Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Anatomy of ads · 2007-01-25 18:57 by Wladimir Palant
I would like to take a look at the different costs connected to ads. Most of the time, the only cost people consider is our attention — ads are designed to be distracting, they don’t let us concentrate on what we are doing. Jeff Atwood analyzed the space occupied by ads in comparison to content on a particular page and came to alarming results. I want to pick another page to look at the other aspects. Dilbert.com has been mentioned quite a few times as an example of an ad-laden site, the server response time is quite stable (good for reproducible results) and it features a large variety of different ads. If you look at the space distribution on the main page, ads occupy roughly 32% of the space while the content area is quite small with 22%. Most of the remaining space is navigation.
That’s the visual appearance. But let’s look at the networking side. How much do the ads cost in download size? How much do they increase page loading times? I measured these parameters for a full reload of the main page both with and without ads (each experiment was repeated 10 times to get a reasonably reliable average). However, when you browse a site, you usually make use of your browser’s cache — so I also did measurements for the case that you come back to the main page by clicking a link. Here is an overview of the results, all numbers are given in the “from – to (average)” form:
| with caching, with ads | with caching, without ads | without caching, with ads | without caching, without ads | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| amount of data transfered, kB | 22 – 60 (40) | 0 – 36 (11) | 675 – 707 (680) | 204 – 205 (205) |
| time required, seconds | 2.6 – 5.4 (3.5) | 0.0 – 1.2 (0.3) | 6.2 – 8.4 (7.1) | 6.0 – 8.1 (6.7) |
| number of servers contacted | 6 – 8 (6.7) | 0 – 1 (0.5) | 8 – 9 (8.9) | 1 |
| number of URLs requested | 12 – 13 (12.5) | 0 – 1 (0.5) | 72 – 77 (73.2) | 55 |
Summary of the highlights:
- Ads triple the amount of data one has to download (over 450 kB increase).
- When downloading the page the first time (without caching) the delay due to ads is not notable. However, these measurements have been made with a very good internet connection, modem users will see something very different. Also, it doesn’t consider the time for server name resolution (all names were already cached) — resolving nine server names instead of just one usually makes a huge difference.
- Dilbert.com is really good at caching, often you can go back to the main page without contacting any server at all. Unfortunately, ads pretty much destroy this advantage by requiring almost every ad server to be contacted. This means that instead of showing up almost immediately the pages take more than 3 seconds to load.
Now lets have a look at memory use. Restart Firefox, look at memory use, go to dilbert.com, check memory use increase. Comes out that this page needs less than 2 MB of memory without ads and around 9 MB with ads. Yes, we have quite an increase here.
Altogether dilbert.com includes 8 remote JavaScript files. They are allowed to execute on the page and access the same information that the page itself receives. What do they do, should you be concerned? Let’s look at those scripts in detail.
adsremote.scripps.com
Five of the eight JavaScript files included in the page are loaded from this domain. Three of them (ad types EXIT_POP and SUPERSTITIAL according to their addresses) do something weird: they insert an image wrapped within a regular ad link, but the image is a 1×1 transparent GIF. Who is supposed to click on that? I have no idea.
The other two (ad types UNSIZED_AD and LEADERBOARD) are more creative — they load other scripts, this time from a.tribalfusion.com. What do these scripts do? You probably guessed it already — they load more scripts, this time from media.fastclick.net. And one of those finally inserts an image ad, while the other inserts yet another script (cdn.fastclick.net) that finally checks whether you have Flash installed and inserts a Flash ad if you do. The image ad (animated GIF, 331 kB) is mostly responsible for the increase in download size.
All this craziness involving 10 scripts (have you been counting?) amounts to 31 document.write calls. Just to keep your browser busy. And of course each single script sets a cookie (altogether five cookies on three domains) so it can recognize you when you stumble upon another of their ads.
js.adsonar.com
This script defines a bunch of functions including its own error handler. Never noticed JavaScript errors on dilbert.com? That’s because the helpful ad script catches them all. The webmasters might not be very grateful once this masks a real problem but who cares…
It will add an unused hidden form to the page (memory is cheap, you know?) and then create the ad. The script lets the webmaster choose whether he wants a regular pop-up, a pop-under or an iframe. Dilbert.com chooses an iframe. In addition to the regular information about the account that should receive the payment it also transmits the full URL you have been viewing — just in case your firewall blocks the Referer header to protect your privacy.
