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Welcome to the ad-free internet

economist.com

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Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#291

Post by JohnFen »

0x0203 wrote: post #197
marcus_holmes wrote: post #48

Doesn't this end up spiralling, though? As we've seen with Netflix, nothing stops the service from adding ads to a subscription feed. Sooner or later the pressure to grow revenues is going to force Meta to do ads on their subscription accounts (especially since they can charge a premium on those ads). Then they introduce "premium" subscription accounts with no ads, then those get ads, then there's the "excelsior" sub…

Not showing the user ads is also only half the problem. As the article said, those who pay not to view them are the more valuable advertising targets. There's nothing about those plans, as far as I've seen, that says they're not still tracking usage patterns, viewing habits, etc... and selling that info on to others who don't have a paid ad-free option.

I agree.

I don't really object to ads as much as I object to the tracking that comes with them. Ad-free services that still do the tracking aren't really much of an improvement in my book.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#292

Post by BobaFloutist »

bee_rider wrote: post #283
BobaFloutist wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who doesn't really know because he refuses to use anything with the word "Apple" in it, doesn't Apple News kind of do this?

I’m not sure, I don’t use it either. Apple’s podcast client has some ability to subscribe to the premium version of some podcasts. So they seem to have something vaguely like this. It still appears to be a monthly/yearly subscription thing though. I decided to poke around the news app based on your comment, but I only see monthly subscriptions, sadly. I get that newspapers want the reliable recurring subscription ins…

I mean yeah you can't pick articles ala cart from Apple News, but you can pay for one subscription to get access to a bunch of different news sources, and it presumably distributes your subscription fee (minus Apple's cut) to news sources depending on what and how many articles you actually read. Which is sort of like what you were talking about?

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#293

Post by hydrok9 »

AlienRobot wrote: post #273
alwayslikethis wrote: post #211

The ad-free internet has already been here for a long time if you are willing to spend 10 minutes install ublock origin. Paying is actually worse on all aspects, even if you ignore the cost, because it shows the fact that you have some amount of disposable income and are willing to pay for things, which greatly increases the value of advertising to you specifically.

I don't get this "adblocking culture". If you don't tolerate ads, you could just... not visit the site? Close the tab? I don't like paying for things, but I've never been in a transaction where I could say "you know what, I don't like the price of this, I'll just take it and give you no money. Deal?"

I feel like this is basically the same thing as saying don't use the internet at all.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#294

Post by jamiedumont »

jamiedumont wrote: post #140
sakras wrote: post #13

I resonate hard with this, and I'm glad it's being flagged as a trend. I didn't quite realize how soul-crushing ads were until I got rid of them. Now I'm on YouTube Premium and Twitch Turbo and look forward to getting rid of more ads.

Over the past 2 months I've switched from a YouTube Premium subscriber, to a regular logged-in YouTube user and finally to a no-account user. The increase in ads, particular transitioning to no-account; is staggering. YouTube adverts have always been prominent and irritating but without an account they are downright aggressive. I think an 18 minute video I watched last night had a pair of adverts served every ~2 minu…

Update to add they've found a way to make me want Premium again. Serve the same brain-dead weight loss advert EVERYTIME!

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#295

Post by phone8675309 »

haswell wrote: post #229
alwayslikethis wrote: post #211

The ad-free internet has already been here for a long time if you are willing to spend 10 minutes install ublock origin. Paying is actually worse on all aspects, even if you ignore the cost, because it shows the fact that you have some amount of disposable income and are willing to pay for things, which greatly increases the value of advertising to you specifically.

While I use ublock and ad blocking DNS, this particular ad-free Internet isn’t sustainable. For better or worse, the business model behind many of these sites rely on the ad revenue to continue existing, and ad blocking only works as long as most people still aren’t doing it.

> For better or worse, the business model behind many of these sites rely on the ad revenue to continue existing

I fail to see how this is my problem as an end user.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#296

Post by phone8675309 »

AlienRobot wrote: post #273
alwayslikethis wrote: post #211

The ad-free internet has already been here for a long time if you are willing to spend 10 minutes install ublock origin. Paying is actually worse on all aspects, even if you ignore the cost, because it shows the fact that you have some amount of disposable income and are willing to pay for things, which greatly increases the value of advertising to you specifically.

