Very cool, if true

Ah, but do the 2/3 that think the future of news is advertising based mean that they think news sites will successfully generate their revenue from adverts for the 1/3 of people that don't block ads? In which case as long as the percentage that block ads doesn't become critical, some can block while news sites can run ads and won't go under so we miss them.

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It does rather look that way. "The future is businesses giving things to me for free because other people are more moral/less technically competent than I am".

Oh, as an aside, yesterday I came across the first site that recognised I was using an adblocker and refused to let me download things until I turned it off :->

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"The future is businesses giving things to me for free because other people are more moral/less technically competent than I am".

Oh I know, it's highly hypocritical. but then I figure I'm still putting my disposable income into the economy, I just choose not to do it via web advertising. As long as web-advertising still generates enough revenue, people will use it. When the revenue stream dries up they'll find something else.

It's kinda like only watching BBC and never seeing a commercial station's adverts. Does that make me less moral? Does anyone feel guilty for skipping the adverts on TV?

As for AdBlock, I've seen a couple do that - as well as the recent thing with Facebook apps using your photos in third-parties adverts. The option to turn off the sharing was blocked by AdBlock so if you didn't want to be in adverts, you had to turn your advert-blocker off. I suspect Facebook did that deliberately :)

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Ha - that's pretty funny.

I don't think it's the same as not watching commercial station's adverts - if you're not watching their TV then you're not using their services. If you're using The Guardian's bandwidth then you're choosing to cost them money, and not putting anythign back.

I don't have a solution to this, of course.

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Maybe not the same as not watching the channel, no. But if I get up during the ad break to use the bathroom or make a cuppa (or just skip over them when I can with a HDR) then is it the same?

Getting picky now, I know, but if I'm watching something, should I morally watch the adverts after the closing credits too?

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cybik.livejournal.com

Maybe we should all have adblockers and look at the Daily Mail site a lot.. Make them crumble!

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It's considerably more than 1/3. Andrew's audience skews toward the highly technical, and also open-sourcey. For some reason I don't understand, quite a lot of that demographic are also deeply and personally offended by advertising. Hence, the percentage of people who block ads is pretty high.

I don't know any non-very-techie users who block ads in their browsers.

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Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to

bracknellexile's first comment.

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Apparently 5% of FF users use ABP, so yes, you're right :->

I'm not offended by the idea of advertising - as I said elsewhere I'd be happy to see text ads, I was only offended by things like Punch The Monkey, which would have noise, and lots of bright movement.

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Nope, I didn't think you were particularly, but I know quite a few people who really seem to dislike the idea of ads, and go to considerable lengths to block any and all - except Google ads, sometimes.

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cybik.livejournal.com

Adverts with noise really irritate me. Those stupids ads which have rollover bits to cover whatever you're reading are equally bad. I'm fine with non-moving and text-only ads.

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There's a good chance that the answer is "newspapers are just buggered". However, as various people are pointing out, that doesn't mean that *reporting* is buggered, because the need is still there - people still like to know what's going on. It may just mean we're in for a larger change than expected.

The intervening period might be a bit rough, of course, and there's no guarantee that, say, high-quality investigative journalism backed by cash will survive well if there's no business model for it.

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feorag.livejournal.com

If I find advertising annoying and intrusive, I will avoid the product as it is obviously crap if they have resorted to such desperate means to bring it to my attention. It is therefore better for advertisers that I do not see their ads!

I don't even try to block simple text ads as they are rarely annoying. Animations, flashy stuff and that is guaranteed to have me running to your competitor should I have a need for the type of product.

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Andy, have you considered running a poll to see if your flist actually get any benefit from web-advertising? Presumably even those that block ads now, used to see them before FF and ABP came along.

Something like:
Buying products as a result of an advert on an unrelated web-page:
-never
-once or twice
-a few
-often
Buying as a result of an unsolicited email/text
...
Buying as a result of adverts within the same site (e.g. "You may also like..." on Amazon)

Re-word as you see fit, but you get the idea.

I'd be intrigued to see if web-ads actually have any effect cos I know I've never used one and don't trust a random redirect. Even if I did see an ad for something I wanted, I'd be more likely to pick a URL where I knew I could find it than trust where the ad-click might take me. Advertise a new film out on DVD and I'll type www.play.com rather than click the ad.

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Good idea. I'll chuck it in the poll tomorrow!

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If the people advertising the film are the studio, of course, they'll be just fine with you going to Play.com. Banner ads are increasingly being seen as a means of branding these days.

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True - I was referrring more to the click-through revenue generation process not really applying to me and adverts, but that was the first example that came to mind.

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sneakingyoda.livejournal.com

Then there is the mysterious part of the population that actually buy sky dancers...

I've always wondered...

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