Introduction

Ad blocking, one of the fastest-growing phenomena in internet usage [1], is a type of software that removes or alters advertising content on a web page, most commonly in the form of browser extensions. It allows users to disable the ad blocker on websites by whitelisting them, which is a list of sites where ads are allowed to run. Ad blocking has existed for the past 15 years, initially gaining popularity on Firefox and later becoming more prevalent on other systems and browsers such as Google's Chrome and Kali Linux.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Publishers and ad-dependent websites have attempted to fight back against the growing adoption of ad-blockers. In response, they've employed various methods, from introducing paywalls and limiting content access to fully blocking users of ad blockers.

Ad-blocking is experiencing a popularity explosion, posing a challenging, universal issue across the global publishing industry. While ad-blocking is most common among video game and technology sites (30-50 percent) [2], the use of ad blockers on other sites, such as business news, entertainment, and sports news, is also on the rise, according to PageFair [3].

The challenges posed by ad blockers for publishers are quite concerning. However, it is easy to understand why people frequently resort to ad blockers, as they offer improvements in performance and speed, enhanced privacy and security, and a distraction-free browsing experience. It's crucial to comprehend these reasons so that solutions can be developed to address the rise in ad blocker usage. This increase has already had a significant impact on many websites and is likely to influence the future of internet advertising. Both the methods used to combat ad blockers and the necessary changes in revenue models will be affected by this new challenge. Given that advertising is a central part of international economies, the increasing use of ad blockers could have far-reaching effects on our society as a whole.

What is Ad Blocking

Ad blocking, in this context, is a term not limited to a specific platform or device; it is a general term for software designed solely to remove advertisements from websites or web applications. Many modern web browsers, such as Google's Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, automatically block pop-up adverts by default. The use of browser extension ad blockers to prevent ads from loading is also common. It has been estimated that 9% of all website views come from browsers with ad-blocking extensions installed [4], and for some publishers, 40% or more of their visitors are using ad blockers [3].

Several ad blockers are available, with the most popular being Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus itself has no functionality, meaning it does not block anything until instructed to do so. However, the ad blocker comes bundled with pre-selected lists of what to block, known as filter lists. Filter lists are extensive sets of rules that instruct Adblock Plus on which parts of a website to block. Users can also add any filter lists they want, such as those for blocking tracking or malware. Almost all filters are open source, and many are created and maintained by a large online community of users [5].

Ad blocking as a whole has experienced a 41% growth from 2014 to the end of 2015, showcasing its significant increase in popularity [3]. In the US alone, it grew by 48% over a 12-month period from June 2014 to June 2015, reaching 45 million active users in the U.S. as of January 2016 for both mobile and desktop users [3].

Benefits to the User

Ad blockers offer several useful benefits to the user. They block or hide offensive material and other unpleasant elements, and they can also prevent malicious code from running. While ads on the web can be irritating and intrusive, some users choose not to block every ad as they understand that websites rely on advertising to generate income, enabling them to provide free content.

However, even for users who prefer not to block ads, installing an ad blocker can be worthwhile. It allows web pages to load more quickly, providing cleaner-looking pages that are easier to read, especially for those with reading disabilities. Ad-free web pages consume fewer resources, leading to extended battery life on mobile phones and substantial energy savings. Filtering ads before they load also has financial benefits for users who pay for total transferred bandwidth, like many mobile users worldwide. Additionally, ad blockers enhance security, as online advertising poses a higher risk of infecting devices compared to surfing pornographic sites [6]. These benefits are discussed in further detail below.

Performance Issues

Using an ad blocker significantly impacts loading speeds [7]. However, improved loading comes with some side effects, such as memory or RAM consumption [5]. According to Mozilla Firefox engineer Nicholas Nethercutt, running Adblock Plus in the background on Firefox 40 results in an increase in RAM usage ranging from 80-100MB. The primary issue arises from the process by which Adblock Plus blocks ads [8]. Adblock Plus inserts a substantial CSS stylesheet, consuming approximately 4MB of RAM, into every web page visited. This stylesheet removes ads and overrides existing stylesheets.

In the modern era of the web, known as web 2.0, it is common for a web page to have multiple iframes and various website elements loading through API calls. These iframes represent separate web pages loaded and embedded within the page the user is viewing. An example is the feature-loaded social sharing widgets on platforms like Facebook.

