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We’re dropping Google Ads

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#331

Post by Kluny »

J-dawg wrote: post #325

This might be a stupid question, but is it possible to monetise a website successfully using entirely "dumb" adverts with no ad networks involved? I mean ads which are simply an image inside an tag. Presumably this is how everyone was doing it before the ad networks existed? (I was around in the 90s but never really thought about it.) I guess it would take a lot of extra work and expense to approach potential adverti…

Certainly. I had a client who did that (www.greatervictoria.com). He makes decent money at it. I've also seen it on, for example, mrmoneymustache.com and theartofmanliness.com.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#332

Post by pricechild »

chrisan wrote: post #321
justabystander wrote: post #242

Ad networks regularly serve various forms of malware and spyware, as well as tracking beacons that put my data at risk of being stolen or misused. And once it's in a database somewhere, it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen and someone attempts to hijack accounts or steal an identity. It's funny how you never see the sites that whine about adblockers offer to accept legal responsibility for their complicity…

Genuine question: has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the past? I thought they were, while still annoying, safe from serving such content. So much that if they detect your site has malware they prevent it from serving their ads https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1308246?hl=e... As such I went along with allowing google ads since it seemed like a good middle ground between not wanting to…

Here's one such claim: https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/75731/good-morning-and...

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#333

Post by CM30 »

harwoodleon wrote: post #250
ori_b wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Moot argument. If everyone charged for their time creating content on the internet, you would buy the best quality content. Newspapers had this model for decades, worked for them.

Not really. It's a change in model that the internet has created, and one that's going to be nigh impossible to undo. If everyone charged for their work, you'd be right, but it's basically impossible to end up in that situation now. Because for everyone charging money there's ten who realise they can out compete them by offering it for free (either out of the 'kindness' of their heart or funded by venture capital).

It's the same situation with smartphone apps about now. Yes, it's an absolute mire of low quality, exploitative crap at the moment, but when developers try and avoid this by just charging full price (like Nintendo with Super Mario Run), they find their apps are significantly less popular/profitable than if they'd be 'freemium' all along and end up getting a virtual tongue lashing from audiences who expect 'mobile app' to equal 'free with ads/microtransactions'.

Unless everyone charges money for content (which is likely happening because of business reasons) or some service genuinely manage to repair the media's reputation enough people will pay for it and also offers a better, more usable product than everyone else, things aren't changing.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#334

Post by arthurfm »

chrisan wrote: post #321
justabystander wrote: post #242

Ad networks regularly serve various forms of malware and spyware, as well as tracking beacons that put my data at risk of being stolen or misused. And once it's in a database somewhere, it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen and someone attempts to hijack accounts or steal an identity. It's funny how you never see the sites that whine about adblockers offer to accept legal responsibility for their complicity…

Genuine question: has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the past? I thought they were, while still annoying, safe from serving such content. So much that if they detect your site has malware they prevent it from serving their ads https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1308246?hl=e... As such I went along with allowing google ads since it seemed like a good middle ground between not wanting to…

> has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the past?

Yes.

http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/y...

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#335

Post by glenneroo »

Crito wrote: post #119
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…

When I was a kid, my dad used to rip the advertisements out of magazines as soon as they came in the mail. That's a practice I've carried on, despite getting far few magazines these days... My family also used to mute the advertisements on TV, though I don't think any of us still watch it. So when I see people claiming that adblockers are immoral, it always gives me a good chuckle. Is ripping the ads out of a magazin…

> Is the mute button on my remote a ethnical crime against poor hapless television companies?

Which reminds me, TV/cable/et al. related services already cost money, yet they still serve advertisements. Isn't this a form of double-dipping? Shouldn't they be paying (or giving a discount) to watch advertisements?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#336

Post by efdee »

zoul wrote: post #142
visarga wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the agreement? Access for losing privacy and risking malware?

The point is that if you don’t like an ad-supported website, you should simply not read it, not strip the ads and read it anyway.

What about skipping ads on TV by fast-forwarding? What about going to the toilet while ads are playing live?

The argument breaks down sooner than you think.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#337

Post by scrps »

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.

The TV and Radio ad argument falls a little flat when you consider people have left radio for competitively priced streaming music that is ad-free and people have left TV for competitively priced streaming movies and TV that are ad-free.

Newspapers have just struggled to find and adopt a similar model, I hope they find it. The common thread is that we live in an advertising saturated world and a lot of people are tired of it.

Drive down a street or highway... Ads, signage, billboards, Turn on a radio... Ads, Go online... Ads, Open a newspaper or magazine... Ads, Watch a movie... Product placements. I am waiting for them to print ads on the individual sheets of toilet paper on a roll.

Some advertising is fine but when it ruins landscapes, deafens you as you watch TV or ruins a perfectly good site layout whilst tracking and eavesdropping on you then something is wrong.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#338

Post by jacquesm »

corford wrote: post #318
jacquesm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could audit the effectiveness by catching the clicks on a redirect. That way they can't track but will still know the number of visitors as a result of the campaign. A 'sample audience' such as used in TV that would willingly be tracked could then be used to extrapolate impressions.

The sample audience might work for CPC campaigns on large sites but difficult to see how it would work reliably for the millions of smaller sites out there (or work at all for CPA campaigns where conversion % can vary wildly depending on the action being paid for and the geography of the end user market being targetted). I'd personally have zero problem with a strongly audited third party tracking me during transitio…

Well, for CPA the only thing that matters you already know, then it's up to you to decide who you want to run those ads and if they agree with you and find you trustworthy. That's a 'solved problem' in the sense that for a long time such situations were dealt with using outside auditors. It costs a bit but not so much that it would make CPA impossible, merely less convenient.

Interesting part I got from this discourse: there is no 'one size fits all' when it comes to what is acceptable and what is not. That's yet another problem to be solved.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#339

Post by threatofrain »

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,…

My view is that if the population is watching ads, and somehow that is enough to float a business, then the population is actually paying for the business already, but through an indirect middleman.

The population pays for it by buying more or paying more of some products -- in a time and manner that provides evidence to networks, content vendors, and advertisers of business justification.

If we drill down further into the population, I think we'll find that some population of people either view or don't view ads, but don't adequately change their purchasing behavior in a time and manner so as to provide signal.

In other words, some people are takers, and some people are contributors. The people who are takers -- that is, whether or not they look at ads, click through, or whatever, they don't sufficiently change their their market behavior in a time and manner that provides evidence for business justification -- possibly detract from all mentioned parties because they diminish the business justification of the whole affair.

In tension against the takers, the people who are contributors are paying more than what they need to for the service because they're subsidizing "news" for other people.

Note that I don't really consider revenue in situations where eventually advertising clients figure out that they lack the business justification to pursue some advertising venue, such as intermediate marketing metrics that payout to businesses, but then the lack of justification for an advertising decision is later discovered. People who are marked by intermediate marketing metrics but don't go on to yada yada market behavior, are still "takers" in my view.

With that said, I think the money is there, people are already paying for news, but maybe the people who are paying should have more say than those who don't pay. Otherwise, it's the advertisers who have say, and the advertisers sponsor some pathological news outlets.

So in my view, people who argue for advertising are arguing that only advertisers can do the financing of the news world, and that contributors should continue to float takers.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#340

Post by harwoodleon »

ferbivore wrote: post #316
harwoodleon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moot argument. If everyone charged for their time creating content on the internet, you would buy the best quality content. Newspapers had this model for decades, worked for them.

Moot argument. It stopped working for them.

In what way? They are still publishing.
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