“Anyone can agree that some mobile ads are exceptionally egregious and must be kept in check. But anyone who believes they are entitled to simply block ads across the board and deprive publications and their staff of advertising revenue and their very livelihood is flat-out wrong.”
This is a very creative framing of the issue: it paints ad-driven site revenue loss as the victim of cold uncaring, self-serving readers, when it’s the opposite. Most people do not mind a few ads, and understand the trade-off of viewing content without paying for it.
In fact, a majority of users will accept a reasonable trade off to keep both their content free of charge and their content provider profitable. However it was self-serving, over-intrusive and obnoxiousness of advertisers that poisoned the well of good will long ago by delivering more bytes of ads than content and using more space, who then added constant tracking and decided popovers & forced redirects were perfectly fine as well.
As site admins, you (& I being one) have the responsibility to monitor how ad content impacts not only your bottom line but your users’ experience. You had (& still have) the power to reign in this greedy behavior and set standards, but instead web site operators continued to let ad-networks take up more and more of their page space with large ads, bandwidth hungry audio & video — the audio being particularly obnoxious. Also, this ad-hijacking, allow your actual content to move “below the fold” — to borrow an old newspaper term.
In the decades of other ad-based media, this never became a problem because they figured out that you have to keep the content:ad ratio over 2:1 or 3:1 long ago. (Also, they took it upon themselves to have their own advertising dept. to screen advertising for a level of acceptable quality.) Without web masters acting as both provider and gate keeper of acceptable ad-practices, users were driven to ad blockers.
So, people who would have never considered content blockers, had the advertising networks not gone overboard, are left with the burden of correcting the problem. People are sick of advertisers sapping their data plans with more megs or ads than content and have embraced content blockers as a way of taking back their data plans from freeloading advertising networks. In short: do not blame users reacting to your missteps, because users are “as mad as hell & [they aren’t] going to take it anymore!”
I am using Peace and Appleinsider site seems to have plenty of ads and the page is responsive, quick, and fast. It seems that this balance can be achieved. Congrats to Appleinsider.
This story has many parallels to the battle between Über and yellow cabs. Yellow cabs have been providing an increasingly sub-standard service for many years, with any incentive to change obliterated by their monopoly. Then Über comes along and completely uproots their safe hiding hole, giving power back to the riders. And now drivers of yellow cabs are up in arms over their livelihood, as if they're entitled to earn one by providing a terrible service.
Ad blockers are the internet's Über, and publishers are its yellow cab drivers. And I have the same amount of sympathy for cabbies and publishers...that is, none.
Don't you think it's a bit premature to be posting such dire predictions about the impact of iOS 9's content blockers on your revenue stream?
How about an open dialogue with users about your income from advertising in the coming weeks and months including specific details and figures to demonstrate whether it is or isn't having a significant impact?
Without this we as users have nothing to go on re the supposed morality choice to which you're inferring and this article comes across as sensationalist scaremongering.
Basically it's time to start putting your mouth where your money is!
I bought Peace, despite it not quite having the features of it's competition (eg. Whitelisting from Safari) expecting it would be a well-maintained app and would get updates. Anyone who bought this should ask for a refund. The consumers who bought into Marco Arment just suffered monetarily because of his base entrepreneurial nature and his apparent emotional weakness to have a panicked ethical shit fit under scrutiny from others. He has let his users down and I for one will never buy anything from him again.
In terms of apple insider, I was always going to add the mobile site to the whitelist and I wish I could enjoy the app. The problem for me is sticky ads. I don't care if there is an ad halfway through the copy I can scroll past or one at the top of the site. If they distract me whilst I'm reading, I have a huge problem with them and will block them. If they abuse my trust I will block them. And any publishers should know that any ad network they support doesn't only reflect poorly on them with their unscrupulous actions. It is them. They sell their user's eyeballs and data to advertising groups for a cut, instead of accepting sponsorship from brands they use and trust and are worth recommending. This is the distinction Arment should have made, and whilst I hope he can turn this around and not be an example of the worst kind of app developer, he will likely take the coward's exit.