When you add a widget to your site, it consists of an iframe containing a separate web page hosted on Facebook's servers. As web pages become more complex, having an ad blocker that consumes 4MB of RAM per tab may not be sustainable.

In Nethercote’s testing, TechCrunch served as an example. The site utilized around 194MB of RAM without Adblock Plus (ABP) enabled, but that figure doubled to 417MB with ABP enabled, particularly after triggering all the social widgets and plugins.

Intrigued by these results, I replicated the experiment using the Los Angeles Times website. Employing Google’s PageInsider development tools, I measured the machine's resources when loading the Los Angeles Times website with and without Adblock Plus [9]. The impact on RAM use in Chrome was comparable to Nethercote’s findings, yielding very similar results.

Despite the unfortunate effect ad blocking has on RAM, the reduction in loading ads (pre-rendering the page and injecting the CSS) leads to a significant performance improvement, particularly in loading time. The test results below showcase the homepage of the popular website, The Los Angeles Times [10].

Speed

Download speed and rendering of websites and content are critical issues for users, with the average load time expected to be under 5 seconds. It would make sense for developers to be committed to increasing loading speed and reducing rendering time; however, that does not seem to be the case. I conducted informal research on developers' attitudes toward ad loading to confirm my suspicions. In my poll, I asked developers whether they optimize the loading of ads on their web pages, using tools such as asynchronous loading [11].

In computer programs, asynchronous operation means that a process operates independently of other processes [12]. According to my results, the majority of web developers do not prioritize this, making it easy to understand why users would opt for ad blockers. Developers often do not consider the time taken for loading ads in their apps or websites.

Security

Third-party advertisements can pose a serious threat to computer security. For example, in a high-profile case, malware was distributed through advertisements provided to YouTube by a malicious customer using Google's Doubleclick network [13]. In August 2015, a 0-day exploit in Firefox browsers was discovered in an advertisement running on a website [14]. The website Forbes requires users to disable ad blocking before viewing their website. However, in one incident, some of the website’s users were served with pop-under malware once they had disabled their ad blockers [15]. These examples demonstrate that ad blockers not only make surfing the internet more comfortable for the user but also safer.

Privacy

Users employ ad blockers because some advertisements abuse privacy by adding features in the website's code to track users online. This can be easily exploited to gain access to users’ cookies, which may contain sensitive information. Advertising platforms take advantage of tracking user behavior based on the sites they visit. Ad blockers are popular among users who do not want their browsing history sold to advertisers and advertising networks, making Adblock Plus particularly popular among users who prioritize privacy.

Problems Posed by Ad Blockers

The economic consequences of ad blocking for online businesses were reported by Adobe/PageFair, estimating the cost to publishers in 2016 alone could be as much as €22 billion [3]. If an ad is running on a website but is snubbed by the user because their ad-blocker is hiding it, this ad provides no value to the website owner. Advertisers perceive little value in putting brands in front of users who ignore advertisements. As a result, sites are rarely paid “per click” anymore, with the standard metric for selling web display ads being “CPM” or “cost per mille” – the cost for a thousand views [16].

The majority of websites on the internet would not exist without advertising. Websites, from personal WordPress sites to online magazines like Wired, depend on advertising revenues to keep running. Apple endorsing ad blockers, allowing people to produce ad-blocking technology for their app store [17], is significant news. With Apple's user base of 1.2 billion [18], this will introduce ad blocking to a whole new set of users on a larger scale.

According to data from Adobe and PageFair, the adoption of desktop ad blockers has risen from approximately 21 million users in 2010 to more than 181 million users in January 2016 [19]. The report states that the growth of ad-blocking will cost advertisers more than $40 billion by 2016 [24], although other reports have given much lower estimations.

It is inevitable that the rise of ad blockers will affect advertisers. Some advertisers may notice a huge impact on the performance of their price per click campaigns, while others won’t notice any change at all. This development can be compared to Google’s algorithm updates [7], during which some sites get badly affected by changes in the ordering and display of search results.

Text-based and price per click ads used by advertising networks such as Google AdWords are universally affected by ad blockers. An increase in ad blocker usage would negatively impact many advertising campaigns. For example, if a website owner is running a price per click campaign targeting mobile users on devices such as Apple’s, and they have an ad blocker installed, the users won’t see your ads.

