Dive Brief:

• The Atlantic is the latest publication to fight against ad blocking readers by requiring them to either disable their software or pay for a digital subscription to view content on the site, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
• The publisher is also rolling out a new ad-free digital subscription for $3.99 a month or $39.99 annually.
• According to The Atlantic, around 8.5% of its monthly readers have ad blocking tech installed, costing it estimated “multiple millions” of dollars in lost revenue.

Dive Insight:

The move by The Atlantic follows Business Insider in forcing users to either disable ad block tech entirely or buy into a paid content model, and The New York Times is reportedly about to launch an ad-free subscription as well. The growing trend of taking the gloves off when it comes to dealing with ad blockers follows years of publishers trying to communicate the value of ads in keeping their free content live while still allowing ad blockers access to sites, a less confrontational approach that's done little to convince readers to white list pages. 

“Digital advertising is the single biggest source of our revenue,” Kim Lau, senior vice president of digital and head of business development at The Atlantic, told the Journal. “It’s obviously a concern to us if there’s a segment – and potentially a growing segment of the population – that doesn’t understand that value exchange.”

Ad block software has been an ongoing issue in the industry affecting markers, ad tech firms and publishers alike, although publishers take the most obvious revenue hit because every blocked ad is an ad not served on their websites. Part of the issue stems from what is often seen as low ad quality in media, with sites peddling obstructive content that readers are uninterested in engaging with, but recent initiatives like The Coalition for Better Ads hope to correct that.  

In the meantime, the complete stonewalling of ad blockers from entering sites shows publishers are getting pushed to extremes, and it won't be surprising if more publications — and especially digital only publications — follow suit with The Atlantic. Historically, readers have proven more than willing to move onto different sites rather than jump through hoops for any given outlet, unless that content is highly specialized and unavailable elsewhere online.