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Tech

If an Ad-Free Internet Existed, Would You Pay for It?

A video ad platform surveyed 1,400 UK internet users, and the results are fascinating.
30 seconds of Internet ads. Image: Daniel Oines/Flickr

How much would you pay for an ad-free internet? Would you even pay anything at all?

That's what video ad platform Ebuzzing and Censuswide endeavored to find out in a survey of 1,400 UK consumers, as the Telegraph reported. The results are fascinating, but unfortunately not too surprising: Paying for an ad-free internet would be cheaper than cable, but nearly zero people do so.

By dividing digital advertising spending in the UK in 2013 (£6.4 billion) by the total number of UK internet users (45 million), Ebuzzing found that an ad-free internet would cost around £140 ($232.24) a year. The survey also found that 98 percent of UK consumers would be unwilling to pay that amount of money for an ad-free internet.

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Users still operate under the assumption that the internet is free when, in fact, it is not.

In the US, $232.24 is roughly equivalent to two months' of cable and Internet connection fees, a couple months' car insurance, or a weekend of serious drinking. It's a significant amount of money, sure, but spread out over the year, that's $20 a month for services you probably use more than anything else.

The survey isn't perfect, as it doesn't account for non-advertising revenue streams (donations, data monetization, and so on), and the idea of cutting a £140 check to be disbursed across every site you use isn't even remotely feasible.

But more important than the specific numbers is the general takeaway: How is it that users routinely assaulted by omnipresent ads, from banner ads to pop-ups, would so uniformly be loathe to pay to remove ads from their favorite sites? Perhaps it has something to do with the perception of the internet itself.

Users still operate under the assumption that the internet is free when, in fact, it is not. Google, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and most every other free website make money off their users somehow, with ads and data monetization leading the charge.

If there is any exchange in this arrangement that is free, then it would be users' gifting of personal information—previous estimates have put the value of users' data at around $8 a month, which comes in addition to the value of their eyeballs looking at display ads.

Viewed through this lens, Ebuzzing's survey becomes almost cynical. Ebuzzing's business is in delivering ads, so its conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt, but one takeaway is that people have essentially tuned ads out completely. Consider Ebuzzing's UK managing director Jeremy Arditi's comments on the survey.

"Poorly made or poorly placed ads get ignored, which means publishers lose out," Arditi said. "We need to get better at engaging, not better at interrupting. That means introducing new formats which consumers find less invasive, more creative ads that are better placed, and giving consumers a degree of choice and control."

In short, for internet users, ads are an annoyance, but an acceptable one. For business, advertisers, and content publishers, ads remain a (diminishing) stream of support.