Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The correct amount of ads is zero

manuelmoreale.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 611 posts

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#471

Post by adamc »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #353
PaulHoule wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Elephant in the room of media economics. Look at ads on daytime broadcast TV and it is: medicare advantage, something you can get from medicare, a medicare scam, personal injury lawyer, some drug your insurance might pay for, personal injury lawyer #2. Ads for something you spend your own money on are few and far between (maybe you will get a car ad because if nobody bought a car who'd get hit by a car and call…

You see the same effect with twitter's advertiser exodus since it was acquired. It was not long ago you'd see everything on twitter: prominent fashion brands, car companies, big name electronics, everything you'd expect from a healthy ad ecosystem. Now it's basically nothing but crypto scams, reverse mortgages, supplements, dude wipes and pills that make your dick work. Like you can feel whatever you feel about that,…

I love your summary of the ads. It sounds as gross as it is.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#472

Post by gambiting »

mgraczyk wrote: post #218
gambiting wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Tracking me around the Internet is fine though, I don't mind and it has never harmed anyone So if you had someone follow you around in your day to day life writing down your every activity, then sold the log of your comings and goings to hundreds of companies for cash - that wouldn't be a "harm" by your definition then, would it? Because that's effectively what's happening on the internet, but because people don't…

No it's not what's happening. The sites I visit and the sort of information that is used for ads isn't sensitive. I'd happily share it Also, most people wouldn't actually be harmed by what you're describing. It just wouldn't be super valuable data (we already know where you shop because the store and credit card will sell that information)

I just think you and me have a different definition of harm.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#473

Post by Workaccount2 »

blibble wrote: post #412
racecar789 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would pay for YouTube premium if you can afford it. The cost is pretty reasonable and 55% of the subscription goes to content creators. It's not a huge amount but probably similar to what a creator would make if ads were shown.

so that's a 45% cut for Google makes the widely hated app store look generous by comparison

The overhead for something like youtube is insane. There is good reason there is no competitor to it.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#474

Post by Workaccount2 »

account42 wrote: post #220
lambdaba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't imagine someone with CTO title doesn't have $15/month to pay for YouTube when you're a regular user. People with far fewer resources pay. This goes to content creators, if you're not even seeing ads, they don't get paid.

> This goes to content creators Part of it, the rest goes to Google to reinvest in their ads business.

Or to, you know, maintain probably the single most data intensive service in the internet. Just a thought.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#475

Post by adamc »

justinclift wrote: post #380
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is: advertisers will argue that if you're offering a tier of service that removes ads, that's specifically going to be the most appealing to the group of your user-base that has the most money to spend and whom is most ready to spend it, evidenced by the fact that they have subscribed to your ad-free tier, and is therefore worth the most in terms of reaching with ads. Those people are self-selecting as th…

> This is why the "subscribe to remove ads" thing never took off in a big way [...] advertisers hate it My heart bleeds for the poor advertisers. /s Actually, no it doesn't. Not even a little bit.

Not even a smidgen. If your business plan is built around advertising, I hope your business goes broke. On this, no compromises.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#476

Post by lucb1e »

galfarragem wrote: post #358

The correct amount of ads is one. As an indie web developer, after trying many "ad policies", I believe the sweet spot (not the revenue optimal spot!) is one ad, clear, not intrusive and highly targetted to your audience. This ad will not annoy readers and will keep your motivation at a decent level (instead of a zero ads policy). My take: https://www.slowernews.com/sponsor

On every single page you try to read or get something done on, though?

Ads can be useful. How else am I to know of this amazing new music service or when there will be a certain show in town? But it needn't be all day long everywhere you look, and one ad on every page still has that issue

Not that I would know how to solve the problem of reconciling (1) sustainable website income, (2) annoyance factor, (3) sufficient targeting to reduce the annoyance factor, and (4) privacy issues. I just know that websites suffer from my adblocker and that I suffer from the web without adblocker. For what it's worth, I do have an online newspaper subscription and donate to nonprofit/opensource services that I use (like f-droid and openstreetmap), but it's not a full solution...

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#477

Post by fragmede »

dghughes wrote: post #400
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 co…

[flagged]

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#478

Post by kassner »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #313
AdamN wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all that muddy under normal circumstances - if there are payments to the producers then it's an ad. There is the problem in extremis though - a person gets a cameo on a show and then uses that to sell other products and in return helps out the producer in some non-obvious way. It's an issue but I'd be happy with a 90% solution over a 0% solution.

Ok but what if you're allowed to watch the movie/game/etc. for free before general release? That might not seem like payment, after all it's just necessary to allow the review to happen. But what if review sites that give a few bad reviews are denied this access? And no one wants to read reviews after release? In the end, on paper, the studio has no editorial oversight, but in practice you need to give them good revi…

Would they get to watch it for free if they release their review months after the movie is released? If no, then it’s an ad, with just a very low price.

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#479

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The correct amount of ads is zero

#480

Post by stuffbyspencer »

I hate that we still are talking about this. Ads suck, and there's already a better way to do things.

Micropayments are the answer. Everyone on the internet pays a small monthly fee, say $5/month (ideally this would just be integrated into your internet bill), and every piece of content you view streams tiny amounts of that fee to whatever content you are viewing. The actual amount sent is based on your monthly usage, and never goes over that $5/month cap. People who browse less send more.

A webextension tested this years ago & it was sweet. Businesses could be sustainable on there own, no ads, no data selling. If you have viewers, you have currency. But, it wasn't a seamless experience so it didn't take off.

Make no mistake: This is the best possible way to fund the open web, which is exactly why Google pretends it doesn't exist. If chrome had this feature built in & people never had to think about it, ads would drop to near 0 incredibly fast. Google says no.

We are doomed to have an enshittified web because the powers that be won't integrate sustainable funding mechanisms.

Post reply on HN