This story has many parallels to the battle between Über and yellow cabs. Yellow cabs have been providing an increasingly sub-standard service for many years, with any incentive to change obliterated by their monopoly. Then Über comes along and completely uproots their safe hiding hole, giving power back to the riders. And now drivers of yellow cabs are up in arms over their livelihood, as if they're entitled to earn one by providing a terrible service.
Ad blockers are the internet's Über, and publishers are its yellow cab drivers. And I have the same amount of sympathy for cabbies and publishers...that is, none.
One artifact of this "terrible service" is when I see persistent ads for things I just bought! As if I'm going to go back and buy another!
I've never used an ad-blocker on the desktop but I'm giving Crystal a go on my phone. Websites have become so bloated these days and ads are just part of the problem. Anything that speeds up the experience is going to get a thumbs up from me.
Advertisers, like tax avoiders, will find ways to get around the blocks though. There's just too much money at stake. I'm expecting a big increase in inline advertising.
There have been a lot of articles about ad blockers in the last couple of days. All of them take a very narrow view on advertising. It is presented as if advertising-sponsored content is free to the user, but that is false. Aside from the cost of bandwidth and time, customers still pay for the content.
Publishers are paid by advertisers, advertisers are paid by corporations who want to promote their product or brand, and the corporations pay for the advertising by increasing the price for the product. As consumers of both the products of the corporations that advertise online and the content that is sponsored by the ads, we do in fact pay for the content.
Of course this payment is indirect and someone who consumed content online but buys white label products in the store is getting the content for free, while someone who does not consume online content but buys brand name products in the store pays for content without consuming it.
The debate about expecting consumers of online content not to block ads could be extended to the expectation for consumers of online content not to buy white label product. If no one would buy brand name product, then there would not any ads and there would not be a revenue model for publishers.
For an industry that is known for thinking outside the box, this debate is surprisingly limited. The advertising revenue model is at least a 100 years old. Paywalls have failed in the past, but several companies are now successfully charging for online content. Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Showtime all offer subscriptions for commercial free content. Hulu now offers a commercial free version of the service as well. The same models are getting popular for music.
It may be time to give a paid content model for publishing another try. Maybe in a freemium model where customer either accept the ads or pay a premium for an ad free experience. I signed up for the commercial free tier of Hulu the second it was announced and I would consider paying for online articles if it was easy to pay a fair amount for commercial free content
If companies invest half of their advertising budget towards better products everybody wins "think Samsung". 98% of the content on the web is garbage and is there only to serve ads.
“Anyone can agree that some mobile ads are exceptionally egregious and must be kept in check. But anyone who believes they are entitled to simply block ads across the board and deprive publications and their staff of advertising revenue and their very livelihood is flat-out wrong.”
This is a very creative framing of the issue: it paints ad-driven site revenue loss as the victim of cold uncaring, self-serving readers, when it’s the opposite. Most people do not mind a few ads, and understand the trade-off of viewing content without paying for it.
In fact, a majority of users will accept a reasonable trade off to keep both their content free of charge and their content provider profitable. <span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;">However it was self-serving, over-intrusive and obnoxiousness of advertisers that </span> poisoned the well of good will long ago by<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;"> delivering more bytes of</span> ads than content<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;"> and using more space, who then added constant tracking and decided popovers & forced redirects were perfectly fine as well.</span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;">As site admins, you (& I being one) have the responsibility to monitor how ad content impacts not only your bottom line but your users’ experience. You had (& still have) the power to reign in this greedy behavior and set standards, but instead web site operators continued to let ad-networks take up more and more of their page space with large ads, bandwidth hungry audio & video — the audio being particularly obnoxious. Also, this ad-hijacking, allow your actual content to move “below the fold” — to borrow an old newspaper term.</span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;">In the decades of other ad-based media, this never became a problem because they</span> figured out that you have to keep the content:ad ratio over 2:1 or 3:1 long ago. (Also, they took it upon themselves to have their own advertising dept. to screen advertising for a level of acceptable quality.) Without web masters acting as both provider and gate keeper of acceptable ad-practices, users were driven to ad blockers.
