Slashdot Mirror
Will Ad Blockers Kill the Digital Media Industry?
HughPickens.com writes: Michael Rosenwald writes at the Columbia Journalism Review that global online ad revenue continues to rise, reaching nearly $180 billion last year. But analysts say the rise of ad blocking threatens the entire industry—the free sites that rely exclusively on ads, as well as the paywalled outlets that rely on ads to compensate for the vast majority of internet users who refuse to pay for news. A new report from Adobe and one of several startups helping publishers fight ad blocking shows that 198 million people globally are now blocking ads, up 41 percent from 2014. In the US, ad blocking grew 48 percent from last year, to 45 million users. "Taken together, ad blockers are hitting publishers in their digital guts," writes Rosenwald. "Adobe says that $21.8 billion in global ad revenue will be blocked this year."
Publishers have been banking on the growth of mobile, where the ad blocking plugins either don't work or are cumbersome to install. A Wells Fargo analyst wrote in a report on ad blocking that "the mobile migration should thwart some of the growth" of ad blockers. But Apple recently revealed that its new operating system scheduled for release this fall will allow ad blocking on Safari. Apple is trying to pull iPhone and iPad users off the web. It wants you to read, watch, search, and listen in its Apple-certified walled gardens known as apps. It makes apps, it approves apps, and it profits from apps. But, for its plan to work, the company will need those entertainers and publishers to funnel their content to where Apple wants it to be. As the company makes strategic moves to devalue the web in favor of apps, those content creators dependent on ads to stay afloat may be forced to play along with Apple. Adblock Plus has released a browser for mobile Android devices that blocks ads, and it's planning to release a similar product for Apple devices. "The desire to figure out how to bring ad blocking to mobile consumers is a worldwide phenomenon," says Roi Carthy Ad blocking, he says, "is an inalienable right."
Publishers have been banking on the growth of mobile, where the ad blocking plugins either don't work or are cumbersome to install. A Wells Fargo analyst wrote in a report on ad blocking that "the mobile migration should thwart some of the growth" of ad blockers. But Apple recently revealed that its new operating system scheduled for release this fall will allow ad blocking on Safari. Apple is trying to pull iPhone and iPad users off the web. It wants you to read, watch, search, and listen in its Apple-certified walled gardens known as apps. It makes apps, it approves apps, and it profits from apps. But, for its plan to work, the company will need those entertainers and publishers to funnel their content to where Apple wants it to be. As the company makes strategic moves to devalue the web in favor of apps, those content creators dependent on ads to stay afloat may be forced to play along with Apple. Adblock Plus has released a browser for mobile Android devices that blocks ads, and it's planning to release a similar product for Apple devices. "The desire to figure out how to bring ad blocking to mobile consumers is a worldwide phenomenon," says Roi Carthy Ad blocking, he says, "is an inalienable right."
One can only hope so.
I installed ad blocker this year, and its for mainly one reason: video ads. Since these have become popular, it eats up my bandwidth and starts playing ridiculously loud sound even when I don't click on it. If anyone is too blame for the rise of ad blocking technology its advertisers.
Ad networks profligate malware, as a result an ad blocking isn't just to block an annoyance, its to protect myself from a drive by download of a flash powered/explioted malware that takes over my system and ransoms it back to me. Ad blockers are the new anti-virus.
Being a slashdotter in good standing, I have the option to turn off ads here, but I don't, because I find Slashdot's ads harmless and unobtrusive. But lordy, some sites I go to they're insane, causing the page to constantly reload, while my CPU and hard drive churn away full-bore. How can they expect people won't want to block ads like that? Seems like it's grown worse in the last few months, these stupid advertisers are driving me to block their ads.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
When ads stop playing sound, hijacking the page, redirecting me to app stores, acting as hovertraps ("Oh! You briefly moused over our ad! Let's take up the whole screen and play loud sounds!"), eating all my computer's resources, and distributing malware - then, and only then, I'll look into not using adblockers.
Web-ad-serving companies complaining about ad blockers are like grade-school bullies, crying to the teacher about "So-and-so punched me back!" They keep escalating their 'services', and are acting surprised that people aren't just taking it.
It's extremely clear that most everybody hates ads with a passion - else why would so many people install ad blockers eh?
So even if ad blockers were to disappear tomorrow, what makes advertisers feel that forcing ads down the throat of people who hate them increase sales for their customers?
To me, it seems that either people hate ads, block them and won't buy the shit being advertised, or people hate ads, can't block them and won't buy the shit being advertised regardless.
Worse, forcing people to see ads they don't want to see may very well antagonize them. Me, when I see an ad that gets through my ad blockers, I remember the product as something I'll make extra sure I'll never, ever buy.
