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Just doesn’t feel good

marco.org

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Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#101

Post by existencebox »

tptacek wrote: post #59
ino wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why (for now and in this case) apps win. You get to make money from ads, and some people pay you a dollar to remove those ads.

No, that approach hasn't worked well either. See for instance the failure of Newsstand, which had the benefit of being a marquee iOS feature featured in a keynote. People want free and no-strings-attached.

I don't think that's true, at least not for "people" as a whole group. For me, paywalls are a pain because I don't want to jump through the hoops to get past them, and you're often stuck ordering a full subscription or the like (as well as other posters rightly pointing out that paywalls can often come prior to any ability to decide that you WANT what's paywalled).

If there was a truly low friction way to get a single piece of vetted/high quality content for a marginal one time rate (the sort of thing I used to hear from a lot of the bitcoin crowd as a potential use case, but only saw materialize in partial forms via things like dogecoin) I'd be much more likely to do so. (or if you're feeling generous as a content author, a low friction way of donating post-factum; the "paypal button" (and similar) is not a great solution as is due to aformentioned high friction)

tl;dr, it's still neither common nor easy to be able to transfer small sums for specific content. This is a model I'd support over both ads and current-form paywalls.

This post had too many qualifiers, which I think indicates it's clearly not cut and dry, but I worry that to paint a broad brush of "nobody wants to pay" distracts from finding a model that will work better.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#102

Post by tertius »

dannyr wrote: post #81
humanrebar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about extremely low marginal cost. More like a free glass of water or free use of the restroom than a free pair of jeans.

Marginal cost? free glass of water? No. Writing articles cost time and money. They are not free.

Yes, there is a single one time cost. Redistribution is essentially free, that's the point of the comment.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#103

Post by makeitsuckless »

cjensen wrote: post #20

Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.

Because he doesn't say anything.

There's nothing in the entire post to believe or not to believe, it's all extremely evasive. It pretty much screams "something happened I don't want to or can't talk about".

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#104

Post by inversionOf »

arrrg wrote: post #89
inversionOf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, really, even if some posters can't seem to fathom giving up money to sleep soundly at night. This is like kicking kittens and then announcing to the world that you're going to stop kicking kittens. Then why kick kittens in the first place? No one made Marco create an ad blocking app. No one demanded his coordination with Ghostery. No one demanded that he announce it with great fanfare on his site. Morali…

You kick kittens because you didn’t really think about it, then you think about it and you stop. Humans make errors in judgement all the time. That’s just ordinary. Also, he himself clearly says that he doesn’t think blocking ads is somehow undoubtedly immoral (like kicking kittens) or something. He makes a much more subtle argument, basically saying it’s a complex issue and he doesn’t feel confident in his ability t…

especially if you expected this app to be not very popular in the first place

The anticipation about adblockers on iOS has been fervent and growing for a while now. Marco went and setup an agreement with one of the larger purveyors of block lists, then utilizing that to all advantages to corner the market. I find it highly dubious that he didn't think it would be lucrative.

The ramifications and gray area of adblocking are not new. They are not unknown. This has been a discussion for literally years. As with others, it seems obvious that there is something else that motivated this sudden change of perception, and personally I would wager that very shortly we'll see Ghostery skip the middle man and release their own blocker, probably with some financial considerations.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#106

Post by derefr »

shanecleveland wrote: post #73

I applaud the move on his part, but should have had some forethought before releasing it. He has skin in the game: profited from Instapaper (essentially an ad-stripper), sells ads on his blog and produces a podcast that profits from ad sales. His advertising may be more acceptable in terms of aesthetics and privacy, but it is an acknowledgement, nonetheless, that advertising is the best possible monetization model an…

He expected to make a tiny ad-blocker nobody cared about, and then keep tinkering with it. Instead, he captured the majority of the market—at which point he realized that his ad-blocker is not nearly "nice" enough (in the ABP "whitelist sites that display non-intrusive ads" sense of nice) to make sense as the one the majority of iOS users use, and he has no idea how to do the work required to get it there (I.e. building a manual whitelist of all "good" sites ever) without stepping on millions of toes.

Basically, he just never planned for success.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#107

Post by furyofantares »

DanBlake wrote: post #75
cjensen wrote: post #20

Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.

I assume you are responding to me primarily. This is the issue- Him having 'fuck you' money makes no difference to me. Plenty of rich people do things with a hidden agenda. Personally I feel like the reason he gave seems far fetched and much less likely then another causation point. So, with Occam's razor in mind I default to my viewpoint that this was likely a issue induced by Ghostery. For what its worth, I also fe…

> Personally I feel like the reason he gave seems far fetched and much less likely then another causation point.

Perhaps an understandable (though not very charitable) reaction if you cannot see yourself having the same viewpoint. But I think the existence of other people who believe they would have the same viewpoint means you should view it as less far fetched, or not far fetched at all. You might discount some of this as people incorrectly believing they'd take a view that they presently view as "more moral" without actually understanding how they'd behave.

I've had the opportunity to work on some tech that was similar to adblocking, and, without moralizing, I found it highly stressful and quickly chose to work on something else. I encourage you to read my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240713

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#108

Post by code_sterling »

cjensen wrote: post #20

Lots of people here trying to infer motives. Why not just believe what he says? He's a guy who has enough money, wants to do what he loves, and doesn't enjoy controversy. He's hacker enough to want to muck about with how to make a blocker, but it's not his joy. Basically, he's what many of us aspire to be.

Considering the cost and time to develop an app, I don't really buy it. Quick web app that you throw up, sure, but with an App Store app, it's a lot more time and money.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#109

Post by superuser2 »

ixtli wrote: post #55

I hate this supposition that everyone should bend over backwards to allow people who make money in a certain way continue making money in that way. Am I the only one thinks that the user's experience should be more important than everything else? Annoying advertisements are, in practice, the result of people failing to be creative in monetization. Ars Technica, for instance, has done a great job of integrating ads in…

When advertisers have the ability to masquerade their for-hire opinion manipulation as journalism, the public can no longer be in any meaningful way begin to hold government and corporate interests accountable. Native advertising is an existential threat to democracy and its profiteers belong in prison.

I'd much rather pay journalists to tell me the truth than read what people with money are paying them to tell me.

Re: Just doesn’t feel good

#110

Post by inversionOf »

carlosrg wrote: post #34
DanBlake wrote: post #2

Although I have no direct knowledge, it feels like there is something going on behind the scenes forcing this reaction. If I had to guess, I would point the finger at Ghostery causing this. Lifehacker wrote¹ that Ghostery sells some data to marketers, so perhaps the approach taken with the app interferes with Ghostery's model and they were not willing to continue allowing access to their rule list. Alternatively Ghos…

Doubt it. He probably just thought the app wasn't going to be so popular. He's selling a lot of copies and he just doesn't feel comfortable with it. Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money. I said this yesterday and I'm going to repeat myself in this thread: adblocking is not going to "fix" the web as people are saying, for the simple reason ad blockers block all ads, not only annoying ones. The…

Hats off to Marco for putting his ethics first, not the money.

I find this sentiment, and the moderation supporting it, incredible and almost a demonstration of the Stockholm Syndrome.

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