Is “Add Art” Criminal?
Someone who either failed to think through the consequences of their actions and/or is intentionally a boo-boo head dreamed up a little Firefox plug-in called “Add Art”. Premise sounds warm-n-fuzzy at first:
- Users add a Firefox plug-in
- When surfing online, ads are replaced with curated art images
Sounds nice, right? Part of me thinks, “Hey, this is like piping in classical music to high school hallways during passing period!”
And it’s not like Add Art is the first-to-market; there’s an entire world of open source ad blockers out there. According to the Add Art ‘Background’ page:
Of the 100+ add-ons available for Firefox, “adblockers” are the most popular. The most current, Adblock Plus, has over 18 million downloads (as of May 2008) since Jan 2006 (currently over 250,000/week). It’s predecessor, Adblock, has been downloaded over 8 million times. These extensions work by preventing advertising images from downloading and replacing the ads with blank space. Their popularity has risen as pop-up ads, banner ads, and ads incorporating sound and animation have permeated the internet.
The problem, of course, is right there on their very own home page:
If the people behind Add Art and other ad blockers do not think that they are contributing in what should be a criminal manner to the demise of The New York Times, they’re kidding themselves:
- The New York Times and every other publisher out there makes money from ad sales
- Ad sales only happen when ads convert
- Ads cannot convert if they aren’t clicked
- Ads that don’t load will not be clicked
How is highjacking ad space on a publisher website any different from spraypainting over a billboard, me wonders?
Now, the only way that I would be okay with this is if the advertiser was not charged for the ad impression that was never served and/or these ad blockers could demonstrate that publishers were not negatively impacted. (I don’t care if the negative impact is small — that isn’t the point. I’m talking about principles, here.) Unfortunately, none of the AdBlockPlus FAQs address this point.
If people don’t want to look at ads, then perhaps they should stop enjoying the content that those ads subsidize.
If people want to look at art, maybe they should step away from their computer and go out into the world and patronize a museum.
I give a thumbs up to the intent and understand that the motives aren’t malicious, but for crying out loud. Do you want to help kill The New York Times? Then you should definitely install Add Art.
