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Google Contributor

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Re: Google Contributor

#51

Post by taurath »

Its really important to be talking about this - the fact that current revenue streams are almost all based around advertising in media creates a bit of a race to the bottom - the more clicks you get the more money you make, so the only intrinsic motivation is to get more clicks (especially if you're a public company). Everything else is secondary even if its not marketed as such.

If the primary goal of a site or project is to make money, then clearly advertising is the way to go. If the goal is something else, like providing a community service, then there are reasonable models. I could see bundled microsubscriptions being pretty popular - you set it once and forget it, they get funding to keep doing what they're doing and everyone is happy. Patreon for artists is a good example of this.

I hope the internet starts going in the opposite direction that MMO's have been going, switching towards subscriptions for higher quality content from fremium user maximizers. I'm certainly willing to pay for that - I'm much more likely to trust an organization that doesn't take advertising/"user as the product" money than one that does.

Re: Google Contributor

#52

Post by leppr » 

   A pixel pattern appears where you would normally see an add
How about giving contributors the same benefits people using ad blockers already enjoy, set the whole thing to display:none and use the space for something useful?

Re: Google Contributor

#53

Post by yincrash »

r3bl wrote: post #47

So, like Flattr but instead of choosing what pages you want to contribute to you contribute to every web page that is a part of this project? No thank you, I'll stick to Flattr.

I interpreted as you contribute to the websites that are part of the project that you visit (by splitting the your monthly contribution to the various sites you visit that month). However, it's definitely vague enough on the landing page where either interpretation could be true.

Re: Google Contributor

#55

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #51

Its really important to be talking about this - the fact that current revenue streams are almost all based around advertising in media creates a bit of a race to the bottom - the more clicks you get the more money you make, so the only intrinsic motivation is to get more clicks (especially if you're a public company). Everything else is secondary even if its not marketed as such. If the primary goal of a site or proj…

[deleted]

Re: Google Contributor

#56

Post by TeMPOraL »

username223 wrote: post #41
ori_b wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, if this is the project I think it is, all they're doing is letting you act as your own advertiser, with the ad that you're running being an empty pixel pattern.

Good call. Basically, they can turn users with a PREF cookie into additional bidders for ad auctions on their network (and others, maybe?). $1-3 isn't much, but if you pool a large number of users' money, you can both drive auction prices to increase your revenue, and drive users to contribute more when their "contribution" stops removing ads. One can never be too cynical.

Wouldn't they be basically holding your sanity to ransom at this point, asking for an ever increasing amount of money?

Re: Google Contributor

#57

Post by declan »

greedoshotlast wrote: post #46

Should Google be collecting this revenue for the content providers? Or could the individual content providers not collect this revenue themselves without having Google take a cut. How hard is it for a site to setup a simple paywall linked to a low-cost payment processor? Why work with the record label when you could be producing your own work and keep 100% of the profit?

>How hard is it for a site to setup a simple paywall linked to a low-cost payment processor?

Well, it depends on what the cut is -- I don't know and the linked page doesn't say. But news organizations that are good at reporting may not have much expertise in technology tasks like this. (By way of background, I've worked for a bunch of them before founding http://recent.io/ )

Also I don't believe Google Contributor is intended to be an implementation of a paywall. It's a way to avoid having to implement paywalls, and the problems those can cause for news organizations.

Re: Google Contributor

#58

Post by dikaiosune »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45
dikaiosune wrote: post #40

Ideally, something like this could still contribute to the sites visited while the user has an adblocker enabled or JavaScript disabled. I would be quite happy to chip in to help sites display fewer ads, but it would be tedious to whitelist all of the participants just so they can get their contribution from my visit. In principle I am very interested in consciously supporting those who create the content I get compl…

Well, if the script would be embeddable from Google's domain, I think it would be easy to whitelist it. Of course it raises some issues with tracking. One could conceive a self-hosted version, but I'm not sure how Google would avoid scammers then, reporting "fake visits".

Good point. Then let's hope that they use a separate script than the advertising scripts I would not be happy about unblocking. Listening, Google?

I don't really do a lot to prevent tracking of my activities, because I'm so paranoid that I don't really believe blocking scripts will prevent it from happening (see the whole Verizon thing a little while back). But I don't want to have to let ads in from other sites just to be nice to ones I like.

Re: Google Contributor

#60

Post by egypturnash »

A fraction of $3/mo? From a company that abandons projects left and right? I'll stick to Patreon, thanks. I'm making about $800 on a productive month now despite there being a pretty small audience for comics about a lesbian robot with PKD problems. I set "no ads for anyone" as my goal for like $50/p, which was still making far more than I ever did from ad impressions. Most people only contribute a buck or so a page but the door is open for a few generous folks to give me more.
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