I don't get this "adblocking culture". If you don't tolerate ads, you could just... not visit the site? Close the tab? I don't like paying for things, but I've never been in a transaction where I could say "you know what, I don't like the price of this, I'll just take it and give you no money. Deal?"

Most other things are fully a "take it or leave" it deal - pay or you can't get access. If I take food from the grocery store without paying then they will call the police.

Most ad supported websites aren't like that. They let anybody access the content and only then try to insert ads. That's like trying to close the barn door after the horse has left, and it's a fundamental property of the medium of web publishing.

You can do things to push back against it - put the site behind a username/password and block users who aren't looking at the ads - but this prevents people from discovering the site in the first place.

This is ultimately a mismatch between the desires of the business and the medium they have decided to use, and it's on _them_ to figure that out, not end users.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#297

Post by bee_rider »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #292
bee_rider wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure, I don’t use it either. Apple’s podcast client has some ability to subscribe to the premium version of some podcasts. So they seem to have something vaguely like this. It still appears to be a monthly/yearly subscription thing though. I decided to poke around the news app based on your comment, but I only see monthly subscriptions, sadly. I get that newspapers want the reliable recurring subscription ins…

I mean yeah you can't pick articles ala cart from Apple News, but you can pay for one subscription to get access to a bunch of different news sources, and it presumably distributes your subscription fee (minus Apple's cut) to news sources depending on what and how many articles you actually read. Which is sort of like what you were talking about?

Oh, I didn’t realize that it was offering a single “Apple News+” subscription, I thought it was like the premium offered in Apple Podcasts.

That’s a little more interesting.

IMO an architecture that was a little more distributed and ala cart, as you say, would be nice. But it is definitely neat that at least somebody is taking a swing at this kind of solution.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#298

Post by lobsterthief »

dist-epoch wrote: post #147
cracrecry wrote: post #122

The problem with ad-free content is that rich people do not just want just "no adds". They do not want to be tracked, in order not to be stalked and harrassed by companies(or individuals like gold diggers or sellers or bankers). And they are rich so companies want to track them. This is the reason you could not trust Google or Meta with ad-free stuff. They are already private intelligence(spying) agencies that alread…

I know from insiders that some sports bookies would look up your address (that you are required by law to provide to betting sites) on Google Maps to figure out if you live in a rich people's house. If so, they would immediately pass the account to their most experienced seller.

Why Google Maps? You can just use Zillow or similar to find out exactly how much you paid for it and when.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#299

Post by LunaSea »

Qwertious wrote: post #242
kmlx wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once the Digital Markets Act comes into effect in the EU in a couple of months I'll be installing alternative frontends for YouTube which include SponsorBlock. this is weird. are we sure this is a thing in the EU? because the idea of having some sort of regulation forcing a private company to have their product offered by some other party raises so many issues. it's not like youtube is some sort of public good, it'…

YouTube is a monopoly and it's putting ads in its ad-free subscription. They don't get to hide behind "it's not a public good, it's a private company". Especially when they gained their monopoly status by operating at below-cost for years, preventing fair competition from even springing up in the first place.

How would a third-party YouTube frontend qualify as a competitor?

They would beat little to none of the video hosting and serving costs.

It's basically adding one more middleman, just like most energy companies in Europe.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#300

Post by rambambram »

gosub100 wrote: post #260
rambambram wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic, but a home gym pays back in no-time (if you only use weights and some simple equipment like a bench and a pullup rack, that is).

On a 1-10 scale of "difficulty to workout", I'm an 8 or 9. Most of my problems are psychological, motivational, ADHD/executive function related. Buying home gym equipment would do absolutely nothing for me because I would just stare at it and procrastinate. I just started doing personal training, which is terribly expensive but it's one of the only things that motivates me to go. The other thing that helps is being a…

Thanks for the reply. To each their own indeed. I had to learn to like it, and that meant I had to hold back and space out the input energy over multiple days. I used to go all-in once in a while, hurt my body and than not do it for a long time. The first year of taking weight training more seriously was really nothing more than using the same light weight, doing exactly one set for one exercise each day and just getting my body used to it.

A gym membership is a complete road block for me. I get distracted by women and that kind of thing. And I don't want to wait for available equipment. Besides I want to make the noises without people looking at me, or me thinking people look at me.

Good luck with the personal training!

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