If someone had awakened from a 20 year nap and listened to the debate on the Ethics of Ad Blocking, they might decide to go back to sleep. The ethical implications of this issue are overwhelming, and are a harbinger of online debates to come. And at the forefront is Facebook!
If you use the internet, you are all too aware of advertising pop-up displays. They are generally obnoxious. To call the pop-up ads disturbing to the reading of content is a major understatement. About 200 million of us use Ad Blocking software on our computers and a whopping 420 use Ad Blocking on our hand-held devices. We hate them and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ethics of ad blocking.
However, if you are a Facebook user you are about to jump into an ethical quagmire. Chances are you use Facebook; after all 1.7 billion of us do. You want the “Facebook experience.” Part of that experience is unfettered access to content. You want to respond to that video of the cat wearing a tutu or argue with one of your 817 friends that alien life really does exist in Norway. In the middle of such serious business, you don’t want to see an ad for Metamucil.
Who Pays the Bill?
We love the idea of free stuff. Had Mark Zuckerberg initially found a way to charge for his brainchild, chances are there would have been far less than 1.7 billion users. As the concept caught fire, exploded, then exponentially exploded, the Facebook team realized it needed a huge cash infusion. They started to sell – and encourage advertising. As the ads expanded, and the company went public, there were clever software companies who perfected ad blocking software. At the core now is Facebook’s determination of ad blocking and for me its the ethics of ad blocking.
There is now a raging cyber battle between Facebook users who want a site without ads, the ad blocking software companies and Facebook itself who is instituting an anti-blocking, blocking, software, software (got that?) that will override the ad blocking software already in place.
To throw in just a couple more numbers, in 2015 Facebook had ad revenues of $18 billion with about $3.7 billion in profits. There are many advertisers willing to take the chance to reach you.
Facebook’s staff has grown in response to its user base. In 2015, about 12,700 people were employed in full-time positions. Someone has to pay their salaries and benefits. While many of those employees are socially responsible, none of them has taken a vow of poverty. Then there are all of the expenses, infrastructure, marketing and advertising and on and on. Meanwhile, Facebook users like “free.” We have free internet, and most of us expect free content and free access to our friends.
So who pays?
The many advertisers around the world want you to pay. They don’t want you to block their advertising. They have an ethical point. So do online newspapers and magazines and thousands of other sites. Yet, the ethics of ad blocking also will note that traditional advertisers can refuse ads if they feel that they don’t fit within the publications ethos.
It is well within the realm of protest to want to march away in a huff.
“Well, if they block my ad blocker, I’ll stop using Facebook.”
Facebook knows that for the most part, that won’t happen. In fact, I cannot envision less than 1 percent leaving the site. If you want to play (and most will), someone has to pay. The ad blocking software companies won’t like it, but why should Facebook remotely care? The demographics of the users are in Facebook’s favor the ethics of ad blocking be damned.
The alternative is that Facebook could charge its users. Would you pay $1.99 a month? Higher? Lower? Probably not. It’s time for us to pay up.
For the most part, the internet has passed its adolescence; the “child” has grown up. Someone has to pay its tuition and expenses. Far better the advertisers than you.
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