Ad Blocking Report - 22 billion in lost revenue

The lost ad revenue figures will double in 2016

[netmeg]

From the folks at Marketingland:

Ad-blocking software, once thought to be a relatively small-scale phenomenon, is apparently rapidly going mainstream. According to a new report from Adobe and PageFair — an Irish company founded in 2012 that “measure[s] the cost of adblocking and display[s] alternative non-intrusive advertising to adblockers” — $21.8 billion in global ad revenues have been blocked/lost so far in 2015.

[marketingland.com...]

TL:DR: If you think ad blockers aren't affecting you, you may be wrong. They're everywhere now. Firefox. Safari. Edge. And it's only going to get worse.

[blend27]

elquiri, Thank You for posting links to this information. Perhaps our peers from middle fingering pond will understand that privacy also very important.

[Leosghost]

re "tracking" methods that are available to advertisers ( amongst others ) some information, ( further to elguiri's post ) that many will not be aware of ..your phone's ( or other mobile devices ) battery state ( in conjunction with other things about your device ) is a pretty unique and trackable identifier..
[theregister.co.uk...]

[trebuchet]

Just wait till that Big Study comes out that having an AdBlocker on you mobile device(not running all those useless to the user third party JS scripts) extends BATTERY life by about 10-20%.

That'll be the "big study" you just made up to support your argument? You'd have to be viewing thousands of ad-enabled websites before it affected battery life and bandwidth to that extent.

Perhaps our peers from middle fingering pond will understand that privacy also very important.

It's far less important to most users than it is to you. Tin foil hat wearers who think their usage is being tracked by big business / the NSA / aliens are unlikely to make up more than a tiny portion of adblock users.

[MrSavage]

To be clear, I was joking about my revenue being for beer and chips. I take my sites seriously, for the most part.

Regarding bounce rate issues? I LOL. Yeah, how do you enjoy the current trend, you know, the workaround to all the lost income from ad blockers. It's called....video ads. Auto play ads. It's called, here, let's put an auto play video on top of that text article and make you listen and watch while you read. You want to debate bounce rates? I hit the back button faster than I can flip my middle finger.

Regarding not having ad clickers (the ad blocking types) visit my site? I wouldn't give a rats A about that. You don't need to click my ads, but perhaps a highly relevant ad does one day make you click. If you really do this for the fun of it, then just remove all revenue generating options from your site and have at 'er. Just for the fun of it you can update and work on site content. If you can run a site and spend time on it with no chance of income, then I truly believe what you're saying. I have zero acceptance of visitors who I have zero chance of selling to. If you run a store and it's full of people have have no jobs, no income, and no credit but are walking endlessly touching or sampling your stuff, how long are you going to run that business. Face it. It's a joke. It's like the people offering in-store food samples. You would be the people who eat it with no ability to EVER buy that product. Thus, the sample concept would be a JOKE BUSINESS MODEL. I would say, serious inquires only. I've ignored the issue up until reading this thread, and that's the truth. I will lose no sleep in blocking my content from adblockers. I'm not in this for charity.

Edit: I'm not jumping just yet. Obviously people seeing and liking my content can lead to a "social" win of sorts. You can't like or link to content that you can't see. Then again, would it be one ad blocker sharing with another ad blocker? Pros and cons of course and blocking is drastic.

[csdude55]

I count pageviews on my site locally, and compare the numbers to Analytics and Adsense. Three years ago, they were almost identical. Today, my local count is slightly more than double that of Analytics and Adsense.

The only logical conclusion is that I'm losing about 50% of my site's potential revenue to ad blockers.

I have never used pop-ups or anything like that; I simply have two 300x250 banners on the right column, and a 728x90 at the bottom.

The problem I've seen is that MOST of my users don't even know that they HAVE an ad blocker! The common story I hear is that they were infected with spyware, took it to a shop to have it fixed, and the shop installed ad blockers (often instead of removing the spyware). In their mind, the problem is fixed, so there's no need to change anything.

On my end, though, I have rent, utilities, insurance, and 3 employees to pay! And the more these users turn to ad blockers, the harder that gets.

