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SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

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Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#31

Post by TylerE »

rat87 wrote: post #15
stavros wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how cheap a forum is to run now. It used to be that you could run a janky thing on nothing hardware and people would still use it and find value, but now even just running the software is much more demanding and expensive. Never mind the fact that the UI has to be slick or people will be put off, because the bar is much higher now. These factors have made it less economical to just run a popular forum out of…

> but now even just running the software is much more demanding and expensive. Never mind the fact that the UI has to be slick or people will be put off, because the bar is much higher now. I'm skeptical of this. There's likely some open source software that's good enough and considering the advances in hardware likely much cheaper to run then it was way back when. Besides the fact that many people prefer large platf…

Good enough isn’t nearly good enough. You’re competing against apps, offering just a much better use experience.

One bit of feedback I got repeatedly from users on a couple communities (now dead) I helped run was how much harder posting image and video content in a forum is - true user generated content I mean, not shared from YouTube. Even that meant ricking around with bbcode.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#32

Post by TylerE »

a_shovel wrote: post #3
lastofthemojito wrote: post #2

I feel like I've thought a lot about ads on the internet recently, and I hate the way things are, but I'm no closer to a realistic overall solution. I've used an ad blocker for a while because I'm tech savvy and I know I can easily have a better experience that way. I was too late installing an ad blocker on my father's computer - he was scammed out of some money when he mistook a scammy ad for a legitimate message t…

I've heard legends of a time, perhaps back in the mid 2000s, when companies paid so much for banner ads that you didn't need another revenue source for your website with Flash games or what have you. If such a time ever existed, it ended long before Flash did.

It ended when the vc money in the original dotcom boom dried up.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#33

Post by wizzwizz4 »

lazide wrote: post #30
ben_w wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would mean the death of at a minimum Meta (market cap $1.5 trln), most of Google (market cap $2.1 trln, lets say half would die). And nothing of value was lost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrFv1O4dbqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSGVk2KVokQ > So what, a couple trillion haircut on the US stock market, and more of a GDP hit than if the entire US military suddenly stopped getting funded. Not even. Market…

I guarantee you if Meta all the sudden couldn’t sell any ads tomorrow, it would be a lot more than a 1 trln GDP hit we’d experience.

If we'd lose so much GDP, without losing anything of value, perhaps GDP is not a useful measure of the economy.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#34

Post by throwanem »

seanalltogether wrote: post #27
lastofthemojito wrote: post #2

I feel like I've thought a lot about ads on the internet recently, and I hate the way things are, but I'm no closer to a realistic overall solution. I've used an ad blocker for a while because I'm tech savvy and I know I can easily have a better experience that way. I was too late installing an ad blocker on my father's computer - he was scammed out of some money when he mistook a scammy ad for a legitimate message t…

The answer to no more ads is you can't be independent. You have to have service aggregation. The fundamental problem is that you can't grow an audience all your content is behind a paywall. So you have to offer some content for free, but if you're an independent comic artist like smbc, no one is going to visit your site if only 1 comic per week is free. But if a lot of creators are behind a single paywall, and that p…

Nebula did it.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#35

Post by qotgalaxy »

lazide wrote: post #7
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attention economy is powered by payments from maximizing ad impressions but the public is increasingly recognizing that the attention economy is mentally and culturally toxic. To break free of the attention economy death spiral that we're in, internet advertising has to undergo a pretty drastic dieback. In other words, the whole thing has to fall apart and the sooner the better.

That would mean the death of at a minimum Meta (market cap $1.5 trln), most of Google (market cap $2.1 trln, lets say half would die). So what, a couple trillion haircut on the US stock market, and more of a GDP hit than if the entire US military suddenly stopped getting funded. Not to mention the secondary effects - a LOT of businesses are built based on online ads. A LOT .

[dead]

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#36

Post by ifthenelseor »

jasonjayr wrote: post #23

From a comment on the announcement page: > This is the third webcomic, among the ones I read, that has quit Hiveworks in the past month. Anyone know what’s up with that? What were the other ones? Any material changes from the Hiveworks folks that prompted this?

Other comics that have left hiveworks that I know of: Daughter of the Lilies (weird christian fantasy, currently on hiatus) In Blood We Rise (idk, I don't read it, looks like gay vampires)

There was a rumor going around that Hiveworks is having financial issues, linked to a post that was then taken down and vagueposting from the DotL person. When I saw DotL move, I figured it was personal drama, and when I saw the one rumor post get taken down, I figured it was inaccurate to the point of being lawsuit material, but SMBC is kind of a big deal. If the rumor is anything, I wouldn't be surprised if SMBC is causation instead of response though and the SMBC move is driven entirely by the annoying ads / shop issues mentioned in their post. Most webcomics do not make a profit.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#37

Post by lazide »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #33
lazide wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee you if Meta all the sudden couldn’t sell any ads tomorrow, it would be a lot more than a 1 trln GDP hit we’d experience.

If we'd lose so much GDP, without losing anything of value, perhaps GDP is not a useful measure of the economy.

Easy to say when you don’t have bills to pay.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#38

Post by cameronh90 »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #2

I feel like I've thought a lot about ads on the internet recently, and I hate the way things are, but I'm no closer to a realistic overall solution. I've used an ad blocker for a while because I'm tech savvy and I know I can easily have a better experience that way. I was too late installing an ad blocker on my father's computer - he was scammed out of some money when he mistook a scammy ad for a legitimate message t…

I might be unusual, but I’d be quite happy to pay more than my ad value (less than a cent per pageview in most cases) to sites, but there’s no system to do so.

There’s zero chance I’m going to subscribe to every site that I might hit a few times a year.

Re: SMBC Parts Ways with Hiveworks

#40

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

lazide wrote: post #7
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attention economy is powered by payments from maximizing ad impressions but the public is increasingly recognizing that the attention economy is mentally and culturally toxic. To break free of the attention economy death spiral that we're in, internet advertising has to undergo a pretty drastic dieback. In other words, the whole thing has to fall apart and the sooner the better.

That would mean the death of at a minimum Meta (market cap $1.5 trln), most of Google (market cap $2.1 trln, lets say half would die). So what, a couple trillion haircut on the US stock market, and more of a GDP hit than if the entire US military suddenly stopped getting funded. Not to mention the secondary effects - a LOT of businesses are built based on online ads. A LOT .

CDOs, the financial instrument behind the 2008 financial collapse, had a tremendous amount of market value too. A "LOT"(sic) of businesses were built on selling tobacco products, lead based gasoline, and high sugar ultra-processed foods too. Perhaps you should rethink your argument?

Creating economic activity doesn't justify harming people and it has become thunderingly obvious that titillating and outraging viewers constantly to maximize ad impressions is harming the public.

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