Ok, I'm not going to rent this full article or buy it just so I can comment on it. The abstract is more than enough for that purpose.
"Ad blocking software allows Internet users to obtain information without generating ad revenue for site owners, potentially undermining investments in content."
Good that it uses the correct words, like "potentially". I wish we could have something that talks about the user experience, by saying something like, "Most of the sites that run ads are usually obnoxious, drain mobile device batteries and data quotas, track and profile users, spread malware, mine cryptocurrency using the user's resources and are potentially a threat to the entire web and humanity as a whole!"
"We explore the impact of site-level ad blocker usage on website quality, as inferred from traffic. We find that each additional percentage point of site visitors blocking ads reduces its traffic by 0.67% over 35 months. Impacted sites provide less content over time, providing corroboration for the mechanism. Effects on revenue are compounded; ad blocking reduces visits, and remaining visitors blocking ads do not generate revenue."
I'm confident that the reduced visits are only because of ad-block killers on the websites and the generally poor quality of content on the sites (most "news" sites today regurgitate something from another site with little or no value addition to the context). Such sites don't deserve to be supported by users unless they provide a lot more value.
"We conclude that ad blocking poses a threat to the ad-supported web."
The ad-supported web is a threat to the web itself. So this is actually good in some ways. Yes, we don't have viable, accessible and cheaper mechanisms for people to support all the sites directly (without involving crooked and malicious ad networks). But the publishers who don't care much for their users don't deserve to be supported. Period.
Comments
Ok, I'm not going to rent this full article or buy it just so I can comment on it. The abstract is more than enough for that purpose.
Good that it uses the correct words, like "potentially". I wish we could have something that talks about the user experience, by saying something like, "Most of the sites that run ads are usually obnoxious, drain mobile device batteries and data quotas, track and profile users, spread malware, mine cryptocurrency using the user's resources and are potentially a threat to the entire web and humanity as a whole!"
I'm confident that the reduced visits are only because of ad-block killers on the websites and the generally poor quality of content on the sites (most "news" sites today regurgitate something from another site with little or no value addition to the context). Such sites don't deserve to be supported by users unless they provide a lot more value.
The ad-supported web is a threat to the web itself. So this is actually good in some ways. Yes, we don't have viable, accessible and cheaper mechanisms for people to support all the sites directly (without involving crooked and malicious ad networks). But the publishers who don't care much for their users don't deserve to be supported. Period.