So, people who would have never considered content blockers, had the advertising networks not gone overboard, are left with the burden of correcting the problem. P<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);line-height:1.4em;">eople are sick of advertisers sapping their data plans with more megs or ads than content and have embraced content blockers as a way of taking back their data plans from freeloading advertising networks. In short: do not blame users reacting to your missteps, because users are “as mad as hell & [they aren’t] going to take it anymore!”</span>
This is insane. Every article I read about this whining of adblockers is plain wrong.
I've been using Ghostery for years as it stops tracking. If you have an ad that does not track you, it shows! Marco Arment's app Peace uses the Ghostery database.
Exactly this.
Advertising that significantly degrades the user experience is one thing, but canvassing, profiling and tracking of behaviour across the web is the thing that's immoral and unnecessary and I defy AI to defend its use of advertising which does this!
I realize that as a 'news' business that your costs are 'ongoing' - so your 1, 3 and 12 month subscriptions offered in the app Make sense.
But I'm rather reluctant to pay $9 a year. Generally as a rule I don't pay for subscriptions. Not to Apple Music, not to Google. If I want something I'm happy to buy it - but not to rent it.
If you offered a 'lifetime' membership for $18 or maybe $27 then I'd be ok with that. Please consider it for people like me.
Need more convincing? I don't think you are earning $9 in advertising revenue from me per year. More like $0.20 - as others in this thread have written - impressions don't pay well and I absolutely never ever click on ads. So getting a one time fee from me is way more cost-effective. And I doubt I'm the only person that feels this way (though the price point other people are ok with is likely to be quite variable).
Mr. Hughes, thank you for your thoughtful and honest opinion piece. I appreciate both your acknowledgement of your bias and your clearly sincere attempt to transcend it as well as you could by presenting some balance.
Like you, I am both a creator and consumer of Internet content, and I'd like to respond wearing both hats.
Aside from the glaring omission of discussion of legitimate privacy concerns (as others have already noted), for the most part, I find your points reasonable, with one very important exception:
Quote:
But anyone who believes they are entitled to simply block ads across the board and deprive publications and their staff of advertising revenue and their very livelihood is flat-out wrong.
Of course everyone is entitled to block ads. There is no law that says one can't do so. Nor is there even any established social contract or pervasive norm in this relatively new arena of life. For you to imply otherwise here is effectively to suggest that readers who block ads are "bad people" — and I think that view is a mistaken and dangerous one.
To the contrary, publishers (of which I am also one) need to understand that the public is entitled to do whatever they want on the Internet, and it is we, the publishers, who are notentitled to ad revenue when we voluntarily abandon the subscription model and publish on the open Internet. It is our choice to publish content on the open Internet, which is public and (mostly) free (at least in theory). Thus, right from the start, we have given everything away. And, from that point, whatever we may receive in ad revenue must be considered a bonus, to which we are not entitled, but which we might be fortunate to receive — at least in some use cases, but not all. We, the publishers, cannot reasonably expect to receive ad revenue from all use cases or all readers. And we have no reasonable basis whatsoever to shame our readers who prefer to avoid ads for whatever reasons.
Rather, as you rightly said, the onus is upon us, the publishers, to (a) create compelling content, (b) offer it with a compelling presentation and (c) find ways to monetize it enough that it is worthwhile for us (however each of us may define that for ourselves). On those points, we agree completely. But I challenge you to reconsider the underlying assumption that publishers are entitled to ad revenues from articles published on the open Internet.
I've never heard of this Marco guy that lots of people are hyperventilating about. (Frankly his tactics around the app -- making it available and then pulling it in a couple of days -- sound shady).
