But what I found surprising was what Gooogle has been doing.
Google was setting up to block video ads starting in January of 2018, but while reading this, I saw a fascinating bit that was just a side note that made mention of search engines paying ad blocker companies to be on a white list of allowable ads:
"One of our primary areas of concern was the possibility that Google would implement an “Acceptable Ads” list that websites can pay to be a part of. Google, along with other media giants like Amazon and Microsoft, reportedly pays Adblock Plus to white list its services. One unnamed company told the Financial Times in 2015 that the fee was “equivalent to 30 percent of the additional ad revenues that it would make from being unblocked.” Google is implementing a similar program called Funding Choices that allows approved websites to show users a popup when they visit the site. With this service, a user can be offered the option to pay a fee for an ad-free experience through the Google Contributor program. This option is simultaneously exciting and deeply troubling."
And after all this, we thought that using browser add-ons that block ads and scripts, that we were actually getting ads blocked!
Let's be clear about a few things.
Ads do help websites stay solvent. If they did not make money via whatever channels they've set up, some of your favorite medium to small sites will fizzle out of existence. But big, annoying ads do tend to drive people away too.
I try to keep my ads here to single text lines where you have the option to click on them if you want and a square or two on the right with some options for you, but I don't force this crap on my visitors. I hate it and I won't do it to others.
But I was actually surprised to see that ad blockers are getting paid to let some ads through. But to be fair, this white list of ads is for less aggressive ads.
Since Financial Times has a pay wall that is keeping me from seeing, thus, referencing their content, here's The Verge's info on this ad blocking white list.
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That's another thing. If I run across a site that locks itself down when it detects an adblocker, I tend to not go back to that site. I also have been finding myself lately getting inundated with video ads in videos on Facebook. Grr. I sort of fixed that by just shutting down the tab my FB feed is in if a video ad starts. My reasoning is that FB is going to screw up my feed sooner or later any way, so why not beat them to it then get rid of those annoying ads that were interrupting my video entertainment.
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