Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by kbenson » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #267

kbenson wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that it isn't always about buying habits, at least not immediately (and sometimes never). Sometimes advertising is about awareness. Sometimes that's brand awareness, but it's also issue awareness. There are ads about social issues. They are often about making sure you are aware of the organization that put the ad out in case you want to get involved/help financially, but often it's also just to raise awar…

>> In what way is a site showing an ad about children going hungry in America (as Hulu used to play quite often) and him not clicking on it scamming the organization that put the ad out? It's one 'view' (well page-load, because I'm not going to view it regardless) that's going to get them nowhere that they don't have to pay for. >> In what way is his blanket rejection of the ad before actually seeing it making helpin…

> Are you trying to argue that I should watch all advertising that comes my way in case some of it is socially responsible?

No, but I think your view on advertising and the content it supports is hypocritical (because you still accept the desired content), so I thought casting it in light of a hopefully less nefarious cause might cause you to look at it more objectively.

The naivety I reference is specifically in your belief that you can correctly predict the desires of multiple large and small complex business entities in their goal to advertising in front of you, and make decisions in their best interest that are against their expressed desire.

There are many arguments for ad-blockers that can be put forth, but I don't believe taking the moral high-ground is a valid one.

Edit: s/arguments against/arguments for/

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

#282

Post by mahranch » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

gambiter wrote: post #279

austenallred wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Topical subreddits And how is reddit funded?

https://www.reddit.com/gold I've paid for it, personally, and I know others who do. Yes, the ads are probably a larger portion of their income right now, but there's certainly an easy way to support them directly.

> gold

And they have ads, too:

https://www.reddit.com/advertising/

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

#283

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #247

Nursie wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that advertisers will use things like 'brand awareness' and other subtle ways to try to get into my brain against my wishes is, IMHO, an excellent reason for blocking.

That's also a good argument for holing up in a cave somewhere and never coming out. The whole of human culture and communication is full of subtle cues and plays on how our mind works, and has been for millennia.

What matters here are intentions. Yes, pretty much every human interaction is a form of manipulating the emotional state of participants, often on an unconscious level. But most of the time people do that to facilitate win-win situations, to help each other. On the other hand, most of advertising and marketing is adversarial; companies and salespeople literally want to scam you. I think it is a reasonable stance to be against manipulation with malicious intent.

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

#284

Post by kbenson » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:34 PM UTC

supercanuck wrote: post #219

kbenson wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we don't like those companies doesn't mean there isn't some truth to their arguments (regarding Tivo at least, I'm not sure what they bitch at Netflix about).

Just because a company has something to sell, doesn't obligate people to buy it. if you can't get someone to buy it, displaying it for free then griping because people STILL don't want to pay for it, is just frankly ridiculous to me. To answer your question above, they gripe because they are being disrupted by technology and cannot charge what they want to charge for their product.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the discussion so far.

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

#285

Post by mahranch » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:35 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #273

austenallred wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Topical subreddits And how is reddit funded?

Doesn't matter. They don't create the content, but merely facilitate creation by unpaid volunteers. Yes, they use ads, and if they didn't, I probably would be happy to pay or donate (if only to keep all the topical forums in one place and not revert to dark ages of phpBB and linear discussion threads). But let's not cheat ourselves - the ads are not paying for the content, they are merely supporting an efficient plat…

I like reddit because they encourage people to visit the websites of the content creators by way of link aggregation. You go to /r/Worldnews or something, and it's a link to the BBC or Reuters. They don't host the articles themselves. This sends much needed traffic to the people who deserve it. Whether you're a big name like cnn.com or a small publisher like StevesBlog.com, you're on an equal playing field.

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

#286

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #281

Nursie wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In what way is a site showing an ad about children going hungry in America (as Hulu used to play quite often) and him not clicking on it scamming the organization that put the ad out? It's one 'view' (well page-load, because I'm not going to view it regardless) that's going to get them nowhere that they don't have to pay for. >> In what way is his blanket rejection of the ad before actually seeing it making helpin…

> Are you trying to argue that I should watch all advertising that comes my way in case some of it is socially responsible? No, but I think your view on advertising and the content it supports is hypocritical (because you still accept the desired content), so I thought casting it in light of a hopefully less nefarious cause might cause you to look at it more objectively. The naivety I reference is specifically in you…

> The naivety I reference is specifically in your belief that you can correctly predict the desires of multiple large and small complex business entities in their goal to advertising in front of you, and make decisions in their best interest that are against their expressed desire.

