
The mobile adblocking apocalypse hasn’t arrived - prostoalex
http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/12/the-mobile-ad-blocking-apocalypse-hasnt-arrived-at-least-not-yet/
======
putlake
I run an Alexa top 10K website with an ad-based revenue model. iOS content
blocking has not materially impacted overall revenue because

1\. Even though mobile accounts for about 50% of traffic, it only accounts for
25% of revenue anyway.

2\. iOS devices, for some reason, monetize way lower than Android. 25% mobile
revenue breaks out into 10% iOS and 15% Android. Could be because the site
uses Adsense and Google knows much more about Android users so can target ads
better.

3\. Most mobile users don't download apps. I'm too lazy to dig up the research
right now but IIRC the number of people who only use stock apps is about 50%.
So people just haven't bothered to download content blocking apps; because
they don't bother to download any apps.

So while the mobile _adblocking_ apocalypse is a nonevent, the fact that
mobile monetizes way lower anyway means that over the last few years -- as
mobile share of traffic has grown -- revenue per user has slowly eroded. That
slow-moving apocalypse has already occurred. Adblocking on iOS hasn't done
much to make things worse.

Adblocking on desktop continues to hurt, and has a much bigger impact.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I'm curious what you use for analytics? Many of the adblockers on both desktop
and mobile are blocking analytics tracking making good numbers hard to come
by.

~~~
putlake
Google Analytics for now but I'm thinking about running a secondary homegrown
system for some basic telemetry.

------
noinsight
The problem is that there aren't good adblockers for mobile, in my experience.

On Android, Chrome doesn't support extensions so standard extensions are out.
However, you can get Firefox Mobile for it, which is actually my favourite
browser on Android, and it supports standard extensions so you can load ublock
Origin for it. App-type adblockers seem to require rooting.

On iOS, I have yet to see a trustworthy/good blocker. I know of Purify, but
the author is Chris Aljoudi and after the ublock thing, I'm never touching any
of his code. Then there's the Adblock Plus browser thing, but I don't want to
use a separate browser - plus, they soured me with the "acceptable ads" stuff.
So basically what I want is ublock for iOS.

~~~
gtufano
Focus by Firefox seems pretty good and (IMHO) is trustworthy:
[https://support.mozilla.org/kb/focus](https://support.mozilla.org/kb/focus)

~~~
noinsight
I got the impression it only blocks trackers, not ads, is that not so? Then it
could be great.

------
doodpants
I've always been puzzled as to why everyone suddenly thought that the
adblocking apocalypse was about to happen.

I mean, adblockers have been around for many years. Every browser that
supports third-party extensions has adblockers available. Which, until this
year, has effectively meant all browsers except mobile Safari.

So the one last holdout browser finally gains adblocker support, and this is
going to be the tipping point that kills ads as a revenue source for web
publishers? Does mobile Safari really have that big a majority of usage among
all browsers? And even if it does, is such a huge majority of mobile Safari
users going to install adblockers?

Though techical people tend to forget this, the internet is now mainstream,
and the vast majority of web users are non-technical people. These are people
who just use whatever software is built comes with their device, never change
defaults, and never install any software whose installation/configuration is
any more difficult than pressing "Buy" on the app store.

So, again, it always seemed strange to me that mobile Safari in iOS 9
(finally) getting adblocker support resulted in all this panic about the
adblocking apocalypse being upon us.

~~~
donohoe
One good reason, which I think may still have an impact in long-run is
bandwidth.

At office or home on your cable/DSL/whatever you really don't care about
bandwidth.