The iframe actually contains an unobtrusive text ad, that’s the one you see above the text “Dilbert.com Marketplace”. It manipulates your status bar to make it appear that you will be sent directly to the advertised site. In reality it sends you there through redir.adsonar.com – each click is counted.
st.sageanalyst.net
That’s a tracker. It tries to get as much information about you as possible — whether you have cookies enabled, the address of the page you are viewing, the address of the page you came from, your screen resolution, JavaScript version supported by your browser. Then it creates an image that will transmit this data back to st.sageanalyst.net. And it sets a cookie to track you.
ssl.google-analytics.com
I probably don’t need to introduce this one. That’s Google’s visitor statistics service for webmasters who for some reason cannot afford proper log analysis. In terms of privacy there is only one difference to sageanalyst.net: instead of settings a cookie on their own server, Google sets the cookie on dilbert.com. I guess this has the advantage that one cannot easily block Google’s cookies without locking himself out of any cookie-dependent services on the domain (forums above all). On the other hand, this cookie is only useful for tracking the user within one site, on another site with Google Analytics you will receive a different cookie.
Comment [48]
Commenting is closed for this article.
Alec · 2007-01-26 00:36 · #
Thanks
That was quite interesting!
Matt Nordhoff (Peng) · 2007-01-26 01:05 · #
I have a slow ADSL connection (but it’s still ten times faster than dial-up), and the main issue for me with ads is that DNS lookups will sometimes take 6-8 seconds, so page loads might get stuck for 10 seconds while some worthless ad script downloads.
7 MB larger memory increase, huh? That makes me want to Adblock the heck out of those advertising sites or get NoScript. I already block cookies from all domains except those that really need them (and my cookies.txt is now around 15-19 KiB, rather than 80 KiB), so I could do the same with scripts.
alta88 · 2007-01-26 17:10 · #
very interesting analysis. noscript is your friend here, until content is so mixed with ads/scripting that it will be impossible to separate the two.
but – why not get dilbert via rss ;)
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
I am too lazy to run NoScript, I prefer the comfortable browsing. And Adblock already takes care of all the annoyances.
Fox · 2007-01-29 14:07 · #
I did try NoScript 2 times last year, and i think it’s not user friendly extension.
Sometimes i was not sure what i need to allow.
And also it did made me little paranoid too.
I use Adblock Plus to block all those annoying scripts and ads, and it works very well.
I like to use those options:
http://adblockplus.org/en/filters#options
Thank you.
My parents also enjoy annoying script and ad -free surfing, but i think they don’t know that Adblock Plus and my subscription does it.
I just make sure that that subscription works.
Shii · 2009-02-09 22:32 · #
I was wandering around in your blog archives and this is a real eye-opener. Posted it to Reddit— some people say they will install ABP now in response.
DaRam · 2009-02-09 22:53 · #
Use YesScript instead
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4922
Noscript, despite its name, blocks all executable content: script, flash, etc.
JNudda · 2009-02-09 23:06 · #
@DaRam
That’s the point.
Weixi Yen · 2009-02-09 23:25 · #
I just wanted to say that this article has convinced me to download your software. My pages are loading 5x faster.
DEAFWISH · 2009-02-09 23:39 · #
The 1 × 1 gif image provided by adsremote.scripps.com is most likely a tracking pixel used to send user information on location, browser and engagement time back to the advertising company. They do not expect you to click it.
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
You don’t need an image for tracking if the user already downloaded a script from your site. And even then, why would you wrap a tracking image in a link? Seems more like a temporarily “disabled” ad.
Ilia Jerebtsov · 2009-02-09 23:48 · #
The 1×1 image is for tracking page views. Images have a greater chance to send information than anything else. It’s probably got a huge query string tacked onto it.
Noam dePalumme · 2009-02-10 00:25 · #
Yeah, this will all work real well, until the content sites get so desperate for money that they just embed everything into Flash and the whole damn internet is one seamless masturbatory intro movie after another. Or start charging for everything. Or both.
Information may want to be free, but sooner or later, somebody’s got to pay the costs, and like it or not, advertising is the model that puts the least burden on ordinary users.
rax · 2009-02-10 00:27 · #
I use ABP at home.
This was ‘after’ getting hit by viruses spread via ad-networks (dec 2008).
My only concern is this : If everyone uses ABP, and ad revenue on the web becomes worthless, then will we be paying for stuff that we now take for granted as free (since ad revenue covers the hosting costs in some cases). Paid email? registrations/subscriptions for online news and help forums?
