Block shock

摘要

In advertising, an old adage holds, half the money spent is wasted; the problem is that no one knows which half. This should be less of a problem in online advertising, since readers' tastes and habits can be tracked, and ads tailored accordingly. But consumers are increasingly using software that blocks advertising on the websites they visit. If current trends continue, the saying in the industry may well become that half the ads aimed at consumers never reach their screens. This puts at risk online publishing's dominant business model, in which consumers get content and services free in return for granting advertisers access to their eyeballs. By some estimates, more than 200m people worldwide are now regular users of ad-blocking programs (see chart). Eyeo, the maker of Adblock Plus, the most widely used such software, says it has been downloaded more than 400m times. Until fairly recently, ads were mostly being blocked on desktop and laptop computers but now people are installing the software on their mobile devices, which are expected to account for a growing share of their time online.