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

511–520 of 611 posts

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#511

Post by xandrius »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #445
arrowsmith wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> American adverts are noticeably more loud, garish, cheesy, repetitive and attention-grabbing. I take it that you have not been to Tokyo or Seoul, then?

I have unlocked understanding Japanese and it blew my mind how pervasive advertisements are.

Most foreign people would just gloss over them but even most temples (say in Kyoto) have the names of companies which donated money plastered all over the place.

Even the famous tori gates at inari have cool looking Japanese text which basically says "Applebees", "Yamato Metal Industries", and so on.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#512

Post by adamc »

next_xibalba wrote: post #498
adamc wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Then don’t consume it. You have full control over that. We all do. What we don’t have is the right to assert a condescending “moral” stance that ignores the economic realities that producers must grapple with.

We have the full right to assert any moral stance. Whether others find it "condescending" is really not my problem.

The reality is that the internet is not a good publication venue. There are lots of eyeballs and distribution is cheap, but getting people to pay is hard. That doesn't mean serving up advertisement is a moral response. Advertisement is met with ad-blockers and will continue to be. When that is too painful, people do skip the content.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#513

Post by arrowsmith »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #445
arrowsmith wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> American adverts are noticeably more loud, garish, cheesy, repetitive and attention-grabbing. I take it that you have not been to Tokyo or Seoul, then?

Nope!

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#514

Post by neycoda »

I wonder how much it costs The Verge to run their platform, and how much they need subscribers to pay to stay profitable.

The fence part is that when we were paying for newspaper subscriptions, they still were chock full of ads. It's just that they tended to be relegated to entire pages or sections that weren't obnoxious.

Maybe there's something different about how we peruse online content vs paper that makes us annoyed at digital and not paper ads... I will say that website ads have become so obtrusive and in the way and distracting that I'm just turned off to them.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#515

Post by neycoda »

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…

If they can't survive without reduced ads on subscriptions, or the price of subscriptions without ads becomes unviable for users, then they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I honestly wouldn't mind a subscription that reduces ads to the point of being _non-obnoxious_, but I'm in an odd position because I pay for YouTube Premium, which doesn't have ads, and costs a lot more money to distribute (video, text, and images vs text & images), but I grew up in the newspaper age which were chock full of ads free or subscription.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#516

Post by carlosjobim »

xixixao wrote: post #322
bambax wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, and probably true, but the difference with newspaper is, it would be prohibitively expensive to produce different versions of the same newspaper for different subscription options, while it's trivial to do on the web. Why not offer an ad-free tier?

The richest people, hence the most valuable for advertisers, would buy it. This significantly affects the whole ad business value. Such that the ad-free tier would have to be priced too high. It’s more profitable to “force” everyone to watch ads. I’m afraid.

- You don't have to be rich to afford a subscription for a dozen dollars a month.

- Expensive cars and cruises are advertised all the time on open TV channels and other ad-supported media.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#517

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

arrowsmith wrote: post #513
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American adverts are noticeably more loud, garish, cheesy, repetitive and attention-grabbing. I take it that you have not been to Tokyo or Seoul, then?

Nope!

Their ads make the American advertisers look like teetotalers.

Some of my faves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLe826lyao

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#518

Post by flashgordon »

next_xibalba wrote: post #498
adamc wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Then don’t consume it. You have full control over that. We all do. What we don’t have is the right to assert a condescending “moral” stance that ignores the economic realities that producers must grapple with.

So the problem is not just black and white - consume ads or dont. It is when my data is being sold without my consent or visibility, when an accidental visiting a page installs tracking cookies and shows annoying opt-out screens, when ad/malware gets installed in every piece of hardware I own (eg "Smart TVs") that is the problem. No business "needs" to exist - that too vampirically. Incentivize the customer to opt-in with full visibility and let them pick. Dollar costs are visible - why are ads sneakier?

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#519

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #65
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The people most likely to pay the extra $1 are the people who will watch the most No the people who pay the extra are the ones who are most able to afford it. The outcome is still the same though as these are the people the advertisers want to target. The people who can't afford the extra dollar are of very little value to the advertisers.

> No the people who pay the extra are the ones who are most able to afford it. The outcome is still the same though as these are the people the advertisers want to target.

Except that you can't get those people anyway because they value time more than money so they'll just buy some other content with no ads in it from someone else. Also, that doesn't matter if you just price the paid offering at the level that it makes up the actual ad revenue from the people who would use it.

> The people who can't afford the extra dollar are of very little value to the advertisers.

Rubbish. People are often budget constrained because they have high expenses rather than low income, e.g. anyone with kids. Being able to divert that spending to your brand from a competing brand has significant value to advertisers.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#520

Post by amelius »

gambiting wrote: post #509
mgraczyk wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harm is when something bad happens to someone, and the someone is aware of it

So like I said, you and I have very different definition. Using yours, you cannot harm someone who is in come or too young to understand what is happening to them. Similarily, if my personal information is being traded online for money a harm is being done to me, even if I'm not aware of these transactions taking place. I just don't expect we'll agree on this.

Even if you use a different definition you can acknowledge that someone else has a different view, and your original "if you don't like it, don't buy it" argument does not hold for that person.

Internet ads can in theory be turned on or off per user, it's no rocket science, so you could opt-in and everybody could be happy.

Post reply on HN