Did adblockers ruin the web 1.0 business model leading to poor search results?
6 by senttoschool | 3 comments on Hacker News.
Hypothesis one: * adblockers got popular, browsers start shipping with default blockers * websites convert to subscription model to stay alive * subscription model hides content * hidden content pages don't rank as well as useless long form free SEO articles * people can't find anything genuine on the internet anymore for free * people append "reddit" to search results as one of the the last places they can get free genuine content Hypothesis two: * adblockers got popular, browsers start shipping with default blockers * Free content websites lose revenue but can’t convert to subscriptions because while the information is valuable to some, it’s not valuable enough that people will pay for it * To remain free and not shut down, free content websites leverage sponsorships/affiliate links to make enough revenue * Free content will now always be accompanied by a sponsor/affiliate, leading to bias information that doesn't seem genuine 15 years ago, someone can make a website where you can slap some Adsense ads on and make enough money to continue to provide free content. While you still needed to optimize a bit for SEO, the free information is still genuine and quality.