521–530 of 611 posts
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…
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If you grew up in Europe, I promise that when you visit the US for the first time, you will be SHOCKED by America's advertising standards (or lack of them.) Advertising is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, to an extent far beyond what you're used to from home. Posters, billboards, fliers, TV commercials, product placement, celebrity endorsements - you can barely step outside without being bombarded by y…
You get used to it in a few days, and it's part of the reason why businesses grow so much faster in the US (especially online). People who want your product find out about it much faster. For example I buy SaaS, and the way I hear about most tools are ads. I choose what to buy via references and evaluation, but ads are often how to get things on my radar. Without Ads, I would have bought worse software in the past
You remarked to a coworker that it would be a great justice if a Porta Potty truck overturned onto a spammer, and you respond to your coworker —good, hit them with another. Alas that karma does not work that way.
You forgot when the modern web got so bad—indeed, has only continued to, well, you have a term for it now, "enshittification"—as you do not recall the moment of souring. Was it a decade ago, or more like two?
You is here used in the Hindu sense of you being divided from you, as that is a good way to explain you being both a great fan of ads and you holding them in extremely low regard. You may also recall that you sometimes make "you're either with us, or against us" pronouncements.
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> do better Which is what? > just because that happened The subtleties matter. The ads were purchased per issue or over several issues. The publication solicited the advertisers business and not the other way around. The rates were set per publication and were equal for all potential buyers. The ads were static and approved by the publisher before being included for distribution. Then you get doubleclick now swallowe…
> > do better > Which is what? UBI.
> 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…
If I go to TheBrink to read about game news, and I click on a link that says the article is about that new game, then I get what I asked for. Coupled with a clear indication that it's paid-for content, it should be fine. What's not fine is seeing an ad for the new game when I didn't go to a games news site and didn't click on such a link. I don't want to be interrupted with games news while I'm watching a video on DI…
Ads have to be aggressively pervasive because they're not very effective, and the attempted solution is even more invasive advertising for even more marginal gains.
Of course this will never happen because search engines are very effective forms of advertising, but ads could retreat from many mediums without significant impact to marketing.
This is a bad take. Ads are not the problem. Behavioural ads with suriveillance and data economy is. Static ads or contextual ads are the answer. Some of the best examples I can think of on the top of my head is duckduckgo.com and https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ Paywall doesn't stop data surveillance. All the news sites have become paywalled because ads revenue dried up because people installing ad blocker…
> Ads are not the problem. I'll quote you "this is a bad take". What's bad is asking me to pay money and then serving me premium ads because you now know i'm someone with disposable income and i'm willing to give it to a premium publication. > Ads are a good way to make revenue when it is done right. In an ideal world, yes. That ideal world is long gone.
> What's bad is asking me to pay money and then serving me premium ads because you now know i'm someone with disposable income and i'm willing to give it to a premium publication.
OK. Let's first examine 2 complaints about ads:
1. Ads are an annoyance.
2. Ads with surveillance and data economy are bad.
If your problem is the first one, I don't have anything else to say than the fact that Ads are not going anywhere. My arguments are all against and about the 2nd point. I think ads are a good way to make revenue. And it should NOT be done with data surveillance but with curated and useful ads.
Exactly. Do you think the problem is ads here? And you still haven't answered to my POV. How is paywall stopping data surveillance? The reality is they are making you pay and serving ads. Which is the problem? How is paying solving it?
> In an ideal world, yes. That ideal world is long gone. If we are to fix the problem, this is what we should do. Find THAT ideal world.
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YouTube and Spotify both do “subscribe to remove ads.” If they’re not big, who is?
You've got it back to front, mate. The concept didn't take off among services and smaller websites precisely because the advertisers won't pay nearly as much if you're doing it. The big players can do whatever the hell they want, what kind of company isn't going to advertise on the biggest platforms that exist?
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Youtube does not do it. You stop seeing youtube's ads, which are obnoxious, but you still see the actual content author's ads.
Yeah this is the problem. You still need sponsorblock to make it watchable even if you subscribe. Then you might as well go the full way and adblock. If YouTube would force content creators to upload sponsor-free versions for premium subscribers, the subscription might actually be worth it.
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Voting with our wallets got us infowars and two major fake news groups of media (mainstream and not). Why should you want some MBA's life to be easy? So that it's feasible to keep producing what you actually want. I just wish it were possible to pay $1 for an article whose headline sounds interesting, or someone recommended. Subscribe, even with a free trial? Pass. The free market is great. But we should not deny it…
"I wish I could buy an article" is close to "I'd buy that on a t-shirt" on the sincere-not serious spectrum. Most people won't do it when it's offered. The few who do aren't enough to be worth implementing it.
I hope this has actually been tested, and that this is not a (quite reasonable) assumption. (but per below, it's not easy to test)
But when you say "most won't do it when it's offered", surely it has to be a higher percentage than people who choose to sign up for a subscription when offered? (though yes, a subscription will bring more revenue)
I guess this mostly annoys me because I've personally never been offered. And I would.
> The few who do aren't enough to be worth implementing it.
Not only that, but also micro transactions are not very profitable, after CC fees. I still believe that a working standard micro transactions system would be great. It has a bootstrapping problem, though.
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Only if they didn't issue that as new Ts & Cs. If they just changed the service he should get his money back for an unagreed change of service.
Unilaterally written terms are morally bankrupt. We gain nothing by helping Bezos.
To me, being anti-ads is being anti-poor, plain and simple. The advertising model makes the rich subsidize services for the poor, and I think that's a very good thing, and many people underappreciate the extend to which it happens. On that note, I'm somewhat annoyed that we're culturally ok with people who use online services and block ads, and yet we're not ok with people who ride on public transit and don't buy tic…