The Internet as we know it is slowly collapsing due to a recent spike in the use of ad-blocking software, according to Newsweek. According to Kevin Maney at Newsweek, “This is a problem because a great deal of the Internet is built around advertising. It pays for news, videos, social media, search, email, maps, music and a whole lot more.
"We’ve gotten used to free content and services, and have agreed to “pay” for them by enduring ads and exposing our identities. If we all load ad blockers, many of the creators of content and services will see their oxygen cut off and will perish.”
Ad-blocking software is specifically designed to protect users from seeing any type of ad, whether it be a banner ad on the side of a web page, a pre-roll ad before a YouTube video, or any other form of advertisement one might find on the web.
Jordan Stufflebeam, a freshman from Utah studying computer science, said, “I use [ad blocking software] because I was tired of having ads pop up on my screen and getting in the way of what I was doing. It just seemed like I was getting more ads than what I was reading was worth.”
In recent years the Internet has become especially saturated with advertisements which has caused an ever-growing population of Internet users to go out of their way to effectively clean up their web space.
Maney reported about how several online companies have recently applied anti-ad-blocking software which will not allow a visitor to view their page until they have disabled the blocking software.
To try and counter the crisis, several companies such as YouTube have started to offer a paid-for premium version of their content that allows users to access more features than the free version and also removes ads for that subscriber.
Thomas Floyd, a nurse from Louisiana, pays $4 per month extra for an ad-free account on Hulu and said, “I was so sick of the ads interrupting my shows but I still want to support the company so I just bought the extra special plan.”
People like Floyd tend to be few and far between, which has given many content producers and programmers good reason to start thinking of a solution to their ad-block crisis. One solution is being offered by Mozilla co-founder and JavaScript creator Brendan Eich.
Eich is developing a new web browser called “Brave,” which will automatically block any ads placed on a web page, then replace them with Brave’s own ads, according to Anthony.“Use Brave and no ads will get through. No bits of software from sites will be able to track anything you do or know anything about you,” said Maney.
Beverly Crowther from Ka’a’awa said she loves the Idea of Brave and will be one of the first to download it because she hates when ads pop up to block her view of an article on her phone. Brave is still under development right now but anyone can download the latest version for Mac, PC, and soon Android and IOS at www.brave.com.