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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

#301

Post by shortformblog »

Loic wrote: post #292
shortformblog wrote: post #265

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 in…

> Most companies do not offer a reduced ad load in exchange for your subscription money. At least in Germany, this has changed quite a lot. The publishers are naming the offers "Pur Abo" or similar. This is not perfect as one analysis[0] is showing, but for me, on the good way. [0]: https://netzpolitik.org/2020/nicht-ganz-ohne/ (in German) Edit: Added German analysis of these offers.

Intriguing. I know the German media market is very different from the American one—back in my D.C. days, when I was still at the WaPo Express, I met a German journalist who was working in the U.S. and I remember her explaining to me how different the rules were for promotion and social media and such.

I do think The Verge offering this could lead other U.S. publishers to follow suit, especially if it’s successful.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#302

Post by raverbashing »

passwordoops wrote: post #283
shortformblog wrote: post #265

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 in…

True. And from what I understood, the Verge is offering two tiers - less ads and no ads. You can pay for the one you think is worthwhile. As a consumer I definitely lean on the "if I'm paying a subscription, I expect zero ads" side of the fence. It just has to be worth the additional price for me (The Verge is not)

Yeah, the economics of it make sense. The optics of it is awful though.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#303

Post by XCSme »

Sammi wrote: post #289
refulgentis wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertising is fundamentally corrosive to society Interesting, why?

Because they want to make you do stuff that is not in your best interest. They want to create a need that you don't actually have, and they do so by applying psychological pressure. They are a festival of fomo. They're pollution for your mind and distort your sense of reality. In a knowledge economy your attention is your highest commodity, and ads want to take all of it. One of the strongest rules I have for my hous…

How else do you find out about new stuff, or recommendations, or things you never considered before?

How do you find out about new movies, concerts, etc.?

Most customers don't know themselves that a solution to their problem (which they might not even notice) exists.

Manipulative ads are bad, yes. But ads that expand your knowledge of what's available in the world are good in my opinion.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#304

Post by shortformblog »

manuelmoreale wrote: post #300
shortformblog wrote: post #265

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 in…

I’ll guarantee you that it doesn’t make me feel any better to write this type of posts. I’m just exhausted by the modern web. As for the other point you’re making, that’s complete nonsense. You don’t differentiate your revenue streams by serving a sub par product to your paying customers. Serve those stupid ads to free users, treat your paying customers with respect.

Gonna be straight up with you: I feel like you would have never thought about this had they not mentioned it, because so few media outlets are even thinking about reducing ad load for paid subscribers.

As someone in media, I’m tired of well-intentioned media outlets try to strike a reasonable balance only to get yelled at for it like they aren’t already walking a tightrope. They have staffs of people to pay for, payroll. Travel budgets. Offices. Legal bills. And that they get hell for trying to give an inch, in my opinion, sucks.

If you want them to offer an ad-free tier, tell them that directly! Given that they are clearly thinking about it suggests they might listen to you.

But your binary way of approaching this is not helping and ultimately discourages companies who want to wean themselves off of adtech. Ripping off the band-aid is a lot harder than you’re making it out to be.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#305

Post by manuelmoreale »

9o1d wrote: post #237
manuelmoreale wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dear friend! I am also a simple programmer. When I post simple rants like the one featured here, not only it doesn't have an ad block anywhere and so it generates no money but you're also all consuming bandwidth on a server i'm paying for with my money. I also have a job—as a self employed developer that earns absolutely not enough to live a decent life—and I still do what I can to respect the web and respect the peo…

Let me give you a piece of advice. Since you are still young and you do not have enough experience to make a lot of money. Because before it was not a few dollars that you mention, but hundreds of dollars. Advertising revenue has dropped so much. I thought the same as you. I was young and naive. Companies also have little money from advertising and therefore they simply cannot hire you and pay you a lot of money. Thi…

I want to stay young and naive. I want to die poor and let people simply visit my site and hopefully earn something at a personal level. I care about human connections, I care about interacting with people via email in an honest way. If I’m not going to earn a living by doing that so be it.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#306

Post by Gehinnn »

I'd pay a lot per month if I wouldn't have to care which subscriptions I need and could just access everything.

I wouldn't pay a lot for any particular service that I'd just use only once or twice per month. I only ever read "the verge" if it is linked from HN or somewhere else. A subscription just doesn't make sense for me.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#307

Post by prmoustache »

DavideNL wrote: post #266

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 financi…

> They also have to be able to survive in the current world/reality, even if they WANT to show 0 ads.

They have to?

I don't think. If you can't offer a service the ethical way, maybe you shouldn't offer that service.

Your kind of reasonning also is the reason these medias can't survive without ads. If we banned ads altogether, subscription prices would go higher but decent publications would be able to serve content without ads because they would not face unfair competition from unethical ones. People would still subscribe to interesting content. Maybe they would not subscribe to 10 different publications but only 2 or 3. But the quality of the content of those publications would be higher because their real customers would be the paying users, not the ad industry. Here we are in that weird state where the real customers are not the people subscribing to the service. Paying users are merely addicts that online medias sell to advertisers. So the content served is only meant to redirect users to ads through many kind of psychological manipulation.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#308

Post by kivle »

racecar789 wrote: post #99
jillesvangurp wrote: post #44

It's why I use Firefox and avoid situations where I might get exposed to annoying ads. I was watching some Amazon Prime recently (the new rings of power season). Pretty OK and completely ad free experience. Except I noticed these weird cuts every few minutes. It took me quite a while to realize that Amazon introduced ads some time ago for Amazon prime and uBlock origin was doing a great job of simply blocking them. H…

I would pay for YouTube premium if you can afford it. The cost is pretty reasonable and 55% of the subscription goes to content creators. It's not a huge amount but probably similar to what a creator would make if ads were shown.

I subscribed until they price hiked it like 45% in one go a couple of months ago in my country. Now the price for it is equal to, or in some cases even more expensive than the services that actually produce their own high quality movies/tv shows.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#309

Post by manuelmoreale »

shortformblog wrote: post #304
manuelmoreale wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll guarantee you that it doesn’t make me feel any better to write this type of posts. I’m just exhausted by the modern web. As for the other point you’re making, that’s complete nonsense. You don’t differentiate your revenue streams by serving a sub par product to your paying customers. Serve those stupid ads to free users, treat your paying customers with respect.

Gonna be straight up with you: I feel like you would have never thought about this had they not mentioned it, because so few media outlets are even thinking about reducing ad load for paid subscribers. As someone in media, I’m tired of well-intentioned media outlets try to strike a reasonable balance only to get yelled at for it like they aren’t already walking a tightrope. They have staffs of people to pay for, payr…

> If you want them to offer an ad-free tier, tell them that directly! Given that they are clearly thinking about it suggests they might listen to you.

The first thing I did the other day was emailing Nilay Patel, editor in chief at The Verge, to share my thoughts on the subject.

That’s before I posted on my site. As for “ripping off the band aid”, again, that’s nonsense. I’m not saying they should drop ads. They should figure out how much a user is worth and then price their membership accordingly.

The vast, vast majority won’t switch anyway because that’s the reality of today’s web.

As for your first point, I’d not have noticed that because I run multiple adblockers everywhere and I am THRILLED that I can now support in other ways.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#310

Post by account42 »

marban wrote: post #109

Look, I'm not an ad aficionado either, but if it weren't for ads, the lifestyle of a lot of people on HN would be dramatically different — particularly for those doling out unsolicited advice to publishers on running a sustainable media business in 2024.

As long as those publishers are doling out unsolicited advice on what to buy and who to trust and what to believe (while hovering up all personal information they can), they don't really get to complain.
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