Adblockers: The Only Way Out
by Frederic Filloux
Taking the long view, the rise of adblockers solves many problems for the digital news industry. But for one problem: things will get worse before they get better.
In recent weeks, the intensifying adblockers debate offered another proof of Apple's influence on the digital ecosystem. When Tim Cook introduced content-blocking features in iOS9, and thus caused a flood of ad-blocking apps in the App Store, the topic became more mainstream than ever. Adblockers adoption rose to never-seen-before levels. (A reminder of the most recent data: PageFair says that between 8% and
16% of ads are blocked in the US, vs. 10% to 35% in Europe; SecretMedia says that 26% of video ads are blocked in the US vs. 33% to 62% in Europe; more in our previous stories on the subject.) PageFair figures vastly underestimate the problem. In a recent poll, The Information (paywall) found that 50% of respondents already used an adblocker, and that 52% intended to install one on their iPhone.The propagation to mobile will dramatically scale up adblockers use.
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