Maybe I am weird Tony, but I am part of a majority that advertisements are successfully aimed at.

Of course some advertisements are annoying, and I hate the way they amp up the volume at times, but they wouldn't spend all the money and time on advertising if it didn't work.
This site is one of thousands who rely on advertising for their existence.

I like shopping online because I work long hours and am often on call.... so shoot me!

Dear Yuyutsu,

You write; “I refuse to benefit from advertising and I have a policy of trying to avoid those businesses who do it”.

The thing is that we do benefit from advertising every time we access this site since without it it probably wouldn't exist. And if we use Google for anything at all then again its business model is wholly derived from its advertising structure.

The only one of note that has managed to keep itself out of the clutches of the ad executives is Wikipedia to which I have contributed for years, primarily on Wikipedia Day January the 15th but on other occasions especially after I have enjoyed a particularly juicy 'stream of learning' which Wikipedia allows so brilliantly.

My wish for OLO is that they facilitate contributions through Paypal since, as Suseonline alludes, the demographic of posters here would probably lend itself toward those who “are hesitant to use credit cards online”.

I also think the demographic is smart enough to recognise that by blocking OLO ads we are costing them money, possibly forcing them to push more intrusive advertising on other users. Our saving grace is a sense of obligation or fairness toward projects like OLO that I'm not sure exists to such a degree in the generation raised with the internet. Make it easy and safe to contribute and I for one will utilise it.

P.S. To the techie. The site's spell checker flagging 'internet' as either misspelt or erroneous is a curiosity.

Dear Csteele,

I know that it is practically impossible to avoid companies that advertise, but I TRY to avoid them, if I can.

By refusing to benefit from advertising I meant that I refuse to gain pleasure from the information within advertisements. I do what I can to avoid seeing/hearing them in the first place, but if one happens to slip through, I will never act on that information even if I otherwise found the product/service appealing.

Re 'Google', for that reason and many others I switched my default search engine and am now using 'DuckDuckGo', which has a "no advertising" option.

I hate denying funds from OLO, but ads are not a price I am willing to pay - adding scratches to my brain is no better than hitting my hand with a hammer. I am happy to pay in $$'s instead.