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Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

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Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#151

Post by blihp »

winrid wrote: post #109
eridius wrote: post #44

If a game doesn't offer any way to pay to remove ads, it's an instant uninstall for me. If a game does offer it, but doesn't let me play for long enough to decide whether I like the game before it starts serving up unskippable ads, I uninstall it. Most games simply don't give enough time to decide if you even like it before they start throwing ads at you. That seems like a terrible policy in general, regardless of wh…

All this feedback is great. I'm working on a little competitive multiplayer game for Android (and soon iOS) as a side project. I was thinking about showing ads after every other match w/ the option to pay out and now I think I'll only show them past a certain rank, or just put up a pay wall.

Just keep mind that doing what you're proposing will probably cost you 90%+ of your revenue. I'd recommend simply not being abusive with ads (either showing excessive numbers or working with shady ad networks) and offer the small segment of your users willing to pay an IAP to opt out of the ads.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#152

Post by amalcon »

reaperducer wrote: post #43
degenerate wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your standards have changed, but that's still too much for me. I don't mind guest posts or (mentioned) sponsored content, however I will always use ublock to remove ads. It would be different if the typical ad experience were a related, useful product. But it's always unrelated hot garbage - distracting and annoying at any pixel size.

that's still too much for me Reasonable ads don't bother me. I don't long for the day when I can install an ad blocker in my car's windshield so I don't see billboards or the names of car dealerships on the backs of the other cars. Then again, when I drive someplace where there's too many billboards I find it annoying.

Everyone's different. I'd probably pay as much for that windshield ad blocker as I did for my car.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#153

Post by aiisahik »

> I feel like I'm on crazy-pills with this topic. No one links to my page, hardly any orgs run these experiments, no one upvotes them on Reddit or HN

Gwern is on crazy pills because this is a feature not a bug. Your users are there to generate ad revenue - not the other way around.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#154

Post by bduerst »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #106
bduerst wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads don't affect SEO. It would allow websites to essentially pay for higher search results. There are tools that come with using ads that allow for insights into better SEO though - e.g. Adwords keyword planner.

> would allow websites to essentially pay for higher search results. // Isn't this exactly what Google does? Paid placements put you above organic results in the SERPs, presumably other search sites do that too.

Yes, and they mark them as ads so users know that they're promoted and not organic search results. Allowing websites to buy ads to affect their organic placing would affect the quality of search results.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#155

Post by fenwick67 »

copperx wrote: post #119
jermaustin1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss this model for games. Demo disks were my favorite thing in the world. I'd play a demo a dozen times or so before I decided that it was worth begging a parent to buy the game for me.

It has been a long time since I played games, but I thought games still had demos. In Steam, do you have to buy a game before playing it?

Some games do have demos, but not that many.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#156

Post by scarface74 »

chrisdsaldivar wrote: post #150
blotter_paper wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't take the medical establishment as infallible, and I can imagine arguing against these recommendations, but FYI the American Association of Pediatricians recommends against allowing a 20mo the sort of screen time necessary to learn ad-skipping through trial and error[0]: >Among the AAP recommendations: >For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents…

Another reason to limit screen time for kids is to prevent developing nearsightedness. Although this is just anecdata, I was talking to my optometrist at my last appointment and he told me he's seen far more kids coming in with myopia than ever in his 30 years of practicing and he attributes it to kids spending too much time on phones and tablets. edit: Here's an article from nature which compiles some research on th…

I was looking for research to say that is a myth. But from a trusted source: The American Optometric Association:

https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-probl...

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#157

Post by scarface74 »

1000units wrote: post #141
OtterCoder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing ethical about the way advertising invades every part of society, every corner of your home, and every available minute of human attention. Blocking ads is eminently moral, because the only way to stop their encroach is to punish their purchase by blocking them.

The advertising industry is a massive moral failure, right under annually throwing 8 billion baby chickens into a blender seconds after they're born so that our meals taste marginally better. It turns out you can commit all kinds of atrocities on a mass scale, and nobody cares so long as it's socially normalized. In another time we're gassing Jews.

So it is unethical to kill chickens right after their born but no other time?

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#158

Post by HlessClaudesman »

avgDev wrote: post #149
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #144

I tried to get my young son into original Angry Birds, thinking it would be a nice simple physics lesson for him, but it has become absolutely unnavigateable for his age level. So many pop up special offers for magic birds to solve the level, cut scene product placement, and other in game purchases, that I can't trust those games to not get him lost in a maze of advertising bullcrap. I paid for this game, a kids game…

Basically, everyone that makes games now knows how insanely lucrative it can be. I am not sure if this is caused by sales/marketing/executives but games now can generate massive cash. Many games now offer micro-transactions, casino style loot crates where you can open them by buying keys to have a chance of wining something. Even I bought a few things in games. However, many others young or old drop massive amount of…

Oh man, sorry for your uncle blowing that amount!

Speaking of training kids to gamble, I'm gonna thread jack with a public service announcement, please avoid letting your kids see any "Surprise Egg" videos all costs. I downloaded "you-tube kids", their supposedly safe curated experience, and almost half of the recommended videos on a completely clean user install was this moronic kiddy click bait that turns youngsters into drooling dopamine rinsed zombies, primed for our loot-box overlords.

Un-install, go play outside.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-minds/201703/...

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#159

Post by scarface74 »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #144

I tried to get my young son into original Angry Birds, thinking it would be a nice simple physics lesson for him, but it has become absolutely unnavigateable for his age level. So many pop up special offers for magic birds to solve the level, cut scene product placement, and other in game purchases, that I can't trust those games to not get him lost in a maze of advertising bullcrap. I paid for this game, a kids game…

And it wasn’t that bad before.

The difference between the original Angry Birds and Angry Birds Go with all of the in app purchases is stark.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#160

Post by kelnos »

Wordball wrote: post #130
kelnos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's the thing. I will never (except possibly accidentally) click on an ad. Every single time I see an add in my Instagram feed, I mark it as "not relevant". And yet these days I see ads every 5-7 photos in my feed. I use Instagram much less now because of the quantity of ads, and Instagram should clearly be able to tell that I don't interact with ads at all except to get rid of them. I've probably reduced my…

What are you trying to accomplish by clicking "not relevant"?

My (naive) hope was that after a while they'd give up.

Is there a better response, you think, that would possibly decrease the number of ads I see?

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