Posted on 11/14/2015 8:56:14 AM PST by markomalley
The nation's struggling media, which has gone all-in on digital platforms to stay alive, now faces a new threat, easy-to-install ad blockers that are expected to wipe out $20 billion in all online publishing revenue next year, according to a sobering new report.
The group PageFair, which helps publishers fight ad blocking, revealed that the use of the money-robbing practice has surged in the United States and globally, and is expected to cost U.S. online publishers and advertising-supported sites $10.7 billion in "unrealized revenue" this year. That is expected to double next year.
The report said that ad blocking is hitting all online firms, not just news publishers, and is used especially by online gamers.
It drew the attention Thursday of media analyst Alan D. Mutter who warned that the media is threatened by the explosion of ad blocking. "When blocking technology prevents an ad from being served, however, the publisher doesn't get paid. And that is turning into a growing problem for everyone from gaming-site operators to the news media," he wrote in his blog "Reflections of a Newsosaur."
Unlike other online publishers, the media's business is costly and employs tens of thousands, and as a result needs to see advertising grow. A Brookings Institution report issued this week found that the media has moved to digital platforms because printing on paper is not sustainable. a
In the U.S., ad blocking usage grew 48 percent in the past year to 45 million users. In Europe it increased 82 percent.
PageFair said that the search engine Google Chrome is the main driver of ad blocking because it is easiest to install. Globally, some 126 million Google Chrome users block ads. For Firefox it's 48 million and for Safari it's 9 million.
And worse for internet publishers, the use of ad blocking is just starting to take off on mobile devices, where the most growth in usage is occurring.
"The bottom line: As technology develops and ad blocking plug-ins become more commonplace, the growth in ad blocking usage will receive yet another catalyst. This has the potential to challenge the viability of the web as a platform for the distribution of free ad-supported content," said PageFair.
Oh...okay...but that seems to be what this IE tracking protection does too.
It seems to work...
I already pay $27 a month to use the Internet.
I already pay for all that crap.
I don’t need it shoved in my face. I’m running both AdBlockPlus and BluHell Firewall.
My web surfing experience has immeasurably improved.
I want to get my money’s worth surfing the web - so do the rest of us.
Ad-Block Plus is what I use in Firefox. I use it to not only block ads but annoying photos of obama, clinton, pelosi etc.
Some sites also have giant photos of same and Ad-Block Plus gets rid of them. Briebart site is useful again once you start using Ad-Block Plus.
Oh my....”Globally, some 126 million Google Chrome users block ads.”
Google doesn’t mind. Google is the largest advertiser and spyware of them all and chrome/Google is still monitoring you even if you ad block.
#25 Thanks for the tip. I have now installed Self-destructing cookies. The local news site allows 5 articles then blocks you but now it is easy to delete the cookies for just that site.
I’m looking at Breitbart right now & all I see is blank spaces where the ads would have appeared.
I installed an AdTrap box on my PC. About 90% of ads are blocked. Since the box is connected to my cable modem/wifi router, the ads are blocked BEFORE they reach my PC or anyone using wifi. Pages load much faster & Chrome rarely locks up or crashes anymore.
AdTrap is well worth the money.
Blank is beautiful!
Microsoft Edge browser is not finished yet. Microsoft chose to release Windows 10 and Edge before they were 100% ready for prime time. They are getting better with each update release. Early next year (2016) Microsoft Edge should be fully functional (accept apps, etc). Eventually, Microsoft is going to phase out Internet Explorer in favor fo their new browser, Edge.
I got a note from Microsoft asking why I didn’t use Edge.
I replied I preferred a browser with an HTML editor aboard.
Never heard back.
[[Well they actually didn’t lose it, they just didn’t receive it. No business would rely on ‘expected ‘revenue’ to fund themselves.]]
Exactly, and smart businesses should be able to figure out a way to get that money back somehow- That’s what they hire the big guns to do- increase revenues-
[[I’m just a dumb-a$$ country boy who don’t know crap (or so the wife and children tell me).]]
If a man is in the forest alone, and he says something, is he still wrong?
The best way to get rid of tracking is to kill the cookies by using CCleaner and MRU-Blaster before you shut down for the nite.
There’s some type of cookie that stays on your PC when you erase your cookies. This cookie recognizes websties and when you go back to a site that you have visited before it stores the data. Then periodically it sends the data off.
CCleaner and MRU-Blaster gets rid of them.
Looking for a super fast searching program? http://download.cnet.com/Super-Finder/3000-2248_4-10454472.html
Pretty sure if people are blocking ads, they wouldn’t have gotten any revenue from them anyway.
If I didn't buy it the first time, your ads aren't gonna make me buy it now.
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