Given that iOS 9 is all of a couple of days old, I'd say give it a few weeks. I am betting that there'll be many more ad blockers available that allow whitelisting. I think I'll wait for Ghostery for the iOS.
What I would like is a blocker that would allow the first 5 (configurable) ads through that are static and non-tracking. Nothing that sucks up CPU cycles and not a big hit to bandwidth and protect my privacy. Anyone know of an ad blocker like this? if enough people used a tracker like this maybe the advertisers would behave more web friendly.
I can't stand advertisements, the whole notion bothers me greatly, I consider them a moral abomination. Advertisements are little psychological manipulations designed to get you to buy things you neither need nor want. If I'm in the market for something, I research it, the rest of the time I don't want to be harangued to buy shit (and it is always shit) that I don't want. They use clever (they do use very clever) technics to grab your attention and try and get you to buy their stuff which is a silent and sneaky way of getting you to take money out of your wallet and hand it over to them (if they could figure out how to do that without delivering back to you a product or service, they would I'm sure). The world is filled with advertising, even now in the middle of a television programmes you'll see adverts for Best Buy running across the screen, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PROGRAMME, FFS! They are everywhere, avoiding them is getting harder and harder, but this insanity must stop.
Now I realise that this is how some get paid for their work and contributions to society, but perhaps at some point things like ad blockers will open a dialogue where we can begin to look at how we might want to change our society to deliver things we want (content, blogs, products and services) without their subjecting us to those little psychological manipulations attached to anything we value or enjoy consuming. Do we really think the world would be a worse place if there were no advertisements? It would ideal in my opinion, in at least one way, if there were none, but capitalists and the unimaginative apologists will tell you there is no way, but that's a cop out, that's defeatist. As clever as advertising has gotten, applying that same clever to something like this I'm sure we could figure it out. For the time being, anything to eliminate those *%&^ things as much as possible, I'm happy. Previously, I never surfed the web much on iOS because it was such a horrible experience without ad blockers, now that will actually change and I welcome the change obviously.
I paid for Peace before it was pulled, I also installed 1Blocker but hadn't yet paid for the upgraded version. I'll be interested to see some thorough reviews looking at the various options out there to see how well they all do their jobs. What a great feature these content blockers are in iOS9!
I'm going to pile on here. To repeat what others have said:
This editorial simply does not mention the most invasive and problematic aspect of today's ads -- tracking. The elephant in the room. Advertisers love the fact they know that I've been shopping for tile, and the ad right above where I'm typing this reflects that.
You are going to have to build a business model that doesn't do that to me. I don't want to be tracked. I can find tile for my bathroom without your help. Go away.
For me, this is a red line. I've lived with it for years now, and I'm quite sure Apple knows how much I dislike it. They are giving me what I want.
I am sorry but advertising on some sites has gotten completely out of hand and are now completely unusable. They take minutes to load and are often so bad that they crash the Safari page causing it to reload over and over again.
Do the site owners understand the kind of experience they are giving their users? Do they care?
There are a couple of sites which I really like but which have become virtually unusable. I've communicated with the site owners, but nothing changes. I was on the verge of abandoning the sites, when iOS 9 was released. After installing a content blocker, the sites now are completely usable again. I don't buy things from mobile ads anyway, but if I abandon the site, the publisher loses the revenue anyway. SO PLEASE FIX IT.
If mobile publishers don't figure this out, I have no sympathy for them. Apple cares about user experience on their mobile platform and they see what's happening; hence content blockers. So should mobile publishers.
Hi All, I have been reading the site for years with ads, but I joined today to comment. This is a difficult balance. In general, imho, the cream of the crop in all media serves to carry the chafe. . . Cable network bundles that require less popular networks to get the good ones, tv networks themselves with a few great shows to carry the network with 90% crap, 3-4 good songs on an album while the rest is meh, and a few good articles to support a magazine or website. This has been the way of things for a long time. I would argue that having fewer choices that are higher in quality are better, but that is just my opinion.
