£14 billion in advertising revenue will be lost through adblock

[Batu69]

The advertising industry could be in for a rude awakening, with the growing adblock trend snatching £14 billion in revenue from the web in 2015. This figure is expected to grow, with a report from PageFair and Adobe claiming a potential £50 billion in lost advertising revenue by 2016 worldwide.

In the UK, adblock services grew up 82 per cent, with 12 million users deciding to block adverts. AdBlock Plus is the most popular service, which provides a large database of blocked adverts alongside some approved adverts that are not obnoxious.

Across Europe, the growth is much lower, with only 35 per cent growth in adblock over the past year. That accounts for 77 million Europeans blocking adverts. The United States also noted 42 per cent growth in adblock users.

“It is tragic that adblock users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy,” said PageFair CEO and co-founder Sean Blanchfield. “With ad blocking going mobile, there’s an eminent threat that the business model that has supported the open web for two decades is going to collapse. PageFair is working with thousands of publishers to securely display user-friendly advertising and keep free websites in business. I hope this report will prompt more editors, website owners, and publishers to join with us to combat the problem.”

AdBlock Plus has already launched its service on mobile, to start blocking ads on the mobile web. Even though some may call this theft, AdBlock has won its case in court many times, most recently in Germany where it was deemed legal.

Even Google CEO Larry Page acknowledges the reason adblock is so popular, because obnoxious adverts force web users to start blocking. The real question is how many adblock users unblock sites they regularly view—this stat hasn’t been tracked by Pagefair.

Another almost untraceable statistic is the growing donations and merchandise option. Instead of watching ads, some users are deciding to donate a small amount per month to keep the site active, or buying a piece of merchandise. The latter option would equate to years of viewing adverts, which would take 100,000 views to be worth the price of a t-shirt.

The generation of free web content might be coming to a close, but it is more likely websites and content creators will find new ways to make money from an audience. Source: PageFair

ITProPortal.com

[dcs18]

Advertisements are an irritating evil — glad to see Adblock Plus leading from the front, to stem the annoyance.

[Roy W]

Great news!

[haxzion]

RIP...

[steven36]

It will not be great news if so many start using adblockers that a lot sites stop being on the internet at all. everyone seems forget Websites dont run a thin air any they cost money to keep running . They provide you with something free . I could deal with the annoyance of a banner if advertisements were made safe because its only cosmetic but there full of malware and everything else . Tell the ad market starts making safe ones I will use a adblocker.

Blocking ads is a 2 edge sword while it keeps you safe it could cause your favorite websites to not be able to cover there server cost and cease from existing. :(

[dcs18]

This great news deserves a tutorial on Adblock Plus! :rockon:

[SnakeMasteR]

“It is tragic that adblock users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy,” said PageFair CEO and co-founder Sean Blanchfield.

Stop lying, Sean Crysomemorefield. I can see very many ads i choose from that don't get me blind on every website i enjoy and i block ads i have considered overdone and annoying on websites that don't really seem to care about what exact ads they force onto their site visitors.

What is annoying?

Intrusive ads that consume a stupid amount of bandwidth and drastically increase loading times and inject a shitload of ads into pages, every time the website gets loaded or pages linked on it, that get placed into the middle of a page of interest and do the complete opposite of enjoyment.

Example, if you browse a specific page and it takes 1 minute to load and displays 10 pop-up boxes, ad layers, iframes, you spend the majority of time clicking them away, have to close opened tabs from ads, deal with your antivirus that deals with certain pages, there is not much enjoyment i can see you expect from it.

Also don't forget the majority of scam redirects, adware, spyware, served ads that not only make browsing less enjoyable but at the same time are a big security risk for the enduser.

How many of the blocked ads are bogus and how many are clean, non-intrusive and legitimate? I'm pretty sure nobody wants to see bogus ads and i can't feel sorry for blocking them.

Instead of going the easy way blaming Adblock users, how about you invest time to improve your own services and regulate them a bit more instead of seeing a demand for even more money squeezed out of advertising crap from a unchanged aggressive system? Or as a site owner, how about you simply don't allow ads on your site that are bogus or annoying or both in first place? You get what you deserve, it is also easy to blame pirates for losing money in the game or software industry, knowing that they are responsible for intrusive DRM, questionable copy protection, privacy issues, huge price differences and lack of availability depending on world regions and local laws etc.

