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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

#371

Post by RodericDay »

softawre wrote: post #367
RodericDay wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you see the ad, and decide to check the movie out, and it's terrible - a waste of your time and money? What if you see a slick ad for a restaurant, and it turns out the restaurant spends more money on ads than on being a good restaurant, and it is a waste of money? Are you better off?

Wow. He was saying they could be positive. Of course you can come up with a counter-example...

Which is why it is ridiculous to approach the situation from a "what if..." perspective. We should approach it from net expected benefit, else everyone gets to pretend they are the one true purveyor of good and classy ads.

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

#372

Post by cwilkes »

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…

I love not seeing ads.

Well, technically you're not "seeing" ads but I'm pretty sure your information is still being traded to data providers.

This actually works to google's advantage. They reduce ad blindness and when an actual ad appears it will be highly targeted and probably gives Google a lot more revenue per ad.

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

#373

Post by zorpner »

a3n wrote: post #343
manigandham wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking adblock users is not as easy as it sounds. Many of the adblockers also maintain rules and filters to actively get around this. Paywalls are the only sure fire way to keep people out.

It may not be easy. Wired seems to know how, they ask me to unblock when I visit. Same with Reddit (years ago) and duckduckgo.

Sean Forman indicates that their suggestion to Adblock users to whitelist was explicitly blocked: https://twitter.com/sean_forman/status/644580617208864768

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

#374

Post by Matt_Cutts »

minimaxir wrote: post #18

In terms of generating-revenue-without-running-ads, I do think Patreon is still a better option, as it both provides a consistent , nonseasonal revenue source for the author and content guarantees for the user; a win-win in both cases. Google Contributor is more of a charitable option which might be too subtle.

I agree and do Patreon too, but there's a lot of folks not on Patreon.

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

#375

Post by Nicholas_C »

mahranch wrote: post #302
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think they'll continue to make money when inevitably adblocker software on any browser becomes as ubiquitous as messenger or camera software on a phone? That's the whole issue. The current ad model isn't really sustainable in that light. There's no outrage they're not getting paid, there is concern that extrapolating current trends, they won't get paid a few years down the line and will either shut down or…

> Or you simply believe that the rapid growth of ad blockers will taper off fairly quickly and never constitute a significant threat. Possible but I think pretty naive. A third option that I think is the most likely (because it's already begun to happen): Programs & plugins for websites that serve ads up natively from the local website. This means there's no call to a third party. It means there would be nothing to b…

I could see text/pattern recognition playing a huge part in the ad blocker functionality if ads are served the way you describe.

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

#376

Post by manigandham »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #363
manigandham wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electricity costs you mentioned are externalities and not really relevant here. Otherwise you will start blaming everything for every little action you take. If you don't want to browse that site, you can stop at any level from going to that url, starting your browser, buying your computer, living in that country, etc. When you go shopping, it will likely cost you gas, time, wear/tear, etc just like anything else…

> The electricity costs you mentioned are externalities and not really relevant here. This is very relevant here, because a big part of issue with ads is about dumping externalities on people. When you multiply that small electricity costs by number of people exposed to a bloated, flashy ad you'll see it actually adds up to a decent amount of coal unnecessarily burned. But that's beside the point, I only brought up e…

> I don't ask for refund, but I do tally that and include in my decision about which shop to go to.

Then include that in your decision in whether to go to a site with ads. You wouldn't just take things from the store either?

> It could be, in principle. It probably would be if the only ads displayed were AdSense ones. But as it is now, getting scammed or catching a drive-by malware is not low-risk trade.

Scams are a greater issue than to put on advertising. Malware is an issue and I agree with that. The industry does need to work on this and things are changing but that doesn't suddenly make it ok to take. If the risk is too much for you, dont visit the site. Same as if the risk of driving on the freeways is too much, stay off the freeway.

You seem to keep saying you take risk and externalities into account but then say that you have no control and thus rationalize taking content, however you always have the choice of just not going to that link.

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

#377

Post by kbenson »

Nursie wrote: post #370
kbenson wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll say again, if sites make it clear I'm not welcome without viewing their ads, I won't go. Considering a needed mechanism for an ad-blocker to function is to be undetectable, they could be trying ten different ways to detect if you are blocking ads so they can display a note that you aren't allowed to view the content, and you would likely never know. Or do you think they should put a banner at the top of ever p…

>> Considering a needed mechanism for an ad-blocker to function is to be undetectable That's just not true. Lot's of sites can and do detect them just fine, and display custom messages.

You are correct, in that currently it's a feature of anti-adblock killer and some other scripts/plugins with a similar goal, and I was conflating some comments about an adblock detector[1] and it's inability to detect ublock initially (most likely because it wasn't trying). My apologies.

That said, I don't think we're that far away from ad-blockers blocking detection. As soon as some large sites detect and bypass ad-blocks by moving to a ad source in those cases (or displaying ads in some other manner), ad-blockers will be forced to prevent detection to fulfill their purpose.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10161427

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

#378

Post by jdiez17 »

mahranch wrote: post #302
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think they'll continue to make money when inevitably adblocker software on any browser becomes as ubiquitous as messenger or camera software on a phone? That's the whole issue. The current ad model isn't really sustainable in that light. There's no outrage they're not getting paid, there is concern that extrapolating current trends, they won't get paid a few years down the line and will either shut down or…

> Or you simply believe that the rapid growth of ad blockers will taper off fairly quickly and never constitute a significant threat. Possible but I think pretty naive. A third option that I think is the most likely (because it's already begun to happen): Programs & plugins for websites that serve ads up natively from the local website. This means there's no call to a third party. It means there would be nothing to b…

You're saying that there's going to be an arms race between advertisers and ad blockers and you assume advertisers are going to win by fuzzing the definition of "ad". Is that a good thing? It sounds like a local maximum to me, like native advertising, and not really a step in the right direction.

In The Ideal World ad blockers wouldn't exist because we'd all be happy paying our fair share to content creators. This seems pretty far off from the current status quo, but running an ad blocker today is only adding fuel to the fire. If advertisers step up their game and ads become unblockable, we might be closing the door to a better solution and be stuck with ads forever.

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

#379

Post by [deleted] »

manigandham wrote: post #334
supercanuck wrote: post #219

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.

[deleted]

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

#380

Post by [deleted] »

manigandham wrote: post #334
supercanuck wrote: post #219

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.

[deleted]
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