Mobile Ad Blocking is the New Piracy
And it might be a good thing.
Minutes after iOS 9 dropped, several content blockers have hit the app store. I just downloaded Crystal, a content blocker that has been generating some buzz since it was announced. Loop Insight even has a list of all the different options.
As I go through my favorite sites, I definitely appreciate the better user experience of an ad-free existence. At the same time, it feels a little wrong in some ways. I know that most of the money from my favorite news sites comes from the ads I’m blocking. There’s been plenty of writing from the likes of The Awl, The Next Web, and The New York Times on content blocking and what it means for the mobile web.
As you might imagine, the general consensus from publishers is that content blocking could really hurt their bottom line, especially for the little guys.
Many consumers of the web that don’t rely on display advertising for income are happy. Now, most websites will suddenly run faster, look better, and use less battery. Who doesn’t want that?
Forcing a better experience
Display ads have been around for over a decade and they have evolved to some degree over time in different ways. In one regard, sites like Twitter and Facebook can serve better ads because of the amount of data they have on me. But at the same time, pop-ups and other intrusive ads are becoming prevalent on mobile, making for a bad experience. The only time I click on an ad on the mobile web is when I’m trying to do something else (or close it).
Many mobile websites offer a poor experience due to ads, but they don’t have much of a choice. Ads are a necessary evil at this point.
This is similar to the problem that the music industry faced with piracy. Consumers didn’t want to pay $0.99 per song so they found a way around it. Ethical problems aside, this was a much better experience for the average consumer. No longer did they have to spend hundreds of dollars to get the collection they wanted, they just had to find the right websites to do the trick.
And just like content blocking, many in the industry cried out against piracy. Understandably so. Piracy was a better experience because of the price point.
At first, label executives tried going the legal route to prevent piracy. Popular piracy destinations like Limewire were targeted and few were taken down. Others, like The Pirate Bay, are still around today. With a decentralized web, slowly taking down piracy websites wasn’t sustainable. What the executives had to do was find a better experience for the consumer that could still generate revenue.
They had to find something better than piracy.
Saving the industry
Eventually, streaming came in and solved the piracy problem to an extent. Streaming worked because the pricing model and user experience was better than piracy.
So right now, it’s time for publications to find a new, better solution. There’s already a few promising candidates out there like native advertising and subscriptions, but neither are perfect.
The problem is that not many publications have been motivated to spend money on finding new solutions because up until now, display advertising was just fine. But with content blockers emerging on iOS 9 and more people looking into ad-blockers, display ads won’t be pulling in as much revenue and publications may start looking for better solutions. The growing distribution of ad blockers is going to shake up the mobile web as we know it.
Unfortunately, some publications may go under in the process, much like in the transition from print to web. The problem is that the smaller publications out there don’t make their own ad tech, so what can they do besides try new tech that others invent?
What’s important is that ad blocking is shaking up the current experience to the point where publishers need to start looking into new solutions for revenue. Hopefully the smaller publications can survive, too. So, what’s next?
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out my (ad free) music discovery service, Measured. I’d love to discuss this further with anyone who’s interested, so feel free to reach out to justin@measured.xyz