[Ganxxta]

I don't understand those claims, how can be x billions "lost" through Adblock?

People using Adblock do NOT want to see ads, so they would never spend money on the advertised crap.

Those x billions are actually saved, as the companies don't need to pay for ad impressions which do not generate any income.

And yes, Adblock is of course active on most sites using flash, audio, video, gif, pop-up/under, layer and so on ads.

Nsane is however included in the exception list :thumbsup:

[Karlston]

Indeed. That's the same BS logic the copyright trolls use to grossly inflate claimed losses because of illegal downloading... that every illegal download is a lost sale. It isn't. And neither is every blocked ad a lost sale.

Adblock Plus and its very handy companion Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus are the first two add-ons I install in a new Firefox install. The web (for me) would be impossible to use without them.

[TheRuan]

If every place was like nsane with only one or two ads, or small banners, that would be alright, the problem start with shit sites like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6oryecctLQZcFJITDZucDZJMm8/view?usp=sharing

BTw there was another one before with almost 500 requests blocked but i couldn't remember the address.

PS: I can't post the image as a box, not sure why, but u can see the link, the page shown just went to 66 now lol

[davmil]

I don't understand those claims, how can be x billions "lost" through Adblock?

People using Adblock do NOT want to see ads, so they would never spend money on the advertised crap.

Those x billions are actually saved, as the companies don't need to pay for ad impressions which do not generate any income.

And yes, Adblock is of course active on most sites using flash, audio, video, gif, pop-up/under, layer and so on ads.

Nsane is however included in the exception list :thumbsup:

Well put Ganxxta. Excellent points. "“It is tragic that adblock users are inadvertently inflicting multi-billion dollar losses on the very websites they most enjoy,” said PageFair CEO and co-founder Sean Blanchfield." It's not tragic - it's deliberate. Disappear off the net & see if anyone gives a poop -- you're sure not helping me.

[BTJB]

Adblockers can die. There will be WAR against adblockers. User must disable adblock to read the content. Or pay for content without ads. Or... you have to get several pop-ups (cookies inside to finish the job to launch the content).

Here who will make the war

[Beamslider]

If you put the ads on the side of the page and stopped popping up crap or running annoying videos, people might not block them.....

Especially the tasteless ads of some fat chick dancing and trying to sell untested weight loss pills.

In the meantime screw ads.

[Beamslider]

Adblockers can die. There will be WAR against adblockers. User must disable adblock to read the content. Or pay for content without ads. Or... you have to get several pop-ups (cookies inside to finish the job to launch the content).

Here who will make the war

They will lose this war.....Plenty other sites and people will go there instead. They still won't get the revenue just lose viewers.

[BTJB]

Adblockers can die. There will be WAR against adblockers. User must disable adblock to read the content. Or pay for content without ads. Or... you have to get several pop-ups (cookies inside to finish the job to launch the content).

Here who will make the war

They will lose this war.....Plenty other sites and people will go there instead. They still won't get the revenue just lose viewers.

If you get good quality, then you will agree with ads. Several banners are not too much problem. When every one website force you for ads watching, then you have small choice or no choice and you will accept their rules. Just like TV channels with advertisement.

[coromonadalix]

i have ad blocker beceause i dont what any publicity.

I see enough of them on tv too, before it was 2 mins of pub now it is 4 to 6 mins, a 1hr episode is in reality 30 mins pfff i'm sick of it.

The pub companies should understand that, there's a real need of ad blockers ...

[coromonadalix]

Indeed. That's the same BS logic the copyright trolls use to grossly inflate claimed losses because of illegal downloading... that every illegal download is a lost sale. It isn't. And neither is every blocked ad a lost sale.

Adblock Plus and its very handy companion Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus are the first two add-ons I install in a new Firefox install. The web (for me) would be impossible to use without them.

I second that, the first thing is waterfox, 2 it is ublock, 3 tabmix plus to get rid of tabbed home page.

[CODYQX4]

YOU have scam ads and autoplay Flash? YOU deserve to lose money. YOU are the reason users block ads. They aren't even aware of the tracking done, they just know that when they go to your site, they get duped, or their CPU spikes to 100%.

