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Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

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Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#91

Post by rglullis »

acdha wrote: post #88
rglullis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both looked at the same page. But what is the point of "premier page layouts" if my preferred means of consumption is the RSS feed? Full-text RSS is the only thing that would interest me, but not $5/month worth of interest. Conclusion: yo mama is fat.

Conclusion: you don't actually intend to pay anything but somehow think freeloading should be respected. Quality content doesn't come for free: if you valued Ars' content either unobtrusive ads or $5/month are good options for ensuring that they'll be there next year.

Really? They seemed to be doing just fine without my 5 bucks.

But let's put aside the whole Ars debate: which part of the "I want to hurt the business model" you guys haven't read? I will not support any site that relies on ads, even if there is the "freemium" alternative. I want ad-based anything to die, and to die fast.

Much like subsidized agriculture, any ad-based economy is inefficient and produces incredible unknown side-effects.

And I hate to have to keep justifying myself, but I put about $15/month on flattr. Whenever I see anyone using it with any remotely good content, I am more than happy to pay. I keep a subscription to Ubuntu One even though I barely use it. One of the features that I liked the most about github and disappeared: the link to pledgie.com. One of the YC companies that really got me excited, I participated some, but unfortunately didn't take off: micropledge.

I want to consume things of quality, but I don't see any quality coming from any business that is ad-based. If they want to see my money, first they need to get rid of ads and commit to excellence, not the other way around.

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#92

Post by IsaacL »

bo1024 wrote: post #24
rglullis wrote: post #11

I really, really don't buy the idea that I should feel bad for using adblock. The whole "ads can be a way to provide quality services, and adblock removes that revenue" is the marketer's equivalent to the {MP|RI}AA's "every pirate is a stolen sale". The whole thing with the Internet is about desintermediation, and marketing departments are nothing but middle-men between producers and consumers. Even worse that they a…

I think this a good perspective. Advertising only has societal value when it helps connect people who want to buy something with services that want to sell it. I can think of a couple other ways to get some sort of value from advertising. The first is using an ad to get someone to purchase something they otherwise wouldn't have. I suppose this creates societal value too, but in my opinion it mainly just benefits the…

Google 2011 revenues: $37.9 billion. 96% from AdWords.

So I'm guessing someone is clicking on online adverts.

Outside of a certain segment of the startup scene, where actually spending money on marketing is uncool and you have to get customers by being viral/freemium/whatever, there's a ton of businesses that drive traffic through non-sexy means like PPC.

Re: does "branding" add value? I think it does. Keep in mind the original brands, which involved adding a name to commodity products to show customers they were trustworthy. The value of branding is it lets consumers feel trust in what they're buying. You can go in any McDonalds in the world and know that the food will taste OK and won't give you food poisoning. The food is not awesome, either, but it goes to show that often people do value trustworthiness and consistency (ie, branding) over super high-quality.

(Admittedly there is less value in situations where, say, the branded cheese is exactly the same as the supermarket cheese, just in a different packet and twice the price.)

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#93

Post by tomkarlo »

gradschool wrote: post #54
tomkarlo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that as a consumer you should have the right to choose what gets sent to you - but generally, if you're using a site, you're also consenting to its terms of service (which generally include accepting its ads.) As such, the product IS actually defined for you, and not up for you to define as you see fit. Using it outside of those terms is theft of service. If you don't want accept those ads, fine, but…

To take this line of reasoning a step further, you're not really acting in good faith if you view the ads without ever buying the products or services they advertise. The advertiser pays the provider of the site in the expectation of a reasonable conversion rate. If you don't want to buy a certain reasonable percentage of products advertised to you, fine, but from an ethical and legal standpoint you shouldn't be forc…

Advertisers either pay for impressions (CPM) or clicks (CPC) or directly for conversions. They don't pay for conversion rates - if rates are too low, they might not buy CPC or CPM campaigns any more, but you can't generally get a refund for a CPM campaign because your conversion rate was too low (barring clickfraud.)

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#94

Post by tomkarlo »

jodrellblank wrote: post #64
tomkarlo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that as a consumer you should have the right to choose what gets sent to you - but generally, if you're using a site, you're also consenting to its terms of service (which generally include accepting its ads.) As such, the product IS actually defined for you, and not up for you to define as you see fit. Using it outside of those terms is theft of service. If you don't want accept those ads, fine, but…

Is it legally agreed that connecting to a webserver and sending "GET /" and reading the reply is "agreeing to the terms of service"? If the terms of service included a link to an audio advert, do I have to quiet other sound sources so I can hear the advert?

If you're going to consume the editorial content of the site? The ethical and legal (if not practical) answer is yes. It's your obligation to understand and accept the terms of a service (not just a web site) before using it.

