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Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

mattcutts.com

331–340 of 472 posts

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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you could block ads and try not consume the content of creators who have advertising. There seems to be an underlying assumption in your statement that you deserve access to their content, and well, if the mechanisms they put in place to monetize it are too onerous, you should feel fine just taking it.

I wouldn't consume their contents if they are at a subscription fee. Most of the content creators on the internet know that their content wouldn't earn them a subscription, so they choose the advertisement model. If you make something worth paying money for, people will pay. I mean, they're not making me sign a contract saying I wouldn't consume their content if the ads are off, so it's up to me to choose what I see…

People don't want to pay because it requires friction on every purchase and much of the content on the internet adds up to fractions of a penny per impression. That doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

Think of like a movie: you can pay $10 to see the whole thing or $0.001 per each frame. That's what the web is like with each frame possibly being from a different publisher. That kind of granular payments is very hard to pull off effectively outside of advertising.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not rational, it's silly. It's a tragedy of commons problem coupled with a feedback loop - companies waste ever increasing amount of money, fuel, and man power, supporting a whole bullshit job industry in oder to compete with each other over a limited pool of attention and wallets AND at the same time they turn whole Internet into a cesspool. If you look at it globally, it's insanity.

It seems like you're just saying that because you don't like them. The ad industry is not full of idiots, it's got an impressive amount of technology and data behind it proving the ROI on every side. You have not uncovered some kind of mass conspiracy. I'd strongly recommend you either talk to people in the industry or read up on the technology and results available.

I'm not postulating a conspiracy. I'm only pointing out the resource-wasting zero-sum game which drives most of the advertising. I'm not denying that ads have effect. Of course they have. But what matters is marginal effect, which generally stays constant, because there is only so many things one can buy, and so many attention one can spare.

Also, I worked alongside people in ad industry and I'm very happy I escaped it. I've seen how things are done and I'm not pleased. I don't think ad industry is full of idiots - it's not the smarts I am disputing, it's the morals.

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

#334

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.

That's not how it works. They aren't displaying it for free, they're displaying it in exchange for your attention/time on the accompanying ads.

You don't want to buy it because it causes friction to pay the $0.001 it costs to view the page that the ads take care of. Otherwise if there really is no value on that page, what are you doing there? You prove there is value to you by the act of visiting.

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

#336
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A clearer way to write this would be, pay-per-impression stopped being the default (or only) way of doing business sometime between 1999-2001. After a brief period where ads were predominantly text-based, ad inflation brought graphical ads and CPM back and nowadays can do CPC as well as CPM or CPA (cost per acquisition) links: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2472725?hl=en&ref_... But don't let your clear pi…

Practically all of the advertising on the internet is purchased on per impression basis. It falls into 2 categories: 1) Advertisers paying straight per mille i.e. mr. Proper, Coca-Cola, Lays, etc. Direct outcomes are secondary to them (at best). This is the ovewhelming majority of the display ad spend. Yes, you read that right. The majority of the online ad spend does not care about sales on a website. 2) CPC based a…

Your entire post was informative right up the last line, You'd demonstrated your point brilliantly then wrecked it.

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

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're just saying that because you don't like them. The ad industry is not full of idiots, it's got an impressive amount of technology and data behind it proving the ROI on every side. You have not uncovered some kind of mass conspiracy. I'd strongly recommend you either talk to people in the industry or read up on the technology and results available.

I'm not postulating a conspiracy. I'm only pointing out the resource-wasting zero-sum game which drives most of the advertising. I'm not denying that ads have effect. Of course they have. But what matters is marginal effect, which generally stays constant, because there is only so many things one can buy, and so many attention one can spare. Also, I worked alongside people in ad industry and I'm very happy I escaped…

For a good illustration of some of the points you make - when tobacco advertising was banned in the UK, profits went up markedly because demand remained the same and there was no longer the massive outlay.

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

#338
IMO, the big problem is that you don't choose who to pay. I don't want to pay to producers of low quality contents and the ones who spammed the google with useless pages which are at the top of the search results for SEO reasons.

IMO, micro-transactions which are used to pay by views are much better option, and google is the company who can implement this.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not how it works. They aren't displaying it for free, they're displaying it in exchange for your attention/time on the accompanying ads. You don't want to buy it because it causes friction to pay the $0.001 it costs to view the page that the ads take care of. Otherwise if there really is no value on that page, what are you doing there? You prove there is value to you by the act of visiting.

> They aren't displaying it for free, they're displaying it in exchange for your attention/time on the accompanying ads.

> You don't want to buy it because it causes friction to pay the $0.001 it costs to view the page that the ads take care of.

Well, current model also costs me that $0.001 (likely more) in electricity costs and exposes me to at best some ugly-looking crap made with adversarial intent, that has nonzero chance of scamming me into buying something I don't need, and at worst is a vector of malware delivery. It also costs me time wasted on waiting (10x longer load times) and productivity losses due to system slowing down if for some reason I need to keep the site open and do something else.

> You prove there is value to you by the act of visiting

You prove there is potential value by visiting. You won't know if there is an actual value until you at least skim the content. If you're visiting the same site regularly you can start to predict how much value you expect to get out of a visit, but at this point the site owner can probably convince you to pay for it somehow (be it subscription, turning off the ads, selling you their book, etc.).

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