Personally, I hate the advertorials. I would love to think the general population knows the difference, but they don't. Journalistic integrity has gone out the window. News and media are sensationalized for two main reasons( which is really one): the public(or at least the Anerican public) thrives on thrils(chaos, turmoil, drama etc) so the journalists and media producers cater to this to make money, and that makes sense. Many news articles or pieces on tv would be "boring" to the public if they contained as little bias as possible. Controversial statements that increase our thrill(dopamine) make us pay attention, so to gather viewers or readers, news is sensationalized. Trolls are born (or hired) to feed this.
The ultimate solution, I think, is very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The public has to say we want unbiased news, but whenever the someone in the media/politics agrees with whatever a person believes him or herself, that's not "unbiased", that's "the truth." For instance, we say we don't like the pressure that girls are under to be thin. It is up to the public to deliberately patronize media that uses real body images. We SAY we want that, but we don't put our money where our mouth is. I'm sure the media companies don't care what they show as long as it generates the most income.
Now, to the main point, or what to do ... Maybe
1. What about using Bitcoin or appleid or Paypal, whatever, to be able to vote with our cash on individual articles rather than just a like/thumbs up? That way, as an editor, you see what your audience is interested in and which writers do a better job as well as what topics we are interested in. You can produce more content that appeals to people need get more viewers/readers. The writers who do well get more assignments/money because they bring people in to your site. Maybe the writers themselves get a % bonus the more they bring in. 2. Put written links to the ads unsteady of the ads themselves at the end of each article or the top of the page. "Hey, if you like us, help us to continue or provide quality content. Visit our supporters who pay for this content." And a Donte now" with a Link to PayPal or thru Apple or even thru donating gift cards or remaining balances on gift cards. 3. If your content is exclusive/an original story and not a paragraph about some article on another site, ask for. A suggested donation amount because it was brought to you "ad free." 4. Work with Apple. Perhaps when we click on a magazine/website we favorite, we have the option to "subscribe for $x for unlimited articles (if not already done) without any ads," then you set the price. Same concept as an app without the development cost and without bloating the app store or my phone screen and using my storage space. I do not want to be surfing all over creation, which is why I like RSS feeds. Similarly, I do not want to click on multiple apps to read all my news. 5. While I hate DRM for end users, perhaps there is a way the publishing industry could watermark an original article, so a donate or pay button links to the original writer's/publisher's account. That way if AI writes a great articleand another site links to it or reposts it, you still get the money. Maybe rebloggI got sites could get a small %age for reposting if the public come to your article thru their site?
Of course, I could just be crazy, but that's my 8AM brain working for you.
By the way, I forgot to mention that I don't object to advertising per se. For quite a while advertising was there but mostly unobtrusive. Now when I go to some sites there are full-screen popovers, boxes that pop in the middle of the screen and disable everything while they load, and then you have to click on a link to continue. Animated garbage that appears on the bottom of the screen and gets in the way of the content. And then there are the links you click to go to a webpage and end up in the App Store.
If you want to advertise and have people stay on your site and not use a content blocker, DO IT RESPONSIBLY. If you do, I'll turn off my ad blocker.
Comments
“Anyone can agree that some mobile ads are exceptionally egregious and must be kept in check. But anyone who believes they are entitled to simply block ads across the board and deprive publications and their staff of advertising revenue and their very livelihood is flat-out wrong.”
This is a very creative framing of the issue: it paints ad-driven site revenue loss as the victim of cold uncaring, self-serving readers, when it’s the opposite. Most people do not mind a few ads, and understand the trade-off of viewing content without paying for it.
In fact, a majority of users will accept a reasonable trade off to keep both their content free of charge and their content provider profitable. However it was self-serving, over-intrusive and obnoxiousness of advertisers that poisoned the well of good will long ago by delivering more bytes of ads than content and using more space, who then added constant tracking and decided popovers & forced redirects were perfectly fine as well.
