That’s the question on minds of many web developers these days. The debate is interesting but weird at the same time.
Dan Rubin from superfluousbanter.org thinks “It’s time to stop supporting IE6. Period.“

And I completely understand his pain and share his passion about web standards. But let’s face it – we are in business of communication. And we are not just artists for the sake of art. Many web developers are developing web solutions for clients with marketing goals. And marketing goals demand to reach certain demographics. If that demographic includes users of an older browser – that just means we have to do everything possible within our budget to reach that audience. I agree that there is a cost to that. And marketers should decide if they are willing to pay that cost or not.

My position is that we should all grow up and treat this as a business. It’s business for us and business for our clients. I know there are a lot of clueless clients that demand support of everything and everywhere. We should take initiative and educate those clients.
What we are facing now is that web is an equal player in marketing just as traditional media – newspapers, radio, TV and magazines. And just because it has smaller barriers of entrance for businesses it doesn’t mean that we should treat it as cheap or free or unprofessional.

Internet is mature and powerfull enough to generate great success for companies, individuals and political parties and I think that we need to develop mature professional market for this new media and that includes both professionals and consumers of their services and products.

Let’s support IE6 if marketing goals require that.