Death by Advertisement

I used an ad blocker for awhile, and the fundamental truth is it made the internet better for me. Videos loaded faster. Concentrating on content was vastly simpler. I never had to hunt for an obtusely placed X when some unwanted slab of advertising scooted across my screen obscuring my view. To be honest, I really want to go back to using an ad blocker.

Ad-blocking isn’t really about money for readers. It’s about barriers. It’s about hassle and distraction and annoyance. Ads are designed to try and get your attention for at least part of the time you spend on a site. Ads are intentionally disruptive to the experience you are having, and because the technology exists to eliminate disruption, it’s no surprise that people chose to use that technology. It’s no different from any other medium: When a commercial comes on when I’m listening to a radio, what do I do? I check if another station is playing a song I like instead. If an ad comes on the TV, I get up and go to the bathroom. Is the fact that I choose not to consume those ads some breach of my responsibility as a viewer or listener? I think not.

Of course, ad-blocking is to websites and content makers what used games are to game publishers. It’s not really arguable that people are stealing the content — though I am willing to bet more than a few people might give it the old college try — but neither are they directing dollars to the content makers. Whatever benefit the reader/viewer gains, the content creator loses.

The rules around how companies can make money from online content are in a consistent state of flux driven by changing technology and changing attitudes. And grudgingly, furiously and with great pain, it will likely fall to the website makers to find another solution beside — or at least in tandem with — advertising. In the process, we will lose a lot of voices. Heck, we already have, with the recent closures of GameSpy and 1UP.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how many people visited forums or news sites, and shook their head sadly at the closure of these long veterans of gaming content with their ad blockers on. I’m not going to be the one to say that those who did are implicated in the end of those establishments. There are, after all, a lot of moving parts to those kinds of decisions. But, I’m willing to bet declining ad revenue for any reason, regardless of traffic, probably didn’t help.

I’m not asking for sympathy here. Like every area of media and content production, the past two decades have insisted on incredible agility from makers of content. And frankly, people have been good at rewarding those outlets, services or providers who do prove able to roll with the changing of the times.

Not surprisingly, stealing — or being perceived as having stolen content — is not the go-to response for most people. And before I venture too perilously close to using labels like “piracy” and “stealing” content, that’s not what we’re really talking about here. We are talking more about finding a common ground on the generally accepted social agreement that makers of content deserve to be rewarded for what they create. The tough part is that now the consumers are also loudly stating that, while they are willing to reward, they aren’t going to just reward everyone regardless of quality or value, and they want to do the rewarding on their own terms.

The difference for online versus traditional media is not just that an individual can opt out of consuming the advertisement. The online reader can opt out of being served the advertisement altogether. The user doesn’t make a reactive choice (I don’t want this ad, I’m going to pause my DVR). The user is ahead of the game entirely.

Interestingly, this doesn’t hurt advertisers all that much, because they can monitor who sees what and basically say to a content creator that they are only going to pay for the people who actually saw their ad, so there’s no skin off their back. They only pay out for who actually receives their advertisement, which in some ways is actually better than other media, like television.

So, the content creator pays for it in the end. Which is a bit funny, because the person who has the most control over what draws a potential customer has the least control over what that person does once they are on the site, at least from an advertising point of view. Which, regardless of whether you think ads are great or not, is an unfortunate deal for the person doing all the work.

It may, however, come as a surprise — given that I have put this all in that context — that I don’t necessarily think this is all a bad thing either. Odds are that any innovative solutions that websites begin to put together to resolve this displeasure will actually result in a direct transaction between creator and receiver of content. Ads, after all, are acting only as a middleman that adds nothing of value to the transaction, and as much as you dislike being served ads, content creators don’t like having to distribute advertising for products that can be seen as endorsement of those products.

