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from the that's-what-I-wanted-to-hear dept.
Ads have long been part of the trade-off for users of the free Web, but the rise of ad blockers is making it increasingly difficult for publishers to sustain that ad-supported model.
That's according to a report published Monday by Adobe Systems and PageFair, a startup focused on assessing the cost of ad blocking and proposing alternatives.
While PageFair clearly has a vested interest in illustrating the negative effects of ad blocking, the findings of its study with Adobe are difficult to ignore. Most notably, ad blocking will cost publishers nearly $22 billion this year, it reported.
Ad blocking has grown by 41% globally in the last 12 months, the report found, amounting now to about 198 million active ad-block users around the world.
There were some interesting geographical differences highlighted in the report, too. For instance, in the U.S., ad blocking grew by 48% over the preceding 12 months to reach 45 million active users by June. In the U.K., ad blocking grew by 82% to reach 12 million active users over that same time frame.
Meanwhile, those numbers will surely be on the rise on the mobile side, Adobe noted in a blog post, given that Apple's iOS 9 will likely include ad-blocking features in Safari by default while Adblock Plus is already available in limited beta for Android.
Ad blocking represents "a major, growing problem for both digital publishers and marketers," said Greg Sterling, vice president for strategy and insights with the Local Search Association.
In many ways, the ad-blocking phenomenon is a response to security and privacy fears that have arisen in the culture at large and a rejection of the state of advertising on the PC internet, Sterling said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tramii on Wednesday August 12 2015, @07:47PM
Actually, If you want to view the content they created, then yes they have the right to display ads on the page
Yes, they have the right to display ads on their page, just as I have the right *not* to view those same ads.
Just because there is a way to subvert that doesn't mean they don't.
I'm not subverting their right to display ads at all. The ads still exist on their webpage. I am simply choosing not to download them.
However you want to rationalize it, as an upstanding netizen your choice should be to go somewhere else at that point, rather than subverting their revenue model.
Hahaha! How rich! You want to twist it around into ethics, but we are under *no* moral obligation to make sure people's pockets are filling up with money. On what basis am I obligated to support anyone's revenue model? Let's say you were handing out free ink-and-paper newspapers. Except everyone was only taking the pages with articles and leaving the the pages of ads behind. Guess what? That's *your* problem, not theirs. It doesn't make them "bad" people because they don't want to view that crap. You simply suck at business and want to blame everyone else.
If you are being honest, what you are *really* saying is that content producers have the right to insist that if I view X then I must also view Y. This is a ridiculous policy. You could not write a rule that expresses this idea in any sort of sensible manner. Anything you come up with would be ridiculous or impossible to enforce. You want the web pages to behave like TV, and yet you simply don't realize that they are two totally different technologies.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:04AM
You want the web pages to behave like TV, and yet you simply don't realize that they are two totally different technologies.
Even TV broadcasters can only offer you the ads. They cannot force you to watch them; many viewers choose to not watch them - by taking a bathroom break, by changing the channel, by muting the sound - or simply by ignoring the ads.
One way for them to force you to watch the ads would be by actively manipulating the program, so that the ads appear during the show, added to any flat surface that appears in the frame. Little cartoon characters could be jumping on heads of actors and pulling ad banners across the camera's view. Technically this is possible, but how many viewers will agree to watch this? Well, we had exactly that with Internet, where every single page was framed left, right, top and bottom with interactive, noisy, visually disturbing, animated ads. We got them cleaned out. If the publishers don't like that, it's their right to not serve the information to me. I will gladly forget about their existence.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:26AM
There is of course another way round that, and that's to create programs and channels that are *nothing but adverts*. I find it bizarre that that has caught on at all, but from what I've seen in hotel rooms on my travels, there are more such channels than I can name, so it must be popular.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:01AM
It's not an alien idea at all. Every manufacturer of alcohops insists that if I want to drink the vodka, I must also drink the lemonade and the artificial fruit flavourings. *AND THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS*.
Every big-name manufacturer of mobile phones insists that if I want to use the hardware, I must use their packaged OS. *AND THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS*.
The fact that HTML works on an honour system, where they request that you make further requests, simply means that we have the capability of subverting their insistancy, nothing more.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday August 13 2015, @12:07PM
And I have the right to control my own property.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:39PM
Every manufacturer of alcohops insists that if I want to drink the vodka, I must also drink the lemonade and the artificial fruit flavourings. *AND THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS*.
LOL
Every big-name manufacturer of mobile phones insists that if I want to use the hardware, I must use their packaged OS. *AND THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS*.
Oh, so using CyanogenMod is illegal now? When did this happen?
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:41PM
January 28, 2013 [eff.org]
(Yes, it's more complicated than that, but it's still a factor)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 17 2015, @11:01AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 17 2015, @10:47AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves