Try this.
Next time you are in a conversation with a friend, go silent for 8 seconds.
Count the time in your head... a good slow 8 seconds.
Don't react to anything.
Watch your friend's face... thank you, Sheryl Sandberg, for the experiment...
You have just experienced the time lag that often occurs as your desired content, mobile or otherwise tries to load on your device due to the multitude of competing programmatic buying systems vying against each other for that small but valued real estate in your hand, and of course added to the wait of said download when one of them wins the bid duel and honors you with its "targeted" ad that you are clearly waiting for.
The New York Times documented the wait across a number of different publishers and sites and such and it's instructive to study it.
So the question is clear -- will ad blocking or content blocking kill the future of advertising?
Is Utopia a world without any ads?
A universe of pure, brilliant content that we discover in video, picture and word?
A cosmos of free shows, articles and such???
FREE? And herein lies the crux of the issue.
Someone has to pay for your favorite shows; something has to pay for your use of Snapchat.
FREE is not a sustainable model.
The real issue is that with all of our talk of pinpoint targeting, with all of the: "I know everything about you," rhetoric, with all of our supposed personalization, customization and individualization, there is a plague of irrelevant and undifferentiated ads infecting our lives, infesting our devices, a pestilence of click-baiting... you get the picture.
And therein lies the issue -- every medium has had its share of "Free Sex; Enhancement Pills, Miracle Hair Growth, Instant Wealth" advertisements... but, ironically, we could ignore them by leaving the room... changing the channel... turning the page.
Now I can't get what I want... now I'm forced to wait those miserable 8 seconds...now I get really pissed off as irrelevant and often offensive advertising gunks up my immediate needs.
As of now ads in apps are not blocked... some video can't be blocked -- but I have no doubt that where there is a will...
People like advertising. In fact, they look forward to good advertising. It entertains. It informs. It educates.
It also helps pay for the stuff they like.
Some say that blocking is stealing... unethical...
Who knows -- I just know that a future of watching cat videos is dismal...
Bottom line -- it's an issue -- just not sure we are framing it correctly.
Read up on it...
See my good friend and teacher Shelly Palmer's blog on the subject...
Learn and speak up -- ask questions.
Save me from the cats...
Listen:
"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." -- Warren Buffett
In other words, Free will deliver concurrent value.
Yet if we pay, the value needs to be even greater...
And yes -- at some point even the cats will cost...
What do you think?