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The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

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Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#301

Post by wruza »

makestuff wrote: post #63
baron816 wrote: post #9

I think we really need microtransactions. Pay $0.05 to read this article? Sure. Whoever figures out the infrastructure for that (seems like it would be right up Stripe’s alley) is going to make trillions.

The reason why ads work is consumers do not want to spend money now that they are conditioned to get stuff on the internet for free. Every time an article on here is posted the first comment is a link to archive.is. I agree this would be a better model, but I don’t think it will ever happen. Maybe the Web3 stuff will catch on and this will become sustainable.

We are also conditioned that the stuff on the internet is an eyes-seeking bullshit nine times out of ten and there’s no way to mark a site, a blog or a section as “never again” so that you could know it next time. All this interaction of a user with the web is monopolized by few players who fuck them up in return. So it’s hard to blame a user for their reluctance.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#302

Post by baud147258 »

tornato7 wrote: post #260
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that will drive a lot more self-funded communities. People talk about how expensive it is to host websites, but they're talking about sites several orders of magnitude larger than what most communities need. A single Discord server could effectively be hosted on a Raspberry Pi, the market price among cloud hosts for which is "free", or at most ~$10 a month. That's not "We need to charge for access" level pric…

To make this happen, we need better open source forum software. A group of us have been searching for a good self-hosted forum to replace /r/BuyItForLife and have trialed quite a few, but they are just... Really bad.

as an user, xenoforo seemed fine? But then I never had to deal with the admin side of things

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#303

Post by watwut »

JeremyNT wrote: post #254
commandlinefan wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter and Reddit ... have made huge blunders In addition to which - they were never that solid in the first place. They (and Facebook) are mostly just "dumb hosting" for other people's content - if the content producers leave, they don't have anything to offer. They don't even really own the content that was produced on their platform and it wouldn't have any value even if they did. There's a weak value propositi…

I think this is really what we're seeing now. One can suggest that recent decisions were "blunders" due to the problems they have encountered, but maybe there just was no path forward for them simply because there's not much value to be extracted from this business. Now we just see the entire house of cards collapsing around them.

Twitter was in mild loss. It did not needed that much to break even ... and Musks moves were ridiculous.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#304

Post by watwut »

lettergram wrote: post #84
gleenn wrote: post #5

His two examples are Twitter and Reddit whose ad revenue is dying because those two companies have made huge blunders. Elon seems to almost actively be killing Twitter (which the poster even states). Reddit screwed Apollo and then many of the most popular subreddits protested and did things like show porn on otherwise usually SFW content to prevent Reddit from showing ads and thus killing their profits. Those are big…

I keep asking this because I don’t understand - how is Elon “killing” twitter? I’ve frankly not seen any difference, at all. If anything there’s slightly more activity

> If anything there’s slightly more activity

Only from bots. I mean, this is not even disputable, saying that twitter has more genuine activity now or somehow better content is in the reals of fan fiction.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#305

Post by watwut »

andreygrehov wrote: post #183
paulryanrogers wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My day job is helping sell ad-free, subscriptions, so I'm a fan of the idea. That said, Elon is driving away the lucrative advertisers and not dropping ads entirely. Even Blue subscribers still get ads, albeit fewer. At their scale and in their market the premium subscriptions model doesn't appear to work, unless their costs can be reduced much, much further. Sharing revenue with creators is great. Not everything bei…

The Twitter acquisition happened 7 months ago, on October 27, 2022 to be precise. 7 months is effectively 3 quarters. Let's take "Elon Musk" name out of the equation for a moment. How much do you think is possible to do with one of the largest social network companies in the world within 3 quarters? I work at AWS and I must say everything is really slow here. What I'm trying to say is it seems like the world is "dema…

>What I'm trying to say is it seems like the world is "demanding" too much from Elon.

Like, common he set expectations by himself. He was the one bragging and running his mouth how everyone before him was an idiot while he is going to clean and fix the place.

> Additionally, there is a weird trend of people rooting for his failure. This is something I strongly stand against.

I really really hope for failure of his, quite apparent, political project.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#306

Post by watwut »

andreygrehov wrote: post #133
Phaedor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing he has done is push the paid replies to the top of every tweet. So now every tweet is full of low quality replies at the top and you have to scroll to find the higher quality ones below.

I don't personally agree with your observation, but setting that aside, would you consider that (pushing the paid replies to the top) the definition of "killing" Twitter?

Yeah, it definitely is. It changes the usage patterns and quite a lot of what was interesting is gone.

The only good thing about it is that I spend more time reading books now.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#307

Post by watwut »

andreygrehov wrote: post #177
warbeforepeace wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its becoming a far right cesspool. And its making even less money than the little that it did before. Most people i know don't use it anymore.

Due to an excessive censorship prior to the acquisition, Twitter was a far left cesspool. All these users are still active after the acquisition, however many right-wing accounts were reinstated. Consequently, from the political perspective, Twitter is now more balanced than ever. One can be sure of this by tuning their feed – follow a politically diverse groups of people. > Most people i know don't use it anymore. T…

This is a lie. Not even manipulation or twisting the truth, but clear unambiguous lie. If anything, after Musk takeover, it became clear how good decisions twitter made before.

In addition, Must is not even trying to stand up to regimes and such. It became completely meek.

Also, twitter is not "balanced". It is right-wing in the sense of "we use right-wing as euphemism for nazi and such".

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#308

Post by rightbyte »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #291
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, profit now is less used for expenses or growth, and redirected to stock buy-backs and shareholders. Excess value is real, measured not from the margin, or even money that goes back into the org, but value that is 100% extracted from the organization, often at the detriment of the org for the sake of shareholders. Its very often just parasitic. People are so entitled now, "nooo i need my investments double…

There are all kinds of reasons for professional investors to be in a position when they need an investment to double in the short term. Sometimes thats greed, other times it's to cover existing bets that are losing and could cause their entire fund to collapse. Say, for example, a certain bank where to listen to the Fed and invest massive piles of cash deposited after currency debasement into federal notes and bonds.…

You will still get the interest and money back from lower rate bounds. They only drop in value if you need to sell them before they mature.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#309

Post by WOTERMEON »

meristohm wrote: post #199
AltruisticGapHN wrote: post #188

I agree with recent TWiT discussion on this : we've had it good for a while - the promise of free internet but all those services cost money to keep running. I don't have an issue with paying Youtube Premium Lite. Where I have an issue with the subs model is you're pay subs to so many services, YT Netflix Twitch, etc. It adds up pretty quickly, and costs way more than traditional TV used to cost. Then there's the iss…

WIRED, among many other periodicals, is available online through https://libbyapp.com at my local tax-funded public library (I'm in the USA). I do wonder how things would change if most people started using the library for most of their entertainment and education, as I do.

Libraries would get charged more for a bigger number of magazines that are just a collection of ads. That’s what happens in the UK.

Re: The ad-based internet is dying, and it's getting worse in the process [video]

#310

Post by rightbyte »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #180
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think Ayn Rand gave up on humanity at all. Just the worthless nonsense and the people endlessly consume it.

Aynd Rand criticized the welfare state and then went on welfare. She was a complete fraud.

Payingt tax for welfare and then using it is not hypocrisy though. (I don't know who Aynd Rand was really. People just seems to name-drop her alot so I guess she was some famous 'thinker')
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