You should block adds for practical reasons too though, not just for moral reasons.

I can't fathom how there are so many devs that don't use adblockers. It is so strange and when I look over their shoulders I get a shocking reminder how the web looks for them.

Except, many developers contributed to the actual situation.

The same excuse was given regarding IE.

I think ads go well past "ideaology". very few like ads, and they have only gotten more persistent over recent years.

And they slow down already dog slow web2.0 shit.

Oh no, instead consumers pick products because of advertising.

What an improvement.

Being prescriptive about human nature will always be frustrating. You and I can argue about what consumers “should” do but the reality is they will always pick the highest perceived benefit at the lowest perceived cost, even if deeper technical knowledge or improved ideological perspective would change those choices.

They have nothing to pick, google already picked chrome for them.

Yes, and so you should always assume every (large) company is lying through it's teeth as hard as it can, because it is in their best interest to confuddle the consumer as much as possible...

It's not ideaology to want things to work. Last time IE lost because it lost sight of the fact that it was utter dogshitte.

Chrome is now utter dogshitte, users will (eventually) be unable to ignore that...

And this is exactly why ads should be illegal in a capitalist society.

I don't really mind about what people should do. Cats should probably not kill birds when they aren't hungry. But my opinion has no bearing on cats.

My lament is more about the current situation and our apparent inability to escape it.

In this case, I may also be annoyed a bit about your rant on ideologues. Just because people don't make decisions based on their ideology doesn't mean they don't make decisions based on ideology.

Consumers pick _largely_ based on cost and features, with a things like brand, ethics, and environment coming second. However, consumers can only pick an option from choices they've heard of. Advertising is about getting into the list (and influencing choice a bit by demonstrating the brand image); the product itself still has to a good choice for the customer to make a purchase.

> with a things like brand, ethics, and environment coming second

I don't think that's true at all - usually brand comes first and ethics are not even considered.

> the product itself still has to a good choice for the customer to make a purchase

Not at all, the consumer only needs to be made to believe that it's a good choice which is very far from being the same thing.

But consumers pick products for convenience reasons and Chrome updates crossed PITA line. Even my "boomers" family switches to FF.

If that was really the case, it would start showing up in the stats too. Firefox is still declining last I checked (I am still using it, but more and more sites have problems in FF.

FYI, this is not downvoted because you're wrong. It's downvoted because you called everyone with a different opinion to you an ideologue.