twistedtree
Guru
I had considered mentioning AdBlock when others were complaining about the ads but didn't want to offend our hosts here. They need ad revenue to be able to pay for this site. I have used AdBlock for years and it is extremely effective. I never see any adds here on TF.
I am not encouraging y'all to start using it, because then the revenue stream might dry up and the owners may abandon TF.
I would encourage it. It sends a strong message about how you feel about ads.
At the end of the day, the value in TF, or any other forum, is in the content that all of us create. The forum itself has nearly zero value. Social Knowledge LLC hosts the site, then draws revenue off the value of our content. Make no mistake about it. We do this voluntarily since the interaction and content benefits us too, but I'd argue that we are getting the short end of the stick: our contributions are rewarded with an assault of ads where Social Knowledge is rewarded with a check. I think it's a parasitic relationship that can run happily for a while, but is not sustainable.
Bringing this back to FB vs Blogs, many blogs are ad-free. Not all, but many. I've made a point of keeping mine ad-free. If you like the content, read on. If you don't, no problem, move on. But what you read is unbiased by anyone other than me. I really enjoy reading content without the noise of ads, and without the influence of sponsors. It's the ultimate crowd sourcing, but requires the same "filtering" as any crowd sourced data. If you throw out the highs and the lows, you get a pretty good idea what reality is. This is the case with Active Captain data as well. Some filtering is required, especially to understand different reviewer's biases, but you can typically get a pretty reliable picture. The running joke between my wife and me last summer were reviews in Alaska by a particular contributor to AC who wanted to wax poetic about every anchorage.