back to article Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest

Analyst firm Juniper Research has stared into its crystal ball and predicted that digital publishers stand to lose over $27bn (£18bn) by 2020 due to ad-blocking. Developer activity is set to increase over the next five years making ad-blockers more sophisticated and difficult to overcome, according to the research. The …

Page:

  1. Adrian 4
    Mushroom

    Who knew ?

    Surprise ! Readers don't like being bombarded with ads. Overdoing it has killed it.

    Perhaps this will push for a more sustainable source of income ?

    1. asdf

      Re: Who knew ?

      Ads that sap bandwidth and battery are bad enough but the fact they are one of the main malware vectors means sorry need to find another way to monetize your content.

    2. Mage Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Who knew ?

      The stupidity is 3rd party domains with SCRIPTS and iframe being used for ads on a website. That's a potential malware vector, so I block all behaviour like that. I don't specifically set to block adverts.

      Static images and text hosted by the website you are visiting might be less convenient to bust people's privacy or manage for the advertiser, but it's surely not going to get blocked!

      I've no sympathy for the big players or small ones serving adverts, and slurping privacy, both using tech in an irresponsible way!

      1. asdf

        Re: Who knew ?

        >I've no sympathy for the big players or small ones serving adverts,

        I don't think anyone including their own mothers has any sympathy for the ad companies. Some (I would hope most) people do have sympathy for the content creators ability to make a living. The problem is they resorted to the devil (ie the ad companies) to do so.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Who knew ?

        "Static images and text hosted by the website you are visiting might be less convenient to bust people's privacy or manage for the advertiser"

        OTOH there might be less need to bust privacy. The page has specific content. In many cases the ads can be related to that. If, for instance, I'm looking at a site giving hints about laying block paving advertisers need know nothing about me to make it worth while advertising block paving materials, tools or services on that page.

        1. asdf

          Re: Who knew ?

          >OTOH there might be less need to bust privacy.

          The FSF open source privacy badger browser addon enforces do not track preferences fairly well.

      3. User4574
        Flame

        Re: Who knew ?

        "The stupidity is domains with SCRIPTS", there FTFY

        We spend time trying to educate users into not installing every little piece of software they encounter and then we turn around and tell these users it is ~perfectly safe~ to allow every website they visit run [obfuscated] third party code that in itself is an attack vector as well as malware conduit.

        We finally started extricating Flash off of our systems. We consigned Silverlight to /dev/null. We don't have to keep Java [plugin] around. But yet we don't want to address the elephant in the room: JavaScript.

        Many browsers only allow you to disable Javascript entirely, with per-domain exceptions which would be fine except whole classes of developers have decided that we should use (obfuscated) JavaScript to generate the page content so if you disable JS you get served an inappropriately blank page.

        Besides being a real inconvenience, even whitelisting sites like these (or even the nicer ones just to get the menus to work) still allows the embedded scripts to call home to a third party domain, downloading code and injecting it into a dynamically added SCRIPT tag on the page.

        Supposedly this is just the risk we take for browsing the modern web, but for me the risk of some piece of third party code leading to a malware infection is an unacceptable risk and I castigate the modern web developers that enable this bad behaviour.

    3. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

      I suspect we'll be adding advertisements to our app shortly because desktop sales are sinking and, despite a six-figure user count, not enough people are upgrading from the free mobile version. Initially, the advertising will be a stick to push you towards the paid version. But if the advertising revenues look solid we'll move more of the content to the free version -- on the assumption the more content we provide, the more people will use it, and the better advertising revenues will be. As I say in the title, if you don't want advertising, you need to start paying for stuff.

      And I'll hold my hands up and say I'm as guilty as the rest of you of not sticking my hand in my pocket. And yes, I run ad blocking in the browser.

      1. asdf

        Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

        >if you don't want advertising, you need to start paying for stuff.

        Honestly that would probably be better for our media and our democracy as well. When people pay for things that usually have a basic expectation of quality that is sorely lacking in the corporate fever swamps that pass for news today. I would be willing to pay for an El Reg subscription if they could can all the climate change blog garbage (been much better lately) and the reworded PR releases from companies posing as articles (been worse lately).

