Ad Block Plus Filter Maintainer "rick752" Dies At 56 385
A user on Reddit pointed out that Richard "rick752" Petnel, maintainer of one of the most popular filter lists for Ad Block Plus, has passed away at age 56. In an article last year Petnel described a bit of what he was up against in the ad world. "'I'm playing against some pretty big players,' he said, explaining his reluctance to step forward. 'I don't want to be harassed. . . . I don't want to be bribed. I started it because I was frustrated with getting my computer infected from ads -- malware and spyware and all that stuff,' he said. 'I kind of went overboard with it. But you have to admit, it's pretty amazing, right?'" Update 15:05 GMT by SM: updated to reflect Rick's status as maintainer of the most popular Ad Block Plus filter as opposed to Ad Block Plus itself.
Condolences.. and kudos (Score:5, Interesting)
First and foremost, condolences to the family.
Second, Rich, thanks for a powerful plugin that I'm sure has kept my blood pressure down a few notches. Whenever I use a browser that doesn't have adBlock installed I am aghast at the irritating clutter that is on most web pages.
Re:i'm not usually the tin foil hat kind of person (Score:3, Interesting)
What should we do? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm interested in your thoughts. What about a completely ad-free town? Is there a small town somewhere that is willing to go completely ad-free (maybe there already is one)?
Maybe ad-free stretched of road (with anonymous sponsors)!!
Perhaps a huge billboard that is perpetually kept empty (or has only news/info on it).
Let's do something really good to commemorate this guy's vision.
RIP my friend (Score:2, Interesting)
I never knew you but as recently as Saturday I was bragging about your awesomeness.
Re:His legacy is that a lot of us enjoy surfing mo (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, it never quite occurrs to them that the more obnoxious they get with their ads, the more people who will resort to blocking technologies.
Back when ads were just simple banner images without all the annoying pop-up, pop-under, flashing, and annoying sounds, I didn't really mind them. As they started adding those annoying features, I went out of my way to actively block them.
From that point on, just about ANY ad on a web page (except for the non-annoying google text ones) pretty much turns me off from the advertiser... if I could see them which I pretty much don't due to the aforementioned blocking.
By definition, anyone who is willingly blocking advertisements is probably among the vast majority of people who are NOT likely to click through anyway. If I were an advertiser, I'd be glad they were out of the pool. Of course, I'm pretty sure most web advertising providers charge by impression (cuz they'd go broke if they charged for actual results.
The real money in Internet advertising isn't in having your ad be successful, it's in providing services to those who THINK they're going to make money advertising their wares.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No tears shed for intrusive advertising (Score:1, Interesting)
Problem is with adblock plus that you block all the ads by default. I make my living from ads on webpages and I consider most of my pages to not be cluttered. A adsense-banner here and there. Absolutly no popups or popunders. I even stay away from flash most of the time (mostly because they suck compared to adsense).
However, your approch to the problem is that I make zilch money. Thus I cant build web services for free anymore.
Kinda sucks, doesnt it?
This does underscore one flaw in OSS (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a big fan of both this project and the Open Source movement in general, but this does show off one major flaw in the system. Just like the proverbial bus that is so widely feared and runs down IT folks everywhere, many projects are small and while there may be many contributors there is one main person whom without the project would fail. When that person meets that proverbial bus, in an instant a widely used and relied upon piece of software can become dead as well. That's a major problem.
If things were truly born of chaos like we seem to think, these things would have no impact... but there is still a major underlying structure and hierarchy to this "chaos" and it is quite fragile.
The biggest barrier is ego, quickly followed by celebrity. It is hard for the creator of some neat widget to give up total control and truly step back and just share the success with those who hopped onto "their" project after the fact, but that is what needs to happen. There should never be less than two individuals at every level of a serious project, and both need to be fully competent... but that is not the case, even in very large projects.
* Oh, and give up on bashing the people who are concerned about what this means as to updates/life of the project... none of us were his good friend and the question is not callous or insensitive.
Re:This does underscore one flaw in OSS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:3, Interesting)
This is very true, and if it wasn't for the rest of your post, I would have recommended a +1 Insightful. Advertising isn't money appearing from nowhere. Someone pays for the advertising. With less advertising, there will be more money left to actually enhance products, who will have to sell on merit, not hype. But the money will be spread out less, and those who live on siphoning advertising will see their revenue dry up. Again, so what. The money is still there, you just have to shift your siphons.
Mostly, yes. There might be legal or moral roadblocks, and there is the question whether "some price" equals "an affordable price".
Do you really think that by forcing an ad on a user that has already demonstrated a strong desire not to see the ad, you will increase sales?
If anything, I would think that this kind of action will alienate the potential customer even more, even to the point of triggering boycotts, both of the web site that engages in the practice and the products advertised through warfare.