Craigslist found a way out that works for them, but what about all the other diverse services and sites that dont have a paid job search service or paid real-estate service (like craigs) to support the free side?
none · 2009-02-10 01:12 · #
The paper “Cat and mouse: content delivery tradeoffs in web access”
available at http://www.research.att.com/~bala/papers/cam.pdf covers this topic in more detail.
Patrick · 2009-02-10 01:16 · #
Interesting blog. Since I work for an online publisher in the ad ops department, I’m not a huge fan of your service….I just happen to see the reddit link to this article. I can definitely understand the desire to block ads which can be annoying and slow down the site. On the other hand, most publishers rely on advertising as their sole source of revenue, so blocking ads while still consuming the publishers content is a little unethical. While not technically stealing, it is a bit dishonest. I encourage everyone to at least enable ads on their favorite sites to support the major source of their revenue. As for the 1×1 pixel, it is used to count impressions (views) on specific sites or text links.
Yert · 2009-02-10 01:39 · #
@Patrick: What a joke. Nobody is going to disable an adblocker to support a website. If you want people to look at your ads, don’t make them take up more time then absolutely necessary from the customer’s customer, and don’t make them intrusive. I think that Google does this well; their scripts and ads don’t add a terrible burden to view the ads.
P · 2009-02-10 02:28 · #
@Yert:
Are you kidding? Patrick represents a very good point. Your illogical stance on “making the ads take up more time than absolutely necessary” is flawed unless they are direct ads hosted on the same server the site is on.. which in most cases, isn’t it.
tephlon · 2009-02-10 03:31 · #
@Yert: Actually I do this for webcomics sites. Most of them use “Project Wonderful” for their ads, and it’s 99% safe. Plus, it’s a good way to give them some sort of revenue for the free comics.
jonah · 2009-02-10 03:42 · #
@Patrick What if a Firefox plugin were developed to block ads AND fake the user looking at the ad as well? This would give our favorite sites revenue while keeping the eyesore out of view.
licnyc · 2009-02-10 03:52 · #
I can’t wait for the day someone perfects the micropayment system and we call all pay .005 per page view. That way no more ads. Because honestly you have to live in a fantasy world to think sites are going to function without revenue.
jelbo · 2009-02-10 04:13 · #
This whole service is pretty ridiculous. As someone that runs an ad supported web site, and indeed makes a living from my two person programming operation doing so, I hate your stupid plug in.
If you want sites to go downhill because they lose all their revenue, by all means, install Ad Block Plus. Never click on ads, never support advertisers, and basically leech content. Then we’ll all have start charging for memberships, i guess.
Steven Black · 2009-02-10 04:24 · #
This (most excellent) hosts file mitigates all this quite well.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Don’t let the 2002 fool you. This hosts file is updated very regularly. 5-stars.
CEO · 2009-02-10 04:31 · #
Ten years ago I was CEO of one of the most popular commercial ad-blocker co’s. (Which I sold to a BIG co.) After I saw a Dilbert comic about Wally using an ad-blocker, I wrote to Scott Adams. Boy was he pissed! Said it must have been a fake Dilbert comic, he would never do that. And I was destroying the viability of the Internet. Guess he was wrong about that, the web seems to still be growing. Somehow.
When we read a newspaper, there is no agreement to read all the silly ads in the paper. Why should we read them on the web?
icandothat' · 2009-02-10 05:27 · #
I’m sold.
Johnny Weird · 2009-02-10 05:32 · #
I don’t really get this holy war against advertising on the web. Sure advertising is annoying, but there’s ads everywhere else in life (TV, newspapers, radio, magazines, billboards…) why wouldn’t there be ads on the internet?
That being said I think there’s a difference between good advertising and overly intrusive advertising. To me interstitial ads cross that line.
Annie Mouse · 2009-02-10 05:42 · #
With so many ISP’s now setting bandwidth caps it would seem a good idea to start blocking ads since it will reduce byte counts by two thirds per page view on average.
K · 2009-02-10 06:16 · #
Dial-up is the reason current ads should be blocked.
If all web-advertisements agreed to text-only ads like Google or to a reasonable maximum kilobyte size (like 5-10 kilobytes per ad tops) without flash or javascript, then webpages would load in a reasonable timeframe, with or without ads. People would still complain about the ads, but that’s just human nature.
The problem is when you’re on dial-up.
For many parts of the US, dial-up is the only game in town. Forget wireless or cellular internet or Hughes. There are still towns and counties where PPP is it. Period.