        1. David Webb

          Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

          usually have a basic expectation of quality

          I pay for games, I pay for lots of games, my expectation of quality for games is "will probably be in a reasonable enough state after 3 or 4 major patches, unless it's TES/Fallout in which case it'll probably end up needing user generated patches"

          Cost and quality are not usually combined, that's before we get to games that include DLC on the disc, which you have to pay to unlock even though you have the files already.

          As for advertisers, they shot themselves in the foot with their annoying adverts, then websites which has pop ups, pop unders, 90% of the site being ads, 9% being ads that didn't load and 1% being content that is crap, all on a 56k modem. The latest one is Eurogamer and Sony, they autoload a video ad half way through the article you're reading, it's the most annoying and distracting thing possible and makes me want to invest in a proper adblocker (I use Kasperskys built in tool)

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

        "And I'll hold my hands up and say I'm as guilty as the rest of you of not sticking my hand in my pocket."

        The likes of adblock & noscript occasionally put up donation pages so I make donations and to LibreOffice. I also pay my domain registrar/email provider and usenet service. The issue isn't unpreparedness to pay. If sites I find frequently useful had donation links I'd donate periodically and maybe subscribe to regularly used sites if they are set at an affordable level. But most paywalled sites I see links to are those I'd scarcely visit even if they weren't paywalled but it stands to reason that I can't make payments to sites which don't make provision for that however often I might visit.

        1. asdf

          Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

          >But most paywalled sites I see links to are those I'd scarcely visit even if they weren't paywalled

          For the most part I agree with one exception that is the WSJ. Often they have interesting looking news and I would probably pay if they weren't associated with the biggest shit weasel in the English speaking world.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

        I'm paying for nowt.

      4. John Tserkezis

        Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

        "if you don't want advertising, you need to start paying for stuff."

        Nice if payment is an option. Many times (especially mobile) your single and only option is "free" (with ads).

    4. Andy france Silver badge

      Re: Who knew ?

      A business is at liberty to choose its source of income whether this is by subscription, paid content or advertising. It also passes the "reasonableness" test that they could impose terms and conditions that prohibited me from accessing their site if I had an add blocker running and they can place limited cookies on my system to verify that ads were not being blocked. I as a customer could then choose to accept those conditions or not use their site. Obviously if I found the level of advertising bandwidth being slung at me to be unacceptable I would have the recourse of no longer using their site. This is no different to classic TV advertising were I will put up with occasional adverts but not suffer a home shopping channel experience.

      There is a big caveat: my accepting their terms and conditions of service should place an obligation back on them to take all reasonable measures to prevent said adverts from putting malware onto my system.

      1. asdf

        Re: Who knew ?

        >A business is at liberty to choose its source of income whether this is by subscription, paid content or advertising.

        Of course but if they choose the current internet ad system they are going to get blocked at my router and like I said that doesn't bother me at all if they give me no other choice.

        1. Andy france Silver badge

          Re: Who knew ?

          Following my previous argument through, by blocking the ads you would be in violation of their Terms and Conditions so they could block your access. It wouldn't bother them either because although it would loose you as a customer they would never have got any income from you, so your value to them is sadly zero. Eventually they go out of business, choose a different way of generating income or more likely end up with a consumer base that accepts the volume of adverts thrown at them as being tolerable return for the value of the site. They can then choose to increase or decrease the impact of the ads which will have an inverse relationship on their number of consumers and get to a happy compromise the gives them revenue and their customers value.

          There will however continue to be some sites with no intentional consumers that use click bait to get people onto their site, throw invasive adverts at them and deliver nothing of value, and certainly not what the "bait" promised. Ad blocking seems too lenient for them and the supply of gullible people feeding them is endless

    5. Scoular

      Loose something you never had?

      Advertisers are not loosing anything actually, they are missing out on something they would have liked to have.

      Anyone who ever bought a lottery ticket has had that experience, or almost everyone.

      Many of those sites would vanish without trace and without loss to anyone but the operators if viewers had to pay and that would probably be a good thing.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Who knew ?

      I love bring in control. I don't block adverts by default, but if a website shows it can't be trusted, it gets added to my block list .

      The register are permanently on my block list for two reasons

      1/ full page background add and scrolling add

      2/ irresponsible clickbait reporting (eg android secuirty fud)

      1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Re: Who knew ?

