High level, there are basically four paths to getting revenue in journalism:
- ads
- subscribers
- donations from small patrons
- donations from large patrons
These cover a lot of different business models.
If you want to make money at journalism (or just keep the lights on), focusing on ads when they've been a declining source of revenue for decades is kind of crazy. And that's not due to ad blocking.
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High level, there are basically four paths to getting revenue in journalism:
- ads
- subscribers
- donations from small patrons
- donations from large patrons
These cover a lot of different business models.
If you want to make money at journalism (or just keep the lights on), focusing on ads when they've been a declining source of revenue for decades is kind of crazy. And that's not due to ad blocking.
It's worth mentioning that ads can also be delivered without tracking and oodles of Javascript. Sell ad placements that are images, even GIFs.
People were blocking ads long before those were reasons.
The first ad blockers existed for popups and because ad networks were being used as a malware injection point.
Only extremists had an issue with the standard JPG banner ad at the top of every page.
TIL I'm an extremist.
Welcome to the club.
Though those little rectangle GIFs were mint back in the day
There is a 5th way. Sponsored content. Basically where people pay to have an article written about a particular topic or product.
What led you to that conclusion? (You may be right. I don't know.)