The Ad-Blocking Debate
There is an interesting discussion going on about the practice of ad blocking and whether a) it’s morally responsible b) it can be economically destructive, and c) how the ad-based internet publishing industry would change with widespread adoption of ad-blocking software.
Noam Cohen at the New York Times writes about AdBlock plus, a Firefox add-on, and its potential for disrupting the ad-based model for online publishers:
The larger importance of Adblock is its potential for extreme menace to the online-advertising business model. After an installation that takes but a minute or two, Adblock usually makes all commercial communication disappear. No flashing whack-a-mole banners. No Google ads based on the search terms you have entered.
From that perspective, the program is an unwelcome arrival after years of worry that there might never be an online advertising business model to support the expense of creating entertainment programming or journalism, or sophisticated search engines, for that matter.
Lauren Weinstein takes a different approach and looks at how we:
…would never dream of ripping off a CD or DVD from the local Best Buy may happily collect and trade copyrighted online music or films to which they have no legal rights under current law, using a variety of rationalizations (e.g. “information wants to be free”) to justify their actions. And it seems likely that overzealous lawsuits, prosecutions, and draconian DRM systems have driven even more people into the “pirate” arena.
But what’s particularly interesting is that this usually all involves intangible bits, not physical objects. So it’s not too surprising that the “free information” battle has found its way to the very heart of our current primary Internet operating model — advertiser-supported Web sites.
The immediate parallel that comes to mind for me is what happened when Tivo entered the marketplace. Analysts loudly predicted the TV ad market would be turned upside down. A tool now existed that allowed people to watch TV without the ads.
What happened?
Well, first, TV ads didn’t go away. I was watching the Patriots game yesterday, and believe me, advertisements have not disappeared. Secondly, product placement has skyrocketed, and new ways of advertising have turned up (nearly every aspect of a football game is sponsored, even the coin toss).
If adblocking really takes off, how will the online publishers and content providers react?
1. New Advertising Methods- Since tools like adblock work by incorporating a filtering system, new advertising methods would pop up to counter the ad recognition methods.
2. Content placement- New methods of link tagging (such as introducing affiliate link codes within hyperlinks) would be used, and that’s an issue: It’s going to be much more difficult to identify what is a “sponsored link” as opposed to an actual link to useful information.
3. Content Hiding- I don’t have a good term to use here, but the idea would be to make your content look like it’s an ad, such that users of an ad-blocker would not be able to see the content until the blocker is turned off.
4. Increased Use of the Subscription Model- If companies simply cannot make money with ads, they will be forced to use some form of the subscription model. This is not a good thing.
Will the use of adblocking programs upset the current model? I’m going to say no. Incarnations of adblockers have been around for years, and it seems that widespread adoption is just not going to happen. However, even if I’m wrong (it happens), I don’t feel that the entire ad-model will go out the window- advertisers will just find new ways to get around ad-blockers.
I think I’d prefer things the way they are now.
Filed under: online advertising