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Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"
Look - I don't care. In these days of over-saturation of accessible media, information, and other distractions I can tune into something else. If the business model a particular artist or other outfit doesn't work out without me shelling out cash or refraining from blocking the ads then that's not my fault - I'll find another distraction or information source that has found a business model that works.
I'm getting so sick and tired of this dinosaurian party line that we should be expected to pay for content! Seriously - you know what I say? I say that as a content producer you should feel fucking privileged that I'm spending my precious valuable time sopping up your info-goop with my greymatter sponge as opposed to spending it on some other outlet/avenue/source of infostream.
It's called supply and demand. When the supply is infinite the cost is nil.
In fact if I had it my way content producers would throw in some cash to attract my eyeballs to their info-goop stream. let's get with the times, people!
They're missing the point. Most of the ads only get them money if people click on them. From my experience people who run adblock software are also people who refuse to click on ads in general. So instead of calling people to be annoyed by ads they should call people to turn off their adblock for a second, click on an ad and turn it back on. But well, that's not gonna make the advertisers happy. The authors of Adblock Plus came up with a better proposal http://adblockplus.org/blog/an-approach-to-fair-ad-blocking - I wonder if Ars Technica has looked into that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't internet ads generate their revenue through the amount of clicks they incur? I know Google's ads do this.
By using adblock, what I'm saying is: I'm never going to be clicking on any of the ads on your website.
If I didn't use it, I still wouldn't be clicking on any ads on your website and they will also annoy me.
It's most likely that the people using ad blocking don't care about the ads you display and won't be clicking on them anyway.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
I have to agree, though personally i don't mind the slightly animated ones.
They started it (not specifically Ars Technica), they got greedy in wanting to maximize ad exposure and now they have to pay the price, it's that simple.
I mean i am not against advertising as i am myself trying to start something up that is partially ad supported, but until something can be done about this i have to block everything, and so should everyone else.
I have a suggestion, lets introduce a new html tag called noadblock (or possibly a CSS value)
within it the browser and relevant plug-in will make sure that content cant be alowed to
*make a sound
*change size, visibility or position
*expand past it's set borders
*be transparent
*have a total area larger than half a screen or something like that
*take long to load (in addition they also have to load last)
*interact with the user except for normal linking
but in return all adblockers will respect that tag and show it
- "There is nothing quite like an ineffective solution to an nonexistant problem"
We need an ad whitelist. I have a blocklist I've copied from somewhere else that effectively blocks just about everything ad-like. However, I don't actually mind ads that are useful and don't flash/scroll/make fart noises. Somehow allowing those through would make the web better for everyone.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Sure but, theres two sides to this coin. I think that my own use case here illustrates this well.
I don't run ad blocking software, however, I do run noscript and requestpolicy. These are firefox addons that allow me to control what scripts and other risky (from the point of view of maintianing the integrity of my environment, including the security of my personal information) content run in my local browser by site.
As an example, fsdn.com and slashdot.org are both allowed to run their scripts right now, and fsdn is allowed to get requests from this site. So should someone manage to inject some content that would cause slashdot to tell my browser to run a script on some other random attack page... it would be refused unless I decided to allow it.
Now... anyone who knows much about how web ads work can see the problem here. This setup, done entirely for reasons other than ad blocking, blocks ads voraciously. Its not my fault, I didn't say "I want to block ads" but...the ads are all implemented in a way that makes it impossible to, wholesale, honor them, without risking honoring a malicous and common attack. Also, many of these ad sites attempt to track me from site to site, which, I do not condone.
They have every right to advertise and have advertising. They even have every right to close their site down to paying members, or just people who they can verify in some way view their ads, or run their scripts.
Of course, they don't do that because it would drive away readers if it became less convenient. Instead they have nothing that they can do but bitch and moan about the fact that other people aren't using what they are giving away publically for free in the manner that they intended people to use it.
Thats always a winnining strategy. Whining.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
/. has ads for passerbys and noobs. To support the community they let good users have a free pass, this doesn't cost them much and improves the site. Lastly they allow people to donate/sign up with money.
They plan for and only expect a small chunk of people to sign up, but each signed up person pays for 1000 not signed up people. And the other bit of advertising is additional revenue without annoying anyone you really want on the site. Perfect! All sites should be run this way.
That or have an additional source of revenue and leave the website as a loss in efforts to increase $ to the other products. Put website into 'advertising' as an expense rather than kidding yourself and thinking it is a revenue stream.
