Are People Willing To Pay For Ad-Free Internet?
Have you ever come to a website only to leave it seconds later because of annoying ads? Have you ever screamed at your computer screen because of them?
There is nothing shameful even if did scream at your computer screen. Lately, even decent sites – like “The Telegraph”, for example – have started pushing ads that are too aggressive.
People responded by increasing the use of ad-blocking software. And boy, have they responded:
“Up to 30% of web visitors are blocking ads, and that the number of adblocking users is growing at an astonishing 43% per year.”
The company that conducted this survey has concluded that “Adblocking is threatening the business model of online publishers”. Some people took this conclusion seriously.
One Reddit user, for example, has stated the following:
“A few months ago I realized that I was part of the problem, and that I was helping to kill the internet that I love. So I turned my adblocker off. It was worse than I had remembered from 2009… I had to turn the ad-blocker right back on. I do turn it off on sites that I frequently visit and have ads that don’t piss me off.”
Many other Internet users are likewise annoyed by ads. This is common sense though. Niero Gonzalez, the 35-year-old founder of video gaming site Destructoid, has, for example, said that “the majority of feedback from readers is that they block because of the nuisance of ads.”
That does indeed sound like common sense. Only he had to pay an outside company to find that out. He is a smart guy though, if you consider the fact that his site gets 3 million monthly visitors and he is making a lot of money.
So why am I talking about this guy who is pretty successful with his site? Because he portrays a wider dilemma of publishers not wanting to understand the simplest thing: people hate ads and nothing will change their minds. Please pay attention to my phrasing: I say “not wanting to understand”, because this is really easy to understand, but it requires some willpower to understand that your source of income may be pissing someone off.
Here is another survey that points out people’s frustration with ads. It has found that:
* 68% of consumers find online ads ‘annoying’ and ‘distracting’
* 44% of consumers feel advertising works better on women than men
* Most marketing is a bunch of B.S., 53% agree
So if it is “B.S.”, why do companies still pay billions for it? The answer lies in the people’s desire to save money.
In spite of all this data pointing to people’s annoyance at ads, “The vast majority of web users would not be willing to pay to browse the internet without advertisements.”
“How much exactly?” You may ask. Well, here is the answer from The Telegraph:
“An ad-free internet would cost each user at least £140 a year – a sum that the vast majority of UK web users say they would never pay, according to new research.
In a survey of more than 1,400 UK consumers conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Ebuzzing, 98 per cent said they would not be willing to pay this amount to browse the internet without advertisements.”
So if you are tired of ads and want a way out, here are a few links that will lead you to ad-blocking software:
1. AdBlock Plus
2. DoNotTrackMe from Abine
There were lots of positive comments about both of these, such as the ones below:
1.”I use AdBlock Plus and Abine Do Not Track Me on Firefox (all free) and never get bothered with excessive adverts.”
2. “I use abine to block ad networks and manage logins and passwords. its great but doesn’t always work on some sites. the best part is that they keep updating it with new ways to block advertisers and i can see these when i visit any sites.”
If you prefer to continue screaming at the screen whenever you see annoying ads, we would totally understand. Some members of our staff prefer this solution to all other ones. After all, there have been some negative comments about AdBlock Plus, like the one below for example:
“The author slowly but surely gets greedy, please have look right here: He whitelists some ads + deletes comments about it, New AdBlock will allow non-intrusive ads by default“
We write for you, so let us know your opinion: leave us a comment.
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