However on mobile, blocking ads has a bigger impact beyond aesthetics and
basic UX

    
    
      * Pages load much much faster
    
      * Mobile users typically have data-plans with limits
    

I have an old unlimited plan with AT&T. I've just installed the ad-blocker
from Mozilla. Previously when I had Peace I say my data usage drop by 30%
(that I can account for. It may be higher). I typically use 3.2GB a month. It
was down to 1.8GB (again, there are other factors)

~~~
acdha
You're definitely right to point at bandwidth, particularly since at least in
the United States the major carriers have been pushing customers back to paid
plans.

A closely-related issue is the nature of the content: it would be one thing if
ads/trackers were just image content but a lot of them ship huge amounts of
poorly-written JavaScript and CSS, usually marked as uncacheable or with a
short TTL. I'm not talking about fly-by-night operators, either, but places
like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. which have good web performance teams who
are apparently strictly prohibited from talking to the ad / tracking / widget
groups.

All of that extra bloat has a huge performance impact to begin with but it
also dramatically amplifies any network delays. That means that most of the
people who read a piece about blockers and try one are likely to notice a big
performance win and that initial impression will stick with them for a long
time.

------
vinceguidry
My preferred solution is to pay a middleman, or middlemen to provide metered
access to nag-free content. The only thing keeping me from subscribing to NYT,
WSJ, The Economist is that they're all expecting me to pay magazine
subscription rates when the only articles I'm reading are links from
aggregators like HN. I have zero desire to pour enough time into any one
outlet to make the friction of managing yet another login worth it.

I don't want to see fucking pop ups asking me to subscribe, I don't want to
see bitching about my adblocker, no, I'm not giving it up. Hell, even
Wikipedia's yearly donation drive is getting annoying. Donating does not stop
the nagging. I'm very close to finding a way to block that too, Wikipedia does
not seem to offer a yearly donation option, so I need the nag to remind me to
donate. I just wish I could switch it off.

Just quit fucking bugging me and let me read in peace. How much money do you
need to make that happen?

~~~
douche
I donate monthly automatically, and Wikipedia still nags me. Oh well, that's
what Stylish is for.

------
AdmiralAsshat
What's interesting is that of the vendors interviewed in the article, only The
Deck seems to be taking the approach of "Maybe they'll stop blocking us if we
make less intrusive ads." Everyone else has seemingly flocked to the "Harasss,
circumvent, or stonewall the adblockers" strategy.

~~~
davestern1
I'm the guy quoted in the last segment from Slate, and I beg to differ!

"We’re improving page load time, removing intrusive ads, and working toward
fewer ads, but for those that stay we want them to be more impactful,” Stern
said. “We want the kinds of ads that people who read fashion magazines —
that’s not me — but the kinds of ads that people say are part of the
experience of reading the magazine.”

------
filmgirlcw
The barrier to entry to installing a mobile ad blocker (and then dealing with
managing whitelists when shit doesn't appear correctly) is a lot higher than
an ad blocker on desktop. I think that has a lot to do with the disconnect.

I also think that mobile ad blocking was something the industry feared -- and
that the more in-touch tech community cared about -- but regular users simply
don't think about as much. That said -- if mobile ads continue to get worse
and if the process of managing a whitelist/using a mobile ad blocker can get
easier, then maybe this will switch again.

The worst part of this to me -- and I say this as someone who makes my income
basically b/c I'm a journalist who works for a publication who relies on
advertising -- is that if the ad industry sees this as being much ado about
nothing, the ad industry won't actually start trying to force better ad
practices/blacklisting awful ad exchanges. And then we all lose.

------
pjc50
The current situation where mobile users have to pay to download ads, and
potentially pay _much_ more than the ad displayer recieves, is a good target
for consumer rights advocacy.

We've already persuaded the EU to clobber unfair roaming. The next step is to
forbid mobile carriers from charging for ad downloads and permit them to block
them instead (using their existing pornfilters).

(Mobile carriers are the one group that might be able to make micropayment-
for-view work, but are too greedy to actually do it in a way beneficial for
all parties)

------
LargeCompanies
Owner of Ars Technica says something to the extent that people have installed
adblockers because some sites they visit are too aggressive.

Hmm what sites are those ...pirated content streaming sites or bit torrent
sites?

~~~
DanBC
> Hmm what sites are those

My local newspaper is pretty bad. ABP blocks 16 items on this page:
[http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/](http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/)

On mobile those 16 items really suck. They use energy which means I need to
recharge sooner; they use expensive bandwidth; they use processor power on my
underpowered phone. And all I want to do is to read the article (And I'm happy
to pay to do that. There's currently no way for me to pay and have the ads
turned off.)

