Wired joins in asking ad-blocker users to subscribe

The publisher, Wired, is offering four weeks of ad-free access for $3.99 to the 20% of users who block ads. Wired's editors wrote a letter to its readers explaining that advertising helps its business survive, citing that the site will restrict access to articles for those who use ad-blockers, leaving users to either white-list or subscribe. Wired joins GQ, Forbes, Slat and The Washington Post who have already blocked ad-block users.   

by Felicia Greiff , February 8, 2016

Wired is offering a new option to the 20% of its readers who block ads: $3.99 for four weeks of ad-free access.

The site's editors wrote a letter to readers explaining the decision: "We know that you come to our site primarily to read our content, but it’s important to be clear that advertising is how we keep Wired going: paying the writers, editors, designers, engineers, and all the other staff that works so hard to create the stories you read and watch here."

The letter said that access to articles on Wired's site will be restricted for those using an ad blocker.

Users who want to see the content will have to white-list Wired on their ad blocker or take the subscription option, which comes without display ads or tracking.

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An Adobe and PageFair study on ad blocking found that ad blocking costs publishers something like $22 billion. When the study was released last August, ad-blocking penetration in the U.S. was 15%.

Forbes test blocked ad blockers beginning last December. In September, The Washington Post experimented with barring ad blockers by inviting them to subscribe, sign up for a newsletter or disable their ad-blocking software.

In a presentation last month, Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Randall Rothenberg linked advertising to freedom of speech and called German company AdBlock-Plus an "unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes."

Read millennials' explanations for why they do or don't block ads, as reported by Real-Time Daily last week.