Imagine an online world without intrusive ads that put security and privacy at risk. Imagine that same online world pays journalists and content creators for their work outside of the traditional advertising revenue model. That’s what entrepreneur Rob Leathern is trying to accomplish with Optimal.com, his latest venture.According to Leathern’s announcement on Medium last week, the entrepreneur has assembled a team of engineers to build Optimal.com where consumers will pay publishers to not show ads.”We’re building a smart subscription service for all the content on the web, minus the ads. We’ll pay the websites you love, and you will always see precisely where every microcent of your subscription is going and why,” Leathern says. “Instead of supporting content, ad and data intermediaries that suck up ad revenue, websites that create the best content should get paid more, as judged by you and thousands of others.Leathern explains that most ad blocking today is all or nothing, which doesn’t work for everyone. There are some websites and advertisers that consumers are willing to see, and there are some publishers and advertisers that produce interesting, useful ads. Optimal.com will take that into consideration, allowing users to see and share websites with tasteful ads.”The vocal minority blocking ads today can help shape a new ad ecosystem for us all – it’s time for a transparent conversation about ads vs. no-ads instead of leaning on the previously implicit relationship between ads, users and content,” explains Leathern.According to Leathern, Optimal.com will provide some middle ground that prevents publishers with good content from being blocked because of their ads, while giving consumers control over what they see…in exchange for a price.”Advertising is not going to go away – but it needs to get better. Good advertising is just like a recommendation from someone you trust – and publisher brands we know and trust have a big role to play. But we need to know the true identity of online advertisers, and we deserve full transparency on where our data is going and why,” Leathern adds.How will it work? That remains to be seen. The Optimal.com site doesn’t share a lot of details yet, though users can subscribe to be on the waiting list for the site’s “ad blocking subscription program,” and learn about the team and the philosophy behind the product. Optimal promises publishers access to a free ad blocking tracking analytics tool to help them measure ad blocking users across browsers, devices, locations and specific pages.Forbes said that subscribers will pay an as-yet-undetermined monthly or annual fee to see any content, minus the ads. Consumers can pick and choose which sites they are willing to see ads from and those it wants to block. In exchange, Optimal pays publishers a percentage of the overall web traffic they generate.Users participate in the process by “upvoting” a specific publisher or its content, giving the publisher a higher revenue share. According to Forbes, the intention is for publishers to earn at least as much revenue as they’d get from subscribers viewing ads. An early version of the service is anticipated to launch in January or February.Insider Take:Earlier this month, we reported that ad blocking was a $21.8 billion problem in 2015, and it is anticipated to become a $41.4 billion problem in 2016. That’s how much money ad blockers are costing publishers. Publishers are coming up with creative ways to combat the problem. Some like Axel Springer are taking ad blocking companies to court, while others are blocking users who use ad blockers from accessing their sites altogether or installing FreeWall as a workaround.None of these solutions is ideal, and folks from all sides – publishers, advertisers, ad blocking solution vendors and consumers – are complaining. Publishers need the advertising revenue, advertisers don’t want to pay for ads that aren’t being seen, vendors want to deliver on their ad blocking promise, and consumers are stuck in the middle.Will Optimal be the perfect solution? Probably not, but it is a creative way to look at the problem. We appreciate that Leathern and his team want to understand why ad blockers have become so prevalent and how everyone can get their needs met. Leathern explains:

“We have already started working with website publishers to assess how many users are blocking their ads, and will soon let sites offer those users a new way to keep blocking ads but also pay for content. We will collaborate with both websites and ad blockers too, because all of us need to understand why users are making the choices they are, so we can address the causes, not just the symptoms.”

The bottom line is that ad blocking is costing publishers tens of billions of dollars in advertising revenue, and it is preventing them from sharing quality content while getting paid for their work. Optimal may not be the perfect solution – or the only solution – but it keeps the topic in the forefront. Ad blocking will get worse before it gets better, but we’re glad folks like Leathern are not standing still. ~ Dana E. Neuts, Subscription Insider