Web Worker Daily

Laura says: September 10th, 2007 2:10pm

Website advertisements have gotten a lot less intrusive. I can remember when you could go to just about any website and pop-up ads (in some cases for adult-only products) would jump out at you. Many computer users resorted to ad blocking software to protect themselves and their families.

jeff says: September 10th, 2007 2:35pm

I don’t use ad-blocking, but I also never read and/or click on advertisements.

People are having the same discussions about DVRs. Now that we have the ability to skip commercials, most of us with DVRs can’t watch TV any other way.

So I guess what’s the difference between ignoring an ad and blocking it. If you’re the type of person who’s going to use ad-blocking, then you are probably not the type of person who’s going to be clicking on ads anyway.

Anne Zelenka says: September 10th, 2007 2:50pm

Jeff: there are some ads that are purchased on a cost-per-impression (CPM) basis as a way of exposing readers to a brand. Those of us running ad blocking software don’t see those ads — and advertisers are paying for the impressions anyway.

Good point that this has come up before with DVRs.

jeff says: September 10th, 2007 3:02pm

I forgot about impressions. Maybe the way web based advertising is sold needs to be changed.

In any case, It’s a pretty compelling argument that I really hadn’t thought of before.

Anne Zelenka says: September 10th, 2007 3:08pm

Anyway, the cost-per-click model as well has serious problems too (click fraud!) And so far the use of ad blocking hasn’t spread widely. So maybe this is only a theoretical problem.

I am optimistic about the market’s ability to sort it out. Micropayments and/or subscriptions aren’t necessarily a bad thing, especially given so many people give away their content just for attention not for advertising revenue.

Josh P says: September 10th, 2007 3:12pm

The real interesting thing about the folks who are so vocal about ad blocking being okay is that if you asked them if they’d pay a subscription to view websites, they’d refuse.

The very people who scream the loudest about this are either in denial or just ignorant about the flip side of no advertisements…which is a for-pay model. They very “free internet” that they think should exist and be ad-free would quickly turn in to a for-pay internet in which they can’t access many of the sites they love.

W.B. McNamara says: September 10th, 2007 3:27pm

Anne/Jeff -

In most cases advertisers paying on a CPM basis actually wouldn’t get charged for the “blocked” ads, because the browser’s decision to block the ad is made before any requests are passed along to remote servers. With Firefox’s AdBlock Plus extension (as with the old fashioned approach of adding ad servers to one’s hosts file with a 127.0.0.1 IP address) any content requests that would go to blocked sources are just discarded, so from the ad servers’ perspective it’s functionally the same as the site getting one less visit.

In some ways this is actually better for CPM advertisers, as they’re not paying for ads that would be displayed for the least interested audience…I’m sure everyone reading this remembers the “468×60 blind spot syndrome” from back in the day, when advertisers were paying for those top/center banners that everyone had already mentally filtered out.

The question of whether it’s ethical to browse ad supported sites without viewing the associated ads certainly still stands, but I don’t believe that fairness to advertisers is a significant factor there.

Anne Zelenka says: September 10th, 2007 3:43pm

W.B.: thanks for the clarification, I didn’t realize that.

Anne Zelenka says: September 10th, 2007 3:46pm

Josh: I use AdBlock Plus myself, and I’m not a huge opponent of ads (I work for an ad-supported network, after all). However, I had some problems with popunders and video ads that made my laptop’s fan spin up noisily and the easiest thing to do was block all ads — which has made my browsing much more pleasant, incidentally!

Don’t know that I’m representative of ad blocking people, but I think part of it is just a response to very annoying ads not a dogmatic opposition to the advertising model itself.

Aaron says: September 10th, 2007 3:55pm

I don’t have a problem with unobtrusive ads. The problem I have is with ads that hold up a page from loading. When I look down at the status bar and see some ad network’s URL “waiting”, that’s when I get annoyed. And that’s why I just recently installed ABP.

