay you for? No. You produce eyeball bait. You are trying to sucker eyeballs into accidentally falling across third party content that you have interleaved with your own. The third parties pay you for this service. On the other hand, you and I have no agreements whatsoever. I am insulted that you would try to claim otherwise.

To illustrate how the watermelon analogy is similar, let me change it slightly – what if the sign said, “if you want a watermelon, please first stand on your head for 2 minutes, then run three circles around a cart, and then you can take the watermelon.”

In this case, if you are an honest person, you would simply say that the cost of consuming this watermelon is too bothersome, so I won’t take it. Or if you REALLY wanted the watermelon, then you will do all that, and then take a watermelon.

If you were a dishonest person, you will simply take the watermelon.

The point is not how valuable the content is or whether the author thinks that they need their readers or not. The point is that being readers, if you find the advertising on a website too bothersome, you should just not consume that website.

As you say (and I agree), the onus is definitely on the content provider to make sure that the readers get attracted to their site and and stay. But that doesn’t mean that if they are doing a poor job of it, then they should be penalized by denying them their chosen mode of revenue. That’s like taking the watermelon without running the circles.

For the record, this rant of mine is not because I have a personal grievance against people blocking ads on this site – there are few enough who visit anyway. Its just that this behavior has always irked me at a conceptual level.