Infamous gaming website Kotaku has been releasing articles daily for a while now. The site is free for anyone to read and supports itself mainly through ads that offer readers in-site purchases. But the now the site is fully viewable without any ads thanks to a program called AdBlock.
The website is know for it’s many gaming articles that bait readers into them through some truly ludicrous titles, topics and writing quality that varies wildly from professional all the way to 8th grade blog. Kotaku is very frequently the talk of the town in online gaming circles for their provocative articles. They are supported by advertisers, as you might expect. But because of readily available ad blocking programs, people are able to read through their entire website without encountering a single advertisement.
Via the the popular Chrome plug-in AdBlock, Kotaku is possible to browse through without the obstruction of any ads that may otherwise worsen the reading experience. By making the website less cluttered and ridding it of the capitalism overload that supports the site, this program and other like it offer readers the optimal Kotaku experience. It’s certainly a shame that the legitimate version of the site doesn’t look as good as when it’s running with AdBlock.
This raises huge issues for Kotaku, who are in the very unusual position of having an ad supported website whose ads are so readily blockable. Thanks to Kotaku’s very dubious perception and the low quality of many of their supposed articles, blocking ads is often the only viable means of visiting the website without feeling disgusted with one’s self.
There are so many good reasons to be grateful for ad blockers but keeping ad revenue out of the pockets of shotty clickbait writing is near the top of the list. This is an enormous issue Kotaku has to face given the relative unprofessionalism and poor quality of so many of their big articles.
Rongo 