I don't want to just turn these users away, when the majority of them don't even know they're doing something that's hurting the site. They still contribute, and one day there may be a solution to the ad blockers that would make them valuable again. But the question is whether small businesses like mine can survive while waiting.

[edited by: bill at 5:08 am (utc) on Aug 28, 2015]

[Runfun]

I'm still using the popup every 12 hours for adblock users and I'm seeing an nice improvement. Normally I had 12% to 15% visitors with adblockers and it's still decreasing and less than 10% now.

[eek2121]

Even though I'm a publisher, I use an adblocker (2 actually, uBlock and Ghostery). Before you guys start raging, let me say this:

Most sites are garbage. The typical site I load up has ads from at least 3 different networks (and in many cases, even more), dozens of different trackers, etc. These sites often contain blocking JavaScript code that prevents the site from loading or worse, modifies the content after load (example: CNNMoney actually pushes down content once the site loads. On a slower connection you'd start reading content, then it'd disappear.) If your site takes more than a second or two to load on my hundred megabit connection, how long do you think it will take for a 3 meg DSL user in Germany to load? He won't stick around for long enough to find out.

Many publishers don't test their sites on slower connections...Chrome actually has a way to simulate slower connections. Remember that most of the world does not have access to super fast broadband speeds.

In addition, many sites have popup ads (in a modal) or sharing ads (I hit the back button instantly when I see these...ESPECIALLY ON MOBILE). Users are there for the content, not the ads or social sharing garbage.

I believe that ad-blocking is going to grow by more than 1000% pretty soon. Apple is introducing mechanisms into iOS 9 that allow for easy ad-blocking, and a bunch of companies are preparing to sell products that block ads. Some sites have 80% of their users visit from iOS based devices. If those 80% of users all started blocking ads, what happens then?

[MrSavage]

BS. When Google's bread and butter is ads, it's not just going to happen overnight. I would ask this question to adblockers. Why are you visiting sites where the ads interfere with the content and where the content isn't good enough that the ads are absurd. What kind of magazine would you expect if there was no advertising? If you could order a free version of Playboy, would that company even exist? Sure, I'll take an ad free version thanks. Let them worry about how to pay the bills and the content. Like jeez, ads. Imagine that. So awful. It's like absurd that there would be ads and technology can improve our lives by eliminating them from our lives. Sure sure.

On the surface, the fix is somewhat simple. If you block ads, then you get a blank page. Everyone buys in, then the adblockers see no ads, nor content. Only the fools who wish to update and operate a site for free will provide you with something to read or see online. If there was 100% compliance, the adblockers would be dead. You could possibly enjoy about 10% of the internet so that you can be clean of ads. Imagine real life with no ads. Amazing. The concept, when done in masse, needs to be addressed by the content creators and suppliers. It's about as simple as that. It will take more headlines or the demise of Google's adwords business before there is any type of action. Like anything in moderation, it's all good. A few people pirate movies, but enough pay for them that the industry didn't collapse. If more and more people stream for free without paying, businesses and industries go out of business. If you are willfully contributing to that, then I question moral and ethics. In fact if I'm an Adsense publisher and I'm blocking ads via blocking software, I would call myself a retard. I would call myself that, so I'm certainly not saying that of anyone else. It would be like working in the film industry, yet you only watch pirated films, never paying for a movie. It's about as illogical as that. It's called no moral compass. Sure piracy is illegal, but streaming where I'm from is not illegal. So therefore it's all good? Not illegal, but logically it's F up.

[csdude55]

If those 80% of users all started blocking ads, what happens then?

The free internet as we know it dies, leaving nothing but big businesses (Ebay, Amazon, and a few others) and personal blog sites with minimal relevance.

[edited by: bill at 5:08 am (utc) on Aug 28, 2015]

[tangor]

I believe that ad-blocking is going to grow by more than 1000% pretty soon. Apple is introducing mechanisms into iOS 9 that allow for easy ad-blocking

Windows 10 already has this feature, and it is enabled by default.

Something to consider.

