Why Do People Suck?

I was browsing digg.com today (as I usually do) and I stumbled upon this little gem of a submission/article: http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Why_Digg_is_Blocked. Upon viewing the page, it turns out that the owner of the site has decided to BLOCK digg.com, Netscape, Redit and StumbleUpon because, get this, users openly endorse Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites

Fine, so he has a problem with users who use Ad Block Plus [which is a great plugin by the way, it blocks THOSE ANNOYING ADS ON STUPID WEBSITES!]. According to the owner, people who use digg.com and the such, endorse using Ad Block Plus, which is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers and provide no value to the sites they visit. The owner then suggests wish to view the site you came from we suggest stopping using social media sites and finding the resources through Google instead

Why does this make me mad? I don't look for news on google, I use these "social networking" sites like digg.com because people who submit stories/news and then "digg" them, are usually stories/news which I have an interest in. And in turn, I can choose to "digg" a story to show my support or interest in the story/news, thus in turn, the more "diggs" a story gets, the more popular it becomes, etc etc. The owner also states that the users of such social networking sites are a somewhat small and insignificant percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking these users seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers. So in HIS WORDS, I am "insignificant" percentage of the internet and thus blocking me has "minimal financial" drawbacks so why not unblock me then? Oh, is it because it "ends resource theft" and has "tremendous financial rewards"? So if blocking me, the small, insignificant percentage, has no benefit yet NO DRAWBACK then why am I blocked again? Yeah, thought so.

After further research, the owner of the site also owns another domain called "Why Firefox is Blocked", which is along the same lines as "Why Digg Is Blocked" because Firefox has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus. So as a Linux user, I have no choice but to run Firefox. Yeah, sure I can run Opera, but I choose not too, because Firefox is built into Linux, much like IE is built into Windows [bleh!].

One other side point, the developer of the site uses PHP to develop his web sites, which is a "free" and "open source" programming language, yet at the same time uses Microsoft FrontPage to develop his websites, as this is in the header of both websites:

So I think boycotting the site would be a good thing, even if we are a "small and insignificant" portion of the internet. And people like the owner/developer who get off stating that plugins like Ad Block Plus and programs like Firefox are indeed a good thing and actually make the Internet as SAFER place (see: ActiveX controls). I encourage people to use Firefox to protect your online browsing AND WITH the Ad Block Plus plugin to avoid seeing those annoying flashing ads on stupid sites.