Farewell, Facebook ads: we never knew you at all

Last week I commented on the fatuity of Mark Zuckerberg's contention that on Facebook there would be "no opting out of advertising". Whether people opt out of Facebook advertising isn't within Facebook's gift. (You think TV channels want people to ignore their ads? TiVO nonetheless provides.) I claimed at the time that if people want not to see ads on Facebook, they'll install ad blocking technology.

Today Adverlab posts a variety of Greasemonkey add-ons that zap all Facebook ads. Sure, there might now be a very dull and predictable arms race as Facebook moves to stop the blockers from working, but in the end the browsing experience you get is up to you, not the site(s) you visit. Such rapid emergence of Facebook ad-blocking extensions is proof that Facebook is going to have to compete on relevance, not lock-in - just like everybody else.  

Comments

[PaulSweeney]

great. installed it. no problems at all.