If you’ve ever tried to surf the modern internet on dial-up, it’s impossible unless you disable the ads. Even simple pages get endlessly delayed by the ads downloading Flash-this and Java-that for a small eternity. Pages we broadbanders take for granted as fast take forrrrrrrrever! Until you disable the ads. Or Flash, Java, JavaScript, and Images. Then dial-up is still slow but usable.
If you guys in the ad industry would show the slightest bit of empathy for your customers (the people surfing the web that you supposedly understand so well) you would put yourself in the customer’s place and think, how would I feel if the internet I’m_paying_for became impossibly slow because almost every site is saturated with Flash and JavaScript ads? By your own behavior you clearly never ever do this. And that’s why people put so much effort into blocking your work. Because it makes such a big improvement in download speed!
vk · 2009-02-10 07:54 · #
Hmm, so how can the ad providers know how many users have seen the ads if the ad servers won’t be contacted in every page load?
Josh Hunt · 2009-02-10 14:27 · #
I have never used any method of blocking adds, and I don’t really plan on. I think I have just became desentized to them and I just don’t notice them any more. I extremly rarely click on the ads, so I suppose I’m support the websites just a tiny bit more than those who block the ads.
I wonder… Would people actually donate money to websites, such as reddit, if they made it easily available? I know this has worked for some websites, such as wikipedia but I don’t really think that can count.
Why have you included Google Analytics? Also, critizing the webmasters for using it because it is free. Some of the best things in life is free? Are you going to go around critizing people for having a GMail account, or using a free wi-fi hotspot?
curious · 2009-02-10 14:45 · #
The reason we can get so much free stuff on the internet is because websites use ads to pay for their costs. Take that away and we take a lot away. I have actually found some intereting ads online that I am glad I saw. I am sure you have too if you stop and think about it.
Muttrox · 2009-02-10 15:01 · #
Our company uses 1×1 pixels. They are designed just to get an entry in the logs with minimal overload. It lets us count people accurately (or at least as accurate as cookie counting can be) on sites that we ourselves don’t host. Not sure of the point of it with a script either. The whole point is to generate a log entry, if downloading a script can do that then there is no point. Could the 1×1 pixel be for a different domain that the script?
Paul K Egell-Johnsen · 2009-02-10 15:04 · #
I agree with number 30. Who will pay for that cool website, which suddenly grows out of its fanbase and are serving terrabytes of data every month?
Accepting ads is the consumers way of shouldering some of the cost for the content out there. Even if the cartoonist behind Dilbert loves to draw, and draws for free, the infrastructure of serving the cartoon to you cost money, and I bet that for Dilbert.com that cost is not insubstantial.
Therefore I have stopped using ad-blockers myself. I think I will shoulder my part of the cost for some sites by downloading those pesky ads.
I guess a lot of the people who don’t want the ads neither wants an internet where you have to pay as you go? Where you get service based on what you pay for, and not like today where anyone can compete?
An internet like we have today gives many people a chance to create the next big thing, it is pretty level playing field. If you take away the ads, the field gets tilted pretty badly, don’t you think?
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Steve · 2009-02-10 16:00 · #
In reply to 32, Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) certainly does not work for free – his shitty comic is syndicated in quite a few paper publications.
Geekamongus · 2009-02-10 16:11 · #
Until ad blocking is built into mainstream web browsers and is turned on by default, the only ad revenue web sites stand to lose is from the geek community, who almost never click on ads in the first place.
Matt Andrews · 2009-02-10 16:13 · #
Why insult webmasters who use Google Analytics? Some of us don’t run our sites for profit (and thus can’t afford to shell out for pricey analytics software) and Google does the job pretty well. This petty insult ruined the tone of what was otherwise an interesting article.
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Don’t know where you found the insult, third-party visitor tracking (whether via script or image) simply cannot give you the same accuracy as log analysis. Note also that neither Webalizer nor AWStats need to be paid for.
tla · 2009-02-10 16:14 · #
Even on a dual quadcore xeon, these damn ads cause my audio to stutter. Shut down the browser and it stops. Too much animation.
equex · 2009-02-10 16:19 · #
to #21
90% of the web is crap. I will browse as long as i dont have to pay for all the shit. when i cant browse for free anymore, i wont care. i would pay to browse a few high quality sites.
