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We’re dropping Google Ads

groundup.org.za

21–30 of 617 posts

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#21
post #6

I always imagined that some website/mobile app/service would appear that would let you buy subscriptions for access to multiple publishers at once. I think people have a hard time spending $5 here a month $10 there a month, but would spend maybe $49 for a range of access to sites. I don't know why something like that hasn't taken off yet. You could pick the sites you want access to or they could do a pay out based on…

I'd be interested in something that was the web site equivalent of Spotify, but not if it was HTML HBO.

I think the reason the online music subscriptions have done so well is that their catalogs span multiple publishers, and customers really don't want to subscribe to multiple services. While there's minor differences, you pretty much can get access to any music you can think of.

Otherwise you just end up with some crummy bundling service where you pay a premium for a few things you are interested in, and waste money on the rest of the junk.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#22
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A view is a view, and an ad will pay out the same regardless of the quality of the content on the page. That's not really true. Advertisers can bid on how much they want to pay for each individual impression. Advertisers will likely bid more for ads on high quality websites. Advertisers will also bid more for people willing to buy stuff.

>Advertisers will likely bid more for ads on high quality websites Citation needed > Advertisers will also bid more for people willing to buy stuff. Unfortunately, there is no correlation between people willing to buy stuff and high quality content.

We don't typically sell them this way, but the CPM for an ad on e.g. retaildive.com is much higher than anything on Google's network.

> Unfortunately, there is no correlation between people willing to buy stuff and high quality content.

Citation needed :)

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#23
I too deal with Google as a "publisher", and some of my experiences are similar to theirs. For example the odd way that they complain about certain forms of content, apparently prompted by an algorithm and unchecked by a human.

It seems to me that Google is a kind of corporate "Rain Man" - they have amazing abilities, and yet there are also these astonishing failures to deal with problems which could easily be resolved by a normal corporation.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#24
post #20

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

Check out the brave browser. I think that's their business plan

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#25
post #20

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

>Or invent a system by which 10% of the ad revenue gets cut out to the end user. That will incentivize people to unblock ads.

microsoft tried that with bing rewards. i suspect it's not working well because i only heard of it in the context of botting it to get free money. the advertiser wants to spend as little money to gain as many sales, whereas the viewer (and blackhats) want to get as much money as possible. the two parties' objectives do not line up.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#26

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

I'm sort of confused. That list of yours is a bunch of stuff that (at least not generally) Google doesn't advertise. So where does the "only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts" bit come from? Seems like you're only angry at the peddlers. What did Google do?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#27
post #6

I always imagined that some website/mobile app/service would appear that would let you buy subscriptions for access to multiple publishers at once. I think people have a hard time spending $5 here a month $10 there a month, but would spend maybe $49 for a range of access to sites. I don't know why something like that hasn't taken off yet. You could pick the sites you want access to or they could do a pay out based on…

I started subscribing and paying for Blendle about a month ago. Their service shows me article summaries from otherwise expensive publications like The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc. I can view a full article from $0.10 to about $0.50 without advertisements.

I spend a little over a dollar a week and I get to occasionally read articles from sources that are expensive to buy a full subscription for.

I wonder if publishers find Blendle's usage statistics to be useful. They certainly track users'navigation across their own web properties, but knowing which articles people are willing to pay for must be a good signal.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#28

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

> Then you see all those shitty ads for:

> - finding a russian bride

> - getting rich through some millionaires secret

> - anti-aging remedies

> - adware

> and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is losing.

Sorry for the shameless plug, but check out https://hotlinkx.com if you want. What you mentioned are a few of the other things it tries to address by letting publishers manually choose what they want to advertise.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#29

I've been on the fence about this for a while, and after reading what GroundUp wrote, I can't agree with them more. So I think it's time for me to dump Google Ads from my sites, as well. I send Big G three million ad impressions a month, and in return I get $150 and a bunch of visual dreck that makes the site look bad. $200, if I'm lucky. And this is all U.S. traffic on an award-winning news site. I only need to sell…

The amount of money you get from Google Adsense depends on the type of content. I looked at your profile but didn't find any information on what sites you might be running. Since this is hacker news, it might be that your site contains computer-related content. That type of content gets very low RPM. Still 3,000,000 impressions a month is quite a lot, so your site is obviously popular.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#30
post #20

For smaller websites (also referred to the democratization of the internet), I am sure many people may (or have) feel (felt) guilty for using an ad-blocker. Then you see all those shitty ads for: - finding a russian bride - getting rich through some millionaires secret - anti-aging remedies - adware and you realize that the ad-model only benefits Google and the peddlers pushing the dodgy adverts. Everyone else is los…

My attitude toward ad blockers was always "meh". I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Using an ad blocker is just modifying the rendering algorithm, much the same way as I could use a French to Russian translator, something that increases font sizes, or throwing on a custom stylesheet. I can write my own web browser, if I wish. Some percentage of users will use ad blockers, and businesses sh…

I don't think anyone is seriously doubting your legal right to block ads.

> If it is not sustainable, new business models will be invented.

If the ad blocking becomes so widespread that the ad-supported model becomes unsustainable, I think a lot of people will be unhappy with what happens next. There will be a lot more paywalls and a lot more native advertising, which will be fine for entrenched players but much harder for very small publishers to pull off.

The cool thing about AdWords was you could write a little blog and actually make a few dollars running ads on it just by adding a snippet of code. Maybe micropayments can take care of that some day?

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