I usually avoid meta-commentary like this, but this comment has been re-iterated 500,000 times on this site any time this topic comes up. The reason I'm replying is that it's become offensive at this point the idea that anyone needs to wear a cup while playing baseball to (sometimes) avoid being barraged by baseballs and people kicking me in the dick.
The only way to make this analogy work is if the entire premise of the game of baseball was predicated on the fact that not only do 99% of players not wear cups, but them getting hit in the nuts is required for the game to even continue at all.
I don't go to the ballpark to have baseballs thrown at my head or balls, but that's something that can be reasonably expected to happen at some point while playing baseball (not often but certainly something that happens several times a year, intentional or not), so taking precautions (batting helmet and cup) beforehand makes sense.
If you're not going on the web to have ads lobbed at your head, and you can reasonably expect there to be a ton of ads, so taking precautions and installing an ad blocker makes sense.
> and you can reasonably expect there to be a ton of ads
Expect? Yes. Reasonably expect? I'd dispute that: ads aren't inherent to much of the web (advertisement archives and classifieds sites being exceptions).
You can run an ad blocker that completely removes ads, so you don't have to interact with them at all, and it's an improvement. Try to run a baseball blocker, and you've ruined the game of baseball. The risk of injury from a baseball is a consequence of the presence of baseballs, thanks to physics; and the harm from advertisements is likewise a consequence of their presence, yet there is no reason for the latter to be there to begin with!
> Expect? Yes. Reasonably expect? I'd dispute that: ads aren't inherent to much of the web
Getting hit with is a baseball isn't inherent to much of the game of baseball (aside from enforcing unwritten rules, apparently), but it's still a thing that one can reasonably expect to happen from time to time.
While I agree, yes, ads aren't necessarily inherent to much of the web, that's not the world we currently live in. We could live in that world, eventually, with either legislation or some tech advance that completely destroys the ad industry's ability to target ads, but right now one can reasonable expect that they will encounter ads on the web. Knowing that, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask someone to use an adblocker if they're complaining about ads on the web.
(I think we're using "reasonably" in different ways - I mean it as "something that someone involved with an activity knows can happen" (something that's reasonably foreseeable), like being hit with a baseball while playing baseball, as opposed to "it is a logical and good thing that something is happening", such as web advertising.)
