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The End of the Ad-Supported Web

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Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web I very much disagree with this statement. I simply can't stand ads in my internet and uBlock Origin is the first thing I install in a fresh browser. I can't fathom browsing the web without it anymore.

Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news? I'd be okay with increasing taxes to cover it, or using a UK-style TV license (Internet Publishing License anyone?) and requiring people seek "Internet commissioners" like we have for Television[1], [2]. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/proposal-process/ [2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning Another option is micropayments…

"Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news?"

The government is the obvious choice. The USA already has the National Endowment for the Arts, which is a good start but it needs vastly more money. The important thing is that the NEA has none of the corrupting biases that afflict companies such as Google and Facebook.

Most Western countries have some equivalent for the NEA.

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#12
Before the rise of ubiquitous ads, the web was publisher-pays. If you wanted a blog, you would pay a host a few bucks a month to host it.

I wonder if that's the model that the web will move back to. There's the argument to be made that the advertising model supports 'independent' news and social media, but it sure doesn't look that way - we'd move from partisan media supported through ads to partisan media supported by parties, which seems more direct.

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web I very much disagree with this statement. I simply can't stand ads in my internet and uBlock Origin is the first thing I install in a fresh browser. I can't fathom browsing the web without it anymore.

Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news? I'd be okay with increasing taxes to cover it, or using a UK-style TV license (Internet Publishing License anyone?) and requiring people seek "Internet commissioners" like we have for Television[1], [2]. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/proposal-process/ [2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning Another option is micropayments…

The consumer.

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web I very much disagree with this statement. I simply can't stand ads in my internet and uBlock Origin is the first thing I install in a fresh browser. I can't fathom browsing the web without it anymore.

Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news? I'd be okay with increasing taxes to cover it, or using a UK-style TV license (Internet Publishing License anyone?) and requiring people seek "Internet commissioners" like we have for Television[1], [2]. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/proposal-process/ [2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning Another option is micropayments…

> Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news?

Direct support from the public would make sense, this is already at work, to some extent. The problem with this is that people are already so used to free that it may be difficult to implement.

A license system would be a good idea. It is still far off, but authors associations are working on this in some countries.

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#15
Re the reference to Vectuary. Here's the decision:[1]

They sell an add-on for apps which snoops on the user's location and sends it to them for advertising purposes. The French data privacy regulator said that required Vecturary to get explicit user consent. But Vectuary has no customer interaction of their own. They claimed to rely on some chain of consent from some other party, but couldn't prove they actually had consent from every user.

This is the biggest effect of the GPDR. Ad companies which have no customer contact of their own are on shaky legal ground. Some adtech companies have shut down operations in Europe.[2] No loss there.

The big winners are Google and Facebook, which both have user signups and run ads. They can ask for consent.

[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&prev=se...

[2] https://digiday.com/media/ad-tech-firms-quitting-europe-blam...

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#16

Ad companies got caught putting their hand in the cookie jar and people have had enough. There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web, but it got abused, with tracking going too far and ad companies constantly trying to defeat privacy-protecting features. They have no one to blame but themselves.

> There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web

Keep in mind that ads are a very limited monetization scheme. For example, you can't even increase the price of your content and set it at a desired value.

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#17
Ads have been around since literally the beginning of civilization, and it is not so much a business model as it is a fundamental human need. The author comes across as naive when he says Netflix makes 5 times as much money as Facebook per user, therefore (clearly) ads don't work well. Why don't you say that healthcare makes 50x that per "user", therefore clearly the Netflix model isn't working? Point being that the ad supported model and the subscription model are fundamentally different at a psychological level.

Tim Wu, the guy who coined the term "net neutrality", has written an excellent history of ads: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-mania-to-capture...

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#18
post #15

Re the reference to Vectuary. Here's the decision:[1] They sell an add-on for apps which snoops on the user's location and sends it to them for advertising purposes. The French data privacy regulator said that required Vecturary to get explicit user consent. But Vectuary has no customer interaction of their own. They claimed to rely on some chain of consent from some other party, but couldn't prove they actually had…

Surely Vectuary just needs the apps of their clients to ask for consent from their users?

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#19
post #8

This is close to an advertisement, written by the founder of https://unlock-protocol.com , a distributed web payments scheme using some bitcoin competitor.

Yay, yet another decentralized (except not really because lolpayments) and (semi)trustless implementation of something that has no need for decentralization or trustlessness!

Re: The End of the Ad-Supported Web

#20
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with an ad supported web I very much disagree with this statement. I simply can't stand ads in my internet and uBlock Origin is the first thing I install in a fresh browser. I can't fathom browsing the web without it anymore.

Who do you think should sponsor the creation of arts and the publication of news? I'd be okay with increasing taxes to cover it, or using a UK-style TV license (Internet Publishing License anyone?) and requiring people seek "Internet commissioners" like we have for Television[1], [2]. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/about/producing-pbs/proposal-process/ [2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning Another option is micropayments…

Micropayments ideally need some kind of prepay token system similar to phone credit, so you can buy a certain amount to then spend in small increments.
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