In response to our previous articles, many adblockers claimed they would much rather pay a small fee for content in lieu of viewing ads. Our research reveals otherwise.
PageFair lets publishers reach out to adblock users: to explain why ad revenue is necessary to keep the site running, and ask them to support the site by whitelisting it so ads appear or by making a donation towards the running costs.
I'm curious if Destructoid paid a licensing fee to use Hopper's art. I'm skeptical that adding another figure (sad Keanu or not) qualifies this for "fair use" in this particular case.
And if they're skipping out on that payment then calling out people who block ads makes me think of a certain kettle and pot.
If they are paying for that content then props to them for practicing what they preach.
We completely agree that loud, flashing, and pop up ads are intrusive and have no place on the internet.
As far as the majority of the internet, ad blocking extensions are getting easier and easier to use with a variety of browsers. AdBlock Plus reports 50k downloads per day on Chrome alone and 100k downloads per day on Firefox. Adblock Plus is also the most downloaded extension of all time. The issue seems to have already become mainstream.
Ad blocking has already become widely used. Adblock Plus, the most popular ad block extension, reports over 150k downloads per day. Adblock (not affiliated with ABP) also reports over 20 million users. Adblocking in general is growing over 43% per year.
We aim to educate the internet about adblocking. You can read more here- http://blog.pagefair.com
Research has shown that the problem is becoming an epidemic, with publishers losing an average of over 20% ad revenue due to ad blocking software. Tech and Gaming websites, along with other sites with a more tech savvy audience, are hit the hardest, with block rates sometimes over 50%.
With the current online advertising model, ad blocking will force publishers to take drastic measures that we as users do not want. We can shut down the ads, but the content will still have to be funded. We as users will still have to pay to view that content. Only in the future, instead of paying passively (by viewing ads), we will pay actively, being forced to deal with things like paywalls, freemium models, and subscriptions.
I as a consumer prefer to pay for my content, the primary issues I have with ads.
- A violation of privacy
- Content creators' incentives are not for me the consumer. Important in editorial contexts
- An impairment of my computer systems, between another attack surface to being resource intensive.
Twitch.tv, a live streaming site, has Adblock rates of around 60% (unclear if that just means 40% fill rate) due to the obtrusiveness and frequent over-use of ads by streamers.
The Starcraft website Team Liquid also has around a 60% block rate despite actively encouraging people to disable Adblock on their site and having very minimal advertising.
