“If you can block their ads, they can block content on their website from you.” This is the notion that most Indian digital media outlets will be following in the near future, with a few prominent ones who have already started doing so.
A recent report by FactorDaily has brought to light that digital media outlets in the country will soon be ‘blocking’ people who block their ads, from reading content on their website.
Some Indian media houses have already started blocking individuals who use ad-blockers to shield ads on their website.
While Forbes was the one of the first globally recognised websites to start it, there have been many other foreign websites who have applied the same method.
Now approximately ten media outlets in India are in line to follow the footsteps of the American business magazine.
The report precisely pointed out that two prominent media outlets have already started it since yesterday. The same had been confirmed to FactorDaily by internal staff from those two media houses. The unnamed sources further went on to say that other major websites will be adapting the same methodology soon.
This could significantly impact 122 million (second highest after China) news readers in India who have enabled ad-blocker, according to a PageFair, which is an anti-ad blocking solution provider.
The reason media outlets are aggressively pushing users to abolish ad-blocking software is due to the significant loss in revenue they have to encounter.
With a considerably growing online presence among Indian publishers, page views and ads make up account for most of the profit but with the advent of ad-blockers, they have been deeply affected financially.
However, in a country like India, Internet speed and data are major pain points, and therefore, most users employ ad-blockers as an apt solution. In fact, users also find ads annoying; another reason they tend to block them. Other than that, an ad-free website looks better, loads faster, and maintains optimum security.
For the large number of digital media advertisers in the country and worldwide, ad-blockers are vexatious but the move to ‘block the blocker’ just might be a good ploy by online media publishers to get things back on track.
