Us Versus Ads

There are some rivalries that are interesting and fruitful to watch: Good vs. Evil; Dan vs. Dave; Jason vs. Freddy.

Then there are those that are downright scary: Internet News Consumers vs. Internet News Sites.

We all know the reality nowadays of online news: Ads are ubiquitous. Because of shrinking circulation numbers and ratings cutting into their bottom line, everybody is trying to figure out how to bring in ad revenue on their Web sites. They do banner ads, they do pop-up ads, they do those mostly-irritating ads that float onto your screen. (Including, ahem, this site.)

So, in the interest of getting the news you’re looking for, we – us news consumers, that is – roll with it. We deal. As I told a friend years ago: That’s the price you pay for paying no price.

But as with all things technological and/or scientific, there’s always a way around it. There is now sophisticated (or maybe not, depending on your level of web know-how) software that blocks “virtually all ads on your screen” – as discussed by host Bob Garfield and CNet’s Declan McCullagh on this past weekend’s NPR “On the Media” program:

Bob Garfield: Well, you know, there's, I think, a more basic question, which is that if you're using an Internet site and the site is dependent on advertising for its revenue and you obliterate the advertising, isn't that sort of stealing?

Declan McCullagh: It's very close to it. There is a slight additional incremental cost every time someone connects to a website. It's a small amount of money, but when you have millions of people - and this is the case today - using ad blocking software can add up. So you're essentially trying to get something for nothing.

And the morality of that seems a little squirrelly. I mean, if you don't want to see ads, maybe a better way to do it would be paid ad-free versions. Another way to do it would be to say - here's an ad, I'm going to wait 30 seconds before giving you the content.

News.com has a relationship with Lexus. I mean, they brand a certain portion of our website. And it's very difficult to block that sort of branding and it's also probably less intrusive.

Otherwise, right now, if you want the website content, then you have to look at the ads. You're getting it for free? Don't complain.

We’ve seen this movie before. Remember when TiVo was going to put television commercials at risk – since viewers could just zip through them? Or when pop-up ad blockers were introduced into browsers?

The technology figures out a way around ads, and the ads catch up and insinuate themselves into the content, be it product placement in TV shows or more complicated ways of placing ads on the computer screen.

And that’s not altogether a bad thing. Because as soon as the ultimate foolproof mechanism is created to block all ads – which won’t happen, but work with me – then online news sites would disappear or begin to require a fee.

It’s understandable that people want to block irritating ads and try to do an end run around the commercial model of online news. But perhaps it’s time that we declare a truce in the war over ads, with readers and advertisers agreeing that (A) as long as the ad doesn’t take up a certain amount of screen space, or (B) get in the way of the article you’re trying to read, or (C) make you wait for too long to get to your destination or (D) something else, we’ll agree to live and let live.