Publishers vs Users: The ad block battle rages

Advertisements to support publishers of free content seems to be a solution from which all involved parties benefit. Publishers generate revenues from the advertisements, readers get to consume content for free, and advertisers gain exposure to a targeted audience. The reality is far from this ideal abstract concept though. The problem was that advertisements started getting more and more intrusive, to the point of being distracting and disturbing when navigating a web page. They have also evolved from simple graphics into complex multimedia widgets that play back audiovisual content, mini games and motion graphics. This consumes too much bandwidth for those who are economical with their data usage. Finally, the ad networks keeping track of web searches and browsing history to deliver targeted ads were creepy, and had unintended effects. Not everyone is comfortable with their shopping histories pasted across all the web sites they visit. The most powerful and common tools users have to combat these ads are Adblock and Adblock Plus, browser plugins that have a list of advertisement providers, and blocks content from those sources. The plugin works like a charm, removing most ads from most pages. The exceptions are normally native advertisements, and non intrusive apps that large companies have paid for to be counted as “acceptable ads”. The Acceptable Ads initiative reveals a key aspect in this struggle, that most users only have a problem with intrusive advertising. Ad Block is understandably, bad news for Digital Publishers. It blocks their revenue stream, resulting in heavy losses. A report by PageFair and Adobe on the cost of ad blocking, estimates the loss to the industry because to be US$21.8 billion in the year 2015. Ad Block has also started seeing phenomenal adoption in the last year, and the number of users is only expected to grow exponentially. As of now the impact is only seen for desktop versions of the site, but ad blocking software is expected to take off on mobile platforms as well. Apple has made it much easier to block ads in the iOS9 update, and Google has restored ad blockers on its store even after taking them down . Chrome and Firefox currently block the most ads in mobile. This is not exactly a Red Queen’s Race, where there is an ongoing fight between those who want to deliver the ads and those who do not want to see the ads, to remain in relatively the same place despite all their efforts. The consumers seem to be winning, forcing publishers to rethink how they deliver ads or generate revenue. A slew of new services offer just this to publisher. PageFair, Secret Media and Sourcepoint offer a two step process to their clients, the first estimates the revenue loss to the publisher because of ad blocking software, and the second offers a range of technology products to circumvent the ad blocking. Sites such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired and Time are clients of these platforms. Those navigating to these sites with Ad Blocking software are given a range of options. This can be paying a subscription fee for accessing the site content without ads, or a prompt to whitelist the page and continue browsing by looking at the ads. There are even AdBlock blockers that use custom implementations and continuously updated code to deliver ads despite the block, these services claim they themselves are not wholly effective though. It is almost impossible to get something for nothing, so readers know that they have to pay for the content in one way or the other, and ad supported web content seems to be a good idea all around. It only becomes a hassle when the ads go too far, are too noisy, too invasive, or just are too many. Most users do not have a problem with considerate ads that are not distracting, do not track personal data, and don’t use the speakers. The best option for content publishers right now is to just ask their readers nicely to be whitelisted.