There's advertising wild west and there is responsible advertising and, if one wants to be found on the net, perhaps a bit for all (regardless of ad blocking) and a subscription wall for all the rest, will make a difference.

I surf with an ad blocker, for my personal use. FF. My IE is wide open (except for third party) and is "slightly" noisier. My Opera is wide open... which I use to view the bad, the ugly, and the hideous that all too many middle finger wavers consider "good web sites".

After all, I am in the game, and I need to see what DOES work and what does NOT work.... and have enough websites active that I can experiment with each of the paradigms of NO ads, RESPONSIBLE ads, and ads FROM HELL to compare metrics and user engagement.

The first two fair pretty well.

The last is not even half of the other two. YMMV

As mentioned above, Win 10 includes this as a default install, and given the uptake in the new OS from MS, that might become a real problem for those who aren't happy with "ad blockers".

[trebuchet]

The free internet as we know it dies, leaving nothing but big businesses (Ebay, Amazon, and a few others) and personal blog sites with minimal relevance.

Eventually you'll be left with 'free' content from publishers who receive funds offline, which effectively means government, big business, colleges and the wealthy. At the other end will be the Wikipedians and the hobbyists. There won't be much of any quality in between.

Windows 10 already has this feature, and it is enabled by default. Something to consider.

No it doesn't. In fact there's been a lot of talk about the lack of adblocking options for Edge.

My Opera is wide open... which I use to view the bad, the ugly, and the hideous that all too many middle finger wavers consider "good web sites".

Given that the "middle finger wavers" here haven't mentioned specific sites, I'm not sure how you can conclude what we consider good, bad or otherwise. You must have ESP.

[pageoneresults]

Given that the "middle finger wavers" here haven't mentioned specific sites.

I don't think it's customary to mention specific sites in topics such as this. I think most of know what "we" consider good, bad or otherwise. Any ad for me is bad right now.

Since I started participating in this topic, I turned off my Ad Blocker and I'm allowing Cookies. HOLY CRAP! I'm used to having about 40-50 cookies resident on my system. SCHIT! There are more than 400 there now. I tried the in-between setting where it asks if you want to accept the cookie. SCREAM! I hit one site and clicked that cookie warning 20+ times, WTF is that?

So, back to one of the original questions, what are your solutions going to be? iOS 9 is going to have some pretty powerful features in place for users to block ads and other tracking mechanisms. That is a very LARGE portion of your potential audience. Whatchagonnado?

[trebuchet]

I don't think it's customary to mention specific sites in topics such as this.

Err, no. That was my point.

Any ad for me is bad right now.

Then I suspect you're the kind of person publishers like us are quite happy to block from our sites.

That is a very LARGE portion of your potential audience. Whatchagonnado?

I'll wait and see. Currently it seems that around 75% of the adblock users who visit my site, only to strike redirection, choose to disable/whitelist and enter. If those figures hold then I'll be happy enough.

[tangor]

Normally we don't get personal... but I do understand the middle finger wavers are a bit different breed.

Play with Win 10 a bit. Play with Edge (which used the OS as it's manager and has three privacy settings and "surf screens" in the OS, not the browser. All kinds of fun stuff THAT DOES NOT WORK like it used to. I'll wait....

And thrilled your site is spiffy enough that your metric is working so well. :)

[Leosghost]

<an aside ..re cookies>
Just to demonstrate how bad it can get..I'll mention a site ( it isn't like it is "competitive" ) ..
About 10 years ago, I had cause to visit the Vatican website ( I'd already seen the real place )..it was running Ganalytics..
It gave me 129 cookies ( some of it's own , some from G )..I was running Opera with "ask me before accepting cookies" set up ..
129 cookies...( it is probably worse by now, 10 years on )..
Why did it need to set all those 129 cookies ..
I said to myself ..."I thought they said that "the big guy" was "omniscient".."
( like most Irish ..I was brought up RC..But it didn't "stick" ;)
So why did they feel the need to set 129 cookies..?
( and yes I counted the clicks that I made to authorise them one by one, wanted to see when it was going to end )
It is things like that that make one block cookies..
</an aside re cookies<

[thms]

Windows 10 already has this feature, and it is enabled by default.