As site admins, you (& I being one) have the responsibility to monitor how ad content impacts not only your bottom line but your users’ experience. You had (& still have) the power to reign in this greedy behavior and set standards, but instead web site operators continued to let ad-networks take up more and more of their page space with large ads, bandwidth hungry audio & video — the audio being particularly obnoxious. Also, this ad-hijacking, allow your actual content to move “below the fold” — to borrow an old newspaper term.
In the decades of other ad-based media, this never became a problem because they figured out that you have to keep the content:ad ratio over 2:1 or 3:1 long ago. (Also, they took it upon themselves to have their own advertising dept. to screen advertising for a level of acceptable quality.) Without web masters acting as both provider and gate keeper of acceptable ad-practices, users were driven to ad blockers.
So, people who would have never considered content blockers, had the advertising networks not gone overboard, are left with the burden of correcting the problem. People are sick of advertisers sapping their data plans with more megs or ads than content and have embraced content blockers as a way of taking back their data plans from freeloading advertising networks. In short: do not blame users reacting to your missteps, because users are “as mad as hell & [they aren’t] going to take it anymore!”
Ad blockers are the internet's Über, and publishers are its yellow cab drivers. And I have the same amount of sympathy for cabbies and publishers...that is, none.
How about an open dialogue with users about your income from advertising in the coming weeks and months including specific details and figures to demonstrate whether it is or isn't having a significant impact?
Without this we as users have nothing to go on re the supposed morality choice to which you're inferring and this article comes across as sensationalist scaremongering.
Basically it's time to start putting your mouth where your money is!
In terms of apple insider, I was always going to add the mobile site to the whitelist and I wish I could enjoy the app. The problem for me is sticky ads. I don't care if there is an ad halfway through the copy I can scroll past or one at the top of the site. If they distract me whilst I'm reading, I have a huge problem with them and will block them. If they abuse my trust I will block them. And any publishers should know that any ad network they support doesn't only reflect poorly on them with their unscrupulous actions. It is them. They sell their user's eyeballs and data to advertising groups for a cut, instead of accepting sponsorship from brands they use and trust and are worth recommending. This is the distinction Arment should have made, and whilst I hope he can turn this around and not be an example of the worst kind of app developer, he will likely take the coward's exit.
Thanks for the honest article.
I've never used an ad-blocker on the desktop but I'm giving Crystal a go on my phone. Websites have become so bloated these days and ads are just part of the problem. Anything that speeds up the experience is going to get a thumbs up from me.
Advertisers, like tax avoiders, will find ways to get around the blocks though. There's just too much money at stake. I'm expecting a big increase in inline advertising.
Exactly this.
Advertising that significantly degrades the user experience is one thing, but canvassing, profiling and tracking of behaviour across the web is the thing that's immoral and unnecessary and I defy AI to defend its use of advertising which does this!
But I'm rather reluctant to pay $9 a year. Generally as a rule I don't pay for subscriptions. Not to Apple Music, not to Google. If I want something I'm happy to buy it - but not to rent it.
If you offered a 'lifetime' membership for $18 or maybe $27 then I'd be ok with that. Please consider it for people like me.
Need more convincing? I don't think you are earning $9 in advertising revenue from me per year. More like $0.20 - as others in this thread have written - impressions don't pay well and I absolutely never ever click on ads. So getting a one time fee from me is way more cost-effective. And I doubt I'm the only person that feels this way (though the price point other people are ok with is likely to be quite variable).
Thanks for all the great articles!
Mr. Hughes, thank you for your thoughtful and honest opinion piece. I appreciate both your acknowledgement of your bias and your clearly sincere attempt to transcend it as well as you could by presenting some balance.
Like you, I am both a creator and consumer of Internet content, and I'd like to respond wearing both hats.
