Programmer Marco Arment removed the iPhone ad-blocking app – Peace app after it spent more than a day as the most downloaded paid application at App Store. It hurts some websites according to Arment.
“Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate,” Arment said in a post at Marco.org. “Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.” While blocking ads promised to make surfing the Internet from iPhones or iPads faster and rein in telecom data use, it also sabotages what has long been the main way websites make money while providing free content or services.”Of course, ads pay for properties on the Web,” said independent analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group. “You are essentially fast-forwarding through the commercials the way people do with TV.”
A study last month found that software that blocks online ads is expected to cost websites some $21.8 billion globally in 2015, and could rise further with the new iOS system, but some analysts questioned the methodology of the report. “I still believe that ad blockers are necessary today, and I still think Ghostery is the best one, but I’ve learned over the last few crazy days that I don’t feel good making one and being the arbiter of what’s blocked,” Arment said. And, citing Chinese classical text Tao Te Ching, he said it should be avoided when possible and entered into solemnly when unavoidable……
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