        Why don't you go to some other website if you dislike it here so much, Mr 620 Comments? (hint: posting as Anon Coward does not make you invisible to moderators)

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Who knew ?

          He didn't say that he dislikes The Register, he said he dislikes the adverts and the way they are pushed. I have to say, I agree but I can do nothing about it because I read The Register in the office and there is no adblock available on our builds.

          The problem with ads on websites is that they are a house of cards which will fall when the advertised businesses realise that fucking people off loses business. I know a lot of people actively boycott companies that push stuff in your face, like the background one on here now - I can feel any goodwill towards them going down the plughole.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Who knew ?

            "there is no adblock available on our builds."

            Maybe you should have a word with your sysadmins. Get your security improved before you get hit.

    7. PassiveSmoking

      Not just overdoing it

      It's not just that there are a lot of ads which slow page loading down (which they do)

      It's not just that they're a colossal waste of bandwidth (which they are)

      It's not just that they are loud and gaudy and ruin the experience (which they do)

      It's that legitimate ones do creepy things like tracking you and your browsing habits, and that if an adserver gets compromised then the ads can shovel malware onto your system.

      Ads aren't just annoying, they're downright dangerous. If that's not fixed then no argument against ad-blockers will ever hold any water with me. Why should I risk my own safety for the sake of your bottom line?

  2. Vimes

    Where anything network related is concerned, has anybody heard anything about the ICO's investigation into the use of systems by Shine in 3UK's network? It seems to be something that both the ICO and 3UK would rather pretend never happened.

    https://twitter.com/ICOnews/status/717689910216548352

    And that's the problem that could prove to be a big stumbling block for network level blocking: getting consent. Something that 3UK or Shine still have to explain how they intend to achieve, despite jumping the gun and announcing the trials back in February.

    In order to identify the adverts you have to be able to examine the content of the page. That means - for network level blocking at any rate - giving the network the ability to see every page that you've requested (although how they'd do this with SSL protected pages without resorting to some sort of man-in-the-middle style attack remains a bit of a mystery).

    1. tony72

      although how they'd do this with SSL protected pages without resorting to some sort of man-in-the-middle style attack remains a bit of a mystery

      I guess they could basically do exactly that, at least for handsets they supply or configure, quite easily; make the standard network config use their proxy server, and trust a root cert on that proxy, and Bob's yer uncle.

      I still think network level ad blocking is a terrible idea though, and I'm still kind of expecting some legal or regulatory move to put the kibosh on the whole idea. It doesn't solve the fundamental problem of ensuring sensible behaviour by advertisers, it just takes the ad-blocking arms race to the next level, and I fear where that will end up. Let people choose to ad-block, based on how much ads annoy them; that's pretty democratic, self-balancing system.

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge

        "I still think network level ad blocking is a terrible idea though, and I'm still kind of expecting some legal or regulatory move to put the kibosh on the whole idea."

        ACK, since it 'breaks the internet' and violates any concept of 'net neutrality'.

        a simple client-based program or web browser plugin is a better idea. phone providers could even pre-install them. MITM-based filtering works for corporate firewalls, but doing that for wide release again "breaks the internet". It's a pandora's box we don't need opened.

    2. Seajay#

      SSL/TLS pages

      Even if you're looking at an https page, the ads are usually served from a different domain so you could block known ad serving domains without requiring deep packet inspection MITM shenanigans. That sort of "hosts file" level of blocking is pretty unsophisticated and will probably be bypassed soon in the ad-blocker vs advertisers arms race but it should provide something for now.

  3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    My heart bleeds

    1. Stop tracking me. The content I am looking at is the only thing you need to know in relations to what ads you to serve me.

    2. Stop serving anything but small text-only ads.

    3. Stop any flash, popover, popunders or video ads.

    Then I may consider removing ad-block and slightly loosening my default noscript settings. Until then - block 'em all. God will recognize his own.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My heart bleeds

      1. stop being so naive

      2. stop thinking that the greed will magically disappear and they'll happily settle for a small percentage of what they're getting now.

