Casey Johnston (@caseyjohnston) is a tech writer whose work I've read for a few years, starting on Ars Technica and now The Wirecutter. I call her out because she pointed me to this article, and because hers was the only voice I saw on Twitter after the release of iOS 9 who was against ad blocking and being reasonable about it. She pointed me towards her recent article:

http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/welcome-to-the-block-party

Before reading this, I had not considered the other side. I've taken a couple weeks to see how things play out and to let my thoughts on the subject develop.

I'm a web developer. My work is sold to the enterprise by a team of salesmen, so ads aren't part of the deal, but I like getting paid for my work, and so I do get the push back against ad blocking. But I'm also a Citizen of the Internet, so to speak, and I'm sick and tired of tracking networks, intrusive ads, slow page load times, and enormous multi-megabyte payloads for 500-word articles. I'm also sick and tired of clickbait and listicles, but I'll save that for another post.

On the desktop, I use AdBlock Plus and Ghostery. On my iPhone, I now use Peace and Crystal. Fantastic! The web is fast and simple again. I'm not subject to any data caps, but my data consumption has surely gone down too.

But I'm not thoughtless. I know that I'm consuming content that was created by people, and that these people need a paycheck — especially if I want them to keep creating great content! So, I'm only blocking the privacy-invading trackers. Google Analytics gets a pass, because I understand the value of being able to see how your users are using your site and I trust Google to properly anonymize my data. I'll blacklist specific advertisers on a case-by-case basis.

I think it would be great if a few people started curating lists of well-behaved advertisers so that I could just subscribe to their lists instead of managing it all on my own. I'd pay a few bucks a year for that.

Standards of Web Advertising Decency

I think we, the web community at large, need to create a set of standards which we expect publishers to follow. While there's definitely an "I know it when I see it" quality to decent web ads, I think we can qualify and quantify quite a bit of it. So, here's my first draft:

Load Time

Pages should load in three seconds or less on a broadband connection (that's 25Mbps or better). I don't mean your content should be displayed in that time -- I mean EVERYTHING that is going to load should be done in that time, including running whatever scripts you need to run. The page should be fully rendered.

Obvious exceptions for streaming content.
By extension, the total payload can be absolutely no more than 75 megabits, or 9.375 MB. Don't forget round-trip latency; in the huge majority of cases the practical limit will be lower.
No tricks. If I catch you waiting several seconds after the page loads to pass the test, but then fetching a crapton of extra JavaScript trackers, you fail.
If I tap a link after the page appears to be loaded, it should not move out from under my finger as I tap.
Recognize that this threshold is about six times what I'd really like it to be. I'm being generous here.
Don't assume the user has a fast computer. The three second rule applies whether the user is on a 12-core Mac Pro on a gigabit fiber connection or a Motorola Droid over 802.11b.

Appearance and Behavior

Ads should never appear on top of content. Above, below, and on the sides are fine.
- Page-level interstitials and in the midst of content are annoying, but acceptable. Know that you're trying your users' patience.
Speaking of interstitials, they must be easily dismissible.
- You can require me to look at an ad for a few seconds before you let me dismiss it.
- If the dismiss button moves when I try to click it, you fail.
- If the dismiss button is hard to find, see, click, or tap, you fail.
- If your readership is primarily from one platform (say, MacRumors or WinSuperSite), then you get bonus points for putting the dismiss button in the location that matches that platform's close boxes.
No autoplay video or audio.
- If the video or audio is the actual content, e.g. YouTube, then autoplay is acceptable but still not preferable. In this scenario only, an interstitial ad (like a watch-before-you-watch YouTube ad) may autoplay.
No ads that resemble system dialog boxes or other user interface elements.
Ads should be clearly marked as ads.
- No ads masquerading as content.
- Ads should not make it hard to tell where to click to go to the next page of the content.

Tracking and Privacy

If you, or any affiliate, are going to track me, you need my explicit permission on a per-affiliate basis. My anonymity should be preserved unless I am logged in to your site.
- If I am using my browser's "Do not track" feature, don't even ask -- the answer is no.
- Realize that this means prompting me twenty times if you want to use twenty tracking affiliates. I might say yes to the first one or two, but at some point I'm just going to close the window or turn on my ad blocker.
- Feel free to prompt for more than one at a time, but I need a per-affiliate way to opt in or out. A checkbox for each affiliate would be fine.

Content

(credit John Gruber and Jason Snell for this section -- listen to episode 126 of The Talk Show for more. Relevant conversation begins at 1:52:52; relevant points begin at 2:05:13.)

The publisher should retain control over the content and behavior of the ads.
- Imagine that you're the publisher of the New York Times. Would you ever consider printing and distributing a paper in which you did not have final say over which ads appear next to your content? Would you ever allow distribution of an ad to delay delivery of the newspaper to your subscribers? Would you ever distribute a paper in which an adhesive advertisement was plastered on top of your content?

I imagine that those of you in the business of web publishing (if any of you are even reading this -- I have no delusions about this blog being popular or anything) are rolling your eyes at me, thinking I have no idea what it takes to run a successful site. I don't have firsthand knowledge, but I do understand that it's hard to make the financials work. We, your readers and viewers, need you to know that you've gone too far. You're driving down the value of web advertising by making it so horrible, and ad blockers seem to be the only way for us to convince you that we're serious. Dial it back. Start showing some editorial discretion. In return, we'll stop blocking, and we might even actually start clicking on the ads. If you continue on your current path, your future almost certainly involves being ad-blocked into bankruptcy. This is not a threat -- just a fact.

To be clear, I just made this up. Please let me know in the comments or via @itsjakerobb if you think I've missed anything or if I've got it all wrong. I think I've left lots of room for web content providers to monetize their products and stay in business.

P.S. This has nothing to do with ads, but everything to do with privacy: every major content provider should be using SSL (HTTPS) and HSTS. I just started this blog today and it's already available over SSL. You can do it too.

P.P.S. Offer your regular readers a subscription option that disables ads and tracking when they're logged in.