Things like this are always a nice reminder that prostitution to corporations is at least ONE thing our congress can agree on.

If our submarines can't even see a ship next to them, how on earth will they EVER see the evil Taliban/Al Qaeda/Iranian/North Korean navy approaching US shores for a 2012 Red Dawn scenario?

Quick! MORE MILITARY SPENDING!

You, sir, make me wish i had mod points right now.

The office jerk is pretty much never the smartest person at the company. If he was, he'd have the sense to shut up and realize when he's just being an ass. But he doesn't, because he's not brilliant; he only thinks he is.

So what do you do with him? Fire him and grab someone who's actually a team player: Something pretty important for any tech company.

You can't assert that novels don't have an effect on society just because the author doesn't single-handedly put an end to all the problems they address like they're superman or something.

Also: did you REALLY just say "Harry Porter" THREE times?

are you seriously going to stick to that single comparison while ignoring the obvious similarities that the others have with every other form of advertising? If that's the case, there's no reasoning with you anyway.

no, they aren't different things. both are forms of advertisement. you dress nicely to a bar so men/women will notice you if you're single (or possibly a two-timing jerk), you do well in high school so colleges will notice you, you write a resume so employers will notice you, the list goes on. It's all advertisement. So yes, you're a hypocrite if you scoff at a business for advertising its services. What would you expect? Should they just sit idly by and hope potential customers stumble across them? I wouldn't want to work for any business YOU start up.

so I take it you've never seen any movie ever? Because those are all advertised.

Man, those Lord of the Rings movies were so terrible, the studio needed to ADVERTISE them so people knew they existed!

Every (successful) business in the world relies on advertising. That's how people know to look there for something.

I only took a few required business courses, but i'm pretty sure "sitting in an alleyway and hoping someone walks in there asking for what you're selling" isn't one of the chapters in a typical business textbook.

Also, why does the last-resort argument always have the word "sheep" in it? Frankly, if you're too weak-willed to resist an ad from Target, being coerced into buying Tupperware sets for half-off are the least of your problems.

I could sum up why you're just an altogether unlikeable person, but you seem to have done a pretty good job at that yourself.

Don't worry, it's just because you're too smart and ahead of the curve and whatnot.

oh, you got me! there's also investment, which they get a cut of from handling my money anyway. good job completely ignoring my point though, which is that I'm not stealing from my bank just by not paying 1 month late on all my credit card bills. The same can't be said for using a website's sole service while blocking their sole source of revenue. So no, it's not the same. Try harder.

if a company couldn't make any money through their website, there'd be no reason to have that website in the first place. Any website such as youtube, huffington post, hulu, and pretty much anything else that doesn't just act as a company's product-ordering site wouldn't exist.

Banks make money through loans, with our without the use of credit cards. That's their whole business. If i'm using their service (taking loans) then I'm already contributing.

this is the approach I take. I want websites to get revenue from my visits, but I'm not selfless enough to sit there while a giant auto-playing video ad slows down my browsing. I sympathize with people who hate THOSE ads, but that's no reason to hate the majority of ads that are reasonable and convenient, and it's definitely no reason to claim some ridiculous moral integrity based on your choice to go out of the way and deny money to the websites you visit.

Also, if you've ever dressed nicely before going out to a bar (or if you even have a job resume), then congratulations, you're an advertiser and a hypocrite.

If you're one of those weird people who visits more than 3 or 4 websites a month, that model would get very expensive very quickly.