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We’re dropping Google Ads

groundup.org.za

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#261

Post by metafunctor »

visarga wrote: post #115
x0x0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't stop you from consuming their content though?

It used to be the case that all content was Hollywood or newspaper created. But now, 99% of the content I am using is discussion threads such as this one, Wiki articles, arXiv papers and blogs. From the people, to the people! I don't even need movies and articles - well, I still keep a 1% interest in them, but that's all. I am sorry about them but they are so derivative and dishonest at times that I can't watch them…

Exactly. On HN, I click to view the comments to see if it's even worth reading the linked article. It seems to be about 50/50, which is as good is it gets I think.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#262

Post by lobut »

paulcole wrote: post #62
mikestew wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By visiting the site, you're entering into an agreement to exchange your ad views for content and you're breaking that agreement. C'mon, you know better. What agreement? If your answer contains the word "unspoken", I'll let you in on the real definition of that word in this context: "non-existent". I didn't sign anything, no notice was posted. The only agreement I have is that I ask for data, and should your server d…

Society has many unwritten agreements. You don't like ads, I get it. You take without compensating because you want to. Don't just shrug and say, "no notice was posted." Own it. Say, "I felt like taking this so I took it."

Yeah, falling back to this faux legalese is tiresome. Just own your behaviour.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#263

Post by cryptarch »

matt4077 wrote: post #191
mitchty wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this isn't an unwritten agreement that this member of society is even aware of so... so much for that aspect of society. Or as my grandfather used to say, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, one of them will fill up faster. That unwritten agreement is worth everything its written on. What exactly am I taking by not viewing ads? I view it the opposite, ads take away my attention and time and worst of a…

The ethical problem isn't ethical, but existential. If everyone acted on only their immediate self-interest, ad-supported business models would fold. Then, we already have all lost out, because people currently obviously prefer ads to paywalls. Even if you decide to pay for a few sources of information, you will never again have access to the breath of journalism you have now. If paywalls don't catch on, it's game ov…

If everyone stopped watching ads, of course the ad-supported business models would fold! And what we would have lost out on is a business model that is apparently not liked by enough people anymore.

Who's to say paywalls will end up being the norm? And what happens if the paywall is abstracted away behind a Spotify-like news interface?

In the Netherlands there's an online subscription-based news and magazine service, it's doing quite well. It seems quite succesful in engaging their readers more than the traditional media.

I do also see that we live in a more chaotic time than say a 100 years ago. I think much of it can be attributed to the rise of fast information transport systems, computers and the Internet, but that does not mean I have an obligation to support a business model I find immoral, because it might in some way indirectly benefit journalism and democracy in general. Perhaps abolishing the advertising model will make space for interesting other models, like community-curated news, patronage, paying for archives/more in-depth articles, etcetera.

It's not a tragedy of the commons if the only "victims" are a few companies. Companies are not "the commons", or humans for that matter. Companies fail all the time, and that's OK. Business models are not sacred cows that can never be slaughtered. If one business model stops working, companies will adapt and find new business models.

On the other hand, it can be argued that advertisements can have a negative influence on their viewers in many ways.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#264

Post by pjc50 »

nikcub wrote: post #186
pjc50 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly anyone will pay for that kind of ad, because it can't be audited and you could just forge ad impressions.

This is exactly what we did at Techcrunch. The ads sold and we went from $3k a month ad revenue from bad ads with ad sense to $30k a month (the format where it is the square ads in the sidebar - which almost every other blog adopted) It can work if you're trusted and selling influence. Later on when we wanted to run some of the high end campaigns and exclusives we ran OpenX I think serving your own ads is a solution…

Glad to hear it worked! As you say, it brings trust back to the right places in the ecosystem.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#265

Post by scrollaway »

danieka wrote: post #194

I noticed how civil all the comments are. I wonder if automatically prepending all comments with "Dear Editor" makes people think twice before writing the more common and nasty form of comments usual found in the comment sections of news pages?

It definitely looks like it's prepending with Dear Editor and appending the date/name as signature. Really cool :)

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#266

Post by kuschku »

matt4077 wrote: post #157
nebabyte wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even about the bits/bytes/data to me. My eyeballs are not being loaned to you; my senses/attention is not for sale. I'm perfectly fine with paywalls - that's the 'correct' approach as far as I'm concerned. You can decide to conceal the information you know; if it's valuable and nonexcludable (usually isn't), then hey, you have a sale. But if you don't, don't expect your deals with third parties to hold up on some…

> if it's valuable and nonexcludable (usually isn't)... That right there is the problem, though. You are right that most information is "non excludable" (if that actually is a word). But that doesn't mean it isn't valuable. That's an illusion, conceptually very much like clean water: almost free, but vital. The stuff the wire services collect and sell (and that everybody republishes) does cost quite a lot to produce,…

Subscribing to a newspaper in paper.

That's the best for everyone involved.

Or you need to fund journalism with tax money, directly (NPR, PBS) or indirectly (BBC, ARD, ZDF, etc).

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#267

Post by sundvor »

emmelaich wrote: post #58
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 I fear is that smart people with money (like you and me) use ad-blockers. So the ads that do get shown are exactly the low quality crappy ads that appeal to the great unwashed. This is certainly evident to me on Facebook for instance. The very first ads that get shown do not have the benefit of the marketing analytics about me so they're very low quality ones like the ads in the article. The second wave (after a…

Not sure how the relationship between "smart" and "with money" plays out here. Last time I checked, ublock was completely free.

That aside, yep, it's hard to ignore how incredibly dumb the lowest common denominator appears to be - if viewed as a reflection of those ads.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#268

Post by legacynl »

ori_b wrote: post #223
nebabyte wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even about the bits/bytes/data to me. My eyeballs are not being loaned to you; my senses/attention is not for sale. I'm perfectly fine with paywalls - that's the 'correct' approach as far as I'm concerned. You can decide to conceal the information you know; if it's valuable and nonexcludable (usually isn't), then hey, you have a sale. But if you don't, don't expect your deals with third parties to hold up on some…

> My eyeballs are not being loaned to you; my senses/attention is not for sale. The sites need to pay for servers somehow. Experience has proven time and time again that putting up paywalls just makes people go elsewhere.

Free market, right?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#269

Post by nathan_f77 »

"Less than $200" seems like a very small amount of money for 329,000 impressions. I imagine the number might be higher if the readers were mostly from the US, instead of South Africa.

But still, you're not going to make a lot of money from a few hundred thousand impressions. In my experience, a YouTube video with 1,000,000 views will give you around $1,000. That's nowhere near enough to sustain a company or pay any employees.

Right now I'm working on a game (which I hope to launch soon and show on HN!). While I dislike ads, I'm still going to put them in my game, because I enjoy making money more than I hate ads. I think Google and AdMob will mostly serve ads for other games, so they're not so bad.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#270

Post by nfin »

dheera wrote: post #20
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…

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…

> Invent a system by which x% of the ad revenue gets cut to the end user

That's a great idea. Is it not what the BRAVE-Browser is trying to acheive?

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