Paying with Attention
Over on Slate, Farhad Manjoo announces an interesting new update to the Firefox plug-in AdBlock Plus. Apparently, the newest version of the program will encourage users to selectively display non-intrusive (i.e., non pop-up) advertisements from websites they frequently visit. Manjoo goes on to describe this change as a potential ethical advancement for humanity, making in the process what I would describe as an interesting ethical argument:
I’ve heard many convoluted justifications for ad blocking—”it’s my browser and my computer, so I can choose what I want to download”—but it’s hard to make an honest claim that these programs are ethical. The Web is governed by an unwritten contract: You get nearly everything for free in exchange for the hassle of a few ads hovering on the periphery—and occasionally across the whole screen for a few seconds. Advertising probably supports a huge swath of the sites you regularly visit. It’s obvious how rampant ad blocking hurts the Web: If every passenger siphons off a bit of fuel from the tank before the plane takes off, it’s going to crash.
I’m a little perplexed by this argument. Manjoo seems to be claiming that the currency with which we pay for “free” content is by submitting our attention to the advertisers who subsidize the content. But it’s not our attention they actually want, it’s our money.
That doesn’t even get into the issue of whether, if I remove the ad-blocker software and go back to ignoring banners and swatting popups like flies (or for that matter, muting the TV during commercial breaks), I am simply committing an act of slower, less pleasurable theft. I’m still a free-rider on any particular corporation’s dime unless I actually allow its advertisements to change my purchasing habits.
Oh, I know to a lesser extent there’s the whole schtick about building brand equity, getting consumers to talk about the ads they’ve seen, and so forth. Moreover, I know that marketing experts will argue that the ads will affect purchasing behavior even if consumers refuse to acknowledge it. And that is probably true.
But here’s the thing: marketing campaigns have long been understood to reach supersaturation points beyond which markets no longer respond to additional advertising. Is it not possible that this is true for the advertising industry as a whole, and that internet advertising in particular is so supersaturated and ubiquitous that it no longer has any net positive effect on economic growth? It may be that at best it can convince consumers to change their purchasing habits rather than to increase their purchasing habits – especially in the midst of a large economic downturn.
In the end, it doesn’t matter that much if I pay that much attention to the sponsors of the web sites I browse. What ultimately sustains them will not be my attention, but the dollars in my wallet. And the ways I choose to spend that money are going to be influenced by many factors other than the banner ads AdBlock Plus conceals from my gaze.
~ Maxwell
Ambiance 
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