      3. see No 1.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: they'll happily settle for a small percentage of what they're getting now

        So you're an advertiser. Well the article says that next year's income is already going to be sizeably smaller whether you like it or not. And given the issues of security that are cropping up with alarming regularity, it seems this trend is not going to go away.

        The question you need to ask yourself is : are you ready to try a different way of doing things, or are you just going to carry on driving over the cliff ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: they'll happily settle for a small percentage of what they're getting now

          I'd like to be an optimist and hope that, instead of driving off a cliff, they stop, think, and make a u-turn to find ANOTHER road to riches

          However, what I see HAPPENING at the moment is

          a) cliff, what cliff, there's a cliff? Let me get back to you I'm so busy with more important issues...

          b) there is NO CLIFF, THERE'S NO CLIFF, THERE'S NO CL

          c) fuck the cliff, we can FLY on this magic bullet (anti-ad-blocker, or whatever becomes a "to have" bullet)

          I don't see ANY attempt at a "hey folks, can we figure out a BETTER way to get rich so as not to piss of users?". No, the best they can muster is: "how can we adblock adblockers" and "how can we discuss discussing disussions about discussing how to discuss a fractionally smaller banner size cause this is gonna save us, right?"

          1. RegGuy1 Silver badge

            Re: they'll happily settle for a small percentage of what they're getting now

            I sometimes try to open a page on the Torygraph's website[1] and find it telling me to turn my ad blocker off. Then I leave.

            [1] Don't worry, I don't make a habit of this. It's just that Google News tends to use it quite a lot, along with the Daily Fail's site - but I NEVER go on there.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Torygraph website

              Deleting your telegraph cookies is a useful thing to do on this website - stops the "exceeded quota" block at least.

          2. Vimes

            Re: they'll happily settle for a small percentage of what they're getting now

            c) fuck the cliff, we can FLY on this magic bullet...

            Phorm lasted for 10 years saying something similar...

    2. Ben Boyle

      Re: My heart bleeds

      4. Clean up your shit so that the ad networks aren't malware vectors.

      1. asdf

        Re: My heart bleeds

        Yep sorry didn't see this comment or wouldn't have posted above. Still bears repeating I suppose. No website support is worth a malware payload.

    3. Martin Gregorie

      Re: My heart bleeds

      I agree with your list of restrictions, but it also needs this addition:

      4. Scan all adverts you publish for malware as they leave the serve or limit yourself to publishing pure HTML ads of < 1Kb with no external CSS scripts or images.

    4. VinceH

      Re: My heart bleeds

      "2. Stop serving anything but small text-only ads."

      I've no problem with graphic adverts - as long as they're static, and don't require Javascript.

    5. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: My heart bleeds

      I did not start using ad-blockers the minute I discovered one. Nor for a long time after. I even click(ed) on ads to help the sites gain revenue, and sometimes because the ads were actually interesting*.

      But when the flashing, moving, inane and obstructive ads started to get in the way I grabbed ad-block+

      The right to earn money through a website is one thing. Eating bandwidth and making a visual assault on me to the point that the site ceases to even be accessible is another.

      *n.b. "Interesting" is not the same as marketing droids' idea of "relevant". What they consider "relevant" appears to be something I've already searched for, so their poxy ads are pure annoyance. "Interesting" would be something I hadn't already thought of. And I don't think I'm that unusual in this matter.

      1. Barry Rueger

        Re: My heart bleeds

        I did not start using ad-blockers the minute I discovered one. Nor for a long time after. I even click(ed) on ads to help the sites gain revenue, and sometimes because the ads were actually interesting*.

        This! I only added ad-blockers this year when stuff became too objectionable to not do so.

        My biggest gripe though is how seldom sites serve up an ad that is remotely relevant or interesting to me.

        Google usually manages to serve up something I might want, but everywhere else it's just a large and irritating waste of my time.

        Do advertisers really not understand how bad Twitter and Facebook (as examples) are at delivering ads to people who would actually care.

        Good advertising is useful to both the reader and the advertiser.

        Sadly the Internet hasn't learned that.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One way to kill ad blockers ....

    is to obfuscate (how often can you claim you have used that word ?) the mobile data charges from the Telcos. If people don't believe they are being charged for ad data usage, they will be less likely to worry about it to the extent they install an ad blocker.

