I don't understand - is it not possible to construct a site that does not allow you to download if you have an ad-blocker? It seems trivial:
1. Show an ad, include a special value.
2. Download only if special value is present.
3. If special value is not present, tell user they must disable ad-block to download.
Most sites fail to do this not because of technical complexity, but because they don't care about ad-blocking and/or it doesn't affect their business greatly. In ZS's case, they should've implemented this.
I chalk this up to poor management tbh. Things like the electricity cost increase could have been balanced with more ads to compensate. The kind of things on ZS tend to be nefarious, and the electricity needed would likely be offset by say, a 15 second video being watched before downloading.
1. Show an ad, include a special value.
2. Download only if special value is present.
3. If special value is not present, tell user they must disable ad-block to download.
Most sites fail to do this not because of technical complexity, but because they don't care about ad-blocking and/or it doesn't affect their business greatly. In ZS's case, they should've implemented this.
I chalk this up to poor management tbh. Things like the electricity cost increase could have been balanced with more ads to compensate. The kind of things on ZS tend to be nefarious, and the electricity needed would likely be offset by say, a 15 second video being watched before downloading.