Ad Blocker and Advertisement Slots
In a world of online advertising there is a constant struggle between websites, who sell advertising spots, and advertisers, who buy these spots hoping to reach consumers, and consumes who have no interest in their shows and games being interrupted by unwanted ads. As someone who watches all my television shows through channels online websites, ad blocker has become my best friend, but this best friend has started to have its faults as companies learn how to push back on the once fool proof ad blocker. An even more interesting development occurs when you notice that ad blocker now does not block all commercials and in fact it depends what website you are on and what ad it is. This leads to the discovery that ad blocker is not in fact a blocker, but rather a filter for ads. Not only to advertisers must compete and pay to get on a specific website, but they in fact also must pay ad blocker, to make it through their blocking defenses and find their way to costumers. This fact becomes abundantly clear when watching shows on The CW, as some ads appeared with a message “Please deactivate ad blocker” and some ads are able to run, depending on what company it is from. This means companies not only have to compete in a matching market with websites selling advertisements, but also must compete in a matching market with ad blocker, if they choose to. Companies must balance their values with the clicks per a website, but also balance their values with ad blocker, which means a company can end up paying very large sums just to get their ads to consumers and it’s a lot of hoops to jump through for people who generally aren’t in the mood to watch your commercials or buy your products anyways. This creates problems as a company who has some value of what it is worth to get their ad to consumers because now their max price they are willing to pay must be split between the website selling the ad spot and ad blocker to do what before would just require buy an ad spot from the website.