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I like the spirit of this. Rather than argue about the ethics of ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers, why not focus on the implicit challenge: Can more publish

I like the spirit of this. Rather than argue about the ethics of ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers, why not focus on the implicit challenge: Can more publishers find ways to make money from ad-free content? Adblock is like Napster. People want content; the vast majority of publishers only have one business model; a lot of consumers decide to take the content without bearing the cost imposed by that model. Some people won't pay no matter what - music filesharing is still around, of course. But a lot of people did start buying music again when Amazon and Apple and eMusic changed the price structure to something they were willing to pay. There are a few sites like Ars and LiveJournal and MetaFilter that have ad-free options for paid users. Maybe this is a small niche and will never be big business. But maybe there's some way to get more people to pay directly in exchange for ad-free content.

skorgu 17y ago
I wonder if it's too elitist to be useful to distinguish between high-quality and low-quality content. I happily pay for the Economist, Stratfor and other similar high-quality sources of information and they seem to derive sufficient income from those subscriptions not to have to resort to asinine ads. Sites that don't provide high-enough quality content to be worth the subscription fee all get to fight over monetizing the eyeballs of their users and (I suspect) alienating the more discerning customers.
rick888 17y ago
"I like the spirit of this. Rather than argue about the ethics of ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers, why not focus on the implicit challenge: Can more publishers find ways to make money from ad-free content?" Yes, by either: 1) charging for content 2) making each article an advertisement for something they are trying to sell 3) selling their own products, which will still involve some sort of advertising It seems like the people fighting against the advertisers are against all forms of commercialism. Even non-flashing pure text advertisements like Google Adsense are blocked by default in all of the adblockers. If it really was only about annoying and flashing ads, why is this the case? "Adblock is like Napster. People want content; the vast majority of publishers only have one business model; a lot of consumers decide to take the content without bearing the cost imposed by that model." What an elegant way to put the reality of the situation: Some users feel they are entitled to free content. It's an emerging trend that is starting to happen in many industries (music, movies, books, software, and advertising). If I, as a content provider know many people are using an adblocker, I will try to find a way around it (or start charging for content). If people stop going to my site because of bad advertisements, I will make any effort to remove the offending ads. It reminds me of passive-aggressive children. They are pissed at a site/company and instead of telling them about it, they just decide to block ads and go there anyway. If the movement was really trying to make the Internet a better place (with better ads), they would actually be making an honest attempt at notifying the offending site. "Some people won't pay no matter what - music filesharing is still around, of course. But a lot of people did start buying music again when Amazon and Apple and eMusic changed the price structure to something they were willing to pay." We aren't talking about paying money. The only thing people have to do is view a simple advertisement. It takes almost no effort.

skorgu 17y ago

I wonder if it's too elitist to be useful to distinguish between high-quality and low-quality content. I happily pay for the Economist, Stratfor and other similar high-quality sources of information and they seem to derive sufficient income from those subscriptions not to have to resort to asinine ads. Sites that don't provide high-enough quality content to be worth the subscription fee all get to fight over monetizing the eyeballs of their users and (I suspect) alienating the more discerning customers.

rick888 17y ago

"I like the spirit of this. Rather than argue about the ethics of ad-blockers and ad-blocker-blockers, why not focus on the implicit challenge: Can more publishers find ways to make money from ad-free content?" Yes, by either: 1) charging for content 2) making each article an advertisement for something they are trying to sell 3) selling their own products, which will still involve some sort of advertising It seems like the people fighting against the advertisers are against all forms of commercialism. Even non-flashing pure text advertisements like Google Adsense are blocked by default in all of the adblockers. If it really was only about annoying and flashing ads, why is this the case? "Adblock is like Napster. People want content; the vast majority of publishers only have one business model; a lot of consumers decide to take the content without bearing the cost imposed by that model." What an elegant way to put the reality of the situation: Some users feel they are entitled to free content. It's an emerging trend that is starting to happen in many industries (music, movies, books, software, and advertising). If I, as a content provider know many people are using an adblocker, I will try to find a way around it (or start charging for content). If people stop going to my site because of bad advertisements, I will make any effort to remove the offending ads. It reminds me of passive-aggressive children. They are pissed at a site/company and instead of telling them about it, they just decide to block ads and go there anyway. If the movement was really trying to make the Internet a better place (with better ads), they would actually be making an honest attempt at notifying the offending site. "Some people won't pay no matter what - music filesharing is still around, of course. But a lot of people did start buying music again when Amazon and Apple and eMusic changed the price structure to something they were willing to pay." We aren't talking about paying money. The only thing people have to do is view a simple advertisement. It takes almost no effort.