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We’re dropping Google Ads

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#121

Post by Crito »

paulcole wrote: post #93

You're the first armchair philosopher to reply with a non-equivalent real world analogy looking to trip me up! Congratulations.

Here's a digital analogy for you. Suppose I:

1) Disable my ad blocker.

2) "Open Link in New Tab"

3) Wait for my browser to finish requesting that data from the server

4) Close the tab without ever looking at it.

Is that unethical? Is it unethical for me to decide I don't want to read a webpage after requesting it? Should the "open in new tab" feature always force a tab switch against my wishes, so ensure I'm not ripping off some website by requesting their data but not looking at their ads?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#122

Post by rdl »

You really need different monetization for different kinds of sites.

1) Low quality, high volume, low overhead: google ads.

2) High quality/high value, low volume, niche: subscription/services

3) Medium quality, low volume, niche: donation

The only form of advertising I'd ever want on my site, unless it is a very low quality, is direct sold by my own staff (i.e. me). I'd probably optimize for effort and just do a single "sponsor" for each month, or maybe ongoing. The low-touch way is probably to pick a relevant CPA program (say, Audible) and pitch that to your own audience.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#123

Post by chrissnell »

phantom_oracle wrote: post #12

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…

What infuriates me is that I've paid for subscriptions to online editions of newspapers like the New York Times and still--even though I am a paid subscriber--they show me ads. It's obscene. How much do I have to pay not to get pestered? I have no idea because that's not even an option.

I won't pay a cent for any site that shows me ads on a paid subscription. In fact, I'll go out of my way to cancel the subscription and block the ads and do everything I can to subvert their paywalls and read the content for free.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#124

Post by Crito »

paulcole wrote: post #73
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the following: If you pick up a newspaper or magazine, is it wrong to skip the ads? What about changing the TV channel or radio station while commercials play?

I think it'd be wrong to hire a dude to clip out all the ads before I open the paper in the morning. I think it'd be wrong to mod my TV and car radio to change the channel when an ad starts playing.

>it'd be wrong to hire a dude to clip out all the ads

>hire

Well I'm not paying for my adblocker. What if this dude volunteers? What if I'm doing it for my family members? This isn't a hypothetical.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#125

Post by guelo »

ac29 wrote: post #100
mark_l_watson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sub…

>I can view a full article from $0.10 to about $0.50 without advertisements. Thats at least an order of magnitude more expensive than its worth (to me), and 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more than they would make from ads. As an ad-blocking user who reads a lot of online content, I am in favor in the pay for content model, but it has to come at an appropriate price. A couple cents per reading minute is the high end of w…

Pre-internet you could buy the Sunday edition of your city's newspaper for 50 cents. This included dozens of in-depth articles. So yea, probably on the order of a penny per article. Though it was heavily subsidized by car dealer advertisements and the classifieds.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#126

Post by clubm8 »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #64
paulcole wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Legally I have no idea. But ethically/morally, I'd argue you don't. By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views for content and you're breaking that agreement. Doesn't feel right to me.

Consider the following: If you pick up a newspaper or magazine, is it wrong to skip the ads? What about changing the TV channel or radio station while commercials play?

>Consider the following: If you pick up a newspaper or magazine, is it wrong to skip the ads? What about changing the TV channel or radio station while commercials play?

Apparently when I take a piss during a commercial break, I'm not just voiding my bladdder... I'm breaking the social contract.

Sorry, but if you put up a website, I can render it with whatever browser I please.

Or alternatively, content providers can embrace a holistic view of their site - ads and all... just don't cry when someone tries to make a case that your malvertising is a CFAA violation :)

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

guelo wrote: post #125
ac29 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can view a full article from $0.10 to about $0.50 without advertisements. Thats at least an order of magnitude more expensive than its worth (to me), and 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more than they would make from ads. As an ad-blocking user who reads a lot of online content, I am in favor in the pay for content model, but it has to come at an appropriate price. A couple cents per reading minute is the high end of w…

Pre-internet you could buy the Sunday edition of your city's newspaper for 50 cents. This included dozens of in-depth articles. So yea, probably on the order of a penny per article. Though it was heavily subsidized by car dealer advertisements and the classifieds.

It was pretty much completely paid by advertising; the purpose of charging readers is because paid circulation numbers is an important metric used by advertisers.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#128

Post by WalterBright »

Mz wrote: post #41
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind the ads up to a point. For example, I buy "Mopar Muscle" for the ads, not the articles. I'd buy computer mags (yes, I'm dating myself) for the ads as much as the articles, too. The Yellow Pages (I'm really old) were useful for the ads. Not all advertising is objectionable.

If you know of a better means than google ads to do advertisements for a one person shop that isn't going to take enormous time away from producing content, I am all ears.

We don't use ads for the D programming language. What we do, and I've done in the past, is write articles about programming that are interesting in their own right, and that happen to use D:

http://digitalmars.com/articles/

Pretty much all programming products, even free ones, operate this way. Much of the content you see on Hacker News, and on reddit/r/programming, is of this form.

There are TV shows that do the same thing, such as "Detroit Muscle". Each show is about how to do a repair/customization job on a car, and various tools and products are used to do it (and the makers of those tools and products pay for the show).

Tupperware parties are another example of this sort of thing.

It's like having a free cooking class where you show people how to cook with butter, and you're in the butter business.

The hit TV show "This Old House" was all paid for by the products and tools used in the show. It didn't look like advertising, but that's exactly what it was. And it works, and people love the show (I loved it, too).

I.e. organic marketing.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#129

Post by Filligree »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #112
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

And Google tried that with Google Contributor [1], which they shut down mid-January, promising a replacement. I was on that program, paying $10 a month. They refunded anything that was left over. IIRC think they habitually refunded $5+. They also showed stats, and IIRC the websites I frequented the most frequently (Ars Technica, multiple times a day), still received only pennies. That's how cheap ads are. I started b…

I used to work on that project. I'm sad that this happened, but mostly I'm annoyed at the public -- the problem turns out to be, people don't want to pay, not even that tiny amount.

It's definitely coming back, though. Just not in quite the same form.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#130

Post by JKCalhoun »

paulcole wrote: post #46
dheera wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have the right to render your bits and bytes however I wish. Legally I have no idea. But ethically/morally, I'd argue you don't. By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views for content and you're breaking that agreement. Doesn't feel right to me.

I'm more frustrated they're wasting my bandwidth, slowing down load times. If their ads were text-only and not running trackers to follow me on the internet I wouldn't bother with ad-blockers/tracker-blockers.
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