The rise of paid-membership web sites

The people behind all the ad blockers, like AdBlock Plus thought they were really smart to block web publishers’ advertising.

After all, by blocking the ads, the surfing is slightly faster and there are no ads left to even see.

So what’s wrong with that?

Nothing, really, apart that an ad-blocking user is basically stealing the web publishers’ content by not accepting the usually mildly visible ads. In fact, the user can surf however he or she wants.

But over time, the Google AdSense or other types of advertising can’t perform, at all.

And at some point, the web publisher can’t pay his bills anymore — so instead of shutting down the web site, he or she considers other revenue-generating methods, like paid-memberships. Yes, the old newspaper and cable TV model where you pay a fee to access content.

Things were going perfectly fine with the pay-per-click ads model until millions of smart-ass web users started to block all the ads and that has significantly contributed to the current shift back to paid memberships. I know, it’s a shame to have to go back to that “pay me or nothing” model.

So what are users to do?

For starters, get rid of those ad-blockers.

The more people see the pay-per-click ads, the more valid clicks will occur and the web publishers will have enough revenue to drop the paid-membership obligations.

People are going mad everywhere about the prospect of Facebook, MySpace, NetLog and Twitter going to the paid membership model but they have to realize that the obsession with “not seeing ads” of a large percentage of them is the very cause for it. There should be a ban against all ad-blocking software because as they stand, they doing way more harm than good.

If all significant web sites turn to paid membership accompanied by insignificant teaser bits and pieces of information, people will just drop out of the internet because it’ll become locked up, everywhere.

Since nobody wants that, web publishers absolutely need to be supported by ads, not memberships!