With all the talk about ad blocking software that has come out in the past year or so, it should be no surprise that people are looking for other ways to monetize content online. After all, if enough people are blocking ads effectively, the money to create the high quality content that people want simply won’t be there.
The mobile marketer company, Tune, recently completed a study that looked into whether or not people would be willing to pay for content online if it meant they didn’t have to see any ads at all. They surveyed about 4000 users in both the UK and US and found that most users aren’t willing to pay a dime.
When asked the question, “How much would you pay to block all ads in all apps?” most of the users said nothing at all. 69.3% of all respondents said they would pay nothing. Another 11.3% said they would pay up to $1 per year for this type of service, and another 10.4% said they would pay $1 per month. Coming in the last two places were $1 per week and $1 per day which accounted for 4.5% each.
So, as you can see, while people sure do love complaining about ads (and often with good reason), they aren’t willing to pay to avoid them.
The study broke down the information by age group and found that the older people get, the less likely they are willing to pay for a complete removal of ads. Those who are 13-17 years old had 62.2% saying they would pay nothing, compared with those who are over 65 where 81.5% of respondents would not be willing to pay anything.
Some people might think that even just the 30(ish)% of people who would be willing to pay anything at all might be sufficient to compensate content creators. The fact is, however, that mobile ads alone are generating around $42 billion annually and that is expected to go up to about $70 billion in the next few years. This is on top of all other types of ads out there, which are also generating billions.
To put it simply, while it is always good to look for additional ways to make money for the online community, it certainly doesn’t look like paying to remove all ads is going to be a feasible way to fund the content creators online.
If you’d like to read the full study from Tune, it can be found HERE.