I think there is nothing to predict here - they have no goal towards 'Nursie, or any other particular viewer. Advertising on-line is done by carpet-bombing the whole Internet with cheap ads, hoping that enough people get hit.

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

#287

Post by kazinator » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

Of course Google will pocket a big chunk of the revenue, doh! It's a clever scam to exploit people's guilt to get them to part with some cash, nothing more.

Donate directly, your favorite sites, and then block their ads yourself.

Do not pay this "opt-out ransom".

Heck, it's better to send a donation to someone who makes free ad-blocking software.

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

#288

Post by tomtang0514 » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #163

olegious wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point of some types of advertising. There are typically 2 types of goals that an advertiser can be interested in- 1. Branding, 2. Direct Response. With "Branding" campaigns an advertiser just wants to get their name out there and very often, associated with a specific publisher (say Mercedes wants to be associated with The Economist)- the metrics that these types of campaigns are judged by are impr…

As I said, particularly with web advertising, if you've made me notice your brand then I will actively try to remember not to buy from you - I dislike advertising that much. By viewing the ad I'm not ripping anyone off, no, but a page taking money for me viewing an ad would be, as the outcome for the advertiser is getting a best neutral and likely actually negative.

One thing I'd like to point out is that, display an ads usually doesn't make the situation worse. So neutral and negative are (mostly) the same for a brand because they don't convert to a sale, while positive does. For example, if you feel sick about a specific ad, you probably won't be interest in that brand anyway regardless if you see the ad or not. And this is the worst case, "they failed to give good impression to someone". The best case is, it might remind someone about the brand and lead to a sale in the future.

There're several technics in ad industry to minimal the negative effect. One example is frequency cap, which is the total number of times a specific ad be shown to someone. Anyone will get sick if they saw the exact same thing 10 times a day. Another example is ad rotation, means showing slight different ads about the same thing to people. If you like cars you might remember a recent ad campaign about ford focus on youtube.

Do these technics work? Well I don't think it makes a negative experience positive, but it does make some of them neutral for me.

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

#289

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #262

I see a couple of issues with programs like this. First, if this were to take off it would move the industry to impression based pricing wholesale. Reprinted content is already on of the biggest problems today, and with this model there is obvious risk that original creators get nothing as reprinters take everything. Second, given that we can't have a monopoly on this business, a webmaster is incentivized to join eve…

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by Nursie » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #281

Nursie wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In what way is a site showing an ad about children going hungry in America (as Hulu used to play quite often) and him not clicking on it scamming the organization that put the ad out? It's one 'view' (well page-load, because I'm not going to view it regardless) that's going to get them nowhere that they don't have to pay for. >> In what way is his blanket rejection of the ad before actually seeing it making helpin…

> Are you trying to argue that I should watch all advertising that comes my way in case some of it is socially responsible? No, but I think your view on advertising and the content it supports is hypocritical (because you still accept the desired content), so I thought casting it in light of a hopefully less nefarious cause might cause you to look at it more objectively. The naivety I reference is specifically in you…

>> No, but I think your view on advertising and the content it supports is hypocritical (because you still accept the desired content)

I have said I will be happy to include a header in my http requests that says I will not render ads, and I already am happy to pay for content in other media. I will now explore that on the web.

At the moment, however, I request content from web servers and they send it to me. I make no guarantees implied or otherwise about what I will do with it or how I will render it.

>> The naivety I reference is specifically in your belief that you can correctly predict the desires of multiple large and small complex business entities in their goal to advertising in front of you,

They want my money. I'm well aware of this much.

>> and make decisions in their best interest that are against their expressed desire.

Well perhaps not, but in the simple case I will repeat - if I notice you're advertising your brand at me, I will not buy your stuff.

>> There are many arguments against ad-blockers that can be put forth, but I don't believe taking the moral high-ground is a valid one.

There are very many arguments for ad-blockers that do occupy the moral high-ground. Advertising is manipulative and it's not immoral to block these attempts at manipulation.