This past weekend, Ars Technica – a long running and generally well-respected tech news aggregator/commentary site published an article titled “Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love“.
This article, which came in the wake of an experiment by Ars, blocking content from those who run ad blocking software, essentially said “If you’re blocking our ads, whitelist us, subscribe, or don’t come here”.
The anti-user stance continued in the comments, which at this time number more than 1700. Some users did in fact whitelist Ars. Some attempted to explain why they block ads, and were summarily dismissed by Ars staff, regardless of their reasons.
Techdirt posted a rebuttal Monday, entitled “Don’t Blame Your Community. Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites“. Their take is that if your community is blocking your ads, and you can’t handle it, find another business model that isn’t based on annoying your users.
I generally have to take Techdirt’s side on this one.
Ars isn’t unique in its news offerings. There are plenty of sites out there more that cover the same topics. If Ars disappeared tomorrow, the news would still be covered, and opinions would still be shared.
Ars needs to find another way, if they want to succeed. Blocking users who value their privacy and security, and aren’t willing to sell out for Ars’ benefit is going to cost them dearly. Without users, after all, there’s noone to sell out to advertisers (and that’s essentially what ad-supported sites do, after all). Being confrontational with their users isn’t going to get them anywhere. They need to listen to the concerns of their users and address them – with more than just a snide dismissal.