The hypothesis is that ad blocking causes less traffic, but their reasoning is fairly tenuous ... > First, ad blocker usage by a site’s visitors reduces the si

The hypothesis is that ad blocking causes less traffic, but their reasoning is fairly tenuous ... > First, ad blocker usage by a site’s visitors reduces the site’s revenue if at least some of those users would have visited the site in the absence of ad blocking. The relevant mechanism, as in the traditional literature on the relationship between intellectual property revenue appropriation and supply, is that reduced revenue may undermine a site’s ability to invest, which could manifest itself as a diminished site that is less appealing to potential visitors. Web users then visit the degraded site less, reducing the site’s traffic. > Second, in the presence of ad blocking, a site’s remaining revenue-generating visitors are less ad-intolerant, leading the site to run more ads, increasing the nuisance cost of visiting the site.