Not sure what you mean but just tried Edge and no ads are being blocked. We don't even need to verify this, if this was true, it would be so much talked about that I'm sure we would not be learning this on page 6 of an obscure thread.

[MrSavage]

I rest fine at night knowing that Apple, Microsoft and Google all understand business. If they all start putting in ad blocking mechanisms, then what is media.net to Microsoft? What is Adwords to Google? What is the affiliate program to Amazon? Those big hitters are just going to sit by and let their core business disappear over the sake of some ad blocking? Sure, block all cookies. Bake it right in there Apple, Microsoft and Google. Kill off affiliate publishers and companies. Then there is only PPC. Then the ad blockers, the rapid growth of them (LOL) as mentioned here, and kill off that PPC business. Then after you killed those off, then what? They have to bake ads into your OS? LOL.

To be clear, I don't buy the lost revenue crap. Similar to pirated movies, they claim they lose so many billion. Fact? The people pirating most likely had no intention of ever paying for that movie. So the ad blockers, the percentage of those people who would click is likely miniscule. It's why I don't sweat it at this point, too much. However, from a what's right and what's wrong perspective, I would love to show ad blockers white space. Here, let me assume every site sucks with ads everywhere, rather than having a clean slate, and then adding sites that suck with ads, having them in the "block". To me it's backassward.

In a way I think it's funny to see or hear complaints about auto play video ads, or those really annoying ads that can't get blocked. I'm sure there will start to be some real pain in the ass monetization trial and errors in the works. Want to complain about those? It's like a movie pirater/streamer complaining about all the ads at the start of a movie in the theater. Geez. Um. Er.

[Leosghost]

They have to bake ads into your OS? LOL.

They already went there ..
Search for ..Microsoft tiles ..or... ads in modern apps...since win8 the OS and some installed apps ( like weather ) even the paid for ones.ran ads..
Chrome laptops ..yep ..an Os that runs ads..
Android..yep..an OS that runs ads..
Ubuntu 12 ..search ( even if you just wanted to know where a file was on your HD ) was baked in in the OS to show ads for Amazon stuff.

[pageoneresults]

Then I suspect you're the kind of person publishers like us are quite happy to block from our sites.

Ah, you probably don't want to do that. If your site is one that I visit regularly and it provides a value to me, I'm going to look for ways to make a donation, mention you on Social Media, drop a link here and there, etc. I'm assuming that you are generating revenues from your site outside of advertising?

So, you're going to block me from your site if I don't click on your ads? In the 20+ years I've surfed the Internet, I think I can count on two hands how many times I've "purposely" clicked on an ad due to it peaking my interest. That was back in the day, I don't touch ads these days, there are too many potential risks and there really is nothing of interest for me in 99.9% of the ads being served. I also suggest to my clients that they stay away from clicking ads on websites. I've had too many clients call me in a panic because their system was taken over by Malware. That's usually a 2-4 hour call getting things back in order. All that from "mistakenly" clicking on an ad that was seamlessly merged into the content. I have some choice words for those advertisers. They would all end up like this... !@#$ %^& !@#$%^& !@#$% ^& *()_ < Those are actual choice words that I converted myself.

If you're going to block me, I don't have any issues with that whatsoever, I truly understand. The browser back button is a wonderful thing. I think there were probably 1,000,000+ other results to choose from who are probably not blocking me. If I really needed to see your content, there's a good chance I'd pay for it if I couldn't find it somewhere else for free - it's a Catch-22 situation.

We're in the 21st Century. The 20th Century advertising methods are no longer performing. Blocking me is one way to deal with it, any others?

[MrSavage]

To be honest, I'm a bit unclear how adblocking Adsense publishers (I assume we all are since we're all publishers because we're in this forum) can participate in a thread like this. Logically it's a bit messed up in my mind. You have solutions or ideas to deal with people of the same ilk, even though if everyone did what you did then you have zero Adsense income? I'm puzzled. I'm not saying I click on ads, in fact I'm about the hardest person you will find to click an ad or affiliate link. However, I still choose to view those ads. Silly me as an Adsense publisher.

