Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The correct amount of ads is zero

manuelmoreale.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 611 posts

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#261

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

amaurose wrote: post #201
miki123211 wrote: post #192

To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens. On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tic…

Who defines what is culturally OK? I ask because in my book, using an ad blocker regularily is worse then skipping the occasional public transport ticket. I don't even know why. But I definitely dont give ad blcoker people that much slack. If you want the ads gone, PAY or stop using the service. Hiring a virtual bodyguard to bully your way through cyberspace is somehow weird to me.

> If you want the ads gone, PAY or stop using the service.

Paying is not always an option and, when it is, it's often ridiculously overpriced. Websites send me their ads, I choose not to look at them. Should I somehow be forced to consume adverts on television, prevented from leaving the room or muting the sound?

I would have more sympathy if there were no alternative, but there's a very easy one where everyone wins: static ads. I won't block those and I can't block them!

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#262

Post by fastball »

closewith wrote: post #219
miki123211 wrote: post #192

To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens. On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tic…

> To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. Resolving that the poor must endure advertising to be subsidised by the wealthy is anti-poor and anti-person. A more reasonable take is that all humans should have reasonable access to services through the fruits of their labour, and a situation where wealth inequality makes this infeasible should be rectified.

How exactly are you planning to adjust the situation so that someone in Liberia making $2.50/day can afford a YouTube subscription?

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#263

Post by blueflow »

arrowsmith wrote: post #181
tossandthrow wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are ads and in many jurisdictions Also treated like ads. Weird that This is not the case in the US?

If you grew up in Europe, I promise that when you visit the US for the first time, you will be SHOCKED by America's advertising standards (or lack of them.) Advertising is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, to an extent far beyond what you're used to from home. Posters, billboards, fliers, TV commercials, product placement, celebrity endorsements - you can barely step outside without being bombarded by y…

Experience it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6QUsx68DCA

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#264

Post by izacus »

freeAgent wrote: post #260
lousken wrote: post #245

15 years ago regular site used to have a nice banner ad that was related to the topic of the site, maybe some small logo here and there on the right side and that was about it I did not think about blocking it, did not mind, did not care. That's how ads should have stayed instead of this giant annoying/spyware/loud/popup/... mess. Nowadays I would not use anything without ublock and i am considering storing everythin…

There were absolutely obnoxious ads, including pop-ups and pop-unders 15 years ago, but at least they were generally contextual rather than targeted to your ad profile.

I'm not sure if "Punch the Monkey" was ever really contextual tbh :)

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#265

Post by shortformblog »

Stances like this probably feel good to write out, but they miss the reality that when running a media business, relying on one revenue stream is dangerous. That’s why newspapers had classified ads, even though they charged a nominal fee to subscribe. People won’t pay $5 a day to subscribe to a newspaper, but the ads subsidize enough of it to make it so that a paid subscription is accessible to more people.

On the internet, the fact is this: Most companies do not offer a reduced ad load in exchange for your subscription money. In fact, they will be happy to take money from every source they can. The fact that The Verge is doing so reflects that they understand their audience and are trying to meet them halfway. It also reduces the cost of the subscription for you, the end user.

This feels like a situation where an organization tries doing something laudable, but still gets criticized for it.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#266

Post by DavideNL »

Even though i hate ads as much as most commenters… as advocate of the devil:

This black-and-white thinking [1] is also bad. What’s the point if they show 0 ads, subscription price will then have to go up to cover the costs, and nobody signs up so they go bankrupt. They also have to be able to survive in the current world/reality, even if they WANT to show 0 ads.

My point is: we don’t have any insight in their financial data/revenue/costs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#267

Post by fastball »

grishka wrote: post #222
miki123211 wrote: post #192

To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens. On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tic…

It's all about implicit vs explicit contracts. Blocking ads on your own device is a breach of an "implicit contract" that the website owner thinks you have with them, but that you've never entered into or even seen, because it's not written out anywhere, it's "assumed". Riding public transit without a ticket is breaching an explicit contract with the transit agency that you entered into when you physically entered th…

Using adblocker on YouTube (for example) is a violation of the ToS, which is not an "implicit contract".

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#268

Post by renewiltord »

manuelmoreale wrote: post #183
renewiltord wrote: post #69

Personally, I think the correct amount of subscription fee is zero and ads should be zero too. It’s unethical to charge for information you have that could improve someone else’s life. It’s near zero marginal cost to give it to them and you’re just going to hoard it? We should ban paying for information at the federal level to prevent this horrific practice.

And journalists and the people running the news sites are going to be paid with what? With thoughts and prayers?

Maybe it’s not a business that needs to exist. Not every business has to be viable. Society existed before widespread news orgs.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#269

Post by prmoustache »

miki123211 wrote: post #192

To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens. On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tic…

First: you are totally out of topic because the article mentionned tackle the practice of serving ads to paying users accessing a paywall.

> The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens.

Ads are an aggression on the mind of the people with real psychological consequences. Imagine a public libraries where you should either pay a ticket or be targeted every few minutes by an advertizing team to interrupt your lecture, slap a flyer on top of your book, holding your arm to prevent your from removing it all this while shouting at you offers for a service. And that would be the rich subsidizing the service for the poor and would be a good thing. This is bonkers.

> On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tickets, even though it's basically the same thing and a very similar business model.

Not really. Paywall is similar business model, You pay the price, you get the service. Ads are just Ads.

I am perfectly free to decide to use whatever technology exist to remove ads from my sights when walking in the streets, or close my eyes. Same has to be for the internet.

Also, online medias lost any right to pretend we should see ads when they decided to go the unethical way and act like criminals that redirect our traffic to external parties without our consent. I was perfectly fine when ads were few and far between, not covering half the screen, served locally and only a click on the ad would send me to the advertiser.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#270

Post by sfn42 »

boo-ga-ga wrote: post #111
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use uBlock and pay your content creators via Patreon if they have one. I believe that the ad-based freemium business model is harmful to society and unfixable due to the incentives it creates to engage and enrage rather than entertain and inform. So, I use uBlock to use YouTube for free to explicitly drain it of resources without giving Google any ad income, and then I pay the creators that I like using other…

Can you share how you do this? For example, you've listened to a song on YT a few times, liked it. Do you try to find the artist on Bandcamp or iTunes and buy their album? Or order their merch? How much do you spend on this monthly on average?

I always find these conversations strange.

If you offer content for free I'm not going to pay for it. I don't tip, I don't buy micro transactions in games, I don't pay for discord nitro or buy "collector's edition" versions of games or twitch subscriptions or anything like that.

Simply, if I don't have to pay I don't. And I certainly won't waste my life watching ads just so someone can earn a fraction of a cent.

I don't feel any need to justify that, I don't feel bad about it. These tactics earn tons of money, and if that ever stops they'll stop doing it and do something else instead. Until then I'll happily take advantage of all the free stuff. Someone else wants to donate to subsidize me that's great, go right ahead. I'm gonna keep my money.

Post reply on HN