Blocking and Tackling

Yet another piece on ad blocking. It even contributed this week's preamble entry. What the ad pushers, and ad buyers as well, don't want to admit: selling just views or eyes or impressions is just what newspapers and magazines have done for centuries. The web, it's zealots claimed, had a better way. But, where's the innovation? Ad pushers are just lazy. The tech to identify actual buyers of the adverted widgets exists. Yes, the number of eyes who look goes down, but all those (humble self included) who ignore ads are a waste of time and energy in the first place. Why do you bother? And do you really think your mumbling is so much more informative than Wikipedia? We don't need no widgets from your adverts. Long text ads in the the manner advocated by David Ogilvy are rather impossible:

In 1955, he coined the phrase, "The customer is not a moron, she's your wife" based on these values.

Of course, the innterTubes particularly on teeny phone screens, aren't a very good place for such adverts. Not to mention that all that ad cruff that turns a cable modem connection into a 1995 dialup experience. The tragedy of the commons, writ large.

"The temptation is to block these people who honestly aren't going to respond to ads anyway."
-- Ken Fisher, editor in chief ArsTechnica

As mentioned in an earlier missive: if the likes of Fisher have their way, the web will become the playground of just the 1% who have the moolah and inclination to buy silly widgets.