Slashdot Mirror
Study: Ad Blocker Use Jumps 41 Percent
Mickeycaskill writes: A report from Adobe and anti-ad blocking startup PageFair says the number of ad block users worldwide has increased by 41 percent in the past 12 months to 198 million monthly active users. The study suggests the growing popularity of ad blocking software is set to cost online publishers $21.8 billion in 2015 and could reach $41.4 billion by 2016. "About 45 million of them are in the United States, with almost 15 percent of people in states like New York and California relying on these services. The figures are even higher in Europe, where 77 million people use versions of the software. In Poland, more than a third of people regularly block online ads."
Mute the TV. Fast-forward recorded TV. Screen the calls. Block the ads.
Fuck'em if they cant take a joke.
it's because ads are pollution of the mind, advertizing agencies (not just on the internet) commoditize people's brain runtime without asking their permission, and people generally FUCKING HATE IT.
Gee, what a surprise...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If something is good enough for consumers it will be known and used!
Many web sites complains about ad blocking today, but they have to be aware that they caused the need for adblockers themselves. Too many ads like "Your PC have a problem" hopping like it has Parkinson on the screen is stressful and false. Static ads are actually less of a problem.
Ads with sound and pop-ups covering the whole darn screen are a sure call for adblocker to be installed.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You mean "deny". This is like saying a fence "cost" a wolf some chickens. I understand paying for content by watching ads... but the popups, the tracking, and the auto-play videos are getting out of hand.
And now all of these companies will try to claim we're "stealing" revenue from them by not viewing ads.
Sorry, but we're under no obligation to watch your damned ads. We don't owe you the ability to display stuff on our screens, nor do we owe you the revenue associated with this.
Boo fucking hoo, the mean old internets are stopping allowing you to make money for embedding crap in our web pages and providing a vector for malware.
That's simply tragic.
But you can bet the lobbyists are hard at work telling the politicians this is a vital part of the economy and if people are allowed to block ads world will end.
Bloody parasites.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
“It is tragic that ad block users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy,” said PageFair boss Sean Blanchfield.
Failure to generate revenue apparently is a loss.
Everyone on earth is losing trillions every second.
If something is good enough for consumers it will be known and used!
Many web sites complains about ad blocking today, but they have to be aware that they caused the need for adblockers themselves. Too many ads like "Your PC have a problem" hopping like it has Parkinson on the screen is stressful and false. Static ads are actually less of a problem.
Ads with sound and pop-ups covering the whole darn screen are a sure call for adblocker to be installed.
This is certainly correct. I would also add that sites load so much faster when using an ad blocker.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I have no objection of watching ads.
Really? Because I do. I particularly object to pop-up ads, interstitial ads, large banner ads, and ANY ad that tries to track my behavior or browsing activity. Ads waste my time, intrude on my privacy and sometimes are malware vectors. I never have any interest in whatever crap they are trying to sell me so pretty much all the ads are nothing more than a waste of my time. My attention is valuable to me and I don't give it out for free. I don't buy shirts with large brands on them because I'm not being paid to promote them. If an ad company wants to pay me directly for my opinion on a product we can talk but it's going to be a direct negotiation most of the time.
I'm willing to pay for content which I think I have a reasonable chance of finding valuable or enjoyable. I occasionally purchase/rent/go-see movies. I subscribe to some journals. I subscribe to a few websites I find valuable. But if a company wants to use ads as their primary revenue source then chances are good I'm going to block or otherwise circumvent their attempt to hijack my time and attention.
After all, it's the bread and butter to support a lot of sites.
Their shitty business model is not my problem. If your business depends on pushing obnoxious ads and tracking my activity then you deserve to be blocked.
Malware being #1, but another reason I use it is tracking. I have ghostery and i regularly see 10 or more tracking objects on a page. I don't see "better targeted ads" as a benefit.
If im buying something, I do a specific search for it on Google/DuckDuckGo/SomeOtherSearch or Amazon/NewEgg/SomeOtherPurchaseSite. Then I'm done. If I'm browsing, I don't need to see the random items I've searched for in the past week. Either I bought them already or I decided not to buy. I've never seen an ad combat that problem, turn a "targeted ad since I know what you looked for last week" into a sale. They think that more data, more intrusion, less privacy is the answer, but it's not.
So privacy being #2 reason, bandwidth and quality of browsing is #3 for me.
Well, I'm of two minds on this subject. I have never installed adblock and its ilk, because I know that "free" content comes at a cost. So as much as possible I sit through commercials from network TV's streamed shows, I allow sidebar ads to populate some screen real estate on websites, etc.
But I have my limits.
I suppose in the end that makes me no better than folks who aggressively block every single advertisement in any form -- "We already established what kind of woman you are; now we're just negotiating on the price". But it helps me sleep better at night knowing I'm at least willing to try to give them some of my attention in return for free content.
