Before the digital revolution, it would have been prohibitively expensive to sell 2 or more versions of a magazine or newspaper. Now it is far easier and cheaper to create variations taylored to every individual’s personal tastes, as anyone with a Twitter or Facebook account knows. I’m not suggesting that every online magazine or newpaper become endlessly customisable, but I do think readers should be offered ad-free options.
Ad-blocking plugins, available for all major browsers, create plenty of examples of how pleasant websites can look like without ads. Readability and Instapaper, take it a step further by allowing consumers to view articles in ad-free, easy to read formats. These plugins and services give tech-savvy readers what I suspect most people have wanted since the dawn of advertising: no ads. Unfortunately, ad revenue keeps many digital publications in business.
The time is ripe for online media outlets to offer ad-free experiences for those willing and able to pay for them. Instead, we are seeing major publications, like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, requiring paid subscriptions and still serving ads. I find this mildly insulting.
Double dipping
Marco Arment articulated this problem well in his post Double-Dipping, where he complained about digital magazines available through Apple’s Newsstand.
Consumers have tolerated double-dipping — products that cost customers money and have ads — for over a century. It doesn’t feel as offensive in contexts that have always had it, such as printed newspapers and magazines, or cable TV.
In response to criticism, he posted two more follow-up articles.
I think the reason it feels more offensive to get ads shoved in our digital content is because we are frequently offered at least 2 ways to pay for other types of digital media–either with money or with attention, but not with both. These models provide consumers with more respect than publications that continue to “double-dip”.
More attractive models
Examples of more respectful revenue models include some of Amazon’s Kindles, Apple’s iPhone apps, and many network Television shows.
All of Amazon’s e-ink products are offered at 2 price-points. The lower priced version includes advertisements on the home screen (renamed “special offers”). You can pay $30 – $40 more and get an ad-free version. Likewise, iPhone applications sometimes have a “free” ad-supported version available alongside a paid version with no ads.
Great shows like Fringe are available on television or over the internet for “free” if you watch the ads delivered with the show. As with many other shows, you can also purchase episodes ad-free from Amazon or Apple at $2.99 per episode or $3.99 for high definition. These seem like reasonable prices to pay for 17+ minutes of life (per episode) that won’t be wasted watching ads.
Another decent option is to show subtle, well-crafted advertisements. Ads tacked onto the front of videos on major news sites do not qualify, nor do interstitials or blinking banners telling visitors about record low mortgage rates. All of these significantly degrade the user experience.
Examples of well-crafted, subtle ads can be found on John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, and many of the other sites showing ads from The Deck. John also makes plenty of money off of ads in his RSS feed, but even this is respectful. There is a separate post every week in the feed featuring a sponsor. He does not stick a tacky flashing banner at the bottom of every post in the feed. This kind of attention to user experience is nearly as good as ad-free, in my opinion.
Why pay for an ad-free experience?
Paying for an ad-free show, newspaper, or magazine establishes that you, the viewer, are the customer. Read or watch with ads and you are paying with your attention, which is then turned into an aggregate product, with the attention of many others, and sold to advertisers.
I would rather be a customer than a product, but too often, I don’t have a say in the matter.
Many publications could not survive without advertising and I’m not suggesting that a pure subscription model is the answer. I am saying that customers should have the option to buy their way out.
Reducing “theft”
When music first became available online, people started stealing it through illegal downloads. Today that still happens, but it is far less prevalent because a legal marketplace for digital music exists. A similar transition is taking place as traditional media tries to replicate the revenue stream it enjoyed before the industry was upended by the Internet. While people aren’t technically stealing when they install plugins like Adblock Plus, they are no longer paying with their attention. Many more may do so as ads become more intrusive. I believe that fewer people will “steal” content by installing ad-blockers if they can pay for an ad-free option.
Customers are becoming more aware of things like revenue models. We know digital products are available that do not force unwanted ideas into our consciousness. Why not give us the option to pay for great content without enduring the irritation of advertising?