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What the ad blocker debate reveals

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Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#121

Post by moron4hire »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #117
moron4hire wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't consider any other forms of advertising "acceptable". Now, that's not fair. There is no such thing as "if you build it, they will come". If you are building a thing and you want people to come and use it, you have to advertise in some form. Even if you're making a diner on the side of the highway, you have to put up a sign "Eat at Joes" so people know that you exist and will pull over to try you out. The pr…

> Now, that's not fair. There is no such thing as "if you build it, they will come". If you are building a thing and you want people to come and use it, you have to advertise in some form. I stand by my statement: the best way to do this is to build something awesome, show it to people, and have them be so excited about how much it helped them that they jump at the chance to show others. Bonus if you build something…

How do you show it to those people in the first place? I'm working on VR software. None of my friends care about games that much, say nothing about even know what an Oculus Rift is.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

moron4hire wrote: post #121
JoshTriplett wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, that's not fair. There is no such thing as "if you build it, they will come". If you are building a thing and you want people to come and use it, you have to advertise in some form. I stand by my statement: the best way to do this is to build something awesome, show it to people, and have them be so excited about how much it helped them that they jump at the chance to show others. Bonus if you build something…

How do you show it to those people in the first place? I'm working on VR software. None of my friends care about games that much, say nothing about even know what an Oculus Rift is.

Do a Show HN. Post it on Reddit. Just keep honest - "I'm working on this thing, my aim is to make it do This Cool Thing; right now it does this-and-that. Check it out at http://mysite, I'd appreciate feedback.".

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#123

Post by gabriel34 »

jerf wrote: post #71
danr4 wrote: post #2

It's rather simple in my mind. Putting your content up for free is the same as standing by my fence, waiting for me to ask you to throw your magazine over so I could read it. You can put ads, but I can cut them out if I want for a better reading experience. Don't want me to cut out the ads? tough luck, my reading experience, my choice. Want to make money? try a subscription model. Why can't you have both? Welcome to…

Oh, the memories. I haven't seen this metaphor fight in like 8 years now, since web annotation basically died. And here we finally are with a version of this debate that people actually care about, because there's actual money at stake. Finally my years of prep are ready to pay off! First, I suggest everyone resist metaphors. Physical metaphors don't work here at all . For one thing, the "free content" may in the fut…

You are assuming the adblockers will enter said arms race, which they don't really have to. What is the provider to do when I refuse to render his add? Block me from content? My guess is, given the necessity of disabling the ad blocking to view content, many users will simply bounce from that content. Content is cheap compared to the scarce attention we pay to each subject when we have so much information so easily accessible.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#124

Post by hamax »

anc84 wrote: post #113
austenallred wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think all they'd have to do to get money is ask nicely. Having been a part of a lot of media sites in the past, I can safely say that wouldn't have been true for any of them.

Maybe there were not actually valuable to the visitors?

If you open the discussion section of any article on HN that is behind a paywall you'll find a link that bypasses the paywall and a discussion about how paywalled content shouldn't even be allowed on HN.

So even though they created something of value (otherwise it wouldn't be on the front page) but most people still won't pay for the content.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#125

Post by gabriel34 »

pinaceae wrote: post #56

well, let's look at someplace where ads truly work well. fashion print magazines. buy a vogue and look at the ads. hard to tell apart from the content, glossy, relevant, beautiful. they make up at least 70% of the whole magazine. i like gruber's ad system on DF, one of the few sites that seem to follow a user/reader centric approach. first you ensure the eyeballs, THEN you show the ads, always paranoid to piss off yo…

Ads can be content. The best ones usually are.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#126

Post by scott_s »

moron4hire wrote: post #93
scott_s wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay $15 a month for the NY Times, and I read it on all devices (laptop, iPhone, iPad). Their webpage is the best in the business, and I find it fine for all devices. To answer your question: I do not know. But I don't find it a useful comparison; while they both produce "content", the content itself is vastly different. Producing shows with the quality of, say, Game of Thrones, is expensive, but so is having and se…

I don't think the nature of the content changes much. They both have employees to pay. They both have infrastructure costs. They both live off of people consuming their stuff. HBO has competitors who use NY Times revenue model. HBO even publishes at least a small amount of investigative journalism.

