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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."
Nope. Not how it works. Not getting revenue from someone who wouldn't have clicked on your link if it were full of adware (for them) is not a "cost." The actual cost is in bandwidth, etc. and is much less than beelions of dollars.
The industry loses money because they don't understand their mistakes.
I don't mind seeing ads in their little corner, not flashing, clearly labeled as such. Hell, I even welcome targeted ads!
But when an auto-loading, auto-playing full page Flash add with sound suddenly pops over my screen and scares me to death while I'm trying to read an article... well then fuck you, I'm gonna block the shit out of it and everything that comes from that website until the end of time.
Many games I found and play were initially found by me through ads. So ads do help. They're just, for most part, intruding and badly designed.
The ad industry doesn't understand that AdBlock is an effect, caused by their shitty race to make ads "more visible". I guess they're a victim of their own "success".
I've seen websites that don't let me view any content on them if I have AdBlock, I blacklisted them entirely.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
They aren't losing. It isn't costing them. The public chooses not to participate. The web companies can make pages not load at all if the ads are gone but they don't cause they know the public will leave them like rats leaving a sinking ship.
While most americans may be content with things like the 'welcome back we'll be right back' nature of television and radio, its actually a pretty glaring annoyance for the rest of us. turning everything into a commodity is a very recent notion, and not one I might add that many people care for.
I block routes to known advertising servers, and i use the firefox microblock plugin for anything else. what advertisers often completely neglect is that theyre on my bandwidth. I pay the bill, i decide the content, end of discussion. the ads are often just another vector for exploits in the browser. The product almost never pertains to me, and i dont want it to. I dont want advertisers dickriding me into the sunset trying to exploit my personal interests. Instead when and if i need a product i want advertisers to focus on what the product does, and how well it does it. Do not pander endlessly about how good or noble a person im to become if i dole out cash for the product.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yeah. Advertising agencies only have themselves to blame for the fact that most people hate ads. It started with intrusive and annoying TV ads. They deem it necessary to raise the volume by 50% when the ads come up? They deem it necessary to drive a nail into your head by inserting an add when you least expect it in the middle of a scene? And they deem it necessary to fill ads with lies and ridiculous false promises of beauty, health and popularity?
Well fuck them. Now I fucking hate ads and it's all their fault because they annoyed the living shit out of me with their fucking bullshit ads and the increasingly aggravating way they presented them to me. Advertising agencies have trained me to abhor ads.
And the practice has continued on the Internet. Noisy, invasive, insecure and fucking annoying ads almost everywhere. I will do all I can to stop them from fucking with my head.