As someone who relies on advertising for my livelihood, and as someone who runs both ABP and Ghostery, I can awkwardly sympathize with both sides. Ultimately though, I still 100% believe that the end user should have ultimate say in what does and does not come across their computer. If they want to block something, that's their right. It's my burden to create the value, not the users.
So yes, ABP allowing ANY kind of advertisements kind of pisses me off. It's like creating a safety switch for a gun that allows certain kinds of bullets to be fired.
I don't use any adblocker software and also make a living from (good quality) advertising, but yes I agree that users should have the right to chose.
However, two issues with your logic:
1.) Users have the right to install the ad-blocking plugins available, that doesn't mean the ABP devs have an obligation to provide it. They too have rights, one of which is to change ABP in any way they like, or to kill it off alltogether.
2.) With this change, ABP users STILL have the ability to block all adverts, so this ABP change hasn't actually prevented them from doing that if they wish.
ABP has the unique advantage of being one of the original ad blockers (or even THE definitive ad blocker). People like me flocked to them for very specific reasons. They are now fundamentally changing the way they do business; alienating those of us that came calling in the first place.
Perhaps even doing "business" at all is now a problem. Offering to allow advertisements for companies that pay enough money seems as shitty to me as when No Script coded in ways to prevent Ad Block from disabling the ads on their site. The internet flipped its shit over that, but somehow this same practice seems ok when its carried out with large sums of money? Right.
There's a trust issue with ABP that seems to have been fundamentally ruined. I wish them luck but I will personally be looking into other alternatives.
I completely agree that a business model based around companies paying to let their adverts get shown is awful. If I used ABP, this would stop me using it.
I just disagreed with your opinion that this is bad because "the end user should have ultimate say in what does and does not come across their computer" - as they still do, even now that ABP is open to taking bribes.
I don't know if there's a good alternative for Adblock Plus on Firefox, but for Chrome there's one called simply "Adblock", which has been there since the beginning on Chrome, before Adblock Plus, and I'm happy with it.
I'm not up to date on this, but wasn't it actually impossible to really block ads on Chrome? As in, they aren't even loaded (that's what ABP does afaik), not merely hidden from display. I seem to remember this was the case a while ago, and I'm unsure if that has changed - Google being an ad company and all.
So yes, ABP allowing ANY kind of advertisements kind of pisses me off. It's like creating a safety switch for a gun that allows certain kinds of bullets to be fired.