On top of that, there is a real opportunity here for innovative voices and outlets, if they’re based more on a firm connection and collaboration with their readers, to step into the void. Inevitably on a broader scale, the source of funding influences the funded, and you see this trend in the way that, as a collective, content creators seem to shift toward creating content that supports the advertising model. That’s not to say that every or any particular creator of content is explicitly trying to write words that deliver a marketing message, but that, as an aggregate, attracting and keeping advertisers happy with the content they are advertising on is a consideration.

If the direct customer is the source of funds and support, well then the only goal is making those readers feel like they are getting value. I speak with some authority on this.

As a site that doesn’t run a lot of ads, we don’t really have a dog in this fight. We’ve figured out an alternative model that we’re pretty happy with, and I think it keeps us honest to our roots. I also recognize that it’s an extraordinarily limited model that only works under a few conditions, and building a long-term answer is no simple task.

What you think about ad-blocking probably has a lot to do with where you are on the chain. Established outlets with high traffic probably hate it. Smaller outlets, or places that generate success as much through good-will and community as through fat checks from advertisers, probably take a more tempered view. Readers obviously love it, and advertisers — as long as they get enough ads in front of enough eyes across the spectrum of sites they work with — may not like it but aren’t openly in revolt the way they are around DVR.

That tells me this isn’t a moral issue; it’s a business one. And though I choose not to use ad-blocking, I really don’t find myself faulting those who do. What I hope is that its use becomes a force for innovation, not over-reaction.

Comments

Greg wrote:

This thesis rubbed me the wrong way because it appears that creative types are likely to accuse their customers of stealing instead of realizing they have a broken business model. If my customers are not giving me money or behaving the way that I want them to behave, I have to adapt. It would be unheard of to publicly state that they were stealing from me or are immoral.

If the business model is broken, what do you propose as an alternative?

Aristophan wrote:
Greg wrote:

This thesis rubbed me the wrong way because it appears that creative types are likely to accuse their customers of stealing instead of realizing they have a broken business model. If my customers are not giving me money or behaving the way that I want them to behave, I have to adapt. It would be unheard of to publicly state that they were stealing from me or are immoral.

If the business model is broken, what do you propose as an alternative?

Not to sideline your exchange, but I actually have some thoughts.

I've been watching this problem from the sidelines for at least ten years. To use one small subset of the internet as an example, when webcomics were starting, there was a lot of discussion about how to get readers to pay for the product, or at least allow the creator to survive. Some people were just hoping to eventually get into the newspapers. (You don't see that much anymore.) Scott McCloud was all over micropayments, which never really caught on, in part because comic strips have been loss-leaders for other products for the past hundred years. Others started paid fan clubs, which seem to work for a few people. A lot of them sell ads, with varying degrees of success, and lots of debates about adblockers. (There are some webcomic-only ad networks that tend to advertise other webcomics, which can actually be a good way to discover new ones, so...) Some sell print editions (Kickstarter is making a huge difference here) Many of the big current successes do merchandising, sometimes as a collective (Like TopatoCo, who also have a new Kickstater reward fulfillment service). Penny Arcade was ad, then they did a Kickstarter. Girl Genius I think does mainly the books, but they also have merchandise.
So, lots of things have been tried, some worked, some didn't.

Some of the stuff that works: Selling things to your fans (The Long Tail, 1000 dedicated fans, etc.) Selling a printed version of your online thing (people really like physical artifacts of the things they love). Selling ads, sort of, but it makes a huge difference if the ads are targeted well and are tasteful. Comic Conventions. Donations. Putting part of your content behind a paywall, but having your main stuff be free. Not all of these things work equally, and most of them depend on getting a really dedicated audience with discretionary income.

On top of that, there are more types of content and some of which have their own unique approaches. I could have used online video shows, flash games, etc. as an example.

As a creator of things, I'm passionately interested in finding ways for creatives to make a living creating their things. I don't have any definitive answers, but I've been watching a lot of people try a lot of different things. But the more I watch, the more I conclude that some of our basic economic assumptions about how consumerism is and does work are being radically altered, without most of the world realizing it.

If my customers are not giving me money or behaving the way that I want them to behave, I have to adapt.