Because the nature of the content is so different, the costs may also be different.

HBO also just recently changed its entire business model. It used to not be purchased directly by consumers. The old model was they sold themselves to the cable companies, and the cable companies sold HBO to consumers. HBO Now changes that, and it's possible it will also change the nature of HBO.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#127

Post by JoshTriplett »

moron4hire wrote: post #121
JoshTriplett wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, that's not fair. There is no such thing as "if you build it, they will come". If you are building a thing and you want people to come and use it, you have to advertise in some form. I stand by my statement: the best way to do this is to build something awesome, show it to people, and have them be so excited about how much it helped them that they jump at the chance to show others. Bonus if you build something…

How do you show it to those people in the first place? I'm working on VR software. None of my friends care about games that much, say nothing about even know what an Oculus Rift is.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

Go to a gaming conference and show it to people there.

Talk to some of the well-respected (note: that's not the same thing as popular) gaming folks on YouTube or Twitch, and let them try it.

Find well-respected gaming bloggers/reviewers and show it to them.

If what you're building is VR but not exclusive to gaming, talk to people in the field it applies to.

Go to a technology conference and talk about how you built the software or how you solved some particularly interesting challenge.

If you're building on some other projects, talk to the authors of those projects, and show them what you've built (along with giving them credit in your own project).

Make a video yourself and post it to YouTube, in concert with any of the above.

Start building a network of people who are interested in what you do, so the next time you can just post interesting things to that network.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#128

Post by mirimir »

Killswitch wrote: post #68
danr4 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with your correction to my analogy, though I do not think it changes the conclusions. I don't think it's a problem that consumers aren't willing to pay for content. That's literally the description of consumers, to decide what to consume, how to use it, and what they are willing to give in exchange.

Except if it came down to it, everyone would be in an uproar about having to pay monthly fee to visit every site on the net.. I'm willing to bet half the people in this thread who say if people want to be paid for their content, to charge for it, not use ads, don't donate to Wikipedia. It absolutely flabbergasts me the amount of people in the tech world who don't realize to run a top site delivering content to you co…

Let's say that a site owner switched to a micropayment model. And they charged per page view what they had been earning on average from serving ads. They'd be fine, right?

I can't imagine that many sites are earning $5 per month in ad income for each of their regular users. But maybe someone could point to some reliable data?

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#129

Post by moron4hire »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #122
moron4hire wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you show it to those people in the first place? I'm working on VR software. None of my friends care about games that much, say nothing about even know what an Oculus Rift is.

Do a Show HN. Post it on Reddit. Just keep honest - "I'm working on this thing, my aim is to make it do This Cool Thing; right now it does this-and-that. Check it out at http://mysite , I'd appreciate feedback.".

The poster I was replying to said he doesn't consider any form of advertising as "acceptable". So according to him, either posting a Show HN is not advertising, or it's not acceptable. I don't see how it could be consider anything other than advertising.

Re: What the ad blocker debate reveals

#130

Post by moron4hire »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #127
moron4hire wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you show it to those people in the first place? I'm working on VR software. None of my friends care about games that much, say nothing about even know what an Oculus Rift is.

A few ideas off the top of my head: Go to a gaming conference and show it to people there. Talk to some of the well-respected (note: that's not the same thing as popular) gaming folks on YouTube or Twitch, and let them try it. Find well-respected gaming bloggers/reviewers and show it to them. If what you're building is VR but not exclusive to gaming, talk to people in the field it applies to. Go to a technology confe…

I agree that these are good things to do, and I actually do most of them already. But how can you consider these things "not advertising", such that you find them acceptable? These are forms of advertising. These tasks aren't managing the project, they are certainly not building the project. That pretty much just leaves marketing the project.
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