Aside from the glaring omission of discussion of legitimate privacy concerns (as others have already noted), for the most part, I find your points reasonable, with one very important exception:
Of course everyone is entitled to block ads. There is no law that says one can't do so. Nor is there even any established social contract or pervasive norm in this relatively new arena of life. For you to imply otherwise here is effectively to suggest that readers who block ads are "bad people" — and I think that view is a mistaken and dangerous one.
To the contrary, publishers (of which I am also one) need to understand that the public is entitled to do whatever they want on the Internet, and it is we, the publishers, who are not entitled to ad revenue when we voluntarily abandon the subscription model and publish on the open Internet. It is our choice to publish content on the open Internet, which is public and (mostly) free (at least in theory). Thus, right from the start, we have given everything away. And, from that point, whatever we may receive in ad revenue must be considered a bonus, to which we are not entitled, but which we might be fortunate to receive — at least in some use cases, but not all. We, the publishers, cannot reasonably expect to receive ad revenue from all use cases or all readers. And we have no reasonable basis whatsoever to shame our readers who prefer to avoid ads for whatever reasons.
Rather, as you rightly said, the onus is upon us, the publishers, to (a) create compelling content, (b) offer it with a compelling presentation and (c) find ways to monetize it enough that it is worthwhile for us (however each of us may define that for ourselves). On those points, we agree completely. But I challenge you to reconsider the underlying assumption that publishers are entitled to ad revenues from articles published on the open Internet.
Given that iOS 9 is all of a couple of days old, I'd say give it a few weeks. I am betting that there'll be many more ad blockers available that allow whitelisting. I think I'll wait for Ghostery for the iOS.
Anyone know of an ad blocker like this? if enough people used a tracker like this maybe the advertisers would behave more web friendly.
I can't stand advertisements, the whole notion bothers me greatly, I consider them a moral abomination. Advertisements are little psychological manipulations designed to get you to buy things you neither need nor want. If I'm in the market for something, I research it, the rest of the time I don't want to be harangued to buy shit (and it is always shit) that I don't want. They use clever (they do use very clever) technics to grab your attention and try and get you to buy their stuff which is a silent and sneaky way of getting you to take money out of your wallet and hand it over to them (if they could figure out how to do that without delivering back to you a product or service, they would I'm sure). The world is filled with advertising, even now in the middle of a television programmes you'll see adverts for Best Buy running across the screen, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PROGRAMME, FFS! They are everywhere, avoiding them is getting harder and harder, but this insanity must stop.
Now I realise that this is how some get paid for their work and contributions to society, but perhaps at some point things like ad blockers will open a dialogue where we can begin to look at how we might want to change our society to deliver things we want (content, blogs, products and services) without their subjecting us to those little psychological manipulations attached to anything we value or enjoy consuming. Do we really think the world would be a worse place if there were no advertisements? It would ideal in my opinion, in at least one way, if there were none, but capitalists and the unimaginative apologists will tell you there is no way, but that's a cop out, that's defeatist. As clever as advertising has gotten, applying that same clever to something like this I'm sure we could figure it out. For the time being, anything to eliminate those *%&^ things as much as possible, I'm happy. Previously, I never surfed the web much on iOS because it was such a horrible experience without ad blockers, now that will actually change and I welcome the change obviously.
I paid for Peace before it was pulled, I also installed 1Blocker but hadn't yet paid for the upgraded version. I'll be interested to see some thorough reviews looking at the various options out there to see how well they all do their jobs. What a great feature these content blockers are in iOS9!
I'm going to pile on here. To repeat what others have said:
This editorial simply does not mention the most invasive and problematic aspect of today's ads -- tracking. The elephant in the room. Advertisers love the fact they know that I've been shopping for tile, and the ad right above where I'm typing this reflects that.
You are going to have to build a business model that doesn't do that to me. I don't want to be tracked. I can find tile for my bathroom without your help. Go away.
