Ad Block Apocalypse? Here's How to Save the Web

[slatt01]

Lots of jobs lost in magazine industry thanks to the web. Did anybody cry for them?
If websites fail due to falling revenue nobody will cry for you!

Stupid ads made adblockers exist.
If websites block them then I will not go that website ever again.

 

[markbanang]

Content is not free, and we shouldn't treat it as such, but financing that content only through advertising is what results in ad-blockers causing problems. Unfortunately, the best solution for an ad-free internet was not even mentioned by this article: Micro-transactions!

I would be more than happy to pay for content at the price advertisers pay for their adverts. In fact, scrap that, knowing what advertisers pay, I would be happy to pay a website *double* the amount that they would have received from advertisers, if I didn't have to block their ads. Of course, many publishers don't want to *replace* ad. revenue with subscriptions, they want more revenue from subscriptions than they would get from advertising, or get the double hit is getting ad. revenue *and* subscriptions.

If sites can't get off their backsides and implement micro-transactions, then I have little sympathy for falling revenue from advertising.

Alternatively, I would be happy for my ad. blocking software to keep track of the value of ads it has blocked and alert me when that value gets to a significant (user settable) amount, so that I can pay for my use of the site on an ad hoc, accumulated use basis. If Toms hardware went subscription, I would probably not read it any more. If it worked with 'ethical ad blockers' to honestly tell it the value of every ad. blocked, and give it a simple 'pay what I owe' button, I would be happy to send $5 (or whatever) every time it came up.

 

[itmoba]

I'm 100% sure that Tom's can improve their passive revenue stream via advertisements whilst pushing the aforementioned "commercial rhetoric" in a less intrusive and threatening (read: aggressive) way which would behoove all.

I mean no offense to Tom's employees and independent contractors who work on advertisement placement, but the manner in which it is organized is, well, "not optimal." What Tom's needs is a psychologist and programmer (or someone who can do both, like myself -- no, this is not self-advertisement) who can accomplish the task set forth. It's possible to make advertisements cool, provided that you know the recipe for success.

 

[vanto77]

If "journalism" depends on advertisers to survive, then it's not journalism. The point of journalism is that it reports in an unbiased fashion, and if you are looking to advertisers to support that, then your mission statement has been compromised.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Even when I have adblocker off, I pay no attention to the ads, and the only times I ever click on something is by accident. Ad companies probably lose a ton of money by putting their ads up because who even looks at them. Probably 80% of clicks on ads are accidental.

 

[rgd1101]

If "journalism" depends on advertisers to survive, then it's not journalism. The point of journalism is that it reports in an unbiased fashion, and if you are looking to advertisers to support that, then your mission statement has been compromised.

I guess some people just have more professionalism than others.

 

[Don Barthel]

Currently, to put ads into a page, the publisher's HTML is formed with space for the ad but no ad filled in. Instead, a URL link to the ad (or ad network) is inserted and that's what's given to the browser. Its up to the browser to pull the ad using the URL into the page from the ad network. This makes it relatively easy to choose not to the pull the ad into the page (i.e. to block it).

If, instead, the ad content is pulled by the publisher's server and inserted into the HTML of the page then the browser has no control over what goes into the page. This would make it much harder to block the ads because the ads would be difficult to distinguish from content.

This is the next stage in the advertising arms race.

 

[randomizer]

If, instead, the ad content is pulled by the publisher's server and inserted into the HTML of the page then the browser has no control over what goes into the page. This would make it much harder to block the ads because the ads would be difficult to distinguish from content.

This is the next stage in the advertising arms race.

There are probably at least two reasons this has not yet happened. Firstly, it would make publishers directly responsible for any garbage that is delivered from the ad network because it is now effectively first party content. Secondly, it would also slow down page loads significantly.