Adblocking: So be it!

Blocking ads on the Internet has become a digital trend in the last few years, worrying many publishers and advertising companies.

During 2015, the use of adblocking in mobile phones grew up to 90%. It is estimated that there are at least 419 million users using tools to block ads on their mobile devices.

I believe adblocking is really good for the industry, and I say this for three reasons:

1) As popularity increases the business relationship between the publicistaand the user will become more explicit. Why do I say this? Because users sometimes get annoyed reading ads and forget that the content they read for free is thanks to advertising. If everyone used adblockers, quickly, they will realize that no publisher will display their content for free. This has already started happening. Some adblockers allow publishers to hide its contents to the people who block their ads, but give the user the option of a) re-accept advertising to read the content or b) subscribe to Publisher paying a few dollars a month. This will work best when many people use adblockers. If only a few people use it, publishers will not be affected and certainly not change their business model, allowing some free -riders read its contents for free and without seeing advertising.

2) In another blog i wrote about the paradox of digital advertising, which is: more digital content consumed, more advertising inventory; reducing CPM because the supply is greater than demand for that inventory. With adblockers inventory could be reduced and become more valuable, because only users who want to receive publicity would be getting it. In theory, users will be willing to see advertising on sites that they actually want to read. This can create differentiation between publishers and increase their quality. Hopefully we can stop reading the “10 most popular positions of Kamasutra” or “5 different ways to eat an egg.

3) It is true that many companies are abusing users with invasive advertising and illegally tracking personal information. Adblockers are improving this user experience.

Finally, companies like Google, RedMas and Adsmóvil which are basically advertising intermediaries between the publisher and the advertiser, adblockers will not affect them. They will have fewer inventories to sell, but today inventory is more than enough; Premium inventory is what is missing. If one day there is really a shortage of inventory, prices would rise and I think these intermediaries would do the same volume of business selling less inventory at a higher price.

Like many other measures, that sometimes have a counterintuitive effect, adblocking can be very good for publishers and the digital advertising industry.