Pi-hole dot net and hardware ad blocking

Wolf K on Sat, 19 May 2018 09:23:45 -0400 typed
in alt.windows7.general the following:

The one thing I didn't see mentioned is the increasingly common and
obnoxious behavior of sites that are configured to notice, in a big way,
that you're downloading their content but not their ads. Some of them
replace the content with a big message that says, in effect, "Hey, we
see that you're using an ad blocker. Cut it out!"

And I suppose the advertisers think that the ads are actually viewed?
Poor sods, they're wasting their money.

They are wasting their money - on you. As the saying goes "Half
of your advertising budget is wasted; the problem is you can't tell
which half." Likely they get enough responses as to make it worth the
effort. How many is that? Enough that income remains expenses (the
numerical answer is left as an exercise for the student.)

The most effective ad-blocker is the one in my head.

Fifty years later, I still refuse to buy General Tires, due to
their advertising slogan when I was I was ten.
Dentine and Trident have a negative Q score for me, in large part
due to some obnoxious ads back in the 80's, unfortunately reinforced
due to recorded radio programs I hear now and then.

Eg, I don't see ads when I view a news source on the
PC, but I do see them when I view that source on the phone. Guess what?
I haven't a clue what most of those ads are about. Racking my brains,
OK, I vaguely remember some colours. Pink. Green... I do recall that
Subaru advertised on one of those news sources, but I was primed to
notice it, as I was musing about trading my car for a newer one, and
Subaru topped my list. But I thought better of it. My car is good for at
least another 100K km. :-)

Neighbors had a gas guzzler, and couldn't afford the gas. So they
traded that one in for a new car, rolled what they owed on the gas
guzzler into the new car payments ... You know, for what you're still
paying for the old car, you could have bought a lot of gasoline.
They had other issues, too.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?