I hear a lot of talk about how annoying ads are from the perspective of people viewing the ads. I have seen numerous articles written by people like Ken Fisher which bemoan the fact that their companies need advertising revenue in order to stay afloat. Of course, I have also seen all of the marketing fluff from the ad networks talking about how great their services are for people like myself who are trying to sell a product.
I want people to block my ads -- as a ad buyer why the hell would I want to pay for an impression, or a click through, from somebody who is not interested in my product? Now, of course I sell something that is legit and my business plan does not depend on some poor bastard accidentally clicking my ad.
Anyway, as an ad buyer, I encourage people to block ads -- if you are not interested in seeing an ad then block it -- save me money.
I'll allow static non-animated pictures. Anything with flash, javascript, or embedded in iframes is blocked. If you can't communicate your message with a picture, you don't deserve my attention. Oh - and adwords is fine too.
Advertisers have no morals and no shame. If they could legally send a barker around who breaks into your house and yells at you through a megaphone, they would. The industry would (and currently is attempting to) outlaw any technology that is capable of bypassing ads in any medium. Hell, if they could get away with it, they would outlaw eyelids so you couldn't close your eyes and mandate locking seatbelts that wouldn't allow you to get up and go to the bathroom during commercial breaks.
Did I mention I hate most ads?
That's all very well, but these ad farms aren't just serving ads, are they? Most of the time they're also installing tracking cookies and collecting private information. You want me to see ads? Don't try to track me, then. Until this shit stops, I won't just be using AdBlock, I'll be blacklisting ad farms on my proxy and barring them on the gateway. Not only is this the primary motivation for me eschewing ad farms but it is also my fundamental right to retain control of what I allow in and out of my private network. Don't like it? Tough. My network, my rules.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
I concur. However, beyond this, internet advertising often serves a different purpose than TV advertising. Many TV ads are for products they don't expect you to go right out and buy (click through?). They want to plant the product names and images in your head so that when you next go shopping for certain classes of items you will buy their particular brand. If you have a headache you'll reach for Tylenol instead of generic acetaminophen, or Dial instead of Irish Spring. It's assumed that continued sales of a product have something to do with the presence of advertising.
Internet ads tend to take up less time and space than a full TV ad so they can't do the little story and humor vignettes but are, instead, used to flash crazy shit at you so that you'll click through and either a) get malware or b) maybe make an impulse investigation into their product. Internet ads are like leaders to a full ad instead of the full ad themselves. I guess in their current form internet ads function more like billboards on the highway, only without the "keep us in mind" ads, instead focused solely on "MacDonalds - Exit 32, 2 miles"
Maybe if banner ads advertised products like Dove soap or Cascade dish detergent instead of questionable mortgage products it would be more stable and less likely to be blocked. Internet advertising simply hasn't risen to any kind of reputable level.
Another issue with adverts that seems not to be covered here is the idea that advertisers can (and are) using internet advertisments to build profiles on users. For instance, if I were a visitor to Ars Technica, they might know I have an interest in nvidia video cards and open source software based on the articles I read. However, they wouldn't know that my other interests might include doggie porn (does that exist?) or sewing frilly pink dresses as a hobby*, because I go to other websites to fulfilll those needs.
Unfortunately, advertisers can do this very thing. It is quite likely that the same advertiser who sells impressions on Ars Technica may also sell impressions on NaughtyPooch.Com or PrettyInPink.Org. All of a sudden, simply by visiting sites I might enjoy, a single company can build up a detailed picture of me.
Of course, nothing you do on the Internet is truly private; just by browsing the web I am leaving a trail of information behind me. But I've no desire to help companies compile this information into a big profile about me. Thus, I block all advertisements in order to help reduce this likelihood. Maybe this is all wasted effort. Perhaps, as they say, privacy may be dead, but I've no inclination to shovel dirt onto its corpse.
* disclaimer for the humor impaired: no, I'm really not interested in any of these things. Please do not forward me interesting links to raunchy mutts in pink dresses
I've got enough monthly payments to deal with between car payments, car insurance, rent, phone bill, internet, and so forth. I don't want to and am not going to add a bunch of $.99 micropayments on top of everything else.