Deepak says: September 10th, 2007 4:27pm

I use adblock plus, and run ads. I also have a blurb on my own site that says if you don’t like ads run adblock plus. I whitelist any number of sites, since I like supporting them by clicking on relevant, non-irritating ads.

I am not sure micropayments work, even though there are a few sites I pay $1 to every month.

adblocker says: September 10th, 2007 4:49pm

I have been blocking ads for around 3-4 years now. Before Firefox/adblocker, I used a tweaked hosts file /windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts to block a long list of ad servers that I get from http://www.everythingisnt.com. –Thanks Mike!

An interesting development that the Times article didn’t mention is their NY Times reader program (which is awesome) that relies on Windows Presentation Foundation thereby making adblocking next to impossible. If the presentation platform/content drives on ahead, the question of if/how ad revenue is generated will answer itself.

jdavey says: September 10th, 2007 5:57pm

A moral issue? Not at all. I don’t think morals have anything to do with this unless you’re talking about advertising on pornographic websites or something else of that nature. Whether or not you choose to view ads is a personal choice; one I’d think would be rarely connected to morals in any way. I feel this will be a niche phenomenon. Since only 50% of web workers apparently use Firefox, I bet the percentage of casual user of the internet is more in favor of Microsoft browsers. This leaves a vast minority of internet users with the ability to use the adblocking program. This is a market issue more than anything and if adblocking goes viral, web businesses will have adapt as will users of services on the net.

Patia says: September 10th, 2007 6:02pm

This is an interesting subject to me, as I block ads but have been considering integrating ads into my site. A bit hypocritical, yes?

Well, the reason I block ads is not because I object to advertising, but because I cannot STAND anything moving on a web page I’m trying to read. I loathe animated ads, and I won’t ever have any on my site. I also resent the distraction of pop-up ads.

And for the record, I have been a paid subscriber of Salon for years, I’ve donated to other sites that provide valuable information, and I’ll gladly click on a sponsored search result if it’s of interest to me.

If advertisers quit using popups and animated, flashing, blinking ads, I will happily uninstall my adblock software.

WhoreChurch says: September 10th, 2007 7:54pm

Nobody gets paid until someone buys something. None of us can make a living on the web or anywhere else until someone buys something.

One thing to consider is the Henry Ford approach: If those of us who depend on the net for our income also buy on the net, we are paying “ourselves” the same way the early Ford workers became the customers for the product they were producing.

This doesn’t mean you need to block or not block ads, simply that buying online strengthens the online incomes for all of us.

Assetbar says: September 10th, 2007 11:16pm

Block ads! (And help the future get here sooner.)

Widespread blocking of ads won’t make Web sites go out of business and we won’t be the poorer for it. Instead, new business models will arise, and MORE and BETTER content will appear.

Micropayments *can be* affordable to everyone.

If you looked at one page per minute and wanted to replace a $5 CPM, you’re on the hook for 30 cents per hour. You can afford that, just like your $3.50 mocca frappa presso chino.

Look at your cable bill; you already pay for content. You just pay too much, because it’s all bundled together. Micopayments could enable you to pay less for disaggregated, premium gems and lower consumers’ overall media bill. It’s only a question of when low friction alternatives kick in.

By paying for content, value could accrue to good, interesting and useful content, not just content that is suitable for others to advertise against.

In the same way AdSense / AdWords made advertising work for so many publishers, we need low-friction alternatives to advertising that are affordable to consumers and reward content creators more than ads do today.

Joshua Kaufman says: September 10th, 2007 11:18pm

I’m no more likely to click on an ad than to go to the advertiser’s product or service site, so I find absolutely no moral dilemma when using ad blocking software

Gordon says: September 11th, 2007 12:32am

Just a few thoughts: if advertising disappears completely, advertisers will try to promote their products within the editorial content even more than they do today. The value of the content decreases. Who is going to pay for content nowadays, when it is available for free somewhere else? Even if it has more quality, people won’t pay. And the brain is the best ad blocker anyway - if the ad is not interesting, you don’t click. So what is the point of ad blockers, when advertisers are happy with impressions and you help finance websites you visit frequently?

