I have a hard time empathizing with the ad companies in this case.
I'd rather pay money for many of these services, but I'm rarely given the option. In the meantime, my browsing is regularly interrupted by ads that I have to click through, ads I have to wait through, ads that pop up and block what I was trying to read, and ads that play noises I don't want to hear.
I think it is fast becoming time where ads as a source of revenue for a site is going away; it's time for people to find better ways to monitize the content they're publishing.
Maybe you'd be willing to empathize with me, then? :) The business I work for lives off ads, and is actually a good business and supplies a lot of fun to millions of people a day. And as far as paying customers, most of our userbase are kids, so that's not going to work very well.
Also we are a global site and get a good deal of traffic from overseas, so this French ISP is actually affecting our business (it's not going to get anyone laid off though).
Just something to think about -- the internet is working relatively smoothly as it is. Playing around with the basics like this will have more effect than you may realize.
If I speak as a consumer, then it's not very smooth when I want to read an article and can't, due to the in-line words which pop up intrusive ads when your mouse comes anywhere near them. I can't hardly watch a 30 second video without spending another 30 seconds to 2 and 1/2 minutes watching ads. It actively annoys me that Amazon has started serving ads on their homepage. I've ended up going to other retailers to purchase things on the principal.
As someone working (indirectly) for companies that make revenue off of ads, I've noticed that there's always that nagging fear in the back of their minds about Google cutting them off with no recourse. Of loosing customers when a new ad in the rotation pisses of parents due to the scantily clad nature of the characters in the ad. Of loosing customers due to poor performance of ads or conflicting javascript.
It is always very unfortunate when people get laid off. However, to have to lay people off just because someone doesn't download specific bytes from the internet signals a broken system to me.
I'd rather pay money for many of these services, but I'm rarely given the option. In the meantime, my browsing is regularly interrupted by ads that I have to click through, ads I have to wait through, ads that pop up and block what I was trying to read, and ads that play noises I don't want to hear.
I think it is fast becoming time where ads as a source of revenue for a site is going away; it's time for people to find better ways to monitize the content they're publishing.