Paranoia much?

Since you say you feel entitled I strongly suspect so

While I'm European, I think fellow law-abiding Europeans would feel offended by this gross generalization.

I'm feeling entitled not because I'm European, but because in my part of Europe (Eastern part), "piracy", at least for personal use, is the norm. Everybody has been doing it for their whole lives. Nobody gives a damn. It's difficult to change a mindset without giving something concrete back.

If we want these people to keep making games, movies, and music we need to make sure they profited some how.

As I said before, I really don't care. In fact, if mainstream commercial music were to disappear I couldn't be happier. I support my favorite (mostly underground) artists by going to their concerts. I go to movie theaters if I really like a movie, but I do it for my viewing experience, I'm not kidding myself that I'm helping anybody.

Also, I don't care about software and games. I'm only one out of billions of computer users and I don't care what would happen if everybody would do the same as me. I have more important stuff to do.

Again, not trolling, just sharing ...

Well, I never buy games, software or music, I'm one of those "lazy pirate bastards" you speak of and I can testify that I'd rather not play games and not listen to music than buy them at the current prices. It's just the way things are, I don't have any moral dilemmas about it, I actually feel a little entitled to it and no matter how hard I try, I really, really can't understand people who pay for this stuff. Maybe if new games were 4-5$ and music was 0,05$/track and 0,5-1$/album I'd think about it, but that will never happen.

I'm not trying to troll, just to provide a little insight in the mind of a so called pirate.

Don't you know? Apple doesn't like options

There is a 3rd choice ... a hybrid between the two models: slim down the framework or copy and refactor useful bits of code to your library.

Having said that, I'm the kind of programmer that almost never uses frameworks other than my own. But then again not everybody has this luxury - I'm self employed and I'm working with the same technologies for about 8 years. Also I don't have to work with anyone on code.

This is actually the only thing that keeps me in the programming business - otherwise, for someone who started learning programming in the early 90s the current state of affairs is really unbearable.

Also, wiping out your own solutions and taking the time to write good code will pay-up in the long run, even though the initial development time may double or triple. I imagine, though, that this would be a tough thing to sell to managers.

What clients should understand is that they pay for a working product.

And this is exactly what I deliver. If the client wants to modify the project he can go to another developer and that would cost him more, because the developer would have to first recreate the product and then add the new features, or he could come to me and I would only charge him for the modifications. How does that not make sense and why do a lot of clients nowadays have this false sense of entitlement?

This is music:
http://theslip.nin.com/

This is a movie:
http://www.elephantsdream.org/

This is a game:
http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/

This is software:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Their service can be used both for good and bad. If the majority of people choose to use it for illegal sharing, that why don't they pursue those people? And, I'll tell you why - because everyFUCKINGbody does it! It's a signal to the fact the the companies producing the content have no idea how to distribute it and price it correctly and instead start this frivolous witch hunts.

Well, I don't know what more there is to say in this discussions. It is clear that both of us are going in complete different directions and are quite unconvinced by each other's arguments.

I can't relate to what you are saying even as a user, let alone as a site owner. I've never felt so strong about not seeing ads and I've sometimes found some of them useful and relevant to my needs.

Also, I don't really agree that the user should have that much freedom about how he uses my product. It was designed a certain way, it has to be used that way. And I'm not talking only about ads. Also, I want to emphasize that what I'm offering the user is free.

What I'm basically saying is ... while I'm inside someone's home, store or business I have to obey his/hers rules or get out. For me it's a matter of providing for me and my family, for the user it's a matter of convenience. Well, excuse me if I get defensive, then. But I'm sorry if you've felt offended in any way, I guess it's the first time I've got in such a discussion with someone on Slashdot after reading countless posts about the virtues of Adblock and Noscript.

I'm off to design some pesky ads and make my user's life miserable :)

I'm really outnumbered here, but I expected that when I wrote the first post. After all this is Slashdot, the place where people block site functionality and then brag about it (NoScript, Flash).

The ad industry is far from dying, so don't worry I'll be ok. But then again, I don't work with geeks or technologically savvy users.

And despite what you might think I try to make my user's stay as pleasant and useful as possible so that they come back. For this I expect some compensation. I know for a fact that donations do not work in my country and in my target, I also try to sell them some stuff, but 75% of the money still comes from advertising. Probably if I'd use the space to advertise my products I'd earn more from selling stuff, but not nearly as much as from advertising. I also charge for subscriptions on some sites and it works, but again not as well as advertising.

And if the industry goes bust you might not realize now, but all the sites will suffer, even your favorite ones that you thought you supported enough 3 years ago with your 5$.

So mod me down to hell if you care, but that's how it works here.

I don't hate users who block ads, I hate users who block ads and then make it sound like they were entitled to an ad free internet from the first place. Well, go to the corner and take your favorite magazine without paying and see what happens. And if you don't get caught than brag about it to your friends, neighbors, colleagues or what the hell, go brag about it to the guy you stole it from.

What if I said about your jobs ... what the hell, I'll just take what you make there and won't pay you in any way, but if you are good and keep producing nice stuff like that there's a shinny nickel in it for you. See? Donations work!

I, for one, and apparently my users also, like better to keep our money in our pockets and put up with a minor annoyance, than fork 5-10$/month per site we enjoy.

You don't care about me as a site owner? It's fair, you don't know me and you have no obligation to me. But then allow me not to care about you, and just stay away from my business because you are not worth a dime to me (and that is literal, not an insult).

Well, I must say that I own a few sites and I'm glad that most of my target audience is oblivious to ad blockers. If not I would have to resort to more sneaky ways of inserting ads into content.

Most sites just cannot survive on donations, subscriptions and merchandising. I don't know if you realize, but the disappearance of advertising would bring the internet down probably to the level it was in the mid nineties. That would kill an entire industry.

I, like probably many site owners, would go to great length to make sure that our businesses remain profitable. If ad blocking becomes a problem for my audience, I would go so far to find ways to forbid the access to my sites to people with adblock&co. It's my content and you will see it my way or not at all.

It's really cool to get content and pay nothing, isn't it? Now seriously, man, do you expect a site owner to pay from his pocket for hosting and editors? And what is his motivation to do all this? Shouldn't he earn something from his work or investment? How do you expect sites to survive if you block the ads? By selling tshirts with the site logo? By selling a subscription that no one will pay for? And the sad thing is you'll probably be surprised if one day Slashdot will be no more.

I don't get all this hype about Ares and SpaceX's Falcon. To me they look the same conceptually as the rockets form the sixties. Shouldn't we go in the direction of the shuttle, by building one that doesn't suck and doesn't cost billions per launch? I mean, how are the modern rockets superior to the old ones? I feel like we are just standing still and reinventing the wheel ... Could anyone please explain?

I don't understand why Americans are bitching about fuel prices. In a lot of European countries, my country included, the fuel price is at least two times higher ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_prices#Average_gasoline_prices_around_the_world ). If you make a decent income, fuel economy is a non-issue. I drive as fast as my car allows me to. I'm not saying I break the law or something, but as long as it's safe and I'm below or around the speed limit I keep it floored. Life's too short to spend saving pennies on your fuel.