    The more ad blocking becomes a "thing" the more I wonder how come most people are willing to countenance (another good word) a system whereby you *pay* for the privilege of watching adverts (thinks Sky, et al ...)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They won't lose $27bn.

    They just won't get $27bn.

    1. John Sanders
      Headmaster

      It used to be called

      Lost revenue.

      1. Scoular

        Re: It used to be called

        Lost hope might be more accurate.

    2. kryptonaut

      And you won't get the content that a fraction of that $27bn would have financed. Win!...?

      1. Palpy

        RE: "...you won't get content..."

        Well, yes and no. Are there no other possible ways publishers can finance content? Are at least some publishers willing to provide content as a loss-leader, or to gain rep and visibility in their field? If a news organization abandons on-line publication, will that organization get eaten alive by competitors who do provide online content?

        In other words, the situation is complex and, in my unfettered opinion anyway, simple "no ads, no content" hypotheses fall short. Just my opinion.

        1. kryptonaut

          Re: RE: "...you won't get content..."

          Yep, the situation is complex.

          Undoubtedly there are a few people who will publish either altruistically or for vanity reasons just so they can be seen. But I would say that the majority of publishers want some kind of return on the time and money it takes to create and maintain a web presence. A large news organization, to take your example, could maybe maintain an ad-free website if it promoted sales of a physical newspaper (which would probably be ad-supported itself) but physical newspapers are in decline, and paywalled websites are also met with hostility. Smaller publishers providing entertainment or expert opinion and information have no physical sales to promote - their only source of income is their audience.

          At the end of the day, website publishers are offering a package to the public - a combination of some content the public wants (otherwise why would they be on the site?) and a means of paying for the provision of that content. That's the bargain that's being offered. If people don't like that package then the most ethical thing to do is to not visit the site - and that would have the right feedback effect to drive sites to show ads of an acceptable quantity and quality.

          Blocking ads provides no feedback to the advertisers, or to the publisher, and so it does nothing to improve the situation as a whole. Yes, it's beneficial in the short term for the viewer who blocks ads, but it is a parasitic relationship and sooner or later the 'hosts' start to suffer. Some will go under as a result.

          The argument "'I never click on ads, so nobody loses if I block them" does not hold water - the content publisher certainly does lose out. It's like the argument "I wouldn't pay for this MP3 so it's fine to copy it". That's not the deal that's on offer - if you don't like the deal then it's fine to walk away, but it's not fine to just make up some other deal and assume that's ok with everyone else. It isn't.

          But equally, there are certainly problems with intrusive ads, and particularly malvertising. It's unfortunate that there really is no easy way for pre-approved micropayments to be made when visiting a site, as this would be the ideal arrangement. No middlemen (ok, maybe the hypothetical micropayment management company), no annoying ads, and a more direct, open and visible payment system. But it doesn't exist, and the "everything on the internet should be free" culture means that it's unlikely ever to happen.

          Yes, it's complex.

          1. frank ly

            @kryptonaut Re: RE: "...you won't get content..."

            "The argument "'I never click on ads, so nobody loses if I block them" does not hold water - ...(etc)"

            The publisher is easily capable of blocking site access to those people who do block ads. So, if as you say they don't like the "deal", they are free to not accept it.

            Your comparison with .mp3 files is not reasonable since .mp3 files were produced with the intent of selling them. No website I've ever seen has a statement that my viewing of the ads is a condition of looking at it. Some websites have told me that they know I'm blocking ads and politely ask me to consider not blocking them. Yes, it's complex and comparisons with other forms of publishing don't shed light on it.

            1. kryptonaut

              Re: @kryptonaut RE: "...you won't get content..."

              The whole area of adblock-blockers is another contentious subject. It is not straightforward for a web publisher to implement, and it is met with hostility and suspicion if they do. And sooner or later it will also be met with adblock-blocker-blockers, and so on.

              The point is that allowing ads to be served with the content (without them being blocked) is what pays for a lot of sites. Blocking ads removes that income stream from the content provider just as copying an MP3 removes an income stream from an artist. If you want the MP3 enough to listen to it, then pay for it so the artist earns a living. If you want the web content enough to view it as offered, ads and all, then go ahead, so the content provider will get paid. If not, feel free to walk away.

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like