> Just because adblock is popular doesn't mean everyone is using it, and as much as I don't like it, advertisers rely on that... it could seriously damage the web if they did that.
The sites that suffer the most from adblocking are those that provide very little benefit for the user anyway: splogs, linkfarms, and other very contentless things built solely to lure users in for adverts. While I don't use adblock myself (I use a filtering proxy instead), seeing that part of the internet die off, and possibly a return to something closer to the noncommercialised web of the 90s where the signal-to-noise ratio was much higher, IMHO is a very good thing. Although there are some good ad-supported sites that may die off, in my experience the sites that contain lots of very good, detailed information are unlikely to contain ads too. It's a bit like chemotherapy...
I frequently visit The Verge and The Guardian. I also happen to follow their journalists on twitter because they're often interesting to listen and talk to. On more than one occasion I've seen them express their frustration at ad blocking software and the problems it causes. As such, and because I love the sites, I've turned off adblock for them. (not trying to sound magnanimous here, it's not like I disabled adblock for every site.)
I'd rather have websites sell advertising space next to their content then gate their communities behind paywalls frankly.
I guess part of the problem of that is that companies who might want to advertise on someones site might, not unreasonably, want the kind of stats and control set the hosting website just can't provide, but that a third party advertising company can.
I personally don't mind a certain level of information about my browsing being a bit leaky. I feel like it's a reasonable compromise to make for serving up content I want. Flagrant invasions of privacy are not ok, but I am more concerned with third parties serving malicious content through ads; Something I've seen enough to make me use an ad blocker by default.
I'd rather have websites sell advertising space next to their content then gate their communities behind paywalls frankly.
Those are not the only two choices. Many of the sites I like are personal ones either hosted on the author's own server+connection, or ones hosted by large institutions that would likely be able to afford the hosting anyway.
absolutely, and I'm grateful to see people experimenting with different models for making money, but as it stands the most reasonable way for websites to make money is, probably in order of effectiveness:
1) advertising
2) charging for content
3) freemium, ie free content with paid extas
4) sponsorship
5) ???
generally when I talk about websites serving advertising, I'm speaking specifically about news/media websites. The cost of producing news is substantial, so earnings have to be commensurate. Either you charge people for it, or you give it away for free with advertising, and perhaps have added value services.
You turned off AdBlock, but do you actually click on these ads? Because no money changes hands unless there are clicks, at last if they're using Google for ads.
People who say "I turned off AdBlock to help support the sites I visit" but never click on any ad are not making a bit of difference.
Speaking as someone who works for a newspaper, comments like this make me very uncomfortable. News websites don't make money off of the generosity of viewers. They make money off of advertising. Until the majority of people are willing to go behind a paywall to see content, news organizations must rely on advertising for survival. Not profit, survival.
I personally don't use ad blockers for this reason. I like supporting sites I visit, even if I hate the ads showing there.
> The sites that suffer the most from adblocking are .... splogs, linkfarms, and other very contentless things built solely to lure users in for adverts.
Doesn't adblock normally block all ads? Last time I used it was years ago, so maybe things have changed.
The sites that suffer the most from adblocking are those that provide very little benefit for the user anyway: splogs, linkfarms, and other very contentless things built solely to lure users in for adverts. While I don't use adblock myself (I use a filtering proxy instead), seeing that part of the internet die off, and possibly a return to something closer to the noncommercialised web of the 90s where the signal-to-noise ratio was much higher, IMHO is a very good thing. Although there are some good ad-supported sites that may die off, in my experience the sites that contain lots of very good, detailed information are unlikely to contain ads too. It's a bit like chemotherapy...