I'm going to say the biggest eye opener for me in this thread was the point about ad blockers taking out and removing affiliate links. That I find troubling for sure.

[trebuchet]

Normally we don't get personal... but I do understand the middle finger wavers are a bit different breed.

The fact you've been calling ad-reliant publishers "middle finger wavers" suggests otherwise.

Not sure what you mean but just tried Edge and no ads are being blocked.

That's right. I did some googling after it was raised here and it seems the only adblocking option for Edge is something called Adguard, which costs $20. Charging people to block ads, it's like some kind of online protection racket.

I rest fine at night knowing that Apple, Microsoft and Google all understand business.

That's right. Add Amazon and ebay into that equation too, since their affiliate network is almost as affected as display networks. These guys effectively own the internet and I doubt they'll sit on their hands while the adblockers and their fan boys pick apart their business model. In the meantime I'll restrict access to adblockers, toy with some other monetisation options and wait and see what transpires.

[MrSavage]

This is the evolution of the internet in a sense. The internet has been about free. Get free stuff, right or wrong. Legal or illegal. Path of least resistance! Think though of the absurdity of this. You use an ad blocker, yet are a Adsense publisher. There is more than just that! You use the ad blocker because oh, load times, cookies, nuisances, etc. Yet, morally, you subject your site visitors to all these apparently "bad things" like load times etc, for the sake of monetization. Credibility wise, would there be credibility to that type of individual? If you believe in ad block, as a principle, then I would think you have a moral obligation NOT to participate in programs like Adsense. That's my feeling on the subject. This thread is about solutions or ideas. How can an ad blocking Adsense publisher come up with ideas to counter their own behaviour? It's comical. That said, I appreciate the insight the ad blocking folks have mentioned in this thread. I'm perplexed! Regardless, I don't take it personally. I find it funny, but nothing more than that. The ad blocker experts in this thread have really opened my eyes, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!

[tangor]

The fact you've been calling ad-reliant publishers "middle finger wavers" suggests otherwise.

If you go back through this thread you'll find the ad-reliant publishers were the first to use that term.

Check the Win 10 privacy controls (there are about 40 of them in different sections of the OS) and among those is an ad blocker. :) ON by default.

I'm more interested in seeing any verifiable LOSS of revenue by any publisher (I R 1, 2) that amounts to a hill of dead ants, much less a pile of beans. This whole thread is about 22 billion in lost revenue. Where did it go? And who lost it? I didn't... and I don't block ad blockers. :)

[Leosghost]

This is the evolution of the internet in a sense. The internet has been about free. Get free stuff, right or wrong. Legal or illegal. Path of least resistance! Think though of the absurdity of this. You use an ad blocker, yet are a Adsense publisher. There is more than just that! You use the ad blocker because oh, load times, cookies, nuisances, etc. Yet, morally, you subject your site visitors to all these apparently "bad things" like load times etc, for the sake of monetization. Credibility wise, would there be credibility to that type of individual? If you believe in ad block, as a principle, then I would think you have a moral obligation NOT to participate in programs like Adsense. That's my feeling on the subject. This thread is about solutions or ideas. How can an ad blocking Adsense publisher come up with ideas to counter their own behaviour? It's comical. That said, I appreciate the insight the ad blocking folks have mentioned in this thread. I'm perplexed! Regardless, I don't take it personally. I find it funny, but nothing more than that. The ad blocker experts in this thread have really opened my eyes, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!

Hey..look ! Squirrel..

This thread is about solutions or ideas.

No this thread is about the fact that adblockers exist..and why they exist ( you are not going to wish them out of existence ) ..
and how it affects /may affect those whose websites run ads..

How to get ads in front of those who use adblockers ?, ..

I dealt with that a way back in thread..make the delivery mechanism for the ads server side..

But that would not suit the adsense people..

But this thread is not only about the adsense people ( despite what some keep trying to claim ) ..are adblockers a huge threat to the adsense ad delivery method ? ..

Yes..