For me, this is a red line. I've lived with it for years now, and I'm quite sure Apple knows how much I dislike it. They are giving me what I want.
Do the site owners understand the kind of experience they are giving their users? Do they care?
There are a couple of sites which I really like but which have become virtually unusable. I've communicated with the site owners, but nothing changes. I was on the verge of abandoning the sites, when iOS 9 was released. After installing a content blocker, the sites now are completely usable again. I don't buy things from mobile ads anyway, but if I abandon the site, the publisher loses the revenue anyway. SO PLEASE FIX IT.
If mobile publishers don't figure this out, I have no sympathy for them. Apple cares about user experience on their mobile platform and they see what's happening; hence content blockers. So should mobile publishers.
I have been reading the site for years with ads, but I joined today to comment. This is a difficult balance. In general, imho, the cream of the crop in all media serves to carry the chafe. . . Cable network bundles that require less popular networks to get the good ones, tv networks themselves with a few great shows to carry the network with 90% crap, 3-4 good songs on an album while the rest is meh, and a few good articles to support a magazine or website. This has been the way of things for a long time. I would argue that having fewer choices that are higher in quality are better, but that is just my opinion.
Personally, I hate the advertorials. I would love to think the general population knows the difference, but they don't. Journalistic integrity has gone out the window. News and media are sensationalized for two main reasons( which is really one): the public(or at least the Anerican public) thrives on thrils(chaos, turmoil, drama etc) so the journalists and media producers cater to this to make money, and that makes sense. Many news articles or pieces on tv would be "boring" to the public if they contained as little bias as possible. Controversial statements that increase our thrill(dopamine) make us pay attention, so to gather viewers or readers, news is sensationalized. Trolls are born (or hired) to feed this.
The ultimate solution, I think, is very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. The public has to say we want unbiased news, but whenever the someone in the media/politics agrees with whatever a person believes him or herself, that's not "unbiased", that's "the truth." For instance, we say we don't like the pressure that girls are under to be thin. It is up to the public to deliberately patronize media that uses real body images. We SAY we want that, but we don't put our money where our mouth is. I'm sure the media companies don't care what they show as long as it generates the most income.
Now, to the main point, or what to do ... Maybe
1. What about using Bitcoin or appleid or Paypal, whatever, to be able to vote with our cash on individual articles rather than just a like/thumbs up? That way, as an editor, you see what your audience is interested in and which writers do a better job as well as what topics we are interested in. You can produce more content that appeals to people need get more viewers/readers. The writers who do well get more assignments/money because they bring people in to your site. Maybe the writers themselves get a % bonus the more they bring in.
2. Put written links to the ads unsteady of the ads themselves at the end of each article or the top of the page. "Hey, if you like us, help us to continue or provide quality content. Visit our supporters who pay for this content." And a Donte now" with a Link to PayPal or thru Apple or even thru donating gift cards or remaining balances on gift cards.
3. If your content is exclusive/an original story and not a paragraph about some article on another site, ask for. A suggested donation amount because it was brought to you "ad free."
4. Work with Apple. Perhaps when we click on a magazine/website we favorite, we have the option to "subscribe for $x for unlimited articles (if not already done) without any ads," then you set the price. Same concept as an app without the development cost and without bloating the app store or my phone screen and using my storage space. I do not want to be surfing all over creation, which is why I like RSS feeds. Similarly, I do not want to click on multiple apps to read all my news.
5. While I hate DRM for end users, perhaps there is a way the publishing industry could watermark an original article, so a donate or pay button links to the original writer's/publisher's account. That way if AI writes a great articleand another site links to it or reposts it, you still get the money. Maybe rebloggI got sites could get a small %age for reposting if the public come to your article thru their site?
Of course, I could just be crazy, but that's my 8AM brain working for you.
Good luck!
DocT
If you want to advertise and have people stay on your site and not use a content blocker, DO IT RESPONSIBLY. If you do, I'll turn off my ad blocker.