Wherever I go, I often see the sentiment “This website has ads, so it’s trash” pop up in conversations. And honestly I don’t quite get why. 90% of the internet has always had ads, you just scroll past them and mind your business. At least they’re personalized now so you can pick a topic you like instead of diapers and miscellanous spammy trash as there once were.
Personally, I don’t mind ads that are not extremely obnoxious. A clickable link on the sidebar advertising something or a random picture here and there - no problemo, as they’re easy to ignore.
What I can’t stand are the extremely intrusive ones - pop-ups that obscure half of the screen with such a tiny little X in the corner that you need to click it in a pixel-perfect manner so you won’t “accidentally” open the ad itself. Ads that play music at full volume without warning. Unskippable ads in videos. Sites that greet you with “we noticed you’re using an adblocker” and just won’t let you view the actual site content. Ads that make the rest of the site lag like hell or freeze entirely. Rapidly flashing ads in neon colors that almost make you have a seizure by looking at them. Those can GTFO and if my adblocker isn’t able to / allowed to hide them, I simply won’t use the site in question anymore and that’s it.
To make an IRL comparison: I don’t mind at all if there are advertisement brochures just lying around on a counter while I’m in a mall, because I can decide on my own whether or not I want to take one of those. But if there is an employee blocking my way, screaming at the top of their lungs and slapping me across the face with said brochure, and I am not allowed to knock them out cold, then I’ll never set foot into that store again, ever.
Fun fact. There’s a dating app, can’t remember which one, where it would display a full sized ad, and if you even tried to swipe back, it would instantly load the playstore.
Sorry. Not swiping to go back. Swiping to close the app. I removed that insanely quick. Whilst still not ideal, Tinder has an ad system that shows like a users profile. But you can just swipe it away without any bullshit. Or if you like the look od it you can click or swipe on it. Take a guess which one has a significantly better user experience.