Pay Services Show Promise as Ad Blockers, Accenture Predicts

"Some 45 million Americans used ad blockers  in 2015, essentially neutralizing about $22 billion in digital advertising, according to a study released earlier this year by PageFair and Adobe. Ad blocker downloads are growing at a 50% clip in the U.S. and at 35% in Europe, where close to 80 million people  are saying “get lost” to marketers butting in on their quality content. No matter how much brand advertisers and their agencies despise ad blockers, this much is clear: People despise digital advertising much, much more. Accenture today released a portion of its 2016 “Digital Consumer Survey,” in which it asked 1,000 consumers in each of 28 countries this question: Forgetting about ad blockers for a second, how willing are you to pay for ad-free content? Seven out of 10 said that frequent ad interruptions have made them more apt to spend on subscription for such as The New York Times or Amazon Prime, which today moved to extend its reach as a $8.99 a month service."