Is that impractical? Yes. But when I rent a car, I don't read the terms either, and they still apply. It's just a result of a world in which we undertake hundreds of "transactions" a day with business entities, all of which have to be governed by legal agreements.

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#95

Post by RexM »

thelastknowngod wrote: post #45

You should check out Collusion: http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/collusion-who-is-tracking-you/ Then install TrackerBlock: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trackerblock/

What's funny is you post the link to makeuseof.com which seems to be one of the worse offenders. For a direct link, http://collusion.toolness.org/

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#96

Post by tomkarlo »

klez wrote: post #83
tomkarlo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that as a consumer you should have the right to choose what gets sent to you - but generally, if you're using a site, you're also consenting to its terms of service (which generally include accepting its ads.) As such, the product IS actually defined for you, and not up for you to define as you see fit. Using it outside of those terms is theft of service. If you don't want accept those ads, fine, but…

It's like telling me I can't change channels during commercials when watching tv or listening to the radio. This doesn't seem reasonable.

When you change channels, you're no longer consuming the content on that channel. It's closer to using a TiVo to skip the ads in a programming. I do it myself, but it's pretty obvious to me that if everyone did it, it wouldn't scale and they'd find some other way to create revenue like more product placements during the show (which is already happening) that's even more intrusive and obnoxious, because it's unlikely that providers or consumers are going to go a-la-carte.

(This is also why I liked paying for content on iTunes or Amazon - that seems like a more fair deal where I don't get both charged and ads (cable) and I don't have to mess around with using the TiVo to skip ads.)

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#97

Post by acdha »

rglullis wrote: post #91
acdha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conclusion: you don't actually intend to pay anything but somehow think freeloading should be respected. Quality content doesn't come for free: if you valued Ars' content either unobtrusive ads or $5/month are good options for ensuring that they'll be there next year.

Really? They seemed to be doing just fine without my 5 bucks. But let's put aside the whole Ars debate: which part of the "I want to hurt the business model" you guys haven't read? I will not support any site that relies on ads, even if there is the "freemium" alternative. I want ad-based anything to die, and to die fast. Much like subsidized agriculture, any ad-based economy is inefficient and produces incredible un…

The reason you keep having to justify yourself is because you're making contradictory claims: ”I don't see any quality coming from any business that is ad-based” but you obviously feel Ars' content is interesting enough that you “will just adblock + readability the hell out of their articles”. Only one of those statements can actually be true unless you're highly motivated to read articles without any quality.

It's really quite simple: if you want ads to become less popular you have to pay to support the creators: stop reading Ars or pay $5/mo to never see ads again. I'm assuming that you have no intentions of ever actually paying because you closed with an unintentionally hilarious example of entitlement: “If they want to see my money, first they need to get rid of ads and commit to excellence, not the other way around”. Despite reading enough of their content that you want RSS feeds you're still forced to change the rules yet again so they're supposed to work for free until you decide they've reached the $5/month level of excellence?

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#98

Post by rglullis »

acdha wrote: post #97
rglullis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? They seemed to be doing just fine without my 5 bucks. But let's put aside the whole Ars debate: which part of the "I want to hurt the business model" you guys haven't read? I will not support any site that relies on ads, even if there is the "freemium" alternative. I want ad-based anything to die, and to die fast. Much like subsidized agriculture, any ad-based economy is inefficient and produces incredible un…

The reason you keep having to justify yourself is because you're making contradictory claims: ”I don't see any quality coming from any business that is ad-based” but you obviously feel Ars' content is interesting enough that you “will just adblock + readability the hell out of their articles”. Only one of those statements can actually be true unless you're highly motivated to read articles without any quality. It's r…

You are mostly right. I am freeloading on Ars. But I don't see how my subscribing to them would make them abandon the ad-based subsidized access. They would just keep both models. If they announced they were getting rid of the ad-based model and just stick with regular subscriptions, I would subscribe in a second.

I know that my proposition is not perfect, and if I got my way I would be forcing my will onto other people (the ones who would be okay with ads in exchange of free access) but it's the best that I can come up with.

Re: Google, I've had enough. How about a Compromise?

#99

Post by Duff »

zanny wrote: post #74
Duff wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's your ethical duty to click! Seriously though, my local weekly newspaper knows nothing about my habits, but offers ads 10x more relevant than Google, who has been tracking me for a decade.

But your local newspaper is not trying to provide relevant ads. They just take ads from whoever will pay them and put those in the paper. Or am I missing something, such as sarcasm. I am bad with that.

Google is great at targeting with search based ads, but the site-based ads are awful. Google thinks I'm really into gold coins based on me clicking on some story on reddit several months ago.
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