Dreaming the Impossible Dream? CancelAds Removes Display Ads from Online Content

Written by Jolie O'Dell / July 9, 2009 3:23 PM / 12 Comments

This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is a resource and guide for first-time entrepreneurs and startups. The channel is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. To sign up for BizSpark, click here.

Imagine a world where users aren't irritated by online ads, yet publishers still make money from their content.

When you're done laughing, go check out CancelAds. The basic idea behind their not-so-revolutionary but certainly unheard-of monetization scheme is to have blog subscribers pay small amounts on a recurring basis to read ad-free content online. In a world where free content is a given and what's not free from publishers is made free by pirates, how could a concept like CancelAds survive? Read on to find out what we and CancelAds' founders think.

To succeed, CancelAds needs to combat the dual threat of visual tune-out (users' eyes are trained to avoid ad areas and zero in on content) and apps such as TidyRead and Readability that eliminate advertising, whether publishers like it or not.

According to the company's site, there is definitely a market for the service. These users are not in the majority, but the folks at CancelAds believe there are enough users in this segment to sustain the revenue model.

"According to [an] Advertising Age survey, 69 percent of Internet users are not ready to pay to view their favorite sites ad-free. But it still leaves 31 percent of all Internet users who may choose to pay...This is a huge crowd of people who dislike the way all the websites are now monetized with advertising but understand that website publishers also need to make money."

Granted, 31 percent of a group that comprises about a quarter of the earth's population and is continually growing is pretty substantial. Still, revenues for publishers could really come down to visitor loyalty and the nature of the content.

Company rep Svetlana Gladkova wrote to us and speculated that certain sites would garner revenues nearing those of print magazines, saying, "These must be the sites that have numerous ads where people tend to spend a long time (playing online games, reading about fashion and celebrities, socializing). So we are targeting mostly the mainstream-focused websites, not those targeted at the early adopters who know how to block ads without paying better than the mainstream audience."

"Though, of course, blogs targeted at early adopters have a large audience, and many will also benefit from using CancelAds because among their huge crowds of visitors there will be a certain percentage of loyal readers who will want to demonstrate their support by paying and enjoy the blogs ad-free as well."

Ad-free sites are definitely more aesthetically pleasing, from a UI and design perspective. And an ad-free site would also have significantly decreased load time. But will CancelAds and their partner sites be able to make money?

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Comments

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Sighs...

Contenture.com already does this, more versatile with wordpress and drupal plug-ins also mind you.

Posted by: Holden Page | July 9, 2009 7:27 PM

Yeah, sounds like a dumbed down version of Contenture, which not only allows an ad-free experience, but also provides content controls for site administrators. Way more powerful system IMHO.

Posted by: Hugh | July 9, 2009 8:24 PM

sounds like something I've been hoping to see for a while [ http://blog.offbeatmammal.com/post/2009/01/29/Is-the-ad-funded-Internet-dying.aspx ] but it needs to be across a wide range of properties... paying to just avoid ads on TechCrunch is low on my agenda, but blocking 75% of what it wasting bandwidth and obscuring content would be great.

I actually don't mind some of the Google ads as they're simple text and sometimes relevant, but the flashing, animated, expanding, noisy crap we're subjected to is really annoying

Posted by: Offbeatmammal | July 9, 2009 10:36 PM

But it still leaves 31 percent of all Internet users who may choose to pay...This is a huge crowd of people who dislike the way all the websites are now monetized with advertising but understand that website publishers also need to make money."

Posted by: runescape gold | July 10, 2009 1:52 AM

and many will also benefit from using CancelAds because among their huge crowds of visitors there will be a certain percentage of loyal readers who will want to demonstrate their support by paying and enjoy the blogs ad-free as well."

Posted by: rs gold | July 10, 2009 1:53 AM

This becomes kind of useless with Adblock Plus and built in adblocking in browsers today. I don't think they'll do too well.

Posted by: Matt | July 10, 2009 5:31 AM

Yeah. Adblock plus combined with Flashblock is all I need for webpage content. So if this service has anything to do with ordinary web pages it's a complete waste of time.

Of course a browser plugin isn't going to deal with ads embedded in video content, but despite everything, Internet video is still lame enough that if there are ads in any given video source, I am not going to bother with it at all. So once again I'm not going to pay to subscribe to avoid ads.

Posted by: Miramon | July 10, 2009 7:19 AM

It is a very valid concept. I paid my yahoo mail, for the workspace, now second year in a roll.

I am going to consider the service for my websites, since I it may be adsense compatible.

I also want to congratulate ReadWrite for real interesting articles. This one is far from the first one....

AS.

Posted by: say-web.com | July 10, 2009 8:26 AM

How dare you use my portrait without attribution O'Dell. Unicorns everywhere will have their revenge.

Posted by: UnicornWatch | July 10, 2009 11:32 AM

How dare you use my portrait without attribution O'Dell. Unicorns everywhere will have their revenge.

Posted by: UnicornWatch | July 10, 2009 11:32 AM

so they want to convince major publishers who have ad sales teams (or partner with ad networks) to ditch that model? Or let the user choose between viewing ads or paying a small amount to read those sites?

::sigh:: AdBlock Plus as mentioned above. millions of active users, over 800k downloads per week and over 55m downloads and counting...of course that is just firefox... when given the choice of paying, or using a free addon that works flawlessly (also lets you turn the ads back on per site if you prefer), which do you think users will choose?

Why do you think Facebook doesnt charge their users for access to their network?

Posted by: meh | July 10, 2009 11:57 AM