Which is, I think, basically the point I was trying to make. Greg, I don't think you and I disagree with each other. I'm not sure my thesis was what you make it out to be.

Elysium wrote:
If my customers are not giving me money or behaving the way that I want them to behave, I have to adapt.

Which is, I think, basically the point I was trying to make. Greg, I don't think you and I disagree with each other. I'm not sure my thesis was what you make it out to be.

My reading comprehension failed me.

Aristophan wrote:
Greg wrote:

This thesis rubbed me the wrong way because it appears that creative types are likely to accuse their customers of stealing instead of realizing they have a broken business model. If my customers are not giving me money or behaving the way that I want them to behave, I have to adapt. It would be unheard of to publicly state that they were stealing from me or are immoral.

If the business model is broken, what do you propose as an alternative?

I stay away from internet ventures so I am probably not the guy to ask.

Gremlin wrote:

As a creator of things, I'm passionately interested in finding ways for creatives to make a living creating their things. I don't have any definitive answers, but I've been watching a lot of people try a lot of different things. But the more I watch, the more I conclude that some of our basic economic assumptions about how consumerism is and does work are being radically altered, without most of the world realizing it.

The internet nearly eliminated scarcity of creative entertainment. Consumers can stuff themselves for the rest of lives just on the free content that has been created to date.

My fear is that internet will turn into cable television. The access providers need the content so that the masses will pay increasing amounts of money for bandwidth. It would not surprise me that they try to buy content makers. Net neutrality is arguably bad for creative types who would like to make money. Comcast could make some of you very rich as they bundle your web sites into a digital preferred tier.

I'm going to have to re-examine my internet habits. I never use ad blockers and don't really ever get that annoyed. I must be missing all the good stuff.

Greg wrote:

Net neutrality is arguably bad for creative types who would like to make money.

Then they're not creative enough to be the successful ones.

Keithustus wrote:
Greg wrote:

Net neutrality is arguably bad for creative types who would like to make money.

Then they're not creative enough to be the successful ones.

This is, of course, why whoever wrote Fifty Shades of Grey is the most creative person of a generation.

[/unnecessary sarcasm]

If someone is determined to make their money through advertising, then their output has to start out being at least as good as the ads are annoying. That's a hard thing to do.

Alternatively you could try the following:
1. Create a premium tier of content. Giantbomb has been very successful with this.
2. Kickstart your operating costs
3. Donations
and many more! (maybe?)

speaking of 1up, I look back to the halcyon days of the 1up-show, Retronauts, 1up yours, GFW-radio, and so on, and I believe that, if they had, at that time, asked me to kick $20, or $30, or $50 a year to keep the lights on, and keep the voices that I liked around, I would have said hell yes.

All you had to do was ask.

benu302000 wrote:

1. Create a premium tier of content. Giantbomb has been very successful with this.

Just wanted to chime in on this point because no, it hasn't. It was stated multiple times by Whiskey Media personalities that the premium memberships never made them money, they only stemmed the bleeding of their startup capital that their founder put in. The company ended up being split up and sold to two different companies and Jeff Gerstmann mentioned in one of his Jar Time segments that the company was sold because it was close to going under. GameSpot also recently discontinued their paid service because they decided it wasn't making enough to justify maintaining it. The idea of a premium tier sounds like a good one but even the sites that are trading on well known personalities can't make money that way.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Just wanted to chime in on this point because no, it hasn't. It was stated multiple times by Whiskey Media personalities that the premium memberships never made them money, they only stemmed the bleeding of their startup capital that their founder put in.

I wonder, then, how well Giantbomb would have done if they weren't also propping up the other, under-performing properties of Screened, Tested, Comic-vine, and Anime-Vice.

That's a very good question indeed. I remember Dave Snider saying at one point that something like 90%+ of their subscriptions came from the Giant Bomb site which I think had more traffic than all the others combined by a wide margin. It does beg the question of why the other sites were kept around so long if they weren't pulling traffic weight.