$.05 an article? Micropayment? How many articles have you read on the internet today? How many this month? Let's see... in the past hour or so I read... $.05 1-Article MMO-Champion.com $.10 2-Articles WoW.com $.10 2-Articles Slashdot.org $.10 2-Articles ArsTechnica.com $.10 2-Articles Cracked.com $.05 1-Article NYTimes.com $.05 1-Article NewsoftheWeird.com
Ok... that works out to $.55 in an hour. Let's say 3 hours on the internet per day or 21 hours per week... $11.55 a week multiplied by 4 to get per month... $46.20... multiplied by 12 for the yearly cost... $554.40. $554.40 a year on micropayments!!!
So... tell me again... are you willing to make micropayments for every article you read on the internet?
Also, if many websites go to a micropayment model users will get sick of having to enter their credit card or paypal account every time they want to read something. Someone like Rupert Murdoch will come along and offer a whole bunch of this content for one payment instead of a ton of little payments.
It'll be a reintroduction to an AOL type experience where everything the average user would look at would be through the filter of one giant corporation.
Yep... Micropayments is exactly where the big corporations would like us to go.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
1. Do not allow ads that popup, cover, dance, wiggle, make noise, or do anything other than sit there, NOT flash or any other plugin techonology.
2. Do not let the ads overwhelm your design, either by placement or quantity.
and the biggie...
3. Never EVER let your business model depend on ad views, click-throughs, or anything else the ad buyers foist on you to "prove" their ad is seen. It's BS anyway. Magazines, TV, newspapers (remember them?), all survived just fine without advertisers ever having proof if anyone gave them business because of the ads. Coupons came along for reason, you know.
Corollary to 3: Don't let ad revenue be your sole source of income. Consider a mix of strategies, including ads, but also including premium content and features for subscribers; peripheral merchandising (think hats and t-shirts); and various collateral deals.
I searched the comments here and noted that no-one has mentioned that Ars are owned by Condé Nast, a company with an estimated $4-5Billion+ annual revenue. They also own Wired and Reddit, let alone Vogue, GQ and numerous other publications.
Why do I mention this? Context. If Ars was still an independent operator then I'd have more sympathy for their argument, and yes they still have numbers to maintain... but have you considered their sister magazines, take Vogue/GQ for example and think of page content vs pages of advertising. I watched "The September Issue" a few weeks ago and the thing that stuck in my mind was that that issue of Vogue had about 800 pages and only over a 100 pages were actual content, the rest were adverts. Fucking nuts! So yes, the argument of advertising driven content isn't going away and we'll see what happens should Mr Murdoch (who seems to want to own every content producer on the planet) try his pay-wall experiment.
As for ad-blocking... I continue using it and am glad since I've seen the latest shit that people have to deal with, auto-loading videos, sound, fly-outs you can't shut, flash ads that grind your page to a halt, as well as the malware that floats around and even hits high profile sites... I want control of what opens up in my browser and the only ads I'd ever consider are Google textual ads... why? cos they don't piss me off. Advertising should be an enticement of a good deal, done in a thoughtful and pleasant manner.. Unfortunately the Advertising 'industry' (I also include SEO bastards too here) battles everyone to promise customers the Earth while pissing off the very people they're meant to attract, they go through periods of continual fads in order to push shit and pretend to everyone they are 'unique' in their services, yet do the same as everyone else. The arguments from most advertisers that people who use ad-blocking software need burning at the stake tells me a lot, in that they just don't 'get-it', a good advertiser/marketer will have spent time arguing both camps and understand the issues at hand (as well as the people they're meant to be advertising to) whereas the rest fail at being the clever people they advertise themselves to be.
My suggestion to Ars, if it is that much of an issue then block your content from being shown 'full-stop' to anyone using ad-blocking software as you did in your experiment... then you only have to serve a minimal bandwidth using text page explaining why, fucking deal with it instead of whining like everyone else (i.e. News Corp, et al). The advertising industry won't die, but it will contract, change and evolve. But as a web browser I will not be dictated to that I have to have certain content forced down my throat, and I will control what I choose to see. There are multiple revenue streams possible, and I view Ars as producing higher quality content than a lot of other sites out there that I would be willing to pay for if I visited it enough (El Reg, BBC News, Slashdot and Fark tend to be my usual reads, and as a TV license holder I already pay for BBC News). Going back to context again, it would also be handy if Ars was to tell us their average percentage of userbase are that employ ad-blocking, which as a tech site I'd guess would be higher than a regular new site.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
It may not delay page loading, but it is a bandwidth burden, something that many of us moving to mobile platforms don't want when we're saddled with 5GB limits.