The correct amount of ads is zero • Hacker News Board

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#391

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:29 PM UTC

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…

As I recall, newspaper subscriptions basically paid for the distribution cost of physical copies.

Someone like the New York Times still has ads for digital subscribers but they're not crazy pop-ups all over the place. I'd probably prefer they weren't there but they don't really detract from my reading experience.

I get that some people vehemently hate ads and most marketing.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#392

Post by gizmo » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

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…

One way to describe reality is to argue that media organizations like Vox can't survive if they don't show ads to their paid subscribers.

Another way to describe reality is that people can choose to subscribe to various substacks or newsletters instead. On those platforms subscribers get zero ads, they get more in depth and more thoughtful articles, and because the system has much less overhead modest subscription revenue is sufficient. Vox also does video reviews, but then again, there are also many high quality tech youtubers. Vox certainly has the right to charge for a subscription and then serve the subscribers ads. And people have a right to walk away from a bad deal. Vox could disappear tomorrow at no great loss to society. We might like some of the reporting Vox does, but we don't need it.

Vox media has raised about 450m (according to the first google result). Modest profitability is not enough for Vox Media because they need to secure a significant exit for their investors. This puts them at odds with their readers and subscribers. Not that laudable if you ask me. They made a bet they were going to disrupt traditional media and become a new great media platform. But now it looks like Vox itself is getting disrupted. Like newspapers of old clinging to a business model that no longer exists.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#393

Post by hgomersall » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #154

hgomersall wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what happens is people pick the $10 plan and then sometime later, when all the competition has disappeared, they yank on the enshittification handle, and start adding ads to the service and not reduce the price.

Not increasing the price every year with inflation is reducing the price.

Oh, they do that too.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#394

Post by shortformblog » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #387

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…

This feels such a breath of fresh air, especially being the top comment and coming from a 2009 account. >This feels like a situation where an organization tries doing something laudable, but still gets criticized for it. Ads is evil has been a thing on HN for a very very long time.

It’s because I’m a nerd with a background in journalism, and have been around the realities of a lot of this stuff for a while.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#395

Post by nltatsy » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

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…

The difference is that newspapers had tasteful ads. I didn't mind seeing a Rolex or an expensive perfume, exquisitely photographed, in the Financial Times.

Most of the Internet ads are medical issues, financial scams, weight loss scams etc. Most of these are accompanied by disgusting pictures. These ads combine the worst of classic Email spam and the yellow press.

Give me better ads and I might switch off the adblocker. I'd even tolerate a banner Coca Cola ad if done tastefully and if it is the only ad on the page.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#396

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:37 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #346

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…

> That’s why newspapers had classified ads, even though they charged a nominal fee to subscribe. My assumption is that the salaries of reporters, editors was paid for by ads. The nominal fee for the paper was to pay for the pulp, ink. I mean if you just printed up millions of papers and gave them away, people would pick them up simply as raw material for lining their bird cages, for papier-mâché, to insulate their ca…

Right. It is/was just a big bucket of money and obviously there were free papers given away on college campuses and subway stations. But, at least back in the day, newspaper subscriptions and newsstand/put your quarter in boxes basically paid for creating and delivering the physical copies.

The generally dire journalism situation these days is there is mostly no physical distribution and physical advertising dollars have become digital dimes. And local news--which was never a really thriving business--is basically dead.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#397

Post by sbarre » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

aunty_helen wrote: post #372

jillesvangurp wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a big believer in this. It simply doesn't scale. So I might donate chunks of income to 1, 2, maybe 5 or 10 people like this. What about everyone else? It's not a fair system. I engage with lots of youtube channels, read lots of things on dozens/hundreds of websites. Add a few podcasts to the mix and it starts adding up to quite a lot of mouths to feed with individual donations. It's not reasonable for all of…

Paying 1 is better than 0. You’re assuming support has to scale perfectly to be fair, but that’s a false binary. Creators don’t expect everyone to pay but they rely on _someone_ paying. Refusing because it ‘doesn’t scale’ just reinforces a broken system where nobody pays, creators lose and we end up with the shit quality media and content we have now

> we end up with the shit quality media and content we have now

I'll just say that looking back on my life consuming media (that started long before the consumer Internet was around), there has never been a better selection of media that I enjoy than now.

I've never watched reality shows or sitcoms, the kind of stuff that dominated mass media for a long time... I have interests that don't necessarily fall into the mainstream, so finding interesting or quality content was hard, and shows/films/docs were few and far between..

But now? The current system, while imperfect, at least allows for every possible topic and niche to be somewhat sustainable.

The sheer quantity of media has absolutely grown exponentially so there's definitely a lot more bad media, and media that isn't for me, but in terms of choice for myself, it's incredibly good.

Obviously YMMV and this is just my anecdotal experience, but I don't consider the system to be broken (even though, again, it's certainly not perfect).

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#398

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

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…

> It also reduces the cost of the subscription for you, the end user.

But I don't want to pay less. I want my data to not be sold to the highest bidder, that's all.

As it stands there's no option for people like me other than not subscribing.

This is very much like the situation with smartphones these days: they cost less because you get a bunch of bloatware that you can't uninstall.

I don't want that on my device, so I went with an offering deemed "overpriced" because it has less of such crap than others and thus costs about $250 more. Ideally it should be zero, but that's the best I could get.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#399

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

shortformblog wrote: post #325

bambax wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I subscribe to the NYT and The Economist and I still get (fairly inobtrusive) ads. But I'm pretty sure that very few people pay that amount for daily/weekly print media these days.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#400

Post by dghughes » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

> That’s why newspapers had classified ads,

I don't recall in the past a company needing my identity required or be tracked just because I bought a newspaper. I pay the $1 for the newspaper and no more interaction or relationship after that.

Ads are OK but why do all the ad companies need to track me and know my movements and just to show me an ad? It's basically malware, stalking. Ads are zero advantage to me the consumer for what I lose in privacy.