Why Facebook Is Really Blocking the Ad Blockers
But Apple’s entire mobile platform is built on closed-system apps, not Web-based sites. Ads served within these apps cannot be blocked by anything, not even Apple’s own ad blockers. So, by blocking Web-based ads, Apple’s move would, in theory, drive businesses away from the open mobile Web, where the future of advertising is shaky, and toward apps, where there are fewer business variables. It’s not a coincidence, either, that Apple makes money from apps through both sales and advertising, while it earns nothing from its mobile browser.
.. What was true of Apple then is even more true of Facebook now. Over the last few years, Facebook has seen rapid growth within its mobile app, where blockers don’t work and it can easily control the ad experience in the same way that Apple can control the app experience. This means that features of advertising that frustrate readers are gone (malware, surprise screen takeovers, unexpected noise), but some of it is still very much there (tracking, data collection).
Facebook has now shut down ad blockers on nearly all of its domain—first on mobile apps and now on desktops. (Blocking still works on the mobile Web.) This suggests to publishers that Facebook is a safe space where the business of content can be more effectively protected, on the condition that they submit to being Facebook’s vassals.
.. Individual publications, and even some publishers, lack the resources to mount an all-out arms race against ad blockers, not least because they’re unlikely to attract engineering talent
.. Facebook’s ability to protect its revenue stream on the desktop version of its site only strengthens its position as a closed platform, a place where the user is powerless against its technical domination and will be gently served ads, whether they like it or not. This makes it an extremely safe bet as a place for brands to publish content. Instant Articles, while not yet a success, got a deluge of publishers on board because the model seemed straightforward, reliable, and immune to ad-block tampering.