In a world where we're just consumers, expected to do as corporations expect, and in which they feel that revenue was their natural right ... we're just a natural resource which has suddenly decided it doesn't want to play.
Once the corporatization of the internet happened, this became more about shareholder value.
And in the modern context, shareholder is more important than pretty much anything. Because people like to believe shareholder value drives the economy, instead of being driven by it.
Who cares if there are no jobs as long as they're paying dividends or stock prices keep climbing? The value to the stock market is more important than those pesky humans.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Rise in insect repellent use costs malarial mosquitos millions of gallons of blood and new disease victims.
Google isn't reputable, they've served malware. They're right in line with option 2. And that's the reason why there's been such a surge in blocking all ads, because there generally is no clean source. The online ad industry has a serious problem, and they don't seem to want to fix it. If they did, they wouldn't be having such a problem with people blocking ads.
Om, nomnomnom...
An ad blocker "costs" an advertiser NOTHING. The whole narrative is wrong.
Is ad revenue reduced? Yes. But that is not a cost. It's a reduction in income or a reduction in gross receipts. A "cost" is when your expenses increase, not when your revenue decreases.
No, trust us, this is a good ad.
Those ads that hack your monitor, by taking up all the space? No, we promise this one won't do that. Oh no, we won't sign our name to it, or a sign a document saying so. But trust us, this ad won't hack your monitor. It uses up only some of the space, not all of it.
Those ads that hack your browser, by popping up or popping under? No, we promise this one won't do that. Oh no, we won't promise or be accountable, but this one doesn't ignore browser settings like that.
Those ads that hack your inputs, by spoofing a close icon, or tying events to it? Or by looking like a system message? No, we promise this one won't do that. Of course, it could, at any moment, if our jobs depend on it or we are paid off, but we promise it's a good ad.
No, this is a good advertisement.
It's designed to hack just YOU. You should allow this to happen. You believe that only gullible or weakminded humans are affected by advertisements. We believe otherwise, and we spend millions of dollars on this topic, but you're probably right. It probably won't hack you. It's just designed that way, crafted by decades of doctorates, trial and errorred in a multibillion dollar industry. That model of a homunculus in your head is probably correct. You aren't even gonna be affected by this advertisement. After all, if you could be affected by the advertisment, then it would mean you are a human. And humans clearly aren't affected by those, just as long as they are strong willed and intelligent. No, no study has ever shown that correlation, but trust us.
This advertisement will just hack you. It will create a sense of fear, and offer to calm you. It will create a sense of dissatisfaction, and attempt to satisfy it. Were you hungry? Did you have a need to eat? Here's a picture of some food. And people enjoying food. I'm sure that has no affect on you. Here's a picture of a willing mate, a happy family, some offspring. Certainly you aren't some emotional wet robot that is subject to this.
I'll just put all this ball of mind poison right here. It won't pop up, pop under, be boring, be annoying, ring bells, have a fake close key, stutter, install a toolbar, or anything else.
No, this is a good ad.
It just hacks *you*.
Especially if you don't think that's possible. Please don't think that's possible, or you might question this whole thing.
Lets say I have a website about cats. lets say it gets 1m views a day
I put a banner ad up at the top that gives people seizures that should pay 1k/mo for 1m views
The addition of advertising to my website causes my daily view count to drop to about 800k
So now it only pays 800/mo. this still pays for server maintenance and bandwidth.
But I want a new Dice bobble head doll so I add a bunch of pop under,pop up,redirects and sponsored content.
This makes the view count drop down to 500k but now 97% of users use adblock so I only make $15/mo on the 15k users that don't know how or are unable to use adblock.
So to compensate I add even more offensive advertising (and some malware redirects for good measure) to my website that pays better.
But the stats don't change much and I make much less than when I started out.
Now 490K People use adblock that didn't use adblock before.
Thus I have irreparably damaged my user base as even if I go back to just the one banner ad I will never be able to get as much as I did with that single banner ad when I started out.
Plus those adblock users now block ads everywhere not just my site which increases the percentage of adblock users on other websites even those without obtrusive advertising which in turn causes their ad revenue to go down.
Oh woe is me those thieving ablock users should have just put up with cryptowall, malware, popups, pop unders, redirects,sponsored cats, nasty and annoying advertising.
Its all the adblocking users fault its certainly not anything that I have done.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Don't you think it's ironic you have, on this article alone, plastered at least a half-dozen spam posts that are essentially ads. Do you have anything that would let us block you?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
ABP doesn't spam on forums...
- Raynet --> .
it helps me sleep better at night knowing I'm at least willing to try to give them some of my attention in return for free content.
I feel better blocking all ads and knowing that I've contributed to pressuring websites to find an alternative model to stay afloat.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
You are correct. Adblock failed miserably to block your ad. It got through to my browser.