Back off, Yahoo!

They day I see this pop up as I open my Yahoo email is the day I put Yahoo email in the cold, cold ground.

Now I know companies need to make money. And that sometimes companies on the Internet make money through advertising. But preventing me from seeing my email because I have an ad blocker? Not gonna fly with me.

What’s the solution?

I don’t know. Charging me for email use would fly even less than saying but-but-but ad blocker at me. I would go as far as to say I’d rather see ads as I read my email than pay to read my email. But this either/or is kind of a Hobson’s choice. Either option is unpalatable.

Clearly, this is something the markets will decide. If Yahoo persists with this tack, I’ll likely change email platforms.

Though I don’t want to. I’m familiar with how Yahoo appears. I’ve tried, say, Gmail, and frankly getting deeper into Google’s tentacles makes me feel icky. There’s Outlook, I suppose. . . 

Funny thing is, there are times I don’t mind ads at all. I’m a Simcity Buildit player, and they’ve suddenly introduced ads this week in the form of allowing me the choice of watching short app commercials in exchange for in-game items. I’ll watch the ads for a reward. But Yahoo – my email isn’t a reward. It’s communication, yes. Reward? No. Most of it goes unread. But there’s occasionally something important there. Like emails from myself at work to myself at home. Easiest file transfer protocol out there. I don’t need to see ads or be rewarded to get my own stuff. See the difference?

It’s a quandary, I know. You can’t keep offering these services for free, and the alternative to free is to monetize my presence somehow. I get that.

Newspapers and magazines kinda got that too. They got used to people pruning before they read – dropping all the ad circulars or taking out the little subscription cards before they read. Now, there are times those circulars and such are important enough to keep (Black Friday is coming up, after all).

There are solutions like this. Oooh, savor the irony, Kronk.

Is there a chance AdBlock Plus users could counter pay to avoid seeing the ads? I don’t know. Because if AdBlocker wants me to pay a premium to see no ads versus using a free version that allows paid-paid ads through, well I’m going to go with the free option. Because my desire to use free stuff on the Internet trumps any hatred I might harbor for ads.

See, the ads I can ignore. I ignore them a lot. I tune out during radio commercials. I throw out the circulars (when I pick up a newspaper at all). And I watch those silly Simcity Buildit ads while I’m using the bathroom. So they don’t hurt me. I’m not as ad-averse as the current generations, who apparently are physically injured every time they see an advertisement.

I’m turning into Abe Simpson. And I’m okay with that.