Persecution of annoying advertisers

[canetoad]

Seems the folk over at EnvironmentalChemistry.com feel you should be forced to read their ads or forsake access to their site.
http://environmentalchemistry.com/banblock.html

Banner Ad Blocking Detected
Either our banner ads must be allowed to display properly or an ad-free subscription must be purchased to use this site.

Your web browser, software on your computer or some other event (like you have image loading turned off) is preventing some or all of our banner ads from being displayed on our pages correctly. In order to access our content, users must allow our ads to be displayed correctly on our pages or they must purchase an ad-free subscription to this site.

We do recognize that many users are using corporate or academic computers on networks where IT departments have implemented network wide ad-filtering that users are unable to bypass. This wholesale filtering of ads; however, is one of the chief reasons we block computers that are blocking our ads. We depend on ad revenues to fund our operation and to enable us to pay people to write new and unique articles for this site. The blocking of our advertising without purchasing an ad-free subscription denies us the revenues we need to operate.

If you are on a corporate or academic computer network that is blocking ads, and you want to gain access to this site you must either convince your IT department to discontinue their practice of blocking ads or you must purchase an ad-free subscription to this site.

[KLB]

1. RE:Persecution of annoying advertisers - next time test before jumping to conclusions

Had you taken the time to test the site instead of simply following a really old link from another site to the page linked to above and then jumping to conclusions; you would have realized that the site (which I own) is not currently blocking users who blocks ads. Yes in the past the site blocked those who blocked its ads, but this practice was suspended in June of 2006 (although the code still exists and could be reactivated if I deem it necessary).

I still think that blocking ads is a short sighted practice and represents a theft of service, but that is a philosophical concern not a business concern. The business reasons reasons I implemented my ad blocking practices in 2004 no longer existed by of June of 2006. As such it no longer made business sense to continue to block ad blocking users.

I started blocking those who block my ads because bandwidth required to support all of the people using my site was getting too expensive and the blocking of ads was threatening the economic viability of my site (e.g. bandwidth costs were causing me to lose money and blocking of ads was denying me the revenue I needed to pay for the required bandwidth). I had to reduce expenses and/or significantly increase revenues if my site was to continue to be a viable site. Blocking those who blocked my ads allowed me to reduce expenses by eliminating those users who denied me the ability to generate revenue. Those users who did block ads were still able to access my site by purchasing an ad-free subscription ($3 per month or $15 per year).

Fast forward to 2006 and things had changed dramatically. Ad revenues had increased by about ten fold and bandwidth had fallen to about 1/6 their 2004 costs. Ad blocking still annoyed me from a philosophical stance but was no longer an economic threat to the viability of my website. As such, I decided to eliminate my ad blocking detection scripts to improve the performance of my website and thus improve the end user experience for the vast majority of users who do not block ads.

Would I consider reinstating my ad blocking detection scripts? Yes, absolutely, if ad blocking became such a problem that it again threatened the viability of my website. I just hope it doesn't come to that. Before you think that blocking of ads is harmless, keep in mind that large quantities of the independent, non-media giant, websites that you and others enjoy (like this site) are significantly dependent upon ad revenues to be economically viable. Without ad revenues I could not pay PhD scientists to write new articles for my readers to enjoy. Without ad revenues I would not be able to pay for the tremendous amount of bandwidth and server resources my website requires. Without ad revenues I would not be able to make a living from my website and thus dedicate my working hours towards developing new content and features for my site, which millions of people a year benefit from.

Countless of high quality independent websites are like mine and totally dependant upon ad revenues. Without ad revenues they would not be able to continue their existence and the Internet would be a poorer place totally dominated by big media companies who could get away with charging subscription fees to access their content. Someone has to bare the cost of developing high quality content, web servers and bandwidth, either users in general can allow a third party pay for it via advertising or users will have to bare this cost directly themselves. Keep that in mind the next time you play with your ad blocking filters. Block popups, popunders and other really intrusive forms of advertising if you must (heck even I block popups/popunders), but consider allowing less intrusive forms of ads (like text ads) to still be displayed.

Sincerely,
Kenneth Barbalace
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
EnvironmentalChemistry.com

[The Vinyl Ripper]

2. Your points are well taken and well stated..

People do get very used to tuning out ads that they do not wish to hear. But the great majority of advertising these days is based upon getting through to your subconscious without you ever actually realizing what is going on.

It's simply a reflexive, defensive habit for most people to block as much advertising as they possibly can.

[KLB]

3. RE: tuning out ads

The Vinyl Ripper,

The really interesting thing about ads is that because they are becoming so much more relevant (especially text ads), I have found the response rate to ads is actually increasing, not declining. While true users may be tuning out irrelevant ads they are also becoming more willing to respond to ads that are relevant to their needs. The key is to not be obnoxious with the ads and to use them in moderation. I've actually found that by significantly reducing the number of ads on my site I was able to improve the effectiveness of the remaining ads and actually increase total ad revenues significantly. Really if we could get advertisers to abandon really obnoxious ads along with popups and popunders, I think users would be a lot less irritated with ads in general.