This last year the commercial Internet has fallen from grace with businesses and the public alike for some obvious and not so obvious reasons. Some reasons may seem trivial, but that doesn't mask their sinister nature.

Take ad-blocking software

At the very moment that software like WebWasher, PopupCleaner, Hiddensurf, Ad Buster, Ad Muncher, ad nauseam hit the Net, I felt I had to sound an alarm. Look, you'll get no argument from me that banner ads, buttons, and pop-ups can be annoying, but they are the quid pro quo for free information. Kill those ads and the free information inevitably dies too. Ya wanna pay subscription fees? I didn't think so.

We've all become a bit too clever and smug for our own good when it comes to technology, and it's going to be our undoing. It's reasonable to expect that a purveyor of information in business to make a profit will either charge for something it provides, or bring in a third party to advertise in order to ameliorate a direct charge. To then take the information for free, and employ a method of deleting that advertising is at the very least disrespectful to the information source and to the advertiser, and at worst, the death of the provision of that information.

On being too clever

How dare we use websites for research, education, enjoyment, legal reference, and a million other things, taking what the site owners are giving in the hopes that they can turn our traffic into bread and butter for their tables, only to then rob them of that by blocking the ads that hardly intrude on our lives as much as they do on radio or television or in print publications. I always marvel at the cynicism that creeps into the public's mind after it gets used to a site being around -- people use it, chat about it, criticize it, deconstruct it, and ultimately, block its means of support. Then they wonder why it dissolves.

Don't want to take my word for it? Think I'm a raving lunatic who somehow has fallen in love with the banner ad? Fine. Do a text search on "to supplement flagging ad sales revenues" on Yahoo! or a news service. A company going out of business is the ultimate final arbiter of my point. If we choose to use methods that make advertising less effective, or, in the case of ad-blocking software, completely impotent, we are the architects of our own sorry, and now subscription-paying future.

Don't like ads?

Fine. Ignore them. That's a passive, aesthetic choice on your part that you should be entitled to make. That can even be a good thing: In other media, it prompts advertisers to elevate their creativity to some higher form of excellence to gain your attention. Unfortunately, on the Web, ignoring ads makes advertisers create ads so big you can't design for 800x600 anymore.

One of the most over-used, hackneyed phrases we've been subjected to lately in film and on television is the irony-laden: "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

But if you employ technology to prevent ads from loading, you're slitting your own cheap throat. You're trading long-term health for a misguided, falsely clever present. And you'll get what you wish for: no ads. Because there will be no pages on which to place them.