If we block all the ads on the internet, how can those small independent site profit?

[mrchow19910319]

I think a lot of the "news" site promote ads because they have to rely on those revenue for maintaining their site. 

 

If everyone is using adblock, then how can those site survive? 

[tp95112]

Wot? 

[AresKrieger]

If I blocking ads didn't result in little to no malware infecting my computer I might actually care but as it is now I see ads as an a threat since all my past computers suffered as a result of them.

 

But in essence they'd either have to sell user data, use paid subscriptions, or do something crazy like script mining (though that crap is also blocked by adblockers)

[Brainless906]

I assume this was ment to be posted in off-topic or general discussion not news...

[Jade]

2 minutes ago, tp95112 said:

Wot? 

I'll rephrase his question, maybe that'll help: If websites have ads and need the ad revenue to exist, how do they continue to exist if so many people block ads?

 

1 minute ago, AresKrieger said:

or do something crazy like script mining (though that crap is also blocked by adblockers)

Wasn't up until recently, when some piracy sites & Showtime started doing it.

 

@ OP's question: Not everyone uses adblock; enough people don't. The biggest cost for sites, like news sites, is bandwidth, and with the sizes of most news sites' articles & content (not counting the ads, as those resources are typically hosted on a different site), is fractions of a penny.

[mrchow19910319]

1 minute ago, AresKrieger said:

If I blocking ads didn't result in little to no malware infecting my computer I might actually care but as it is now I see ads as an a threat since all my past computers suffered as a result of them.

 

But in essence they'd either have to sell user data, use paid subscriptions, or do something crazy like script mining (though that crap is also blocked by adblockers)

Some ads are notorious when it comes to misleading you to download something you shouldn't. I still think that in general user subscription is not a good idea. It's like you are already building a wall between you and the user. The user have to find it reallllllyyy useful to pay for your service, now you can almost get anything out of the internet, if I cant get the info on your site, I will just google it and get it else where. 

[Bananasplit_00]

this isnt tech news...

[mrchow19910319]

1 minute ago, Brainless906 said:

I assume this was ment to be posted in off-topic or general discussion not news...

Wait.... I posted this in news.... sorry mods please move it accordingly.... 

[tp95112]

Just now, Jade said:

SNIP

 

Im going "wot" as in, this was a very random post.

[KawaiiRaven]

I block ads because they've become intrusive, intentionally misleading, and slow down my PC. I don't mind banner ads or even video ones that are skippable. If it's something interesting like a tech product, I usually watch the ads. 

 

What became annoying is that when I'm downloading something, theres like 10 download buttons and I have no idea which one is the real one and which one brings me to a site full of malware. Another thing is when I get 50 pop-ups at once, auto playing videos in my face, or random crap that just appears right in front with no clear X to close it. It's really annoying and sometimes they take up a lot of resources.

 

Like I said, I wouldn't mind the typical banner ad at all. Those don't get in my face when i'm trying to download something. I don't like sponsorships or video ads as long as I can skip. 

[SansVarnic]

- Moved to Off Topic -

Does not meet the requirements for the News section.

[AresKrieger]

1 minute ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Some ads are notorious when it comes to misleading you to download something you shouldn't.

I'm more talking about ads that auto load malware into your temp files, or lock up your browser. But false download links are annoying too especially when they look extremely similar to the real link you're trying to click on

[Potato*Salad]

Do more amature porn.

[mariushm]

22 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I think a lot of the "news" site promote ads because they have to rely on those revenue for maintaining their site. 

 

If everyone is using adblock, then how can those site survive? 

They'll figure more clever ways to make money.

 

For example, think product placement in TV shows or movies, where you see some people use Cisco phones or people drinking only Coke and so on. After all soap operas were called like that because they were sponsored by soap companies (or at least that's what i heard).

 

As an example, they can write an article reviewing a power supply and in all the pages they can compare the psu under review against only two other power supplies (and manufacturers of those power supplies can pay to have their models in the 3-way comparison) and towards the bottom of the page you can still get the full "where in the top 20 is this psu placed for this category" chart.  You just made product placement for those two power supplies, free advertising. Just having the name of two other psus in your face throughout the article can be enough of an advertising.

 

Youtubers (including LTT) already supplement their revenue with the embedded advertising in the videos, see the sequences at the beginning and end of videos, tunnelbear, sinergy, ting , various cases and keyboards, those are all for money and can only skip them by fast forwarding in the video.

 

Or, they get money doing sponsored reviews or other stuff, for example I'm thinking of Paul's Hardware and Bitwit and others making nice videos about Fractal Design cases and featuring Fractal Josh (from Fractal Design) - they're basically ads for those cases but they don't seem biased and i don't mind. For example see video below where they made a system using Fractal Design case - it's fun video, people see the Fractal Design case, it's advertising for them almost without you realizing.

 

 

[Cevendir]

I'm also using adblocker on a lot of sites because (at least in NL) we have had lots of incidents with malware in the adds. 

 

A couple of days ago I stumbled on a Java script crypto currency miner. (I believe piratebay was using this in a pilot). I think this is a very interesting way to earn money for a site. I don't mind a couple % of CPU processing power to support the site owners. Tho this wil only work for big sites who have a lot of daily visitors who can mine for them. 

 

Edit: someone thought this was interesting. Here is one of the companies that started this project: https://coinhive.com/

[colonel_mortis]

Adblockers really do hurt sites, which is why so many medium sized sites allow you to make donations or pay for extra features. Really small sites can't realistically do that though, so they will end up either just operating at a loss, or getting sponsorship that bypasses adblockers, such as sponsored articles or custom site sponsorship banners (which can often get whitelisted by ad filter providers on request).

1 hour ago, Cevendir said:

Edit: someone thought this was interesting. Here is one of the companies that started this project: https://coinhive.com/

The problem with services like that is that they don't really provide a reasonable income. Based on their stated figures, and a lot of assumptions and rounding, I think even if we ran a miner at max power in all visitors' browsers, we would barely cover the costs of running this site (assuming no other income), and it's quite possible that we wouldn't even achieve that (FWIW I don't imagine we would ever do anything like that, but if we did it would likely be opt in, significantly reducing the number of potential miners).

E: I just ran my own calculations taking fewer of their figures as fact, and it falls quite short - you can't make much money from using users to hash cryptocurrency in their browser.

Edited September 29, 2017 by colonel_mortis

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

4 hours ago, AresKrieger said:

I'm more talking about ads that auto load malware into your temp files, or lock up your browser.

Absolutely.  Forbes really did prove that point early last year. 

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware

 

Dailymotion, MSN and Yahoo have also served malicious ads already, as well as a whole bunch of smaller sites.

[mrchow19910319]

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

Absolutely.  Forbes really did prove that point early last year. 

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware

 

Dailymotion, MSN and Yahoo have also served malicious ads already, as well as a whole bunch of smaller sites.

Didn't know big site like forbes does this kind of thing.... 

[Clockwork_princess]

They can make a product or service that will earn them money