But adsense ( and other javascript delivery, 3rd party hosted , ad server calling pages / methods ) is / are not the only way to monetise a site..

They are merely the easiest way..the "webmaster welfare" way..and if Google switched off "javascript delivered adsense" tomorrow, for whatever reason, some of us would cope just fine, in other ways..

But one gets the impression from reading this thread, that some would panic, be outraged, the name calling would increase, and the "sense of entitlement" would be ( if such a thing is possible ) even more overwhelming in the comments than it is from some even now..

Most adblockers ( the software ) don't block ads in Google serps..because Google serps do not run intrusive , all singing, all dancing ads..

Why not..because Google knows that they wouldn't get enough clicks and wouldn't convert well enough to justify the hit to Google's reputation..

I ran for years without an adblocker..I just tried to ignore the worst of the ads..But..Like P1R..when the pages wouldn't load properly because of "calls to ads" via scripts..I "bounced"..

Why did I decide to run an adblocker ( since earlier this year ) ? ( after over 15 years without using one ) ..simple..
and it was all posted right here in WebmasterWorld..

WebmasterWorld world decided to use "badges"..the images were distracting, at the time they could not be switched off in our "member console"..

I was told by incrediBill in one of the "updates to WebmasterWorld" threads that the badges would stay..and that I "should use adblock" if I did not want to see them..

So.. I installed adblock..

I discovered how much better the web looked without all those ugly ads, badges, autoplaying videos , belly fat ads etc..

The badges became "switchable" ..later..

The adblock is staying..

I was working in the ad business ( amongst other things I was designing ads ) many years before the web existed..

Ads and "graphic imagery" ( not photographs ) on the web are not like ads and "graphic imagery" in print and magazines..
they are closer to the ads and "graphic imagery" in TV..

Mostly crappy ..which is why people who can get access to the tech fast forward through them ( TIVO etc ) or go take a leak or make coffee or get a beer while the ads and distractions are on..

YMMV..the U.S.A has far more ads than we do in Europe..taking that many breaks while watching TV may mean that you spend fewer minutes per hour actually watching TV than you would away from it while the ads are on..;)

BTW ads delivered via serverside tech load faster..so the pages load faster.
so the visitors do not "bounce" because they don't want to wait..most people ( joe and jane six pack etc.."your visitors" ) will "bounce" if the page ( including ads ) takes longer than 3 seconds to load..

They have even less patience if they are on a tablet or a phone when they click to get to your site..

Doesn't matter if they are running an adblocker or not..except those who do..get faster loading pages..because they are not waiting around for all the jscript calls to all the crap..

[trebuchet]

Check the Win 10 privacy controls (there are about 40 of them in different sections of the OS) and among those is an ad blocker. :) ON by default.

I installed Win10 on three machines and none had an adblocker set as default. A colleague of mine reported the same. Plus there's been a lot of chit chat on forums about the lack of a native adblocker for Edge. You must have either tweaked your settings or downloaded some remarkable new version of Win10 that few others seem to have.

the "sense of entitlement" would be ( if such a thing is possible ) even more overwhelming in the comments than it is from some even now.

What nonsense. Content providers are within their rights to expect payment or revenue returns for their work. The only question at issue is how they collect this. The only "sense of entitlement" here is coming from adblock users who want access to content without having their poor little eyeballs grossly offended by ads.

They are merely the easiest way..the "webmaster welfare" way...

Part of the underlying premise of this pretty condescending term is that Adsense users (a) aren't publishers but just run websites (b) offer content that is valueless, and (c) collect advertising revenue as charity or a handout. Whichever way you dress that up, it's insulting and arrogant, at least toward the genuine publishers here.

Ads and "graphic imagery" ( not photographs ) on the web are not like ads and "graphic imagery" in print and magazines.. they are closer to the ads and "graphic imagery" in TV..

That's a fair analogy. And if in five years' time 90% of people are TIVO-ing through ads on free to air TV then it will be all but dead. And you'll be paying for all your TV, not just the streaming/cable services you pay for now. And chances are that streaming/cable providers pick up the ads that used to run on FTA, so you'll be paying for TV AND Tivo-ing through ads.