Fista · 2009-02-10 17:22 · #
there are other way of generating revenue. ESPN for example is charging ISP if they want ESPN on their network… Dont charge the end user, charge the ISP that wants your site delivered to their customers. Ads are a poor and lazy way of generating revenue, there are greater options, just requires the host to think a little harder.
curious · 2009-02-10 19:34 · #
#38 – ESPN may be able to get away with that because they are a premium site. There are millions of others sites out there with millions of people working for them that need ads to survive or charge the user. Take away ads and you take away jobs.
Annie Mouse · 2009-02-10 19:41 · #
As to the ESPN example:
You don’t want you ISP to be a filtering gatekeeper. That is not their role – you should be your own filter. Nor is the Internet simply a conduit for Interactive Television, even though it may support that. Paying ESPN to not block an ISP’s IP range – essentially what it is – turns ESPN into a pay-per-view channel with the ISP acting as a Provisioning Media Company. Imagine paying for Internet access but denied access to ESPN because the ISP didn’t pay for you to access it. What is an ISP supposed to do? Turn into an ala’carte Cable Company where users sign up for what they will have access to ahead of time OR bill out your usage every month depending on what was accessed?? Good Grief! You fail to understand what the baseline underpinnings of the Internet is conceptually. If ESPN wants to charge for their content then let them negotiate with perspective clients individually AND shoulder the burden plus expense of so doing. You forget the actual cost upon an ISP to implement such a thing and how that cost would be shared among users whether they would support such an effort or not. I doubt a smattering of ESPN purchasers would be willing to shoulder an ISP’s added expense alone nor advocate the kind of individual tracking of user usage found necessary otherwise. Perhaps you would since that is what you seem to be advocating.
In a previous post I mentioned the bandwidth caps many ISP’s are incorporating in an effort to increase profitability. Users are being constrained and we are essentially paying to see those ads. Personally, I prefer not to pay for such things and tools such as AdBlock are beneficial to me. There is no moral dilemma here. If some Internet entities cannot sustain without the undue encumbrance upon viewers then that is their failing business model and we can do well enough not being saddled with them.
gatzke · 2009-02-10 19:47 · #
I think only people to blame here are the advertisers who go over the limit.
Those who create the extreme pop-up ads and over-collection of user information.
Who choke our bandwidth to shove flashing and irritating images in our face.
Naturally, we would be looking for ways to prevent this. But unfortunately they’ve gone and ruined it for the casual advertisers who were looking out for our comfort zone while designing their ads.
Oh, and if you’re planning to put ads on your site, maybe you should research the advertising company you’re signing up with – make sure they’re ads won’t give your viewers a seizure.
Until the ads on my page calm down a bit, I will be using ad blockers.
asds · 2009-02-11 20:19 · #
“This whole service is pretty ridiculous. As someone that runs an ad supported web site, and indeed makes a living from my two person programming operation doing so, I hate your stupid plug in.
If you want sites to go downhill because they lose all their revenue, by all means, install Ad Block Plus. Never click on ads, never support advertisers, and basically leech content. Then we’ll all have start charging for memberships, i guess.”
And I hate your sense of entitlement. You are placing content on a medium that makes it freely available to anyone. If you want guaranteed income from your users, then DO make a pay site and stop whining. Otherwise, accept that advertising has and always will be a risk; it’s not guaranteed income. If this bothers you then find a working business model. But it’s pretty clear you’re not going to bother doing the smart thing and trying to monetize behavior, so just continue taking the easy way out by whining.
jeo · 2009-02-13 06:57 · #
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but lunch is getting cheaper all the time. Moore’s Law hasn’t quit yet. If every year half as many people view the ads, but you can serve your traffic for half the cost, you break even.
As p2p gets more prevalent, eventually the production cost will be dominant. At that point, commercial producers will have a hard time competing with the stuff people make for free because they enjoy doing it.
Guy · 2009-02-16 23:46 · #
The better solution is for the web sites themselves to serve up the ads. They can if they wish connect their own servers to ad agencies and trackers. All my communication should be with the site I intended to browse!
Using generic Ad and tracking services IS the problem. They should be blocked, regardless of the impact to the site that I intended to browse.
Those services try to track your activities for decades, occasionally pump out infectious malware, and eat up my PC resources.
By a web site pushing out its own ads from its own www server, then my browser is able to re-use its persistent connections without having to lookup and initiate new ones to the crapware pushers. Also, if ever there’s a virus getting pushed then it will be more obvious who to hold accountable.
roaster · 2009-02-20 02:04 · #
I agree steven, use a hosts file: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm I have been using it for years…
Rasmus · 2009-04-10 15:09 · #
“That’s Google’s visitor statistics service for webmasters who for some reason cannot afford proper log analysis.”
