THE NECESSITY OF AD-BLOCKING SOFTWARE
by Hazed
Last week, Larry Page, Google’s Chief Executive, was asked at the company’s shareholders meeting what advertisers could do about customers using ad-blocking software. His reply: “The industry needs to do better at producing ads that are less annoying.” (My emphasis.)
He’s damned right.
For years I resisted using ad-blocking software. I understand the economics of the internet: the reason I can get to read lots of free stuff is because of the ads. If too many people use ad-blockers, that model breaks, and the companies that offer content will have to start charging for it. I work for a company that makes a large part of its money from selling ad space on its website so I realise that if people aren’t looking at ads, I could be out of a job.
And so I put up with ads, annoying though they are. Even those creepy stalker ads that follow you around the net, advertising stuff from a website you briefly looked at several days ago.
But as ad revenue falls, and companies figure out just how poor the click-through rates are, they get more desperate to claim our attention and come up with new obtrusive ways to make us notice the stuff they are selling.
Last week I finally snapped. Successive articles I was looking at on various websites were interrupted by ads that suddenly appeared to cover the content I was trying to read, or started playing a noisy video clip even though my mouse didn’t go anywhere near them.
I gave in, and installed Ad Blocker Plus onto my browser. It makes my reading experience a whole lot more pleasant.
To return to what Larry Page said: if the industry can’t come up with a way to strike a balance between making their ads visible, and making them annoying, everybody will lose.