Does ad blocking herald the end of the free internet? | Hacker News Reader

Does ad blocking herald the end of the free internet?

bbc.co.uk

3 pointsdaledavies5 comments

There might be a good side to this in the form of more interesting content at major company web sites. Companies like IKEA, Safeway, Walmarts, Michaels Art Supplies, etc. might start paying content producers to make interesting content on their own web sites and draw people in.

This might work for individuals and small companies also if they support narrow niches.

The goal is some model where content creators pay their bills and consumers get good material. It will probably work out just fine.

> "Ad blocking is a threat to the whole advertising industry," says David Frew, senior programmes manager for the Internet Advertising Bureau trade body.

And cars were a threat to the whole horsing industry. Figure something out and move on.

EDIT:

> In his view, publishers and content producers will have to have a "hard conversation" with consumers and persuade them not to use ad blockers.

I'm listening, but I've heard nothing so far that persuades me.

> "When you visit a site with an ad blocker on there should be no option where you can get the content for free."

I'm waiting, and look forward to the resultant lack of whining from publishers. I only look because you let me. And, probably, because you haven't yet bribed Congress to make blocking illegal.

> Imagine you had to start paying to view content on all your favourite websites.

> Would you give up on the internet completely or happily stump up for good journalism and entertainment?

I used to read a lot of books, but the Web is constantly available and mostly free. Very low barrier to start reading something, and little consequence to stopping something.

So I suppose I'd go back to reading books.

I already subscribe to NYT online, been thinking about The Economist. There might be room in there for one more subscription to something. Maybe two. But I really can't see myself subscribing to anything more focused than general news, since I don't visit anything focused at any regular rate now, while it's free.

I think the solution might be something along the lines of spotify for web content. There are probably 100+ sites out there that occasionally produce content good enough that I'd pay for it, and I'd probably be happy to pay $10/month to access the content, but I'm certainly not paying $10/month to each site.

I've thought about the likelihood of subscription aggregators recently, in the context of the ad blocking wars.

I think there will come an evolution beyond that. Eventually writers and other content workers will come to work for the larger aggregators themselves. The aggregators will become the publishers.

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