Last week, Facebook started a war. Let’s talk about it.

To quickly recap: Facebook makes almost all of its money from advertising to its users, usually in the form of side banners and ‘promoted posts’. In their latest earning report, Facebook reported revenue of 5.2 billion, a 57% growth over the same period last year. During their 10-k filing (a mandatory report that goes over a business’s financial performance and risk factors) for 2015, Facebook mentioned ad blockers might harm this performance. In their 2016 filing, they dedicated an entire section to ad blocking.

So last week they decided to take the next logical step; They banned ad blockers. AdBlock Plus, one of the most popular ad blockers out there, reacted by releasing a work-around. Facebook released a work-around for the work-around, and AdBlock Plus released a work-around for their work-around. Facebook said they would respond. Then, just yesterday, a Princeton Assistant Professor and undergraduate student duo released a chrome extension which uses FTC rules to identify ads. Facebook hasn’t responded to this yet, and they can’t break FTC rules, so this may be the end, barely a week after it started.

It’s been a long week. If Facebook is to be believed, they won’t stop until all their ads are displaying. Some people think Facebook’s victory is already decided, and these are all just setbacks. Others, think that Facebook can’t possibly win this way. Ad blockers are a reality of the way the modern internet works. New work-arounds will emerge, but it’s just a matter of when they’ll be beat, not how.

Source: AdBlock Plus

Facebook should have known this. Facebook should also have known that blocking ad blockers would make them a target, especially with their announcement. It wasn’t a client . They’re one of the largest websites on the internet. A small website serving banners from their own server isn’t going to produce the same ire that Facebook does. They also won’t generate a work-around dedicated to their one website. That’s what happened when Facebook made this move. The open source community around AdBlock Plus responded. But let’s take a step back, now, and talk about ad blocking itself.

Ad Blocking in the Market

People block ads for a variety of reasons, but usually it comes down to three things: speed, safety, and annoyance. Those three things are real issues. Sometimes your computer or phone is too slow to handle the banners and tracking scripts and slow responses on a website. Sometimes a banner downloads a virus. Or maybe a banner starts playing loud music while you’re reading an article. Ad blocking is bad for business, but people aren’t doing it maliciously. It might cost websites money, but ad blocking grew as a result of some website’s bad decisions. You can’t fault users without understanding where they’re coming from in the first place.

After Facebook made their move, Eyeo, the owner of AdBlock Plus, came out explaining why blocking ad blockers is anti-user, taking the high ground on user choice. They point out that Facebook itself stated that people use ad blockers to “stop annoying, disruptive ads,” admitting why ad blockers exist in the first place. Eyeo is just letting people have a choice, which Facebook is taking away. So Eyeo comes across as the good guys, Facebook the bad guys.

AdBlock Plus’s work-around, however, might remove actual user posts from Facebook right now. That’s pretty anti-user, asking people to make the same sacrifice of experience for convenience. And Eyeo’s user-first stance ignores their revenue model, which isn’t selling ad blockers, but selling circumvention. Websites and companies can pay to have their banners allowed through the AdBlock Plus, effectively asking for a ransom from websites. Part of being on the whitelist is producing banners that follow their guidelines, but more important is paying them. Google is their biggest client, paying an undisclosed sum to allow their banners through, but Facebook said they won’t pay.

Instead, Facebook lets users control what ads they see, and maintain that advertising is what keeps Facebook free. The same post that announced their intent to block ad blockers also announced new controls on advertisements, and was preceded by a post announcing that there would be less click-bait articles in people’s news feeds. Those two announcements sends a clear message: Facebook listens to its users. So, under this light, Facebook looks like the good guys, being upfront about their intent, while Eyeo comes across as the bad guys, limiting user’s experience and playing both sides of the field.

That’s Not The End

Still, Facebook is unlikely to win. They might reduce the amount of blocking by 50%, which would be a big get. But it wouldn’t be an end to ad blocking.

We get asked constantly at AdButler what we’re doing about ad blockers, and for a while we were trying to get ahead of them. We quickly realized, probably just as Facebook is now, that you can’t brute force the situation. White labeling doesn’t work, because ad blockers can look at IPs and URL patterns. Obscurity doesn’t work, because people can break the code down. Google’s AMP, which is being hailed as a tool in the fight against ad blocking, isn’t a solution either. Once again, it might reduce the amount of people using ad blockers, but they’ll always be there. Basically, websites are made by humans, and humans create patterns. The patterns are reflected in the content, the style, and, most importantly, the advertisements. Patterns can be sussed out, and added to filters, and that’s the reality of ad blocking.

Facebook can’t win this war because there will always be a pattern to its advertising. Even if they do manage to convince some people to allow them through their blockers, by limiting content or removing posts, it’s not a true solution. The open source nature of AdBlock Plus means someone will always be working to get around Facebook’s ads. Facebook can’t win because the Internet was made to bias user choice. People can choose what website they see, or if they want to block cookies, or JavaScript, or notifications, or anything. If people choose not to see banners, they don’t have to. Either banners get blocked, or they’ll stop going to your site.

Keep Things Nice

So what do we do? First, understand that ad blockers aren’t going away. Second, understand that they’re still not mainstream. Usage varies based on audience, but depending on what stats you look at, global penetration is in the single digits. Third, understand that users have told us how to stop ad blockers. Make good advertisements. Know what banners are serving. Know what your users like. People ban advertisements because they’re slow to load, they’re annoying, and they can be malicious. Follow proper design philosophy and treat your readers with respect. Don’t focus your time on blocking ad blockers. Focus your time on making your website better. Remind people that you need your advertisements. Or give them the option to pay for ad-free content.

Or, if you really have to, ban the users that use ad blockers. Even if there was some way to get around ad blockers, people are more likely to stop going to your website than they are to click on an intrusive banner. Facebook might be able to demand people’s attention, but the majority of websites can’t.

Our mission at AbButler is to equip you with reliable and robust ad serving technology in order for you provide a positive ad experience to your visitors/users. Our platform serves ads extremely fast by serving them asynchronously, thereby ensuring there is no extra lag time in the page load. We cancel the subscription of any user who serves malicious banners, and have walls in place to stop them from signing up in the first place. We stopped focusing on circumvention and started worrying about making banners better. I like to think that we’ve succeeded, but it’s not over. We’re always trying to make AdButler better.

Facebook can’t ever squish ad blocking. Albeit, they may be able to reduce blocking but they can’t truly win with their current strategy. It’s important to understand that taking away choice isn’t the right path. When it comes down to it, there’s only one thing we can do: respect your users, and they’ll respect you.