On the other hand, it is important to note that the majority of people browsing the web don't have any ad blocker installed at all. Just because the option is there and growing in popularity does not mean that all users are going to completely alter their behavior and install ad blockers.

In an official blog post on September 30th, 2015, Google (Alphabet) announced they will no longer charge advertisers for impressions that are not viewable to users [20] [21]. If an ad isn't seen by the user, whether in another tab, out of view on the screen, or if the ad is being blocked by an ad blocker, the advertiser won’t be charged. This move is likely a reaction to concerns about the adoption of ad blockers in both iOS and browser extensions, as the problems stated in the blog post have been an issue for advertisers for some time.

There are still many potential problems caused by ad blockers. Reports suggest that they will force sites to stop providing free content or decrease the quality of content while increasing the quantity, as seen in clickbait articles. This means that not only will users have access to incomplete information, as in the case of paywalls, but because the sites can no longer track users, this will also result in a loss of revenue and the inability to understand the customer because of their anonymity. These issues stem from ad blockers because publishers are being forced to try other means to increase revenue, such as paywalls and by publishing more low-quantity articles.

Possible Solutions and the Future of Advertising

When Apple announced last September that it would allow ad blocking in Safari for iOS 9.3, it brought a conflict that had been building in the web community. Many of the possible solutions included:

The Freemium Model (Paywall)

Freemium model pricing strategy is in which a product or service, such as games or web services, is free of charge, but money is charged for proprietary features, functionality, and extra content.

Subscription Model

The subscription model is where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model is now used by many businesses, websites, and magazines.

Go Native

Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed [22]. Native ads look a lot like that of the content produced by web publishers, but they usually carry some kind of design or banner feature to distinguish it from non-sponsored content, normally at the end of the article. Mobile video is proving so popular as an ad format because it is engaging if done correctly. Mobile video will account for 87% of global advertising spend by 2018, according to ZenithOptimedia [23].

Pay the Ad Blockers

Where the publisher pays the ad blocker companies, such as Adblock Plus, to not run the ad blocker on their website.

Ask Audiences for Sympathy

This method involves asking the visitor, using a popup, if they will consider whitelisting the site they’re visiting or disabling ad blockers on it and describing how the use of ad blockers can negatively affect them. For example, on the New York Times website [23], users with ad blockers enabled are shown the following message: “The best things in life aren’t free. You currently have an ad blocker installed. Advertising helps fund our journalism. To continue to enjoy The New York Times, please support us in one of the following ways.”

Wired.com, which will not let users view their website if they are using an ad blocker of some kind, offers the following alternative:

“You can simply add WIRED.com to your ad blocker’s whitelist so you can view ads. When you do, we will keep the ads as ‘polite’ as we can, and you will only see standard display advertising.”

They also offer the user the opportunity to subscribe to a brand-new Ad-Free version of WIRED.com. For $1 a week, they can get complete access to their content, with no display advertising or ad tracking.

Block Content from People Who Use Ad Blockers

Blocking content from people who use ad blockers is becoming more and more popular; this involves removing content or links from the user and displaying an ad about it. For example, Forbes.com is one of many sites that does not allow access to the site without disabling the extension or whitelisting the website, but not everyone is convinced by this method. Johnny Ryan of PageFair believes ad-blocking walls are relatively easy to bypass [24], and he is right. "Often publishers only update their code, forcing the ad-blocking community to get working again. It is a coding tug of war," he stated.

Offer Ads Free Versions

Offer Ads Free Versions allow the user to support the website or web application. It removes adverts while supporting the services.

Designated Apps

Another approach to the war on ad blockers is exemplified by former Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, who launched a browser called Brave [25]. This browser replaces ads on websites with safe, non-tracking ones that do not take users’ data or slow downloading speeds. Brendan Eich stated that the company plans to pay publishers a higher proportion of ad revenues generated by not going through a third-party middleman.

Privacy app Ghostery shows users which ad-serving technologies a website or web app is using and offers the option to blacklist (block) or whitelist those ad-serving technologies. This is significant because it offers the user the choice of seeing the ads rather than hiding them automatically, as many ad blockers do.

