danieljean - 3:08 pm on Jul 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

I think spam demonstrates that market efficiencies on the net are a few orders of magnitude different than in meat-space.

These ads are a blight on content sites, probably doing them more harm in reduced traffic than they help with increased revenues. Ignorant webmasters -or perhaps too clueless to think of other revenue models- keep signing up for these obnoxious banner ad networks. And old-school marketers that haven't grasped the fundamentals of a new media keep buying obnoxiously flashing ads in a desperate attempt to get noticed.

The best market efficiency is to have people systematically block those bandwidth-wasting ads, quit frequenting those sites and put those idiot marketers out of business.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm all for good advertising. You know, useful content and services that help people make a purchasing decision or contextual ads.

Oh, and since you were asking questions about usability, and not just requesting rants from people like me... [google.ca...]