Developers: Disable Your Adblocker On StackOverflow
If you’re a developer, then there is a very high possibility that at some point, you’ve needed to Google an issue and you encountered a StackOverflow question and got the help you needed.
Personally, I hit StackOverflow a few times per week, sometimes on a daily basis if I am tackling something I do not fully understand.
All of the developers I know use adblockers (I use uBlock Origin in Chrome) and by default blocking advertisements everywhere. But if there is one site that deserves to be whitelisted: it’s StackOverflow.
For general information about a wide range of topics, we have Wikipedia and for answering our development questions: we have StackOverflow.
They ask for no money, you don’t need an account to use it and the advertisements they do show are non-intrusive and tasteful (unlike a site like The Pirate Bay).
And above all else: StackOverflow don’t care if you block ads, although they would prefer it if you didn’t. The value of StackOverflow cannot be understated, it is the Wikipedia equivalent for developers and they deserve our support.
I don’t understand how is SO different from many other sites. Many sites (not all, and maybe not even most – but still) have the same characteristics – their ads are not intrusive and tasteful, they ask for no money and you don’t need an account.
It’s the same old model of getting the money from advertisers.
If you use such a site, even if it’s a news site or any other trivial content, why won’t you disable ad blocking there as well? it’s exactly the same thing: you benefit from it.
With sites that present disruptive ads, jumping ads, popunders etc. I totally understand. But your argument about Stack Overflow can be applied to every other site that uses user-friendly ads.
>I don’t understand how is SO different from many other sites.
This one of many possible examples. SO specifically because they offer a free service that is essentially underpinning the whole entire development ecosystem spanning from operations, to back and front-end development with everything in between.
I actually disable my adblocker for a few sites I frequent, definitely NEVER for news websites. Because news websites are generally the worse when it comes to advertisements. If you want to see one of the reasons people use adblockers, go to news.com.au with your adblocker disabled and weep tears of sorrow.
There are definitely sites out there that deserve to be whitelisted, but they are definitely in the minority, not the majority of websites with advertisements.