They know that only a fraction of the user base will ever use it (because they certainly won't ship with it, anymore than Firefox does). They know people shutting off ads aren't clicking anyhow. They know that the people savvy enough to use the ad blocker are also the leading edge people who recommend browsers to other people.<p>Finally... how would they block ad blockers, even if they wanted to? Ad-blocking proxies are just as feasible as ever. And Chrome is supposed to be open source.<p>Conclusion: Instead of fighting what you can't fight, roll with it, get the leading edge people on your side, then cash in on the marketshare of the masses who don't block ads.<p>It's not really that mysterious... unless you're trapped in first-order thinking.
<i>a few months ago we visited an Internet start-up where the CEO told us a funny story of how one of his developers used an Ad Blocker. He took the developer aside and explained to him that their whole business, his company and his salary depended on income on ads. He explained to the developer that if he wanted to work in this business it would be odd to fight the economic systems that pay for your food. The developer ended up removing the ad blocker.</i><p>This is some of the worst writing I've read in a while. Good work. (What exactly is funny about this story? Employee does something, boss says no, employee complies. I guess the funny part is that the employee is wiling to work for a micro-manager like this "CEO"?)<p>Anyway, I used to work for an ad company. We all blocked ads. Ads are annoying and ugly, and we were not our company's revenue source, so it didn't matter.<p>I am looking forward to an IE release that blocks Google ads, and a Chrome release the blocks non-Google ads. That will be very fun to watch.
I think Google knows the success of Chrome depends on the plugin community. The open support of AdBlock is a signal that Google will prioritize user interests over everything else.<p>Seems like a smart move to me -- getting Chrome out is strategically important -- browser diversification mitigates bigger risks, such as MS pushing a default ad blocker through ie; and helps them raise the bar on all browsers (esp. js rendering) to make their web apps run better.
What's the install base for AdBlock on Firefox?<p>I don't think Google has anything to worry about, only the geeky are going to block ads (and invite all the headaches involved in doing so)<p>As a web designer, I need to see the web as my customer does, which means I don't use AdBlock or Greasemonkey etc.
Makes perfect sense. Somebody will be providing an ad blocker no matter what. If it is Google then they get to control how it works, why it works and when it works.
products of large companies traditionally suffer by having to strategically support other products of the same company. This is a major reason why products of large companies often get beaten by products of smaller uncommited ones. If Google has truly decided not to go this route with Chrome (or any of its products), I think is pretty great.