Today, we can virtually read any newspaper for free. This was not possible 15-20 years ago. But, how is this all made possible? Who pays Yahoo, CNN, Time, NYT and millions of other websites in order for them to provide us the free service? It is indeed very expensive to host the infrastructure for a website that serves billions of webpages per day. And, the answer is - "Advertising".

Who hasn't seen ads on webpages? If you visit any web portal you are bound to find ads. And, I have been using a very good software - Ad-block plus to get rid of those ads. But, then I read this article in NYT which really made me think, is it really ethical to block all ads on all webpages and look for only relevant content? And, does it threaten the online advertising model that allows us to use content over the internet for free? Most of the websites don't charge us to view/read their content.

Here are some relevant arguments in favor and against the use of Ad block software.

- One argument is that we already pay our ISP to access the internet so, why should we see ads? To be fair, don't we see ads on TV eventhough we pay our cable TV provider? And, do you really want to see only webpages on only one network - something like AOL in 90's?

- It is also argued that we want to read only what is relevant and Ads are not definitely one of them. But, if the web portals don't serve ads than we won't get content for free. Eventually, we won't get any content at all. Remember the dotcom bubble at the end of the century when hundreds of companies got bankrupt because they didn't have any business model to generate revenues!

- But, those ads are really annoying. I think that only if the ads were relevant and non-intrusive users won't block them. There are some ads which are really very funny and not intrusive at all. My personal favorite is PC and Mac comparison ads by Apple. Every time I used to visit cnet.com I'd see the ad but never found it annoying. If only they serve good ads I won't need Ad Block software. But, sometimes it becomes absolutely necessary to block those ads when some websites have banner ads displaying naked/bikini girls or try to lure us into scams. I admit that I block some ads on some of the websites such as www.indianexpress.com, www.rediff.com, www.gizmodo.com etc. Frankly, nobody wants to see bikini models on the website they are visiting to read news.

For now, I am waiting for some ingenius guy to design a relevant business model for websites other than serving ads. Until then, I'll keep blocking some intrusive ads but not all. After all, they've got to pay the mortgage too.