Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking(blog.adcontrolapp.com) |
Open letter – Our concern about ad blocking(blog.adcontrolapp.com) |
Interestingly, some of the best content on the web (in my opinion) can be found on websites that do not have ads. They are maintained by people genuinely interested in a topic and have a passion for sharing knowledge.
I'm not saying that gift economy works for everyone, but there certainly are people that are willing to pay from their own pockets. It's not like the web wouldn't exist without ads.
Imagine if the author had written 'no one wants to give away money from their own pockets to sustain their [photography|aircraft modelling|horse riding] hobby'. We'd all look askance. But somehow he thinks the web is different?
Plenty of hobbyists and societies run websites entirely without external funding. They will continue to do so, just like they did in the 1990s before advertising exploded onto the Web.
I can't speak for on-the-ground or wide-ranging reporting of breaking events, but for instance I know of a local investigative journalism website that does not depend on ads and is often praised for the quality of its content. (http://podcrto.si/about).
For example, I think Joel Spolsky's articles are some of the best content on the web. He does not serve ads because he does not make money from the content, although his content did serve as a form of advertising for his company. That is not a viable option for all content producers.
I am not against ad-blocking, but do not block them myself. If the ads come in the way of obtaining content which I am interested in, I simply close the web page.
I actually wonder how they sustain themselves.
I hear that since Webwasher. And today, with better AdBlocking tools, additional costs for hosts, the Internet is still there.
From time to time even I get weak and think about the way I block ads. Then I just launch my IE at work and there is no doubt about it: this is not the Internet I want to see.
I don't want to be responsible for bringing something heinous into my employer's network.
I don't know why adblockers aren't mandatory inside corporations.
I'm not even allowed to run FF, Chrome, etc. We bypass this by using Waterfox because it seems to be the .exe Files that are blocked.
It's a horrible risk since people are doing research on their IE going down to private peoples pages and blogs (not all of them though since wordpress-hosted blogs are blocked...).
Somehow I doubt all that. They want "everything to stay the same", and that means keeping the wild west as it current is. I don't.
We can do better.
Claiming your business model will be harmed by progress in technology is depressing and a cop out. I would like to see resource quotas enforced by browsers. Like billboard space, you have a scarce resource to fill that is prime. How about you fit your advert resource usage into a well defined slot of time that my browser can manage for you? If you're fast and respectful, I see you. Otherwise you get torn down for vandalism like illegal posters.
Some developer somewhere is choosing what to block and when their app lets through 2 ads and the competition doesn't let though any people will consider the latter better and use that.
IMO Adblockers make running "nice" safe and efficient ads pointless as you'll just get lumped in with the rest of 'em.
I've found that using uBlock origin I don't only block ads, I virtually redesign pages. I remove share buttons, I remove elements I never use on sites I visit frequently. Maybe I'm addicted to simplifying the web in my own image.
Yeah, I find sites like ebay or amazon barely usable without blocking away the fluff.
But I wonder whether that information (blocked non-ad content) is of use for these companies? I could even imagine some companies would pay for access to the (anonymized) data. Granted, that ad blocker usage pattern is probably too obscure (i.e. too few non-geeks do it) to draw reliable conclusions about the general population.
This means they'll load more slowly, they'll be harder to get around, and we will have absolutely no way to see who is actually tracking us any more.
Much as I dislike adverts on websites, the alternative to the way they're sent now is far worse.
1) Easiest is DOM-structure. Ads will often have a signature tell-tale placement and structure on a page, and this is enough to identify them. A naive ad implementation is trivial to detect, and even smarter ones can be worked around using crowdsourcing.
2) As a general matter, the facet of advertising we call ads are obvious to humans, and should in principle be detectable to machines. Rely on layout cues, other pages on the website, differences in content. This will ultimately push more and more advertising into the "sponsored content" category, which seems a genuinely harder problem.
I agree with the other commenter that it seems reasonable for asightto a sight to block content if their ads are blocked, but do not see this as a sustainable solution. How can one know abead of time whether a site will or will not behave this way. The only time you'd know is if re-visiting. In that case, you're not likely to revisit. Seems like a lose-lose.
To me, the obvious answer is the option to opt out and either immediately paying a metered amount cash exchange, paying an end of month pro-rata subscription amount, or paying via a block exchange.
I think the end of month subscription, divied pro-rata, is the best option (anonymized of course). Its transaction cost is the middle of the two. It requires no direct relationship with the site prior to your visit. But most importantly, it allows for Spotify style consumer pricing. The consumer pays a flat fee for opting out of adverts. Then the content creators are encouraged to produce content that you will actually spend time with, not click-bait. This leaves the option on the table for each site to sell other content and material behind pay walls.
