As for Ruby and Python - I'm particularly surprised they didn't make the list but ColdFusion did. I know of many CF apps in legacy support and development, but for new work?

Had the same exact experience actually. We had 3/4 8GB SSD's fail that were installed in two pfsense routers within three weeks of turning them on. We've since learned that too much activity can in fact kill SSDs. Luckily these were being burned in prior to production deploy - but pfsense specifically writes a large amount of consistent activity to disk for traffic logging and building it's analysis reports in near real time. This apparently wears out the cells quickly.

It's sad to me we're seeing this kind of curriculum foisted upon the classroom by dying industry when most public schools are pulling back Civics programs, and overall education about the law and democratic process. It's a sorry state indeed. Here's to the work of Sanda Day O'Connor though - who's at least trying to do something about it. (If you don't know who that is, you might need some remedial schooling yourself)

I'm going to have to say - you may be missing the central point of advertising, web advertising and why in fact it's absolutely true that without it a lot of sites couldn't operate, particularly newspaper and magazine websites also operating online.

You talk about 'not clicking the ad' as being akin to blocking it - but most advertising doesn't even offer a 'click though' kind of response. In fact Internet Advertising, which is still in it's adolescence comparatively is one of the few advertising methods that actually allows a direct and immediate interaction. Banner campaigns are also for the most part still a lot cheaper than television campaigns.

Banner ad's are also sold by 'impressions' which means the number of people who see them, or the number of times they are displayed - at least in the realm of 'respectable' advertisers and publishers, not (for the most part) the number of times they are clicked on.

I would also point out that in pretty much any 'national grade' website there are very strict rules about the use of sound, file size, testing for processor speed, and handling of invasive or otherwise destructive ad creative, and you really shouldn't be so quick to lump the 'click the monkey' ads in with an industry that is working very hard to continue to keep news and entertainment content free, and deliver engaging promotional content where possible.

At the end of the day without an ad supported model, most content publishers would have to seek alternative means of remuneration which would be much more difficult to deal with than an animated banner, or simply close their very expensive websites. (How much do you want to make in salary a year exactly...?)

This industry is an important part of the internet ecosystem, and without it I know a lot of folks all over who would need to be seeking other work. I think for the most part it's time to start talking about 'standards' for the industry, which in my opinion should include universal technological incompatibly.

Any website blocking firefox because a small percentage of firefox users are blocking ads has got to be out of it's mind. The FF community might be small, but we are loud... Also, it just straight up isn't good PR for any site participating.