subject: The Benefits of Ads: Why Ads are a necessity for a free World Wide Web [print this page] The Benefits of Ads: Why Ads are a necessity for a free World Wide Web
Why ads are a necessity:
Like anybody else when surfing the net most of the times I'm pretty much annoyed by ads; actually they take somehow away my attention from the content and sometimes they seem to make the content of the website disappear. Yet ads are the main reason why now we have a free World Wide Web.
Ads, and especially AdSense, AdBrite and Chitika are usually the only way for a publisher to earn some money from his website. I know, there are many affiliate programs around but to be honest it's easier to have someone to click on ads than to sell something. At the end every net-surfer is looking for free information or stuff and not to spend money.
Everyone likes a free internet, and to get free stuff.
But running a website is costly, there is the hosting fee, the time spent to provide content, electric power.... Who pays for these expenses? The website owner who, without earnings from the website, sooner or later probably will stop running it. Think about how many free websites have disappeared from Geocities and imagine how much difficult it is to run a website if you have to cover all the expenses by yourself.
That's why ads are a kind of necessary evil, without them only the big players with a lot of money to spend would run the World Wide Web.
Ads though have also a flaw and this is that given the chance to make some money from a website a lot of people creates garbage-websites in the hope of getting some clicks on their ads. But it must be considered that ads on the other side allow some great websites to survive and enrich the net. Think about Wikipedia for example.
Now, making money from ads isn't easy at all: the first difficulty is having relevant ads to appear on the website (I guess you know what I mean) and then if they ever get relevant having the net-surfer to click on them it's a pure matter of chance. But the biggest problem is posed by Ad-Blocks extension whom while providing a surely better navigation of a website on the other end are helping to throw that website out of the net.
If no one sees my ads I'm out of the net, sooner or later.
So, next time you find a good website at least disable your ad-blocker extension and have a look at ads. It might by that you find some good information there and at the same time you help that website to remain alive and to go on providing valuable content to the world. No ads means no content, even free content.
