Adblockers say, “Find a better business model.” but can you really?
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Yes. Yes, you can.
Anybody who claims that there are exactly two monetization methods in existence hasn't done a whit of research, or even paid attention to the industry. Being anti-adblocking on that basis is at best lazy and at worst disingenuous. After all, plenty of the alternatives pay better than ads without annoying your core audience so much.
When was it claimed that there are only two monetization methods? They were discussing the print industry and periodicals.
> "since the dawn of publishing periodicals there have really been only two business models: Subscriptions and advertising."
And then they go on to say:
> "Of course, there are dozens of additional ways to monetize web content from affiliate marketing to native ads. But few websites are able to incorporate these methods across as wide a range of articles as they are with banner ads."
What was claimed is the versatility of the standard ad to a wide variety of content sites. Almost 90% of the top-100 websites run ads. So that's not much of a stretch.
Native ads are something we should all be very scared of. And if you are (to use your words) doing a "whit of research" or paying "attention to the industry" then you'll already know that the near-future is pretty much all about native ads. At ad-tech that's what everyone was on about. And that's no bueno from a journalism perspective.
And if you think that the alternatives roundly pay better than advertising, then you must think that the entire industry has somehow missed the boat. Sounds like you should show them how it's done.
I took that as a moral case, but you are right, he never states the word morality.