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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

#451

Post by n144q »

redserk wrote: post #50
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…

Regarding The Verge, I wish something like Apple News existed in this space. I'd happily throw in $10/mo into a pool that distributed money towards a bunch of different smaller tech reporting/blogs/YouTube channels. I just can't justify paying $X/mo individually to 20 different sources. Though, I dislike that Apple News now runs ads in it's offering and would happily pay a little more to completely get rid of them, b…

The fact that NYTimes never bothered with Apple News says something about this model.

Apple News (or the original Newsstand) might work well for traditional, smaller publishers who are almost struggling in the digital age (most magazines in Apple News would quality), because Apple News brings them traffic and revenue that they may have lost or never get in the first place. Bigger publishers have enough influence to just build their own platform and avoid paying Apple rent. Verge is another such example.

Same reason for Xbox Game Pass, Kindle unlimited, etc. You gets lots of fun games from independent publishers, but never expect something like Hogwarts Legacy to launch on Game Pass on day 1 unless it is a first-party studio (and you have the most expensive version of Game Pass).

If I want to stretch this a bit more, same thing with app stores. Spotify and Netflix are big enough to say "if you want to use our app, go through the pain and pay on the web. We are not offering IAP". Most app developers can't do that. Meanwhile, Epic is big enough that it can pick a fight with Apple.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#452

Post by shortformblog »

bogwog wrote: post #404
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…

> miss the reality that when running a media business, relying on one revenue stream is dangerous. Why would I, as a consumer, compromise on what I want to make some MBA's life easier? That almost sounds like corporate welfare. Businesses sign up to take risks the moment they're created. A news organization doesn't need to be in business. There is nothing unjust or morally wrong with letting a business shutdown becau…

That folks think it’s an MBA that benefits from building a sustainable media business and not the people who work there, who get paychecks and better resourcing, is one of the great misunderstandings of the journalism business and the reason why I pipe up in threads like these.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#453

Post by wat10000 »

Aerroon wrote: post #125
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #121

Advertising is fundamentally corrosive to society and should be outlawed with few and carefully tailored exceptions. Any business models that consequently fail, fail because their externalities to collective society are now priced in.

You will just get other kinds of advertisement. Ads that are technically not ads. Things like product placements, free promotions, word of mouth campaigns etc.

Good.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#455

Post by wat10000 »

XCSme wrote: post #303
Sammi wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, that one time in 1996 where I actually found out about a useful, high quality product from an advertisement was pretty nice.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#456

Post by hombre_fatal »

benj111 wrote: post #424
paulcole wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reasonable number of people who are willing to pay for content like this, but only if they actually get an ad-free experience in exchange. I guarantee that the majority of these zealous anti-ad people will not subscribe to an ad-free service for The Verge. For the most part, their hobby is not subscribing to online publications, it’s complaining about the subscriptions at online publications that they wou…

Even if its 1% its still worth it. You already have billing set up, you already have 2 different tiers of ads. Its like saying most BMW drivers won't buy the top of the line model with all the options. They won't, doesn't mean its not worth offering it.

This isn't really true though. Pricing is very psychological. Verge wants their price to be $7. It's $7 for the Verge.

Not $16 for the Verge. $16 that appeals to 1% of people and where, when you click the pricing page, there's this weird $7 reduced-ad second class version. Believe it or not, they probably thought about this.

Maybe it works for Netflix in a cycle where they were already doubling the ad-free price and differently for a text media company introducing a price.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#457

Post by tootie »

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…

Yeah the classifieds business was huge for local news and Craigslist murdered it. Now ad revenue is declining. The result is subscriptions and paywalls.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#458

Post by adamc »

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…

They capture the reality (for many of us). I stopped subscribing to the NYT because they insisted on showing subscribers ads.

They can do what they want, but I don't really care if businesses that rely on ads go bankrupt.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#459

Post by adamc »

jnsie wrote: post #435
bogwog wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> miss the reality that when running a media business, relying on one revenue stream is dangerous. Why would I, as a consumer, compromise on what I want to make some MBA's life easier? That almost sounds like corporate welfare. Businesses sign up to take risks the moment they're created. A news organization doesn't need to be in business. There is nothing unjust or morally wrong with letting a business shutdown becau…

> Why would I, as a consumer, compromise on what I want to make some MBA's life easier? You presumably want access to the Verge's content. This is unsustainable without some revenue. You're compromising to continue to get what you want, not to make some MBA's life easier.

I don't want any content enough to tolerate ads.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#460

Post by noprocrasted »

scaryclam wrote: post #160
DrBazza wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped visiting The Verge after their last 'rebrand' which offended my eyes. As for the article, well, ads are everywhere now aren't they? "Accept all cookies or pay £3 a month for ad-free" is what we're getting on most media sites in the UK. I'm guessing there's some company I've yet to discover that's selling this platform ("tech") to all the newspaper/magazine sites.

You should report sites that do that. We still enforce the GDPR, and it's illegal to force acceptance of cookies (excepting functional cookies) for any reason, including offering to remove them for money.

> We still enforce the GDPR

No we don't, and we never did. The whole "GDPR" thing is a sham - unfortunately this is the case in many countries, but especially so in the UK. The ICO is one of the most useless "regulators" I have ever dealt with, somehow even worse than telecoms regulators.

This isn't some sort of subtle and concealed breach of the GDPR that everyone puts effort into keeping quiet. It's blatant, obvious, and in the face of everyone who visits major news websites. If it was enforced, the practice would've quickly stopped.

It's about as subtle as committing murder on live TV. If you don't get arrested for that, it's clear that the law you've broken is not being enforced.

> You should report sites that do that

But let's hypothesize and see what it takes to actually do this:

As per the ICO's requirements, you must first contact the organization that has wronged you and give them time to address your concern.

They have 30 days to do respond, and could extend it potentially indefinitely by engaging in pointless arguments. They could also make technically flawed arguments in how they're not actually tracking you or collecting personal data, and those will successfully work because there's no technical expert on the ICO's side to review it and call bullshit. You need full-time admin staff to deal with these matters.

Assuming you finally get to a stage where you have grounds to make a complaint to the ICO, what are they going to do (if anything)? Well at best they will send a letter, which is not legally binding in any way and will promptly get ignored by the recipient, which is fine because the truth is, both sides are complicit and just want the matter to go away - whether the underlying problem is solved or not is not their concern.

In practice, even if the ICO wanted to act (they don't - don't bite the hand that feeds), what would they do? This isn't a single, small offender, this is the entire newspaper industry. They not only have a lot of lobbying power but outright control the narrative. They know it, and that's why they have no fear putting evidence of their GDPR breach on their homepages.

Are you ready to hire a full-time admin team to do this (and end up absolutely nowhere, except maybe collecting evidence of this "regulator"'s uselessness)?

--

GDPR enforcement in the UK (and sadly in a lot of other countries) is and will remain a sham until the issue becomes politically important. The regulator on its own, even with the best of skill and intentions will not succeed in this battle. The only way I can potentially see this changing is if we see continuous and recurrent data breaches of politician's personal data and dirty laundry, but even then the likeliest solution is a two-tier system where politicians are allowed to have privacy while everyone else doesn't.

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