So what's the business model here? I can't believe enough people actually like ads to make online advertising a viable business proposition...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I made the mistake of opening a link to a games website in IE not long ago and ended up having to kill it because it brought the browser to its knees. I opened it in Chrome with Disconnect and click to play Flash and it loaded pretty much instantly. You made your bed and then shit in it as well. Don't complain about having to lie in it now.
Please find a business model that does not involve annoying and exploiting the people who consume your media.
Now, it's not my job to tell you what your business model should be. Sell merchandise, provide paid services, ask for donations, or whatever else you can think of.
But if the basis of your business model is providing content for free to me while accepting money from people who solely want to annoy me or buy information about me, then I'm not going to allow that and you deserve to go out of business.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
auto start video ads and popup ads that popup about on web pages 30 seconds after you start reading an article are my 2 least favorite ad types.
One recent experience. Open up a review site. Like 15 seconds in, it pops up a center ad: "Do you like this article? Recommend it on XYZ*!!!" Dude, I might read fast, but I haven't even seen a complete paragraph!
One site asked for me to review something. I gave it 1 star for the popup.
*Facebook/twitter/yadayadayada
I don't read AC A human right
You're making one fundamental logical mistake.
The advertising industry exists to sell ads. It does not exist to sell the things they're advertising.
They don't care whether it works. They care that people pay them to push ads.
A plain ad, with a link to someone's site? That's fine. I'll even read them as I scroll down the page, most times. If it's something I'm interested in, I'll even do a quick search for the product and look at the actual seller's page.
A really, REALLY annoying ad, with autoplay video and sound, popping up and getting in the way of the actual content, and often becoming home to all sorts of security issues like viruses or rogue redirects to trash pages? That's not. That's why I use adblocking software.
Here's a thought, advertisers:
Try spending as much time on creative and entertaining ads as you do in trying to come up with new and more obnoxious pop-ups. That actually works.
Good riddance. The Internet is shit because of ad-sponsored content and SEO.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
I have no problem with ad on the margins of the page. Slashdot has three up right now and they don't block my view of the content, they aren't playing music or videos (chewing up my bandwidth), and nothing opened a popup. Those are Ads in the tradition of a news paper.
The Fucking Ads are the opposite. They block the content, force you to find that little X in some corner...if they didn't put a fake one in that's just a link to another page. Fucking Ads seem to be loaded first. So if some Ad service has shit slow servers, it takes forever for a simple Text article to appear. Fucking Ads also hijack random clicks. Ever click on a page to be sure the scroll is focused on the page and not something else so you can use the scroll wheel...and here comes a popup.
Fucking Ads are also dangerous. To get rid of them you have to interact with them. Who knows what the fuck will happen when you click that close button?
So if they just stick to what they've been doing for the last 200 years, we're fine.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Worst part? They'll never realize they killed themselves.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I don't think ad blockers exist because people don't want ads or "refuse to pay for news." Ad blockers exist because ads have become so ridiculously obnoxious and disruptive with animations or even sound that they make the web pages they're on pretty close to unusable. This is on top of the occasional but still-to-frequent usage of ad networks as malware distribution platforms. If the ad networks set some reasonable standards and actually enforced them, then ad blockers wouldn't be as much of an issue. As it is right now, using an ad block is a security requirement, not an option. From an aesthetic and usability standpoint it's just highly desirable.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
VCR will kill commercial TV broadcasting
VCR/DVD rentals will kill Hollywood
Napster/bit torrent will kill the music industry
etc...
I have ghostery on my browser. it shows for each web page how many trackers are being blocked. I've seen many sites with 12+ different trackers.
So many industries are this way. They assume that there is a captive audience with only a few malcontents, but over time it starts slipping away and they don't know how to cope. Like television, they decide to save money by having crappier unscripted content or hire only interns as script writers, then are baffled that people are cutting the cord.
Currently, ads:
1) Interrupt my flow of thought.
2) Use video, which eats my limited bandwidth (Some of us use hotspots with data limits, comprende?)
3) Unexpectedly start creating sounds, interrupting my wife, the cat, myself and the children.
4) And the very worse thing, the godamm ads start JUMPING MY PAGE AROUND so the thing I was trying to click is no longer there by the time my mouse/finger manage to click the screen and I've suddenly opened the ad for hot singles in my area (The wife just loves that one).
So, clue train manifesto for online advertisers:
1) DO! NOT! INTERRUPT! ME! If you can't do that, I'm happy to go elsewhere.
2) Do not ever randomly resize or refresh my web page. It needs to load once AND STAY THERE. If you can't do that, I'm happy to go elsewhere.
3) Do not include noise in your ads, if possible. If necessary, make sure I have to work to consciously turn it on. If you can't do that, I'm happy to go elsewhere.
4) Do NOT use bandwidth sucking video unless I request it by consciously turning it on. If you can't do that, I'm happy to go elsewhere.
