Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#181

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #132

Kaiyou wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we don't need yet another penis enlargement startup?

I'm not talking about that garbage. I'm talking about the mom and pop stores. The catering service, the stationery shop, etc.. These services are competing with shit (other ads) right now. Wouldn't it be nice if we could clean up the ecosystem and have these companies benefit?

Absolutely agreed! And these services you mention have to expend great amount of money and effort at advertising, and often resort to dishonest practices, because the market is already saturated with advertisements.

I like to picture it like this: if everyone around you is shouting through a bullhorn, you have to use a bullhorn too just to have a shot at being heard by the person next to you. But how about taking away everyone's bullhorns? Suddenly, people would have a chance to have an actual conversation.

A floor needs to be put, to stop the ethical race to the bottom, and that floor needs to be put way above where advertising industry currently is.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#182

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #66

throwawawathrow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are already making content without monetizing it, and have been for decades. As alien a way of thinking as it may seem to some, many human beings do not need a bizarre system of 'market-based incentives' to get anything done at all. They just do it, out of passion, boredom, to learn, or to share with friends. Are you seriously implying the 'young kid starting out' has Youtube monetization all setup in order, o…

Your posts actually seem like the sort of perversion that ads have inflicted on our relationship with content and how they've trained us to value content at $0. I don't really understand how waiting around and hoping for someone to make something out of hobby or charity is a reasonable stance when content brings me a non-zero amount of value and entertainment, when I can pay for it and get better results. Life is too…

I think the concept you're missing is called a "gift economy". It's actually more fundamental to humans than the market economy, it underpins society, and it lets the market economy exist in the first place.

> when I can pay for it and get better results

That's called "commissioning a work of art". Or, iterated, can be turned into patronage. Unlike advertising, this is a honest and correct way of rewarding creation of art using market means.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#183

Post by danShumway » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #103

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast, sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a viable business.

In fairness, $1 for a podcast episode is egregious. Almost no one would pay that. Piracy has gone down a lot in the past 15 years because content owners made reasonable decisions.

Compare this with the current revenues that are being brought in.

Admittedly, I haven't looked at more recent figures, but as of 2014, the highest revenue podcasts on Itunes were bringing in about 3-10 cents per listener[0]. The average podcast probably makes a lot less per user/per ad.

To people who are saying, "I wouldn't pay a dollar for each episode of a podcast": would you pay a dime? That would put your 'value' as a listener on par with some of the highest podcasting CPMs I can find online. If your CPM is less than $100, and I offer you 10 cents for an ad-free episode, it seems like it makes a lot of economic sense to take me up on that offer.

Of course, the economics probably don't work out perfectly at scale, because fewer people would be just picking up new podcasts randomly, so listening numbers would probably drop. But would they drop by 90%?

A $1 per podcast download price would be the equivalent of a $1000 CPM, which is... insane. I can't find anything online that indicates anyone is making that.

[0]: https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/celebrity/popular...

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#184

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

sct202 wrote: post #170

throwawawathrow wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that someone on HN, a crowd whose primary job involves using free software and whose primary hobby is reading Wikipedia articles , would just idly speculate about things against the most blatant contrary evidence. But then, this being HN, this sort of speculation is to be expected, heh.

Wikipedia is a great example. They have to go begging the world every few months to keep the greatest website in the world operating. HN (and dang's job) is funded by the excess of YCombinator, and the rest of us just show up to chat whenever.

But both of these sites show that:

1) Extraordinary value can indeed be created for free, simply because people want to contribute something. You'll note that all the money pays for in both cases is hosting.

2) Both sites can exist without involving the advertising industry and all its corruption.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#185

Post by Kaiyou » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #132

Kaiyou wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we don't need yet another penis enlargement startup?

I'm not talking about that garbage. I'm talking about the mom and pop stores. The catering service, the stationery shop, etc.. These services are competing with shit (other ads) right now. Wouldn't it be nice if we could clean up the ecosystem and have these companies benefit?

Sorry, I never saw such ads in my life before. That garbage, however...

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#186

Post by kmlx » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #98

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast, sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a viable business.

> The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. 1. People who are adblocking are saying that they are not willing to pay with attention. You can only compare their relative willingness to pay with attention vs money when you provide both options fairly. 2. I don't take it as given that businesses have the right to make money however they want. There a…

> the right to not be subjected to subtle influence techniques that compromise your beliefs

i strongly disagree. everyone's beliefs need to be challenged. that is the only way we have progressed as a society throughout the ages.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#187

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #186

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. 1. People who are adblocking are saying that they are not willing to pay with attention. You can only compare their relative willingness to pay with attention vs money when you provide both options fairly. 2. I don't take it as given that businesses have the right to make money however they want. There a…

> the right to not be subjected to subtle influence techniques that compromise your beliefs i strongly disagree. everyone's beliefs need to be challenged. that is the only way we have progressed as a society throughout the ages.

Challenging someone's beliefs involves being explicit, so that one's aware their beliefs are being challenged. It's the exact opposite of manipulation, and thus advertising.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#188

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

mkolodny wrote: post #76

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason ad blockers are called "ad blockers", and not "tracking protectors" or "privacy protectors" or "malware protectors" (the latter three being their own category of software). It's because they exist precisely for blocking ads "just for the sake of blocking ads". Ads are malicious. It's perfectly fine to block them. Privacy protection is just a convenient side effect.

I agree that it's perfectly fine to block ads. And that ad blockers' primary feature is blocking ads. At the same time, I think most ads aren't malicious. They aren't "intending to do harm". Ads sell things. Sometimes things people want. I'd guess that most people who use ad blockers just don't like being sold things.

Advertisements are a form of adversarial thought control. Absolutely malicious.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#189

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #113

mkolodny wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's perfectly fine to block ads. And that ad blockers' primary feature is blocking ads. At the same time, I think most ads aren't malicious. They aren't "intending to do harm". Ads sell things. Sometimes things people want. I'd guess that most people who use ad blockers just don't like being sold things.

> Ads sell things. Sometimes things people want. You've captured my issue right in this place. Ads sometimes sell things people want. All the other times are what I consider doing harm.

Further, if you buy a product that was advertised, you are paying for an unwanted service. The price of the product must be higher than the product is worth in order to fund the ad campaign.

Re: Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts

#190

Post by drdeadringer » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #90

lotsofpulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast, sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a viable business.

I'll pay with my attention, but not with my data. Radio ads are annoying because of the high volume and fast talking, but I'm not going to try to block them. On the web, put up an add with no tracking (effectively a digital billboard) and I'll stop using my ad blocker. The advertising might be annoying, but the surveillance is a human rights violation (according to the UN).

> but I'm not going to try to block them.

Why not?