I’ve been following an interesting thread this morning on something likely to add a little more fear to the newspaper industry fire: Firefox’s ad-blocking plug-in. It, apparently, blocks not only pop-ups, but any ads on sites the browser visits.
(The path: from Darren Barefoot to Mark Evans to Nicholas Carr. If you read only one, Carr’s is probably the best both in terms of the original post and the comment thread. But it’s worth reading them all.)
I don’t see an immediate cause for worry. The majority who use the web are analogous to the folks with 12:00 flashing on their VCRs. I don’t mean that disrespectfully: Most folks are using whatever browser that came with their OS and haven’t even dug into the preferences in terms of tricking it out to perform tricks like blocking ads.
But the long-term implications could be staggering for newspapers if ad blocking becomes an easily enabled option for web browsing. Some of the commenters at the sites above make the cogent argument that if that happens, companies that make their living selling goods and services to people will merely find newer, more interesting and more consumer-friendly ways to connect directly with their customers. Others foresee a rise in things like product placement.
All that’s fine, but not for newspapers, which draw their advertising dollars not from a company-customer relationship, but by acting as information intermediary between the company and customer. Build a structure that better serves company and consumer with a direct relationship, and the middle folk get cut out.
As I wrote, I don’t see this as an immediate or even near-future threat. Nor is it as big an issue as the current realities newspapers are struggling with: getting enough revenue from online advertising and other activities that will enable them to pay for the journalism.
If I were a publisher, though, I’d tuck this ad-blocking thing into the back of my mind and start paying serious attention to what’s happening in that space.
TAGS: NEWSPAPERS, ADVERTISING, BUSINESS, AD BLOCKING