5) DO NOT ASK IF I WANT TO DOWNLOAD YOUR APP, RECEIVE YOUR NEWSLETTER, OR ALERTS BEFORE I'VE EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO SEE THE DAMN PAGE.
Seriously guys. Basic reasoning? How the hell would I know if I want anything to do with you ever again if I haven't even looked you over yet?
The more I see the results of web advertising, I wonder if they lobotomize the ad designers before, or after they are hired. Hire a UI specialist. Hire a psychologist. Most of all, pull your heads out of your own self absorbed asses and actually *talk* to a customer now and then.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I am willing to play fair and tolerate some advertising, but it finally got too invasive and so I got adblock. I am fine with ads, but only so long as they don't disturb me using the web. No autoplay video/audio, no popups, no interstitial. When they start pulling that crap, well sorry but I'm going to have to opt out. If it kills a site off, too bad, maybe you shouldn't have been so annoying.
Advertisers are going to have to learn to keep it reasonable if they want me to stop using adblocking. As it stands now I block by default and only whitelist sites I know aren't bad about it.
Dear Advertisers, Figure out how to do ads in a trustworthy way (i.e. no privacy invasive behavior tracking and little or no risk of malware exposure) and I'll be happy to allow those ads. I'd prefer the ads to be static HTML hosted within the site I visit. I don't want my browser touching 15 domains that all run scripts every time I visit a page. As long as ads compromise my privacy and security I will consider advertising networks the enemy and treat them accordingly.
And get rid of those fucking audio ads as well. I don't need some dick yelling at me about how to get free sex whilst I'm searching for Dora the explorer for a friends kid.
It's more than that.
Why the fuck should we accept being constantly tracked by dozens of analytic companies as a price of using the web?
When there's 15 or 20 trackers in addition to ads in every page, the only reasonable response is to block the hell out of all of this crap.
It's none of score card research's fucking business what sites I visit. Nor it it Facebook's business. Nor is it any of the dozens of other companies I've blocked with privacy extensions.
This idea that self entitled corporations are entitled to all of this information about us is complete bullshit.
In the real world it would be like a retailer implanting a tracking chip in you when you walked in the store.
I don't care about anybody's damned analytics. And as much as I can, I'll block everything which isn't the content I'm there to see.
The revenue model isn't my damned problem. My privacy is.
And I'm not giving that away to some asshole marketer who wants to optimize his synergies.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Running NoScript; it boggles my mind how many domains are required to get some sites working (particularly MSM sites). Sometimes I just give up on trying to access the content.
What I find pathetic is that these companies, oftentimes the source of the most abusive and invasive software on the Internet, call themselves the victims when people just block their garbage.
It has gotten so bad, that in the last 10 years, it is quite obvious that the #1 defense against malware on a computer is not a firewall, nor is it an AV program. It is an adblocking extension coupled with some form of click to play or NoScript. In fact, if a user doesn't run anything downloaded, adblock/noscript/updated browser/firewall is pretty much all they need for adequate security.
Of course, iOS/Android tend to not be that better. Half the time, you find sites trying to shunt over to the App Store for some brain-dead F2P/P2W clone of Candy Crush or junk like that. Using Dolphin Browser on Android does help with this.
The problem isn't the ads. Plain old static banner ads did work. Google text ads are useful. The actual problem is greed. The banner ads were replaced by tower ads, content was moved from one page and broken up into 5-30 pages. Hyperlinks were replaced by mouseovers. Even photos are broken up requiring 4-5 pages to see the entire pithy meme.
See any retail industry. Anywhere.
Quite frankly, if I go to a bookstore to get information about books and what I get is an employee who knows less about books than me and turns to her computer to search Amazon for recommendations... I can do that myself, thank you! I was hoping that I'd find somewhere there who, ya know, KNOWS a thing about the shit they sell?
That's the whole point behind going into a specialized store instead of doing your shopping online. To talk with someone who knows MORE about the stuff than you do, or you could find out by using the internet. That is the whole point.
But of course, people who actually know what they're doing cost more money, so what you get is people who sell you mattresses today, books tomorrow and in a week you see them flipping burgers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dear Advertisers, Figure out how to do ads in a trustworthy way (i.e. no privacy invasive behavior tracking and little or no risk of malware exposure) and I'll be happy to allow those ads. I'd prefer the ads to be static HTML hosted within the site I visit. I don't want my browser touching 15 domains that all run scripts every time I visit a page. As long as ads compromise my privacy and security I will consider advertising networks the enemy and treat them accordingly.
A co-worker asked which browser I used at home.
Firefox I replied.
Now many add-ons?
About 30.
Your favorite?
Ad block plus.
You know that's how the sites make money.
I know.
Why use it then?
When the sites start paying a portion of my Internet bill for them using my bandwidth I'll quit using ad block.
Nuff said.