For a long time the idea of ad blockers has been presented as something of a touchy subject - does it hurt websites, or are the blockers just exercising their consumer rights. And so on.
To quote myself on the matter:
Both sides have a clear point here. The problem is that the ad blockers hold all the cards - if sites put up a paywall for ad blockers they lose custom. If they circumvent the blockers they just draw fire. If they denounce the blockers they get berated.Ok. Adverts can be annoying, but occasionally sites deserve a remuneration for the content they are offering. For most people Ads are a reasonable trade off; "I like your content, ok I'll see the ads". For them it is a zero cost transaction that ensures the content stays around.
For others - like myself - adverts are generally garish and annoying.
Personally I permit adverts on sites that deserve the revenue. I dont begrudge that and fortunately most of them appear to take a tasteful approach. But it's still not my preferred web experience; the ads are still there.
But is there a better way?
Many blockers say the same as myself; "I would pay you for content that is worth it". So lets call them on that statement with a micro-payments service.
Im thinking of an ad blocker with extras. It works as normal but for sites that are signed up with the service it places a tasteful link on the page saying "Donate for this content" (or something similar).
Even better you could have an API to trigger so a site displays an ad free page with the donate link.
You could make the donation a lot smaller than a normal ad "click". For example if a click is worth $.25 then you make the donation $.05. Whilst this is clearly a lot smaller the theory is that:
a) the blockers claim they are more likely to pay and
b) you're not getting their money anyway (through ads)
Offering blockers a cheap as chips way to give you money can only be a net positive (especially as your showing willing to give them the web experience they prefer).
Anyone want to give it a shot?