Hi Aemathenge,
That's a great thought provoking question! My view is that Adblock is a good thing from my perspective with that generally applying to advertisers and web users but not for the advertising platform...
From an advertiser point of view - you want to make sure that you achieve a ROI (return on investment) when placing ads. So for me I only want people who are likely to buy to click on the ads and not people clicking on them for the sake of curiosity... So filtering out a group of people who don't care about ads in my opinion can help protect my investment.... whether its PPC (pay per click) or per impressions - assuming the ad platform does not charge impressions when ad block is in place....
I know it sounds kind of counter-intuitive but if you are paying for each click, then it hurts your pocket when people click and don't convert with buying... For example I'm currently looking into Adwords, the niche is really competitive with average PPC across the board being around $8 dollars per click... With that I don't care about the number of clicks - my only concern is whether its sufficiently targeted to buyers with filtering out the noise that can lead to losses.... So for me adblock is a good thing... as it may help with achieving a better ROI.
For the ad platform - the adblock tool may indeed impact their overall income - as they are just looking to get income quickly and don't care if the advertiser is making an ROI... Although saying that if the advertiser doesn't make an ROI, then its obvious they wont be coming back and hence the ad platform does have a vested interest to help ensure ROIs are achieved....
In addition I also think we've all become blinded by the ads... We generally ignore the banners such as top and side placements - even when they are animated and flashing on your screen... So its removal with Adblock probably doesn't make much of a dint.... Perhaps in the long term it will should it be adopted by many more.... but lets say it was universally adopted, I'm sure the big advertising platforms would fight back and find ways around it...
For example if you use adblock to hide ads - you could fight back by blocking all content, hence forcing the user to switch it off - that is if they want to see the content... also make it mandatory with terms and conditions of using a website etc or that the coding used for ad placements is developed to bypass blockers is also highly possible... I really don't think the big ad platforms will take this lying down, such as G, FB, Bing etc as billions are at stake... So for sure they will fight back when this becomes a problem for concern....
So for me as a web surfer adblock is cool.... and as an advertiser I also think its a good thing..... and as far as the advertising platform - I really dont care about them....
I hope that helps! Look forward to seeing other peoples views on this one....
Cheers,
Sid
