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The correct amount of ads is zero

manuelmoreale.com

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Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#321

Post by newsclues »

Rather than focus on zero ads, I would like to see better ads and better ad targeting.

Lately many ads, are for things I HATE, and advertising them makes me not want to watch the content I really want, if there is ads I actively hate. Government ads in particular I find offensive.

But it seems wild that the ad targeting is so bad.

I ride a bike and am anti-car, so stop giving me ads for cars and trucks, I will never buy.

I don't think Ive had a video game ad in years, but outside of food and rent, games and tech is one of my biggest budget line items.

Why is advertising so bad? They spend too much money on the technology and data to target consumers.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#322

Post by xixixao »

bambax wrote: post #316
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…

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.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#323

Post by xfz »

It's a great move by the Verge but I agree with the article that it doesn't go far enough.

Why not offer a premium ad-free tier?

For me, viewing web ads is non negotiable (print ads were much more manageable and didn't prevent me from enjoying the content).

However I only view about 4-6 Verge articles per month so I'll see how it plays out. If the best stuff goes behind a paywall then I can't justify subscribing, and nor do I want to hand over personal data to every site I read occasionally (for several reasons).

I've always wondered why publishers can't follow the Spotify or Netflix model for at least some of their content?

This does also raise the uncomfortable question of how much the content is worth. Yes they have some exclusives and unique content but in other areas if I stopped reading it I'd have another hundred reviews of the latest Apple products to choose from, and Reddit is much more realistic (albeit noisy) about the Sonos debacle than The Verge. The article about undersea cables was good though.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#324

Post by ricardobeat »

dantyti wrote: post #26
danpalmer wrote: post #9

> The correct amount of ads for a publication that’s directly supported is zero. I basically agree with this sentiment, but one place where it can be a tricky balance (not saying that's the case here!) is "native advertising". For example, a new game is being released, the publisher collaborates with TheBrink, a hypothetical popular game news site, and for this they get a huge takeover banner advert for the week, inc…

> However "good" native ads are really just a company paying for priority reporting in the style that would otherwise be done anyway, and are probably content that readers/viewers want. That's akin to saying a person wants some of that "good" cancer. If I am paying, I am supporting the editorial staff. It's their decision what to report on and how. Paid-for content, even if it's just for priority coverage, compromise…

Print magazines were paid, either via subscription or purchasing at a street kiosk, and had advertising in it. A lot of it, actually.

The ads just weren't as obtrusive, privacy-invading and annoying as what we have now. A lot of them were fun to read, had amazing photography, because creativity still mattered, not just volume. Unfortunately alternatives to bring back this more harmless and tasteful form of advertising to the web (RIP The Deck) have failed.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#325

Post by shortformblog »

bambax wrote: post #316
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…

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?

My guess is that some of those ads bring in so much money that covering them with an ad-free model would lead to a cost that they feel is prohibitively expensive.

There may be ad agreements that preempt their ability to offer ad-free at this time, likely in the case of ultra-premium advertisers.

It could also just be good ol’ internal bureaucracy at play. Maybe there was a turf war, and this was the best they could do while keeping everyone happy.

Edit: The point in the other comment about it affecting reader demographics is a good one too.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#326

Post by closewith »

fastball wrote: post #262
closewith wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. Resolving that the poor must endure advertising to be subsidised by the wealthy is anti-poor and anti-person. A more reasonable take is that all humans should have reasonable access to services through the fruits of their labour, and a situation where wealth inequality makes this infeasible should be rectified.

How exactly are you planning to adjust the situation so that someone in Liberia making $2.50/day can afford a YouTube subscription?

Well, the moral and true answer is that invest into the developing world until everyone has the ability to earn a living wage and can afford small fees like this should they choose.

Anything else is anti-poor.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#327

Post by account42 »

solatic wrote: post #137

How does a paywalled full-text RSS feed even work? Yeah, I get it, RSS itself can work with auth tokens. But I use a service like Feedly to maintain my RSS subscriptions, and managed RSS services will cache the response to a single RSS feed for multiple subscribers. The Verge trusts Feedly to not abuse the paywall mechanism? I mean, I definitely like full-text RSS when it's available, but even summary-only RSS is goo…

> The Verge trusts Feedly to not abuse the paywall mechanism?

Yes, just like they trust your browser not to share the paid content with others.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#329

Post by alkonaut »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #141
alkonaut wrote: post #84

The correct amount of tracking ads at least. We always paid for magazines and newspapers and saw ads despite paying. But then the transaction was between the publisher and the advertiser, and MY information wasn't sold. They were dumb ads. If I pay for online content it's NOT for the content itself (obviously not, in the case of freemium), it's in order to not have to pay with my personal information. I want to pay w…

No, ads mean bad incentives, you have to please advertisers, not just your audience. It also encourages to ignore externalities. Then it gives more power to those who already have the most of it. It also normalizes lying, being intrusive, and manufacturing damaging social norms. Tracking is worse, but all ads are toxic.

I was fine with ads in newspapers, in my TV news and on the sides of buses. While it always created incentives and questionable relations (E.g. do yo report the grocery chains' salmonella disaster in your news when the same chain advertises between that segment and the weather? What if they give you an angry call after the broadcast? does your news desk ever worry about what they should publish? as soon as they worry the damge is already done). I get that. But I'm not going to even hope we'll get the web to live up to higher standards than print and broadcast did for the last centuries. After all, internet media had significantly worse standards in this regard for as long as it existed. I'd be happy for it to just have normal media standards.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#330

Post by jraph »

9o1d wrote: post #276
Veen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ads are first-party, non-personalized, non-tracking, and don't get in the way of the content, people are mostly fine with them. Most ads are not like this, so people use ad-blockers, and the good ads get blocked along with the bad ads. The fault lies with the advertising industry, not the consumers. It's an old-fashioned notion, but the advertising industry has extremely bad manners: it doesn't respect civilized s…

I understand you perfectly. I apologize, as a defender of advertising, for the fact that advertising often causes you inconvenience. However, I believe that advertising does less damage than cars. Okay, let's ban cars? What about alcohol and smoking? Why doesn't anyone try to throw a blanket over the shelves with alcohol?

You all have interesting arguments and valid points in this discussion, but this last message is whataboutism [1].

edit: and it doesn't help you much, you are likening ads to harmful things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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