https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
Although we all be happy to se more competition, using an ad blocker on Google sites (and G-add financed-sites) have no positive effect for the competitors.
Don’t take me wrong, I hate Ads and Google methods but we can’t all rob the same store and hope there will be infinite food on the shelves and that the next store will benefit from that.
There were never any restrictions placed on it, so it became a self-sustaining downward spiral to the current state of things. When I see the internet without an ad-blocker it is completely unusable. Quite frankly, I would most likely stop using most of the internet altogether if I couldn't block ads.
So what is the alternative? Same as always: paid services. A service / platform can either work out a pricing model that works for people, or it shouldn't / can't exist in that form.
Some people will argue that they'd rather have ads and also content for free and that's fine. Maybe some people can tolerate them. I cannot. I find them to be as close to experiencing physical pain as possible. It's like pure mind-poison and I will bend over backwards to avoid ads.
I am waiting for the age of smart-glasses to begin so that I can filter out ads in real-life as well. I simply never, ever, under any circumstances want to see any advertising ever.
If I want a product or service, I'll go search for it. I don't need anything to be suggested to me. And this is just my battle-hardened mind. I daren't think of what ads do to un-developed, children's minds.
It should be the government's responsibility to severely restrict advertising until it nearly doesn't exist. But that's not the world we live in, so I have taken matters into my own hands.
Point being, it's not just an ad. It's not just some cereal commercial broadcast to everyone watching cable based on the viewing habits of large swaths of the population - relatively general stuff. It's decades of investment and research weaponized against us to extract as much info about us as possible to use it against us for maximum profit with no concern for how it impacts us or ability to ever opt out.