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Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

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Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#21

Post by skydhash »

shanecleveland wrote: post #18
solardev wrote: post #17

One take: Maybe some websites don't need to exist? If nobody wants to pay for it, and you don't want to make it for free, maybe there's a case to be made that it just doesn't have to be made at all? Ads just force a market to optimize for clickbait and readership, not quality. Having fewer websites, each more expensive and intentional, would probably drastically increase the signal to noise ratio of the web. We could…

Better yet, if you don't agree with the method of monetization of a website, don't visit it. Don't whine about it. Don't use an ad blocker. I routinely back out of websites with obtrusive advertising. I find an alternate source, and reward them with my visit.

The content is for free. I just strip out what I don't like. Very much like when I was young and cutting out car pictures out of magazines. Except that the magazines did the smart thing and asked for payment first.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#22

Post by shanecleveland »

skydhash wrote: post #21
shanecleveland wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, if you don't agree with the method of monetization of a website, don't visit it. Don't whine about it. Don't use an ad blocker. I routinely back out of websites with obtrusive advertising. I find an alternate source, and reward them with my visit.

The content is for free. I just strip out what I don't like. Very much like when I was young and cutting out car pictures out of magazines. Except that the magazines did the smart thing and asked for payment first.

So the car pictures you cut out were not free. Not a good comparison.

Unless you are saying you would be willing to pay up front for every website you want to visit. Is that right?

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#23

Post by shanecleveland »

nicbou wrote: post #20

I provide what I believe to be rare and valuable information. My readers have confirmed it many times. I live well from affiliate marketing. I don't need to pitch anything; I merely mention available options where relevant. I wouldn't consider these mention to be ads as they don't affect the content at all. That allows me to work on the website full time, so it works. Donations don't work. At all. Even the people I p…

Perfectly said. Your readers do not have to use your website, they choose to. And they can choose to leave your website, and they can choose not to click on your affiliate links.

When and ad comes on the radio, I can change the station. When an add comes on the TV, I can change the channel. I cannot force either one to not broadcast the ad to me and go back to normal programming.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#24

Post by skydhash »

shanecleveland wrote: post #22
skydhash wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content is for free. I just strip out what I don't like. Very much like when I was young and cutting out car pictures out of magazines. Except that the magazines did the smart thing and asked for payment first.

So the car pictures you cut out were not free. Not a good comparison. Unless you are saying you would be willing to pay up front for every website you want to visit. Is that right?

Very much. I already pay for my self hosted software, I pay for cloud storage, I also pay for various services around the web. I used to pay for medium (when it was good), if my workflow was dependent on a piece of software and I needed to pay to have access to a good support forum, I'd do that too.

I'm grateful for the fact that so many people are open to share their knowledge for free. But even in this case, I'm paying for the internet to visit their websites. And for the amount of information I get from HN, I'd pay for a membership subscription.

One is entitled to add ads to one's webpages. But the computer is mine and I'm totally free to not display them. The same way I'm free to mute my TV and switch channels when the ads start. Or skip forward on the podcast. It's my personal computing/entertainment space, I decide what I'm exposed to.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#25

Post by shanecleveland »

skydhash wrote: post #24
shanecleveland wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the car pictures you cut out were not free. Not a good comparison. Unless you are saying you would be willing to pay up front for every website you want to visit. Is that right?

Very much. I already pay for my self hosted software, I pay for cloud storage, I also pay for various services around the web. I used to pay for medium (when it was good), if my workflow was dependent on a piece of software and I needed to pay to have access to a good support forum, I'd do that too. I'm grateful for the fact that so many people are open to share their knowledge for free. But even in this case, I'm pa…

I agree. As I said in another comment, you have the right to not visit sites in the same way you have the right to change your TV channel. But what you cannot do on your TV is strip away ads and force a channel to only show programming.

My pie-in-the-sky theory is that if enough people avoided "abusive" ad sites, they would change their behavior. But if ad blockers are used instead, the bad sites get more abusive to circumvent them, and the responsible sites become unsustainable.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#26

Post by vinnyvichy »

fallinditch wrote: post #16
vinnyvichy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To return to our old grapplings, MST Specialized*, like an enlightened martial artist in service of Zen, in inexorably using the finger (pace Alan Watts!) to point at: The question of whether politics can enable curiosity, and curiosity can enable politics. (Use the finite resolution, Luke!) The answer to the modified question where "politics" is replaced by "commerce" is trivially true as evidenced by your implicitl…

Ah, to pirouette upon the fractal edge of our collective metacognition, like a quantum jester juggling Schrödinger's punchlines! Indeed, our cybernetic sojourn through the noosphere leads us to ponder: can the digital agora, that grand bazaar of bits and memes, transmute the base metal of click-commerce into the philosopher's stone of genuine epistemic enrichment? (Use the infinite scroll, Neo!) The answer to the mod…

I recognize you?!?!

but MST=Murderous Saint Ted (Kaczynski)

and Sv Fedorov should have been

Saint Nikolay (Feodorov)

Also that question has been asked (or rather parodied) on mass media before, I don't claim novelty

https://youtu.be/wqgkZDbe4Xk (Warning: Scottish, pace young Obiwan)

But maybe I propose to elide commerce in the wanksmith's bag of tricks

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#27

Post by perilunar »

I get a little bit of money from Buy Me a Coffee, and I love the feedback I get there also, but donations don't work very well. Ads are ugly and I really don't want them on my sites.

What we really need is a decent, ubiquitous micropayment system. I don't have any hope that it would be viable unless one of the big players (Google) got on board, and why would they when they make a killing from serving ads and hijacking people's attention? The enshittification continues.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#28

Post by Grimblewald »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

Personal opinion --- a big part of the problem with ads is due to personalization . It is fundamentally anti-consumer and is a proven, sure fire way to annoy your visitors and encourage them to use ad blocking --- which more than half now do according to some recent stats. Personalized ads are the dumbest idea since the invention of advertising. When more than half of your target audience actively refuses to engage a…

A bigger problem in my opinion is when ads become the primary focus of a site. When most sites I visit had ads that take up so much visual realestate that I cannot find the content I was actually after, then I will simply start using ad blockers. Sites which use ads appropriately are unfortunately caught in the crossfire. I suppose it would be handy to have ad-blockers not block by default, and rather users can add a domain to a 'black-list' (instead of a white-list which I won't remember to add sites to, as there is not reason to) if it uses scummy advertising practices, where this black-list could be tracked and users can, if they want, download the K-votes blacklist, which is a collection of domains which more than k users have blacklisted.

Re: Ask HN: If not ads, then how are websites supposed to monetize?

#30

Post by estomagordo »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #7
estomagordo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can imagine that the ad networks has data that says otherwise though.

One can also imagine that the ad networks really don't care as long as advertisers continue to buy into the ad auction ruse. The ad networks are an opaque "black box". You only get to see what they allow you to see. It is essentially built around faith. It's difficult for advertisers to compare to alternatives because they have effectively monopolized the market. For consumers, the most sensible response is increasin…

Not faith, data.

Customers obviously can see performance.

How is it that you imagine that you know this better than these people do?

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