You went too far, blame yourselves.

With uMatrix, it is absolutely jaw-dropping how many 3rd party domains are loaded on some large news sites. All trackers, ads, and heavy scripts for sharing the article.

[steven36]

YOU have scam ads and autoplay Flash? YOU deserve to lose money. YOU are the reason users block ads. They aren't even aware of the tracking done, they just know that when they go to your site, they get duped, or their CPU spikes to 100%.

You went too far, blame yourselves.

With uMatrix, it is absolutely jaw-dropping how many 3rd party domains are loaded on some large news sites. All trackers, ads, and heavy scripts for sharing the article.

You can ether turn off flash or use flash block to git rid of these sort of ads . I never turn flash on unless its some site that i need it for something but most videos i can just stream though my media player . but trackers a different story

There's 12 million users using adblock that number is still low if were over a billion people maybe then they should worry , 1 billion is a thousand times greater than 1 million. there's over 3 billion people on the internet.

Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today (view all on a page ). In 1995, it was less than 1%.

The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013.

The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014.

http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

So that makes people who use them still a small minority. But whats got them worried is this,

The upcoming release of iOS 9, with the option to install ad-blocking software, could be a game changer, PageFair and Adobe said.

Sounds a little greedy to me if they lost $21.8 billion US with just 12 million people can you imagine how much they are making off ads ? its over 3 billion people online. you do the math .

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489382,00.asp

Ad Revenue Forecast to Rise in 2015

Globally, ad revenue will grow 4.8% in 2015 to $536 billion. That predicted increase is in line with another forecast from Zenith Optimedia, which predicts a global ad spend rise of 4.9% in 2015 to $545 billion. Similar to the U.S., digital media is expected to see huge gains on the global front, reaching 30% of market share worldwide next year, Magna says. Digital media is already the number-one category in the U.K. and other foreign markets.

In the digital sphere, paid search is the top revenue-generator, accounting for nearly half of all global dollars, according to Manga Global. Next comes display (21%), social (12%) and video (8%). Still, the hottest digital subcategory appears to be mobile, with ad spending on the medium expected to skyrocket, representing a third of total digital ad dollars by 2016.

In 2014, global ad revenue from digital accelerated by 17%. At the same time, spending on newspapers and magazines declined by 4.3% and 7.3%, respectively. Radio was flat over the same time period. In the U.S., overall advertising spending increased 4%. TV ad revenue grew 4.8% in 2014, but that was below Magna Global’s spring forecast of 8.6%. – CR

https://www.asicentral.com/news/magazines/counselor/february-2015/ad-revenue-forecast-to-rise-in-2015/

There expected to make $536 Billion US on it this year and they just make more every year.

I'm just saying if really ever become unprofitable you will have to pay donations to get on most sites . You browsing on the internet is very far from being free.

Blocking ads hurt small sites much worse than it does big sites by the way. The more page views the more ad views .

[SB7]

I don't understand those claims, how can be x billions "lost" through Adblock?

People using Adblock do NOT want to see ads, so they would never spend money on the advertised crap.

Those x billions are actually saved, as the companies don't need to pay for ad impressions which do not generate any income.

And yes, Adblock is of course active on most sites using flash, audio, video, gif, pop-up/under, layer and so on ads.

Nsane is however included in the exception list :thumbsup:

Oh ,there you go again, using logic and all that...stuff to refute the utter hogwash being spewed by the advertising industry... Absolutely, I don't wan to be overloaded wtih ads for crap I'll never buy.... I use uBlock Origin and turn it on when I need to ....off when I don't .

[ffi]

how hard is it to make a proper ad, which doesn't make me want to install an adblocker: don't use overlays, don't make them too big, no animations, no sounds, no flash, no html5, no gif? Anyway it's a good thing abp does some whitelisting, I had it enabled until abd got to slow and had to move to ublock (origin)

[dcs18]

Folks (like me) who hate advertisements in any form (regardless of whether they are intrusive or non-intrusive ads.,) might want to check out post # 2787.

[dcs18]

This great news deserves a tutorial on Adblock Plus! :rockon:

(Post # 3325) — it is done!