[dan_m2k]

Larger question, not just confined to the world of iOS ad blocking; as the creator of ad-blocking code, are you at all concerned that you're hurting the only revenue stream for sites that rely on ad revenue to pay the bills?

We're not just talking the big boys here, a bunch of indie content producers publish online and I don't begrudge them a few ad dollars for producing content that's worth reading, or is it that we're making the call that content should be free or is inherently value-less?

[tomkinstinch]

It's definitely a concern, especially since I run a side project for STEM education that has ads[1]. My site doesn't break even at all from ads, but they help offset the running cost (revenue is in the single-digit dollars-per-month range). Ad revenue has fallen greatly though for sites displaying ads, I believe owing to the fact that online ads have been found to be much less effective at driving sales than they were once thought to be (though they may still buy mindshare). Current ads are more flashy, more annoying, and are a greater source of frustration. On desktops that's one thing, were the cost of viewing the ad is largely paid with your attention. On mobile though, they take up even more attention but they also use expensive mobile data and drain precious energy from the battery.

I'm not sure of how things will look in the future, but it will probably be a more heterogeneous mix of funding sources. We'll see more subscription-based sites, we'll see more sites run as cashflow-negative hobby projects, and we'll still see ads. We will also certainly see another category: sites the sell your info for money. We'll see sites that combine all of these. I suspect we'll also see more content distributed solely in app form, with in-app purchases buying more content. Since operational costs have fallen and continue to fall, the world won't look so different for a while. I think the best model for consumers is one where ads are the default, and a cheap subscription can be paid to remove them. Microtransactions are an alluring solution, but no one has really made them work yet. There is also a growing trend of sponsoring content before it is created, via sites like Patreon.

1. https://www.takeitapart.com/

[chinathrow]

Does your app whitelist your websites?

[tomkinstinch]

Do you want a whitelist in the sense that you want to see ads on certain websites, or that you want to see specific ads?

In the case of the latter, a whitelist is planned (mostly to correct for false positives). In the case of the former, it's not possible technically since I'm not proxying anything, and the whitelist acts on the request domains ads are coming from not the domains in which they are embedded.

[chinathrow]

No no, I simply ment to ask whether your new app does also block ads on your mentioned side project.

[tomkinstinch]

Oh, it does indeed block them (they're Adsense ads)! (Good for testing, since I know how the ads will load)

[chinathrow]

Bonus points in this case, thank you :)