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The correct amount of ads is zero

manuelmoreale.com

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Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#51

Post by paxys »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37
paxys wrote: post #2

Blame consumers for this. If a company sells a service for $10/mo ad-free and $9/mo completely loaded with ads, most people will pick the latter plan. Why won't they offer it then?

The people most likely to pay the extra $1 are the people who will watch the most, and then they'd lose more than $1/mo from them in ad impressions. The real question is, why don't they have a completely free plan supported entirely by ads -- don't even try to get a huge premium for the ads, just sell lots of them, even if it's a 1:1 time relationship between ads and content. And then have another plan where you pay…

Free plans don't work when the cost of providing a service is high. Google, Facebook and the like can happily give away their products for free and lose money on the bottom N% of users, because it still amounts to pennies. Netflix has high bandwidth and content licensing costs that scale per user, so they need some barrier to entry.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#52

Post by acosmism »

tempestn wrote: post #29

People (at least used to) pay for magazines and newspapers, which have also been partially supported by ads forever. Perhaps a more sustainable balance would be only first-party ads (ie no individualized tracking) for paying subscribers?

i enjoyed full spread magazine ads no matter what the content. feels like history but you are on to something

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#53

Post by lazyasciiart »

dantyti wrote: post #26
danpalmer wrote: post #9

> The correct amount of ads for a publication that’s directly supported is zero. I basically agree with this sentiment, but one place where it can be a tricky balance (not saying that's the case here!) is "native advertising". For example, a new game is being released, the publisher collaborates with TheBrink, a hypothetical popular game news site, and for this they get a huge takeover banner advert for the week, inc…

> However "good" native ads are really just a company paying for priority reporting in the style that would otherwise be done anyway, and are probably content that readers/viewers want. That's akin to saying a person wants some of that "good" cancer. If I am paying, I am supporting the editorial staff. It's their decision what to report on and how. Paid-for content, even if it's just for priority coverage, compromise…

They didn't say it should be desired. They said it exists, and it is not clear that all users would want to hide all of it.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#54

Post by zelphirkalt »

nox101 wrote: post #11

Disagree. Would I like zero ads? Yes, do I think a company should be required to offer a zero ad service for money? No. If you don't like that they have ads even if you pay then don't use the service. People still subscribe to newspaper even though they are full of ads. They paid money, they got an ad full paper. People still subscribe to cable TV even though it's full of ads. People still buy magazines (paid for the…

For companies, whose main service is not the website/app itself, no one forces them to run a website. They are doing it for publicity reasons in one way or another. Putting extra ads or tracking there is trying to make more money from something that should in itself make them money already, by making them more widely known, possibly motivating people to use their actual services.

It is unacceptable behavior. I do check how much uBlock Origin has to block for a website of a business and that does inform my opinion of them quite severely. Biggest detractor: Google analytics. It will always be blocked, and not be loaded, but if I see it on their website, expect my opinion of them to fall quite a few levels. Combine that with some JS only website, then they are already lost. I then know they neither care about user experience nor accessibility, and if that was a potential enployer, they would have dropped out of that category, because I don't want to work in a dystopia shop.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#55

Post by vasco »

Don't work in ads, never did, don't make money from them.

I don't mind ads one bit, except video unskipable ones. I find stuff to buy there all the time, or discover new tools, sometimes I'll buy an equivalent thing years later that I remember I found first in an ad.

If I want to research competitors to something, I just google the something and click the ads.

And I also like that I like something that makes so many people pissed off.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#56

Post by eru »

tempestn wrote: post #29

People (at least used to) pay for magazines and newspapers, which have also been partially supported by ads forever. Perhaps a more sustainable balance would be only first-party ads (ie no individualized tracking) for paying subscribers?

Yes. I also notice that ads in magazines and newspapers aren't nearly as annoying as ads on a screen, so I don't mind them as much.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#57

Post by lazyasciiart »

saghm wrote: post #45
danpalmer wrote: post #9

> The correct amount of ads for a publication that’s directly supported is zero. I basically agree with this sentiment, but one place where it can be a tricky balance (not saying that's the case here!) is "native advertising". For example, a new game is being released, the publisher collaborates with TheBrink, a hypothetical popular game news site, and for this they get a huge takeover banner advert for the week, inc…

> For example, a new game is being released, the publisher collaborates with TheBrink, a hypothetical popular game news site, and for this they get a huge takeover banner advert for the week, increased placement on ad units around the site, a "behind the scenes" post written about the game, and an interview with the developers published to TheBrink's YouTube channel. This type of package is absolutely a thing that ge…

Although I no longer pay for a subscription and can't be certain, I used to have a paid subscription to The Pragmatic Engineer and I'm pretty sure the paragraph "brought to you by X, Y and Z" was still included in each post. I don't think there's any other advertising on the site. Might not quite meet your definition.

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#58

Post by Nevermark »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40
toast0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer Shopper with no ads wouldn't have been worth buying either.

Ads in a magazine that's explicitly just an ad bundle, that you intentionally buy in order to browse those ads, are fine.

I like the idea of subject or source focused ad feeds that I can choose to see, but are never thrown in face without my explicit request.

That is a win-win-win for everyone. If the ad feed has a clear focus its viewers will even be self-selected for ad relevancy without surveillance & manipulation involved.

Being able to discover what products their creators/suppliers are trying to popularize on my timing and topic terms is a worthwhile service.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#59

Post by altacc »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #15
nox101 wrote: post #11

Disagree. Would I like zero ads? Yes, do I think a company should be required to offer a zero ad service for money? No. If you don't like that they have ads even if you pay then don't use the service. People still subscribe to newspaper even though they are full of ads. They paid money, they got an ad full paper. People still subscribe to cable TV even though it's full of ads. People still buy magazines (paid for the…

Commercials on cable are fully skippable, since the first DVR in 1999. It's streaming that takes that freedom away.

Definitely not "fully" as required an additional purchase and planning of what to record. Normal usage of sitting down and turning on the TV to what something being shown at the time does not have skippable advertising.

Whenever I'm in the US and turn on a TV I'm always amazed at the amount of advertising and the effect it has on the media itself. One of the effects of streaming services was that it allowed script writers and producers total freedom from having to structure a story around the ad breaks.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#60

Post by unsungNovelty »

This is a bad take. Ads are not the problem. Behavioural ads with suriveillance and data economy is. Static ads or contextual ads are the answer. Some of the best examples I can think of on the top of my head is duckduckgo.com and https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

Paywall doesn't stop data surveillance. All the news sites have become paywalled because ads revenue dried up because people installing ad blockers and are more aware of privacy. But now, not only don't they not provide content for free, but also make you pay and collect your data as well.

- Go to most of the major news sites in firefox.

- Install noscript extension

- See the bizillion scripts that loads.

Note: You can load all these scripts indirectly with google tag manager or platforms like cloudflare zaraz etc. So you won't even directly see the analytics script that is loaded in a website. Just google tag manager etc.

Ads are a good way to make revenue when it is done right. Behavioural ads makes it the worst it the problem we should be solving. It makes sense from the business POV as well. You cut the middlemen like facebook and google and get paid premium directly. You curate the ads for your product/website. People want to just plug in an api call and generate money. That won't fly anymore with users being aware.

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