And adblock users (and the creators?) think that web should be some kind of charity organisation? How come they should get their revenue to pay for hosting, salaries etc.?
mark · 2009-11-12 09:52 · #
i use a hosts file, and noscript, and peerblock in http mode.
the main reason? i get 25gb a month. It lasts for 3x as many pages when you block the ads.
I don’t even bother browsing a webpage for anything if I can’t read it properly without enabling ads.
I even listen to MP3, not radio… why? no ads!
i agree with many of those. when I pay $80 a month for my crappy little download quota, I don’t want to see it wasted.
When the internet becomes too clogged with crap, a day rapidly approaching, I will simply disconnect my internet, sell my phone, and buy some good books.
@Rasmus… Why do you think I should put up with 15 ads @ 2MB download so you can earn 3 cents? Do you deserve to profit from the bandwidth I paid for?
No.
You’d be pissed if you used a toll road, paid say $5 to get on it, and then had a company logo spraypainted onto your windshield so they could earn some ad money while you were driving.
Ads leave cookies, scripts, and unwanted crap on my hard drive – not much difference in the end eh?
Mike · 2010-01-03 01:30 · #
Ok… So this debate seems to be continuing and I have to put my two cents in…
I totally understand a webmasters need for web revenue based on advertising on websites. I deal with many computer illiterate web clients every day and none of them have even heard of ABP. I’ve ran multiple sites over the last 10 years and with the introduction of ABP my revenues have decreased less than 15% due to ABP. You may ask why this is so? It’s because the people using ABP are the ones smart enough to not be fooled by misleading directed ad’s on websites already and therefore wouldn’t click on an ad even if ABP didn’t exist. It’s the useless internet users out there that download the viruses and spyware and click on ads etc etc etc. So as long as the majority of internet users stay useless tools, there won’t be much of an issue.
Having said that, if I was forced to pay for free content I wouldn’t get that content. For every person charging for content, there is someone else with a large amount of bandwidth every month with nothing to do with it that will give it away for free. I, myself, have almost 400GB of transfer every month and the combination of all my clients comprises less than 40GB’s. I’m paying for it anyways, might as well just use it. If I make a site that’s very popular with free content I might put up a little Paypal donation spot. I’ve had ad-free sites in the past with a donation box, and due to the high quality free content, I actually have made more off that site then others plastered with ads.
If I’m forced to pay for content, I will do WHATEVER possible to NOT pay for the same content. If the content is given away for free, I’m more than happy to donate to it to support the author.
As far as Advertising everywhere, I can’t stand it. Magazines that have more advertising than articles should be paying me for subscriptions, not the other way around. I’ve canceled my cable and download all my TV from sites such as Ninjavideo and Newsgroups all High Quality and Commercial Free. Ninjavideo I send constant donations to and I pay for my Newsgroups account. I’ve got a bandwidth cap of only 95GB’s, but I’d rather pay $25 overage charges to my ISP when I end up downloading a TB a month than pay my cable company $90 to watch Advertising on TV.
Like seriously… in a 1h TV show there’s 42-43m of show and 17m of commercials! That’s almost 30%!? – Ridiculous.
If you work out what others pay a month for Cable/Internet (About $150 for the equivalent speed and the same diversity of TV Shows) and I pay $82 and get all the same content commercial free. That leaves me with $68 surplus a month that I put into donations for sites that save me that money.
The average Click-Thru of a website is somewhere around 1% of all users click on advertising. The average click revenue runs between 2-3 cents per click. Which means if 1 out of every 10,000 people visit send the site author $2-$3 for their content, that works out to the same amount of money without ad revenue. Look at sites like Wikipedia who’s currently asking for donations and they’re getting millions! They’ve got a useful site that is worth paying a few bucks for. People are willing to help support the site that they visit every day for useful or relevant content.
I’d rather have 10 million good websites that accept donations then 10 trillion irrelevant crappy sites covered in ad’s with ad driven content instead of good content.
Billy · 2010-11-18 23:49 · #
“Jelbo · 2009-02-10 03:13 · #
“This whole service is pretty ridiculous. As someone that runs an ad supported web site, and indeed makes a living from my two person programming operation doing so, I hate your stupid plug in.
If you want sites to go downhill because they lose all their revenue, by all means, install Ad Block Plus.”
Does this sound like the best ad I have seen on a long time!
Long life to ABP!!!!