Dear Patheos Reader: If You Are Running An “Ad Block” While Reading This You Are Stealing From Writers Like Me

Once upon a time people who read books and articles and listened to music and watched movies paid for their entertainment and learning experiences. Then they–we–got used to free art, writing, music and films. The Internet made this “free” stuff possible. I like the Internet. But thieving is uncool. Mea Culpa! I’ve done my share on online thieving. But that was before I thought about it.

No, I’m not talking morality here. I’m talking selfish interest. See, I want there to be new music, books and movies. And if everyone is a rip off artist art will die.

The problem is that things are complicated now and so I’m not just talking about run of the mill stealing here. I’m talking about something I’ll bet you may never have thought about. I didn’t until recently.

I’m talking about the “Ad Block” rip off.

I’ll explain, but first let me get personal for a moment. I’m a writer. All I have to live on is what my books make for me either in sales on paper or online. These days lots of those sales depend on my blogging platform.

Blogging is a way to say what I think needs saying and also to keep my name in front of readers. And without that platform, places like Patheos, Salon and Huffington Post I can’t earn a living. Nor can any other writers except for a few big name celebrities.

So when readers use Ad Block programs to read my material without the ads I understand the aesthetic impulse but I wonder how they think that platforms that allow writers who are just working stiffs like me to exist at all will stay in business. You are already reading the work for free. Do you really want to harm the site by blocking the last and only revenue source?

You see running a site like Patheos.com (that gives me the freedom to write) and that provides me and hundreds of other writers, with a platform isn’t free.

The people who advertise count the number of times a page is opened with their ad on it. They discount page views where the Ad Block is used. In other words you block the ad and by doing harm the lifeblood of the site.

So those using Ad Block aren’t just reading for free, they’re more or less shop lifting too.

They are taking away the base that means people like me get to write. No platforms in this new writers online market equals no writers–eventually. Do you really want only the vast media based sites to survive? Don’t you want indy and feisty voices like Patheos out there?

So please think about it before you not only read for free but use a program–that if everyone used it–would shut down this “bookstore” the same way so many bricks and mortar stores are closed. I happen to know that there are so many readers using Ad Block already who are Patheos readers that they have managed to hurt this site. If that’s you, did you mean to do that? I’ll bet you did not.

Thank you! Please just put up with a little intrusion and keep reading.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace