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I totally get where you're coming from, Scott, and I agree with you but for one point - when someone chooses to read our sites with an RSS reader, we've already lost them (not as readers, but as potential ad clickers). When they arrive at our sites though, they are potential ad clickers - and Reader view removes that option. I'm not saying some sites aren't poorly designed or are filled with ads to the point where users are begging for a Reader option... but for those of us with minimal ads that spend a lot of time thinking about the user experience, Reader view borders on insulting. (Don't look at the current state of my blog for proof of this, it's pretty ugly right now lol)
Are Reader view users the kind of people that never click on ads anyway? Maybe. Probably. But I still don't really like it very much.
If you think about how Reader works, the person has to click the button up top after arriving at your page. For them to go through that effort, they've presumably decided at this point that (a) they're interested in what you have to say, (b) they not going to click and ad and go away right now, and (c) they don't think your site is as readable as it would be in "Reader".
That's an engaged reader and you shouldn't be insulted by that.
BTW, after they're done reading, they hit 'Esc' and are back to your page full of ads and can click one then.
That's not quite true: Reader also works on pages that do not have an RSS feed associated with them. Arguably, a lot of web content is offered for free on the understanding that you view the advertising, so Reader changes the implicit contract between the website owner and the visitor in a way that's detrimental to the website owner. Since readers won't pay for content, some form of advertising is inevitable and forcing content owners to put ads inside the content risks compromising editorial integrity.
© 2012 http://www.jangro.com/
RSS
UPDATE: This post was written years ago when Safari Reader first came out. Surely it has changed by now, and people have figured out a good deal more about how it works. The important point I want to clarify here is that it is not (or no longer) dependent on RSS. Read on...
Are you a website owner? Have you seen the new "Reader" feature in Safari 5?
Basically, it allows your visitors to view a cleaned up version of the page you're viewing.
They can view your website without your formatting. Without your ads.
Haven't seen it yet?
Here's what it does.
Here's my blog...
And here's my blog with the "Reader" feature, got by clicking the "Reader" button in the address bar, where there's normally an RSS link.
It's a nice cleaned up page, easy reading. As a frequent blog reader, I think this is great. If you're cluttering up your website with ads, distractions, and poor design decisions, you're putting you first and me second. With this, in spite of you, I can read what you have to say.
As a website owner, why am I not up in arms?
I know, I know, my readers can read my page without ads. But that's ok.
Because to provide this information, Apple is using my RSS feed. This is content that I make available for syndication.
And by the way, this is what my blog has looked like for years in RSS readers.
(Actually Apple appears to do some extra cleaning up of the RSS feed to remove ads, tweetmeme stuff, etc. I'm guessing they're scrubbing it by removing anything that isn't on the website or is served from a third party.)
Want to Stop This Travesty?
If you don't want people to do stuff like this with your content, then don't syndicate it. It's that simple. If you don't offer RSS or Atom feeds, then this simply won't work.
Or switch to partial feeds instead of full feeds. The "Reader" feature won't work with partial feeds either.
Safari Reader doesn't work without full RSS feeds available for the given page.
So that's how you stop Safari's Reader. And how to bite off your nose to spite your face.
Or you can chill the heck out. Your readers have already been doing this for years in their feed readers. They want to read the way they want to read, in a browser, in Google Reader, in NetNewsWire, and now Safari 5's Reader. So let 'em.
(RSS ads don't work anyway. Other smart people have figured that out years ago.)
If they care enough to click over to this special view to read what you have to write, you should be happy. Isn't that why you wrote it? And they probably weren't going to click on an ad anyway.