In life, if you let people walk all over you, they absolutely will. Need proof? Look no further than these pushovers just begging to get taken advantage of: This website has a pop-up asking you to disable your ad-blocker while still providing you with an option to continue without disabling.
Jesus Christ, this is pitiful. Learn to stand up for yourself, c’mon!
Completely undermining their efforts to make money with on-site advertising, the easy marks over at RottenTomatoes.com included a clickable link reading “Continue without disabling” on the very same pop-up that asks you to disable your ad-blocker before using their website. This mewling little pop-up—offering readers the option to NOT have spammy, clickbait ads pollute every other paragraph of the article they’re trying to read—is operating on a downright naive level of goodwill that we guarantee won’t be returned by their readership. RottenTomatoes.com’s absolutely gutless approach here is for the benefit of everyone else but themselves, because no one in their right mind would think twice about electing for an ad-free experience, especially when the alternative involves being bombarded with algorithmically produced banner ads that bear no relevance to the content they came to the site for in the first place.
What’s so sad about this situation is that it seems like showing ads is a vital element of RottenTomatoes’ business model judging by how politely and beseechingly the pop-up text explains that “ads can be annoying but they keep [their website] afloat.” Really, RottenTomatoes? Are you sure that ads keep your operation “afloat”? Because you’re clearly too chickenshit to actually make your readers look at them. We better not hear you complaining when everyone and their mother chooses to go ad-free on YOUR website, at YOUR expense, each and every time you let them.
So pathetic. Whoever decided to create this option needs to grow a goddamn spine.
Honestly, it’s hard to watch people this conflict-avoidant let themselves get straight-up trampled over. There’s people-pleasing, and then there’s acting like a doormat, and the invertebrates over at RottenTomatoes.com are firmly in the latter category. Nice guys finish last for a reason!
