431–440 of 486 posts
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Infrastructure costs are such that they're a rounding error on the total google budget.
With all respect, do you have a source for that? I thought Alphabet was losing money hand over fist on YT before they started being so aggressive with the ads.
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First they destroyed the old internet by “forgetting” sites from search and created “platforms”. Then they abused adnetworks to take the biggest share and control over what users can do or will likely do with their user agents. Then they degraded every site and product searchability into ads-favored keyword matching. Then, when people started using their well-setup cardboard box traps to their taste, they demanded to…
And yet still they're the most popular sites, why hasn't everyone moved to an objectively better solution?
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Just because you are paying for a service doesn't mean that companies won't double dip or triple dip by either showing you ads or selling your data.
Yeah, movie theaters figured that out 30 years or so ago when they realized besides trailers (which okay, are ads of a sort), they could subject viewers who paid for a ticket to 20 minutes of ads for things like M&Ms and Coke before even the trailers begin. It's gotten to the point that you might as well show up 30 minutes after a movie is scheduled to begin as the movie itself won't have started yet.
Who didn't want to eat Reese's pieces, drink a Pepsi free or tab, or buy a Toyota or pair of Nikes.
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Yeah, movie theaters figured that out 30 years or so ago when they realized besides trailers (which okay, are ads of a sort), they could subject viewers who paid for a ticket to 20 minutes of ads for things like M&Ms and Coke before even the trailers begin. It's gotten to the point that you might as well show up 30 minutes after a movie is scheduled to begin as the movie itself won't have started yet.
Then there is product placement like in ET or back to the future! Who didn't want to eat Reese's pieces, drink a Pepsi free or tab, or buy a Toyota or pair of Nikes.
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I have a bit of a different take on this. If we win the war against Ads lots of content won’t get made. But, the content that thrives in an Ad driven world is mostly toxic rage bait. I would argue that losing this content and instead only being left with content that people will actually pay for is a big net win for humanity. Likely we will never see a world without Ads but I can dream.
There’s no winning a war against ads. There are too many people who can’t or won’t pay for services directly, and there are too many people looking to promote products or viewpoints who’ll keep offering money to anyone with an audience. What I’d like would be focusing on the downsides: ad networks should have legal restrictions on how they collect and share data, liability for any malware they distribute, and every a…
The fight may not be winnable, but if you give up on the pushing back, things will get worse much faster.
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i never got any ads on netflix, disney+, prime video or youtube premium.
* Some of these platforms have cheaper tiers that are ad-supported. * All of these platforms favor algorithmic recommendations (which are ads) over your personal content queue. * A lot of content on Prime forces you to watch an ad of new Prime content before your show starts. * Some of these platforms have auto-playing previews that distract you while you are navigating. Sometimes you can disable them, sometimes you…
I'd add that if one has (permanent) control of the recommendation and auto playing then they're less like ads and more tools. Especially if they are opt in.
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That's $13.99/mo, so it's $168/yr or so. I don't even spend that much on games every year. Youtube is stupid if they think I'll pay $14/mo for access to anything.
But how much you spend eating out/DoorDash/Uber Eats in a month ???.
I recently got mad that the Wendy's biggy bag went to $7 and eat out less because I'm not paying $10+ for a single meal unless it's something I can't (easily) make at home. You can't get Subway for less than $12, and it's a fucking sandwich.
Most of my frivolous spending is on caffeine and THC. If I manage to cut those two out I'd save a bunch but then what would I have fun with? :(
What is most interesting about this whole adblocking war: we're winning. If we weren't youtube/Google wouldn't be making such a fuss. So keep it up. I can also heartily recommend the 'unhook' browser extension, it takes care of all of those upsells and feeds.
What does winning mean in this context? If we take this to an extreme, doesn't content just not get made? Do you think Google is going to go to a model where things are freely accessible without ads? Feels like even when a company provides a way to get rid of ads, many people still won't pay. They _say_ they will, but I find often people will want to substitute their own terms (Well, youtube premium is $x, but I thin…
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But how much you spend eating out/DoorDash/Uber Eats in a month ???.
You are mistaken. I may be on the Orange Site, but I am in fact not an entrepreneur or a techbro pulling $100+K/yr. I'm not rich enough to waste money on delivery services. I recently got mad that the Wendy's biggy bag went to $7 and eat out less because I'm not paying $10+ for a single meal unless it's something I can't (easily) make at home. You can't get Subway for less than $12, and it's a fucking sandwich . Most…
What's your local price for weed? Is the hours of entertainment from YouTube not worth a joint or whatever?
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There’s no winning a war against ads. There are too many people who can’t or won’t pay for services directly, and there are too many people looking to promote products or viewpoints who’ll keep offering money to anyone with an audience. What I’d like would be focusing on the downsides: ad networks should have legal restrictions on how they collect and share data, liability for any malware they distribute, and every a…
There's no winning a war against dust. But people still spend a lot of time cleaning. The fight may not be winnable, but if you give up on the pushing back, things will get worse much faster.