[ken_b]

the "sense of entitlement"

Seems to plenty of that on all sides of the argument.

[Leosghost]

Content providers are within their rights to expect payment or revenue returns for their work.

Content providers ( of which I'm one ) have the right to hope ( not expect ) for payment or revenue returns for their work.
they cannot/ should "expect" ..because there is no written contract between them and their visitors..their only written contract is with their advertisers or their ad networks..
The "work" that they do is "speculative"..

Those of us who are or have been published offline ( either as image artists or written work authors etc ) know this ..you can spend years writing a book etc ..If you leave it out on the sidewalk ( in public ) you can only hope that someone will pay you for reading it..expecting that they will / should will lead often to dissapointment..

If it has ads , and they choose to cover up the ads with a piece of paper and only read the "content" and look at the pictures..you can only withdraw if from public view..you cant make it publicly accessible and force people to look at the ads..

They can always just walk on by..

Think of it like a street performer..

Spends months learning how to do their "act"..

Performs in public ..on the sidewalk..

They can "hope" to get coins in the hat..

Many people watch..

Some put a coin in the hat..

Some don't..

The performer isn't going to tell all those who don't "drop a coin" that they cannot watch ..because it is in public..

They can only "expect" payment if it is in a closed venue..

When you make a website..you are making street performance art on the internet highway..

[netmeg]

(just to clarify, I'm pretty sure pageoneresults doesn't run AdSense anywhere, so if you're referring to him, he's not an ad-blocking AdSense publisher)

I don't block ads, but I do use the 'reader' version in a browser if the ads get in the way. That's why this whole mess started, because the ads got in the way. (I don't much care about the cookie aspect myself)

I value my readership, I don't expect anything of them, and at least some of my sites would probably still exist even if they weren't monetized (although probably not in the form or level they are now) and I would never block the adblockers.

But ultimately, I think display ads are on the wane, and we're going to have to come up with something else. I dunno what that is or even if it will happen in my lifetime, but ultimately, it's the way forward.

[Leosghost]

not @netmeg ( she does "get it" )..but to anyone else that "expects payment"..
Quoting oneself is "bad form"..but anyway

When you make a website..you are making street performance art on the internet highway

The ads are like if you were singing or juggling or playing a guitar etc while wearing a billboard front and back for "joe's Pizza"..
The folks watching and listening might want to do so wearing sunglasses, in case you billboards have bright lights and day-glo, because out of the last 100 buskers that they saw ..95 had flashing lights and day-glo billboards front and back..
you tell them that they have to take them off or you won't play or sing or do your stuff..they'll probably move on..
and word will spread..and fewer folks will walk in your direction..and then fewer..til one day, maybe no-one..

Give them a reason to take off the sungalsses and some of them might..pitching a hissy fit about them wearing sunglasses isn't a reason that is likely to work..in public..

Try a paywall..see how you go..works for some..

[edited by: Leosghost at 5:02 pm (utc) on Aug 26, 2015]

[trebuchet]

they cannot/ should "expect" ..because there is no written contract between them and their visitors..their only written contract is with their advertisers or their ad networks..

Correct. And adblocking interposes itself between the two parties of that contract, undermining its operation and denying the publisher any possibility of return.

Those of us who are or have been published offline ( either as image artists or written work authors etc ) know this

I have authored and co-authored numerous books, press and magazine articles. Every one was preceded by a contract or agreement and everyone involved some form of payment. Of course authoring a book does not mean it will sell, but in that instance it's the publisher who speculates, not the author.

That said, writing for the web is nothing like writing for print, so the analogy may not be fair.

Think of it like a street performer.. Spends months learning how to do their "act".. Performs in public ..on the sidewalk.. They can "hope" to get coins in the hat.. Many people watch.. Some put a coin in the hat.. Some don't.."

Whereas adblocking just steals the hat.

Try a paywall..see how you go..works for some..

Actually I'm going to give that a try on one of my sites. Probably not until the start of next year. It will be interesting to see what transpires.