One last comment. Advertising is designed to influence and change behavior and opinions. In my opinion it is disingenuous to insist that a site visitor agrees to third party influence brokering to keep your lights on. It is my screen, my hardware, and my mind. I have every right to run adblocker. Similarly you have every right to decide bow to keep the lights on at your business. But I think there as been enough of this argument that consumers have unwittingly entered into some sort of relationship /agreement and should somehow wake-up and see that it's our proper responsibility to be good advert targets so the servers stay on.
In a perfect world, web adverts will be back to the print media style - non-clickable non-targeted images.
Websites will figure out how to monetize or they will go away. This is a good thing.
However, I also, think that once the ad bubble bursts people will start to be creative in how they monetize. Most will get it completely wrong. The few who figure it out will eventually lead the rest.
Something has to give. It cannot keep going the way it is. It's neither producer or consumer friendly.
I noticed a similar issue with other www.localworld.co.uk paper sites. I get they need to make money but to make articles unreadable is not the way to go.
One option I'm guessing is to have a blacklist adblock approach that only kicks in when a particular site becomes abusive and is reported back to the site owners to enable them to "fix" their ad delivery.
In other words, if you choose a business model that requires placement ads, you're doomed. You made a bad decision. Sorry.
I just went there and clicked around as much as I could, at least 20 articles. I saw no complaints or roadblocks. uBO, Disconnect and Ghostery all reported blocking lots of ads and trackers.
Once websites start blocking ad blockers the other option is to download the ads but not display them.
That of course will lead to ads getting "smarter" (well, more annoying; they will have to figure out whether they're being watched).
Fast forward into the future and we'll have eye tracking software that will make sure you see the ad :)
It's going to be an arms race.
Actually, I disagree. This is 2015. If I want to start a website on a certain topic, say about cars or electronics, I can find some really good free hosts who will support me without any sneazy catches. As a real example, I go to blogger.com, setup a new blog with my own custom theme, (with all the attribution to blogger removed if I want to) and start producing content. Not cool with blogspot? Then, how about Github pages? Not so technical? How about using a free shared web host (there are plenty, Google them)?
If your objective is to spread information and knowledge, you will do that no matter what. It is when your objective is guised as spreading information when you really want to make money and scale up doing so, then you run into a problem. The problem with this kind of appeal against ad-blocking is the same old argument of "How much is too much?"
"We need money to support our website to keep it up and running". But, never do these authors disclose how much they really need as long as they're making a killer profit.
The problem with mixing ads with content is that introduces a conflict of interest - Are you writing that content because you like writing, or are you writing that content to get more eyeballs to serve your advertisers? And it's very hard to convince your readers that you don't intend to make money from them although you have ads on your site.
For your reference, I do own a blog myself without any ads whatsoever and I think this is the future we're heading towards. I am a proud user of adblock software and I refused to be shamed for that. As would any user, I am concerned about the content first, which is the logical reason why I go to a site. But, if the site tries hard to ruin my experience to make it difficult for me to consume that content, then of course, I'll find a way to circumvent it. But, that doesn't mean I don't support the authors of the site, just that as everyone else, I have my own way of supporting them. Just like how I've been donating to Wikipedia all these years.
There have been too many sites abusing the slogan of "We need to place ads so we can support ads" to buy back our lost trust. Sure, there will be a lot of content weeded out because they can't support themselves, but I am confident that the ones whose objectives are to spread information will do so no matter what.
We built the internet ourselves when no one gave us ads to support our efforts back then. And we'll find a way to do it again. Just takes time and patience.
Call it the tyranny of popularity.
In the paper newspaper days I didn't mind ads at all. And I probably wouldn't have paid the full cost of subscription if the advertisers weren't the real source of income.
Now, as someone in another said, advertisers are stalkers. I mind that.
There may be deals for supermarket meat etc. but in general it seems like a total waste.
Most larger websites produce two or three articles a month that I'm interested in. Smaller websites may only produce one or two articles a year that I'm interested in reading. There is no way I'm going to sign up for 100+ websites in order to read sporadic content. But this sporadic content is what does exist and needs to exist in order to get a well rounded web. So it's not realistic to say to a smaller niche blog to produce "better" and more frequent content that appeals to everyone. That's part of the beauty of thousands of niche web sites over, for example, dozens of niche magazines of the past.
So, there is a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed. There needs to be a way to aggregate all these sites into a single payment system. You pay for a year and get access to the sites you like. Then this payment processing company takes care of allocating the money based on various factors like how many people access each article.
Finally, in order to maximize revenue to content providers, this company should be setup not to take a fixed percent of each transaction but only take what it needs to sustain itself. In other words, at the end of each week/month/whatever the company totals up it's expenses and take their percentage only up sustainability (which includes growth factors). No more middle man leaches!
And yet you do not, instead you propose a system in which people pay for content.
I contend that lots of people are willing to pay, just not by the current means. (And proposed a possible solution that would suit me, and what I naively believe to be others too.)
This isn't specific to adverts and applies to every industry/endeavour that depends on voluntary engagement for funding. Name one thing that does not require a minimum level of popularity to be self-sustaining