Judging by the feedback I get from this column, my readers are pretty evenly spread between those who consume it the old-fashioned way in print and those who read it online.
If you’re holding a physical copy right now, I’d like you to indulge me for a minute or two and engage in a thought experiment (online readers keep reading. I’ll get to you shortly).
Imagine that as you turn to this back page of the excellent SM Magazine – you’ve saved your favourite part for last, I’m sure! – someone walks over and thrusts a piece of paper containing a bright, flashy advert in front of your face.
It’s big enough to almost completely block your view of the page. You try moving your head or the newspaper to see past the ad, but it moves with you. Eventually, after a few seconds that seem like an eternity, you’re able to push it to the side and start reading the column.
You’ve only got a few paragraphs in, about this far, when loud music starts playing followed by a voice-over. You look up. It’s the guy with the ad, but this time he’s taken the sales pitch to a whole new level of annoying. When he puts on a pair of hand puppets you give up, drop the paper and walk out of the room.
This pretty much describes the experience of trying to read articles on some websites with their pop-up ads and auto-play videos.
If you’re currently reading this column online you won’t have experienced anything nearly as infuriating – I hope! – because IOL.co.za adopts a fairly light touch when it comes to advertising on its web pages.
But many sites have become almost unreadable and it’s given birth to a whole new industry.
Adblockers, as the name suggests, are programmes that work with your web browser to filter out content like adverts and videos.
Until now these content blockers have been the preserve of a relatively small, tech-savvy minority of internet users. But that’s starting to change, thanks to Apple and its recent release of iOS9.
This latest version of its mobile operating system now allows content blockers to work, giving millions of users of iPhones and iPads easy access to this technology for the first time.
The response has been nothing short of astonishing, with adblockers like Peace, Crystal and Purify soaring to the top of the App Store best-selling app lists in several countries.
Adblocking looks to be moving from the fringes into the mainstream and it’s a prospect that’s giving online publishers sleepless nights, so much so that they’ve given it it a name – the Adblockalypse.
It’s not hard to see why they’re afraid. Most website publishers make their living from selling ads on their sites. Block the ads and their income dries up.
According to Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, advertising stimulates competition and ad blocking “disrupts this engine of competition”.
“I wish I were crying wolf, but I’m not. Some websites, particularly those with millennial audiences, are already losing up to 40 percent of their ad revenue because of ad blocking,” he writes in Advertising Age website.
Cynics will say Web publishers have brought this misfortune upon themselves by allowing increasingly intrusive adverts onto their sites. But the problem with adblockers is that they’re a blunt tool and also filter out ads from sites that use them responsibly and sparingly.
I’ve experimented with several ad blockers and I can see their appeal.
Web pages load noticeably faster, particularly on a mobile device. But if everyone starts using them, we’d better start weaning ourselves off our habit of consuming virtually unlimited free content online.
Several sites are already blocking the blockers, barring entry to anyone using content blocking software. Others are fast-tracking plans to erect paywalls.
All that “free” content doesn’t magically materialise out of thin air. Writers have to be compensated, rents have to paid.
Until now it’s been advertising income that’s largely paid for it. With the rise of adblockers all that is at risk.
I’m not sure what the solution is. Until wiser heads (hopefully) come up with one, I’ll continue to use a content blocker, but sparingly.
I turn it off for websites that I want to support and who use ads in a restrained manner that’s respectful to the reader and switch it back on for those (increasingly rare) times I visit spammy sites.
Unfortunately, this is a bit of schlep and I suspect most people who use adblockers don’t bother and leave theirs running permanently.
Welcome to the Adblockalypse.
Follow Alan Cooper on Twitter @alanqcooper.