• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 17, 2016

After half a century as a largely ad-supported publication, The Atlantic today will begin offering two options to readers: ad-supported or an ad-free fee, depending on their preference and the technology they have installed on their browsers.

“Visitors to our site who use an ad or script blocker will now see a message offering two options: Whitelist The Atlantic, or purchase an ad-free subscription,” the venerable magazine says in a note to readers published today.

“While we’re in beta, we won’t prevent ad-block users from continuing to read The Atlantic. But our intention is to soon ask ad-block users to make a choice,” the note continues, pointing out, “The Atlantic depends on our readers' support to ensure that our legacy of meaningful journalism is continued for another 159 years.”

“Our intention is for ad-block users to soon face a hard wall and be asked to make a choice,” explains a spokesperson for the magazine.

Concurrent with the new free vs. paid model, the magazine also announced upgrades to its user experience, including:

• Ongoing work to improve page speed, performance, and advertising integrations

• Going “secure” with a site-wide transition to HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) by the end of 2016

• Employing third-party ad monitoring that will continuously scan ad tags for things like malware