Ken says: September 11th, 2007 5:34am

Many ads require Javascript anyway. So you can still wrap your ads in a Div and check it out when the page loads. If you can’t find your ad just do what a lot of places are doing and block Firefox. While the zealots are a crazed lot the majority of surfers aren’t, they’ll simply switch to IE to see their content.

Eric S. Mueller says: September 11th, 2007 6:23am

As much as possible, I only block the truly annoying flash ads or ads from servers that are known for tracking. I have no problem with Google’s “Don’t be evil” approach, and I have found their ads to be very helpful to me on occasion. I like the ad supported business model as long as we’re not talking about the annoying, seizure-inducing “punch the monkey and win $20″ flashing banner ads.

Skellie says: September 11th, 2007 6:48am

The truth is that only a small percentage of the web community are ever going to have the technical know-how to block ads. We’re not even yet at a point where Firefox threatens the dominance of internet explorer yet.

Pop-up blockers are in mainstream usage but I don’t think advertisers have a right to use pop-ups anyway.

Ultimately you can no more stop people blocking ads than you can stop them fast-forwarding or channel surfing through TV commercials. I think it’s the right of the user to block ads if they have the will to do so. If someone’s annoyed enough by advertising to block it then they’re not going to be clicking ads anyway.

Ellie says: September 11th, 2007 7:13am

I don’t really pay attention to ads - the ad blindness I have is strong, too. Anything blinking or moving just doesn’t even register with my brain.

Wladimir Palant says: September 11th, 2007 3:48pm

A moral problem? Definitely not. The basic assumption behind ads is that they will only be interesting to few, that’s why they are so many. Then what’s the point if people who are not interested in ads are forced to view them?

But the main issue is that ads manage to annoy people who don’t really want to block the ads - and in my experience there are many more of those. Blinking and making sounds brings you more clicks (at least in the short term). So we certainly have an economical problem here - alienating your customers seems to be the best business strategy at the moment. This is something Adblock Plus could change, by forcing advertisers to look for better strategies before they lose all the good will most people still show towards them.

I really don’t think Adblock Plus will destroy the Internet - neither did popup blockers. They only changed the way advertising works on the Internet, for the better. Forgive the shameless plug but I discussed some economical aspects of this question here: http://adblockplus.org/blog/ads-dont-generate-money

James D Kirk says: September 11th, 2007 9:30pm

There are many, many ways to monetize ones venture online. Inline ads on websites are only one choice a website owner has in order to try and financially support themselves. All one has to do is look at the phenomenon of businesses like SiteSell.com and all they promote for literally thousands and thousands of site owners to support themselves. In fact, anyone who owns a Site Build It! account knows the mantra of CTPM (Content>>Traffic>>Pre-sell>>Monetize) and that what is most stressed is NOT putting advertisements on your site until you have the traffic (generated by quality content).
(The rest of my post on this topic if you are interested!)

Hoqenishy says: September 12th, 2007 7:32am

Ken: WRONG! If someone foolishly decides to block the Firefox agent, a one-minute tweak can get around your ‘blocking mechanism’. If you try to DIV wrap your ads and utilize Javascript, that’s easily stopped by NoScript. The only other solution I’ve seen was to use CSS, and even then that was circumvent-able.

Bottom line - don’t kick against a brick wall. Those determined to block ads (such as myself) will do it, and will figure out a way around your anti-blocking mechanisms in a fraction of the time it took for you to implement them. Instead of wasting time trying to fight the ABP crowd, find a new and unobtrusive way to monetize your site, such as self-hosted text ads. Yes, it will require more work, but the good news is that the market will dissolve most of the absolute crap found online and leave only the useful content.

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