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Comment by Grishnakh | Hacker News Reader

Are they though? Last I'd heard, it was still a minority of people using ad-blockers. Techies, sure, but most people are clueless, and only use ad-blockers when their techie spouses/relatives install them.

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It is still a minority of users (though this varies a lot by demographic). PageFair's annual reports are very thorough if you are looking for stats: https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/

22.7%, according to the forbes quote that my search engine serves me. - I shan't bother to view their article, for obvious reasons.

If what you are saying is true, then why would Forbes force this "minority" to disable their adblocker in the first place?

My understanding is that once Apple allowed this capability on iOS, it became more prevalent among the non-technical crowd.

The users with an easy to activate ad blocker recently bought a top of the market smartphone (or they have a relatively expensive subscription with a 'free' phone). That's a relatively small market segment, but the fraction of advertising revenues it brings in is quite a bit higher.

Probably because corporate executives are asshole control freaks, so even if it's only 23% (according to the other responder using Forbes' own quote), they get pissed off and want to "fix" that. Also, nearly a quarter of viewers using ad-blockers still amounts to a lot of "lost" ad revenue, even if it's still a minority. (Using scare-quotes since you're not losing something if you never had it, but corporate executives don't believe that; just ask the MPAA and RIAA.)

>then why would Forbes force this "minority" to disable their adblocker in the first place?

A minority can represent a majority of your profit.

Those users who are savvy enough to use adblockers are part of the most-coveted demographics.

I highly down the ad-block penetration is low. However, it is growing, and sooner or later its going to become part and parcel of the browsing experience.

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