Posted on 01/13/2017 1:49:00 PM PST by qam1
Ad-blockers may seem like an answer to an internet user’s prayers. No annoying pop-ups, no promos before videos and no concerns about accidentally clicking on a virus. But for ad-driven websites, they’re a revenue leech that needs to be pried off.
This is becoming one of the internet's biggest debates. More countries are cracking down on ad-blockers—the EU’s European Commission even proposed a rule this week that would allow media companies to ban users who use ad-blockers. The debate is no longer on the fringes with tech’s biggest names, including Facebook, weighing in.
“Ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected,” Facebook Vice President of Ads & Business Platform Andrew Bosworth said in an August announcement last year.
As of 2015, 500 million devices worldwide had an ad-blocker installed, including 181 million desktop users with an active ad-blocking plug-in or used a browser that automatically blocked ads, according to PageFair, an industry leader among advertising recovery—i.e. anti ad-block— companies.
That led to an estimated loss of billions of dollars among websites and online services that rely on advertisements for their primary source of revenue. Nearly every corner of the internet relies on advertising to avoid charging consumers—everything from music streaming to video hosting to news outlets.
So how do anti-ad-blocking tools work? First, these companies run analytics to help websites understand how much revenue is being lost to ad-blockers. Then the companies offer their customers tools that can ask users to accept advertisements, give online users a choice about which ads are removed or allow website users an ad-free experience if they pay a fee—depending on which anti-ad-blocking service
It is “really an access control system,” said Dan Rua, CEO of Admiral, which builds software to strip away ad-blockers. By giving users options and explaining the need for ads, consumers don’t feel like they’re being blindsided.
Getting around ad-blockers could open the dam for a lot of money, especially for struggling industries like free training (think sites like Coursera) and gaming websites. Facebook’s decision last year to create tamper-proof ads that can’t be removed by ad-blockers is expected to yield an additional $720 million this year in advertisement revenue for the social media giant, according to the PageFair analysis.
To see the whole problem, you have to look at how the internet is affected by ad-blockers, Rua said. It’s a matter of whether the internet can continue to remain free and open to anyone. “There’s billions being lost across the industry,” he said. “Nine out of 10 sites that people visit are free, and that’s only because of advertisements working.”
Different sections of the internet are affected more than others—for example, about half of the traffic to technology and gaming websites come from users with ad-blocking tools installed—but the big picture is startling, said Matthew Courtland, spokesman for PageFair.
“Adblock threatens the sustainability of the open web and internet as we know it,” he said. “If revenue is not flowing back to publishers, then the quality, diversity, and interesting content that makes the internet so wonderful will gradually die, and all that will be left will be a smaller number of publishers creating provocative ‘viral’ content for walled gardens.”
At the same time, ad-blocking businesses say they’re protecting the spirit of the open web by keeping power in users’ hands. By allowing companies to force ads on consumers, they’re breaking the spirit of the free internet, said Adblock Plus spokesman Ben Williams.
“When you try to wrestle the control out of the users’ hands, it is something that is anti-web,” he said.
Some users don’t even realize ad-blockers are installed on their devices since browsers like UC Browser, which is popular in China, come installed with ad-blocking software, according to PageFair. And others install it right away as a protection against malware.
“In essence, ad-block has become the new firewall or anti-virus,” Cortland said. “Creating a sustainable solution for ad-block means listening to and addressing these very real and valid security concerns.” He said PageFair doesn’t allow untrusted JavaScript to get through their entryways since they often harbor viruses.
On the other hand, Williams said partial ad-blocking, which is Adblock Plus’s primary model, is a more defensible way for companies to recoup revenue without stripping power from internet users.
“I think there are better ways to help publishers get lost revenue back,” he said. “You can actually work with ad blocking companies to show ads that users have approved, and doing so you work directly with users, so I think that’s a much more healthy and sustainable approach.”
We use Ad Blocker Plus to protect our computer from hostile advertising sites/services that often push malware in their ads.
The way to deal with this is to place the ads as content in a site instead of using these annoying weblinks that stream crap to your computer and hog up all your bandwidth.
I've already run into this. You know what I do, I don't visit those websites. Screw 'em. If they're gonna be that way, I don't need them.
When linking to some news sites from Drudge or here I get a popup that won’t let me continue unless I whitelist their site. I do just the opposite and blacklist them as not worth the effort.
Ad blockers allow me to visit websites that are otherwise unusable. Some newspaper sites take 10 minutes to load a page without an ad blocker but take a few seconds with the ads suppressed.
It's my choice what I want to watch, not theirs.
The reason ad-blocker is necessary is because have you ever tried to access some of these websites on your cellphone and find it completely overtaken by ads? Enough said.
It allows me to not have to see an ad for every damn 1 minute video on YouTube.
This is a simple problem to solve.
Charge for access to your site. If people are not willing to pay for it, it’s not market-viable anyway. And should return to dust.
I have found a new browser called “Brave”. It annihilates ads and pop up. . It claims to have stopped over 100,000 ads since I installed it two months ago. This pleases me so much. It is a 95 mb program ( huge) and it is slightly slower but the damned thing works.
Also never watch any ads on FOX NEWS. We tape every show we like and watch 30 minutes later and zip through ads. We live in such a great age!! I didn’t watch a single ad on college football or any halftime. I watch an entire recorded game in under 1 hour. I hate Ads.
The ad people are like the Progressive elites, they think they know best and you have to put up with their crap.
When I go to a news page I don’t want to load a crap movie trailer for a movie I will never watch with no escape. If I were interested, I would click on it.
If web companies didn’t put in so many ads, and if the ad makers didn’t so frequently use crappy code, we wouldn’t use ad blockers. It’s just like telemarketing, when it was a minor irritant we accepted it, but once telemarketers started hitting everybody multiple times a day we started finding ways to block them. I had a lot of fun over election season blocking any number whose ID was just some city.
Yup. Any sites that don’t like our ad blocker I just don’t go to.
Maybe they should make better ads .... I never pass up a Budweiser dog and horse ad.
I also use and recommend Ad Block plus. I pay for Internet, and I go out of my way to blacklist any company whose ads occasionally sneak through. F ‘em!
Abusive ads are why there are ad blockers.
If ad blockers become universal in use then there will have to be fees to use the internet, either metered usage or fees per email and fees per page view. Something has to pay for it all. And yes, I do use an ad-blocker or the internet must be reduced to commercial sites i.e. entirely consisting of ads.
Netflix is a great example of how non-ad offerings to consumers can be successful. Netflix streams movies and TV series for a REASONABLE monthly fee, ad-free.
Netflix is adding members every month, whereas cable/satellite companies are losing members every month. The main reason? People are fed up with too many ads. A couple of years ago, the ‘industry’ added even more ads by shortening regular tv programs by another couple of minutes.
In the 1970s, and hour TV show had approximately 50 minutes of content. By the 1980s those shows had about 46 minutes of content. A few years ago, the content was down to 42 minutes, and now, many programs have been reduced to about 39 minutes.
Many people will pay for ‘good’ content, but they are infuriated by commercial concerns who try to sell both — a subscription fee and a website full of ads. That is why cable/satellite are losing customers — the massive subscription fees AND increasing ad contents.
I don’t want the added delay getting to my destination, the clogging of my computer buffer, having to close tons of windows once they are done, and the malware that creeps in.
Sorry, find a better way of achieving your goals folks.
Pop-up adds will never be welcome.
If you don't mind an abundance of faggot movies and otherwise general trash. Plus they've been having more and more raghead type nonsense.
I finally cancelled Netflix. I think they're trying to get away from having to pay royalties to quality entertainment.
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