Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users • Hacker News Board

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#171

Post by zanny » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #144

I tried to get my young son into original Angry Birds, thinking it would be a nice simple physics lesson for him, but it has become absolutely unnavigateable for his age level. So many pop up special offers for magic birds to solve the level, cut scene product placement, and other in game purchases, that I can't trust those games to not get him lost in a maze of advertising bullcrap. I paid for this game, a kids game…

Meanwhile Amazon got rid of the Underground Apps program that made available many mobile "staple" games without ads.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#172

Post by emit_time » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I’ve come to hate ads for how much they try to get me to buy things I don’t need.

Sure you can say something about willpower whatever, but constantly being bombarded by them is horrible.

I’m pretty happy with what I have, I don’t need all this stuff. But advertising makes me want stuff I don’t need.

I don’t feel bad about blocking advertising to improve my quality of life.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#173

Post by anitil » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I remember reading about someone that built a system where you put $X in to a pot every month, and every page you visit gets $X/pages_visited. This allows you to directly monetize creators without ads.

I cannot for the life of me find it - does it ring any bells with anyone?

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#174

Post by sesteel » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

emit_time wrote: post #172

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I’ve come to hate ads for how much they try to get me to buy things I don’t need. Sure you can say something about willpower whatever, but constantly being bombarded by them is horrible. I’m pretty happy with what I have, I don’t need all this stuff. But advertising makes me want stuff I don’t need. I don’t feel bad about blocking advertising to improve my quality of life.

I don't even pay attention to them; they are just there as visual noise. I worry a lot about the world we've created and where this is all heading. I like to wrangle some of these problems, maybe create a "no ad" network. You pay into a pool and the money is doled out to various businesses based on what you spend your time doing: games, websites, etc.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#175

Post by pawelmurias » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

1000units wrote: post #137

leggomylibro wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite mobile games (an old Popcap title) used to have a version which cost ~$10 and was just a no-frills port of the original. No ads, no permissions beyond file storage, no issues working offline. But you can't buy that anymore; now the only option is a 'free' version which has ads that you cannot pay away. Fortunately I can still download the old version from the app store; now it is called 'zzSUNSET '…

I think my conscience would be more satisfied working in porn than mobile gaming.

I worked in mobile gaming and would never work in porn (unless it was like filtering or prosecuting creators). A coworker hard a good point to say what the people who are addicted to mobile games would be addicted/spend money on if they didn't play. It's possible they would be buying meth/booze with it.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#176

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

anitil wrote: post #173

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I remember reading about someone that built a system where you put $X in to a pot every month, and every page you visit gets $X/pages_visited. This allows you to directly monetize creators without ads. I cannot for the life of me find it - does it ring any bells with anyone?

[deleted]

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#177

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

How many years do you think it is before someone pays to put ads on the Blackhawks and Humvees?

(I think this was a throwaway idea in Snow Crash)

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#178

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

anitil wrote: post #173

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I remember reading about someone that built a system where you put $X in to a pot every month, and every page you visit gets $X/pages_visited. This allows you to directly monetize creators without ads. I cannot for the life of me find it - does it ring any bells with anyone?

Flattr? Brave?

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#179

Post by ryanschneider » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

anitil wrote: post #173

sesteel wrote: post #169

I feel like advertisements ruin everything. I remember driving onto the my air force base and being thankful that all the visual pollution was gone. It was like stepping into another world. Now the internet has ads everywhere. I find the attention economy awful and dystopian. I'd gladly pay to never see another ad.

I remember reading about someone that built a system where you put $X in to a pot every month, and every page you visit gets $X/pages_visited. This allows you to directly monetize creators without ads. I cannot for the life of me find it - does it ring any bells with anyone?

So this is how I originally thought Brave was going to work, but it’s unclear to me now if that’s actually the case:

https://brave.com/faq/#do-i-have-to-pay

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#180

Post by vertis » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

In a similar vein. Anti-adblock measures will pretty much guarantee I never come back. I'd love to be able to filter them from my search results. Plenty of domains I would blacklist.