Thursday, March 18, 2010 by Adrian

In the past, we have blogged about both the technological developments in digital publishing and the directions the newspaper and magazine industries are moving in, because these developments and directions can directly affect our working world - like they affect yours. Be it the launch of a new, more efficient e-reader, or an online magazine introducing a subscription charge, these developments are visible, and their impacts on the industry are clear and generally progressive. Programmes such as ad blockers however can have a negative impact on publisher's sites, and as a result their content, because they deprive them of revenue. However not everybody using these plugins or extentions is aware of that. There have recently been some very interesting blogs on the subject, surfacing to address misconceptions surrounding ad blockers; to question whether or not if after making their users savvy, sites could convince users to turn them off, and discussing alternatives to the ad-driven business model altogether.

Our attention was first drawn to Guardian Digital Content blogger, Bobbie Johnson's article "Should you use ad-blockers or not?" who questioned in general the use of ad blockers. Johnson put the debate in recent context by looking at what had happened when Ars Technica - a Conde Naste-owned technology site - experimented by blocking their site's content for every ad-blocking user who attempted to access it.

To begin with, Johnson explains that ad blocking "is a technique used in a number of browser plug-ins that basically removes advertising from the web. Similar systems are also used to block Flash content - but basically, it looks for ads on a given web page and removes them." So instead of a site loading content surrounded by animated penguins advertising insurance with a banner pointing out cheap flights to Florida - with an ad blocker, only content loads and appears uninterrupted.

To put it more technically however, here are the reasons Plagiarism Today's Jonathan Bailey lists as to why people block ads

"1. Annoyance: Many ads on today's Web are animated and even contain sound. Not only are these distracting but may be inappropriate to view in certain environments, such as computer labs. They may also interfere with other programs, such as music players.

2. Bandwidth Issues: Many consumers are paying for the bandwidth they use and ads, especially animated or large image advertisements, can cost them money, essentially showing them advertisements that they have to pay for.

3. Privacy: As ad networks have consolidated and have spread across more and more sites, they are able to track user's surfing activities all over the Web and many intentionally do so to serve better targeted ads. Mix that in with the dubious privacy history of some ad networks and many feel uneasy about loading ads."

Likely these points were what motivated the 700k people every week to download Adblock Plus this time last year, which according to Mark from Gruden made it "the most popular Firefox extension out there" .

Most blogs on the subject acknowledge that there is also a commonly held justification used by a huge number of those who download ad blockers - that they were never going to click on the adverts anyway, so getting rid of them makes no financial difference to he site they're on. Ken Fisher at Ars Technica argues that this is a commonly held misconception and describes why brilliantly, in his post Why Ad Blocking is Devastating to the Site you Love. He explains: "Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn't pay. In a way, that's what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources."

So by ad blocking, in most situations both Johnson and Fisher argue, you are effectively consuming resources - eating in their restaurant - for free and stripping the site of their main way to make revenue. This harms all sites using this business model, and argues Fisher, "can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content." Does everyone who uses ad blockers know that?

Ars Technica quickly found out when they conducted an experiment in which users running ad blocking software also found they had the site's content blocked. After turning the content back on and explaining themselves, Fisher notes that the site found they had "made the mistake of assuming that everyone who is blocking ads at Ars is doing so with malice. As it turns out, only a few people are, and many (most?) indicated you are happy to help out."

Indeed, as many of the comments left after the post indicates - they didn't know! Having been informed of the damage they could be doing and being asked politely, a great deal of them have been happy to comply, and have switched off their adblockers for the site. Bailey also sees this as the best method for legitimate sites to deter ad blocking, and informs that there are Word Press plugins that can help a site to do this, where ads are replaced "with pleas to disable ad blockers for those who use them"

However, as is clear from a number of the more spirited posts after the Ars Experiment, not only were a number of readers unhappy with the way the experiment was conducted, not everybody is willing to put up with the annoyance that is the pop up or flash ad, even if it is for a site they love.

So what are the alternatives for publishers? Fisher suggests subscription; while mentioning paywalls Johnson states his refusal to use ad blockers, his sympathy for publishers and consumers, and then opens the floor to some debate that's well worth the read.

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