Redesigning Ads

As the methods of fighting ad blockers are not particularly successful, it would be better to change the adverts themselves so that they are less irritating and harmful to users. It would be possible to improve the use of ad blockers by optimizing the delivery of ads on websites using an asynchronous tag, as stated earlier in this report, or by integrating them into the site in such a way that it is not annoying to the user.

As stated by Google’s former senior vice president of advertising, Susan Wojcicki [26], the future of ads depends on whether advertisers choose to follow the suggestions, which would encourage users not to rely on ad blockers. She stated that ad views will be voluntary; users will participate in the ecosystem if we provide enough value and control. Ads will be more interactive and beautiful at scale, and ads will help people live their lives on the go. For example, PageFair, among other sites, has been employing more user-friendly methods of circumventing ad blockers. They enable publishers to display "respectful and unobtrusive ads" that do not get blocked by ad blockers.

Similar to what Susan Wojcicki said in 2013, an online organization called acceptableads.org [27] formed in late 2015 with the manifesto of following on from Wojcicki's idea because major sites and the organization understand that advertising is the backbone that drives the Internet and gives us web content for free. As click rates on adverts continue to decline, many online advertisements/publishers have become obnoxious and annoying in an effort to be heard. Many popular websites have signed the manifesto, such as Reddit, DuckDuckGo, and Google.

Some websites have adopted these futuristic, interactive ad formats, with a great deal of success, such as with engagement ads, which show standard ad formats; when users hover their mouse over the ad, more features come up. This gives users an opportunity to be more creative and involved in the advertising process, making them more popular.

This method has been used very effectively by companies such as Samsung, who live-streamed their 90-minute Galaxy S4 launch event via multiple channels, including ads [28]. Susan Wojcicki also advocates advertising where the user is choosing to view an ad, so that publishers are paid on a cost-per-click basis. It’s up to the ad network and the publisher/developer to show the right ad at the right time to the user.

TrueView ads on YouTube follow this model. About 70% of ads on YouTube are now classified as TrueView, which has led to a reduction of 40% in the drop-off of ad viewing. One ad on YouTube got 33 million views, an ad by Pepsi featuring NASCAR car driver Jeff Gordon, going undercover to buy a car. It got 33 million views even though it was four minutes long because it was entertaining and relevant [29].

According to common guidelines, a good advert on a website should not be annoying and should not disrupt or distort the page content the user is trying to read. It should also be transparent with the user about being an ad; it must be effective without shouting at the user and it must be appropriate to the site that the user is on.

Unfortunately, many websites do not follow these rules, and with the ever-changing landscape of the internet, it remains impossible to predict what exactly ads should be in the future.

Conclusion

While it is difficult to determine what exactly the future of advertising on the internet should be, all the evidence discussed in this report indicates that steps must be taken to make web advertising less invasive and more user-friendly if the internet economy is to survive.

In the ever-changing landscape of web advertising and the ad-blocking world, it is up to both the developers and the advertisers to better understand their target audience and to improve their engagement with the user, thus making them more likely to click on the ad than to be annoyed. Ideally, advertisers should follow the guidelines suggested by Susan Wojcicki. However, different sites host different content and therefore should employ different methods, be that a request for whitelisting, a paywall, or native apps.

At the end of the day, it is impossible to prevent people from using ad blockers; therefore, publishers and advertisers must make it worth the user’s while to surf the web without this software, by creating entertaining, non-invasive adverts tailored to their needs and interests and follow the manifests and guidelines set out by recognized organizations like acceptableads.org.

On the other hand, users need to be aware that they cannot expect free content if they do not also accept a certain amount of advertising. Therefore, the future of web advertising hinges on the willingness of both sides to compromise. Fortunately, users can whitelist websites and ad networks that follow the acceptable ads manifest and want to support. This means that users can use ad blockers selectively to tip the balance in favor of ads that truly inform them and send a message to the publishers.

In our modern world, the internet economy has become such a fundamental part of our society that the world economy has come to depend on it. The internet economy is mostly dependent on advertising for revenue; therefore, the uptick in the usage of ad blockers poses a considerable threat to that system. If users continue to avoid advertising, the foundation of the web economy will be shaken, which could lead to a global economic crisis bigger than anything ever seen before. With that in mind, it is vital that we change advertising to make it appeal to users so that the web economy may continue to grow and flourish.

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