Devil's Ad-vocate: Three Reasons Not to Block Online Ads

Online advertising has become such a nuisance that nearly every major browser now includes a pop-up blocker. There seem to be almost as many tools and plugins for advertisement blockers as there are companies selling ads.

So that makes me ask the question: is their any reason not to block ads?

Before we look at the reasons not to block, it's important to establish a couple ground rules. There are some things even the devil's ad-vocate will not defend. Spam in all its forms is one of them. Intrusive ads that take over your screen or masquerade themselves as something other than a promotion are considered beyond defending.

The second rule is that we will only consider the consumer's side. For our purposes, we will be ignoring the benefits to the advertiser and the websites that display the ads.

Reason 1: Letting someone else drive

As soon as you introduce filtering of any kind to your web viewing experience, you are giving over the keys. You are trusting a third party to manage what information you receive. They will now play a vital role in your information intake. Even an honest cabbie will sometimes pick a bad route. So before you jump on the ad-free wagon, make sure you know who is holding the reigns.

Reason 2: Credibility, Yours and Theirs

Whether you are doing serious research or updating your personal blog, credibility matters. If you link to a website, you are tying your credibility to theirs. If you haven't seen them without your ad-blocking blinders on, you are taking a chance. You might be setting up your visitors for a very different experience than what you intended.

Online ads can also provide insight into the site's credibility. Figuring out what sources are reliable online can be tricky business. Looking at what ads a site uses to pay the bills can tip you off to bias you might have otherwise missed.

Reason 3: Antibiotics

That's right. If you just can't think of ads as anything more than an infection spreading across the web, then you might want to consider what is happening as we try to stomp out real life infections. The overuse of antibiotics has given rise to new super-bugs that resist our best efforts to destroy them.

The same thing may happen with web advertising. If we can't negotiate a peace treaty with the ad producers, we may find ourselves stuck in an arms race that neither side will ever win. If we can agree on some ground rules for what's fair when competing for our attention, maybe we can really have our cake and our weight loss pills. We won't block you, if you won't subject us to dancing monkeys.