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Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

mattcutts.com

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Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#51

Post by elorant »

asimilator wrote: post #31
bkanber wrote: post #16

This is fascinating. Business model: annoy people so much that they pay you to stop annoying them. Everybody's been talking about the death of display ads, and it looks like Google's paying attention and trying to figure out how to marginalize the ad itself, but still take money on the transaction. Eventually, Google could probably marginalize the ad so much that there are only a rare few display ads left online, and…

> Google has cleverly tricked us into keeping that industry aloft, essentially paying to keep something we hate alive. We hate content creators?

We hate shitty content creators (like Buzzfeed) who replicate content from other sources or even worse disguise ads with content (i.e. native advertising) . We also hate paying for the whole site just to read a couple of articles every now and then. How about a pay-by-article model with widespread adoption from the industry? I'd gladly go for it.

Lastly, we hate tracking. I can't overstate that. They kill profiling we kill ad blocking. Simple as that.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#52

Post by hartator »

austenallred wrote: post #46

I've been a contributor member for several months now, because I firmly believe in two things: 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. 2. Life without ads is much better. So here's what people need to know about Google contributor: 1. I pay for the highest level available. 2. I love not seeing ads. 3. This only works for Google-based ads, which are certainly common…

Just out of curiosity, how much are you paying per month?

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#53

Post by ksk »

johnward wrote: post #30
devit wrote: post #12

The biggest problem of this is that it only works on Google's ads, but there are far more obnoxious ads that will result in the user wanting and installing an adblocker anyway, and then why bother with Contributor?

Most users tend to complain about flying, pop ups, auto playing audio/video. Google does none of that. So is there a real benefit here?

> Google does none of that.

I have seen several adsense ads that auto-play. But it could be that they're violating Google's policies. I tried looking for a policy document, but this is all I could find.

https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176108?hl=en

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#54

Post by ISL »

I've been using Contributor for the last month or so:

1) One needn't turn on all third-party cookies to make it work. Enabling a subset of

  [*.]doubleclick.com, [*.]doubleclick.net, and [*.]google.com
is sufficient.

2) Contributor is the best existing solution to the third-party micropayment problem I've yet encountered. Direct contributions to sites are surely preferable, but not yet practical. Contributor would appear to have the following structural shortcomings:

- It only applies to Google's ad network. Mass adoption of Contributor would have the knock-on effect of strengthening Google's advertising position. Whether Google will remain a benevolent ad-network for life is uncertain.

- It installs a third party as a middleman, when only agreed-upon social and networking protocols are truly requisite. If Contributor were to take off, we run the risk of paying rent to Google for web-view transactions, just as we do with credit-card firms for financial transactions today.

That said, Contributor is a practical step forward in allowing us to underwrite sites we like and to raise the minimum bid that advertisers must pay to get our attention.

Thanks, Contributor team, for making this possible.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#55

Post by vitd »

herojan wrote: post #41
bkanber wrote: post #16

This is fascinating. Business model: annoy people so much that they pay you to stop annoying them. Everybody's been talking about the death of display ads, and it looks like Google's paying attention and trying to figure out how to marginalize the ad itself, but still take money on the transaction. Eventually, Google could probably marginalize the ad so much that there are only a rare few display ads left online, and…

The ads aren't there purely to annoy people, they're there to support the content you'd otherwise pay for. The idea of paying them instead of getting ads is also a way to support that content.

It can also be seen as acting like the mob. "It'd be a shame if your nice clean web page suddenly got ruined with ads. You know, we can keep that from happening for a price." No thanks. I'll continue to block ads and not be tracked and have my internet load faster.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#56

Post by arihant »

How is this not April?

The problem with this approach is this -- you're still bidding on the ad spot. While this is cool, here are ignored issues:

1. It removes Google ads, which are arguably the least annoying ads.

2. Since it is still ad-spot based revenues, it gives a publisher no real business model switch to stop using ads in the long run. It is pretty agnostic that way, publisher does not care who bid on the ad spot.

3. No way for publisher to go ad-free.

4. Still got all the nasty ad networks, other benefits of ad-blocking like tracking, speed are not gained.

I think this is cool to remove Google's ads, but I would yearn the day where there is a Spotify-like way of opting out of ads altogether for millions of websites. I mean this from publisher side of things. Someone should give them an option to get paid for hits without putting up ads.

But then again, I don't mind ads that much.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#57

Post by btown »

onion2k wrote: post #36
xbryanx wrote: post #9

For the ~price of Netflix subscription, I only get 25-50% fewer ads? Nah...too expensive.

If it was any cheaper then people would believe ads have very little value which leads to thinking an ad-blocker isn't really harming anyone. I wouldn't be surprised if this product is really, at least in part, a PR move to get people to think seeing adverts is the equivalent of 'saving' $20/month for web content.

And it actually is the equivalent of saving that money! If you want quality journalism, or even just an ops budget for the hosting site for your cat pictures, someone needs to pay at some point. There's a very close analogy to print publications: if magazines and newspapers didn't have ads, the newsstand price would be significantly higher due to the loss of impressions. Now, imagine if your Sunday newspaper had a magical printing press that could print, on-demand, a customized version for you without ads. If everyone switched to that option, they'd lose all their ad revenue, so they'd need to raise the newsstand price accordingly!

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#58

Post by austenallred »

hartator wrote: post #52
austenallred wrote: post #46

I've been a contributor member for several months now, because I firmly believe in two things: 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. 2. Life without ads is much better. So here's what people need to know about Google contributor: 1. I pay for the highest level available. 2. I love not seeing ads. 3. This only works for Google-based ads, which are certainly common…

Just out of curiosity, how much are you paying per month?

$15/month.

There's a sliding scale that goes in $1 increments.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#59

Post by [deleted] »

hartator wrote: post #52
austenallred wrote: post #46

I've been a contributor member for several months now, because I firmly believe in two things: 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. 2. Life without ads is much better. So here's what people need to know about Google contributor: 1. I pay for the highest level available. 2. I love not seeing ads. 3. This only works for Google-based ads, which are certainly common…

Just out of curiosity, how much are you paying per month?

[deleted]

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#60

Post by jakobegger »

johnward wrote: post #30
devit wrote: post #12

The biggest problem of this is that it only works on Google's ads, but there are far more obnoxious ads that will result in the user wanting and installing an adblocker anyway, and then why bother with Contributor?

Most users tend to complain about flying, pop ups, auto playing audio/video. Google does none of that. So is there a real benefit here?

Google does have the big green download button type ads (this kind of ad made me decide to install an adblocker)
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