LOS ANGELES—When you visit a website, you often find yourself waiting and waiting for advertisements to load. Video starts playing automatically, and animated ads jump in front of what you were there to see. The seconds tick by.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
There are easy ways to block such annoyances, and Apple is now permitting apps that block ads in its Web browser for iPhones and iPads.
All this might help users navigate, but it also threatens the livelihood of websites and publishers that depend heavily on advertising revenue—companies like Google, Hulu, and The New York Times. While the rise in ad blocking isn’t causing panic yet, publishers and content creators are watching.
Already, some websites are taking steps to reduce the annoyance so users won’t turn to ad blockers. They are also subverting the ones out there to make sure they get paid for delivering news and entertainment.
“It is possible to be too alarmist about ad blockers, but it’s a very real phenomenon,” said Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University.
It’s one thing if just 5 percent of iPhone users install an ad blocker; it’s another if 80 percent do, Benton said. If today’s ad practices get too annoying, he said, they could disappear just like pop-up windows, which many browsers now block automatically in response to consumers’s annoyance with them.
Over the years, websites have been more aggressive at delivering ads that break through the noise and target specific customers more precisely. But websites are also filling unsold ad space by turning to ad brokers to deliver pitches that are less and less relevant.
Every little bit can slow down or freeze your browser.
“I think publishers got very out of hand in terms of what they put on,” said Dean Murphy, 28, a Yarm, England, app developer who responded by creating Crystal, a $1 ad blocker for Apple devices.
Craig Smith, a 47-year-old website developer in Musselburgh, Scotland, said Twitter started showing him ads for adjustable waistband trousers not long after he and his followers discussed how ridiculous his grandfather’s trousers looked in a photo.
“All of a sudden you’re getting hammered with stuff you’ve got no interest in,” he said. “It just makes the whole browsing experience really unpleasant.”
