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Google Contributor

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Re: Google Contributor

#61

Post by greedoshotlast »

Mahn wrote: post #50
dpweb wrote: post #36

At the risk of being an unpopular opinion, advertising has been a huge boon in the growth of the Internet. I dislike the ad crazy "news" sites that bombard you and destroy the entire user-experience, but I would equate a not-too-intrusive advertisement as being not an obnoxious thing, and something that allows you to get something, not totally for free, but at the cost of a second of your attention. I'm sure popular…

You are looking at this from the point of view of the user (where ads are not a big deal in exchange of consuming the content for free), but step for a moment in the content creators' shoes. While Ads can still be profitable, they grow less and less efective year after year; almost every other monetization model possible is superior for an internet product nowadays. You can easily run a blog with millions of hits per…

You are 100% correct, in fact the margin keeps shrinking. A good example would be YouTube where content providers make $6 for every 1000 views. Your cut as a content provider will keep shrinking.

Re: Google Contributor

#62

Post by comex »

primitivesuave wrote: post #21

This could be huge if applied to YouTube content, as I'm sure there are many parents of iPad children who don't want their kids seeing ads.

I would love it to be applied to YouTube content for myself, although I doubt it will be. The prevalence and duration of ads on YouTube has steadily increased over the years, up to the point where, just a few days ago, I finally got fed up and installed an ad blocker for that site only. I don't usually use ad blockers because I want to support content creators, and few of the sites I visit have intrusive ads anyway; but it got to a point where enough was enough. However, I would be happy to support video creators with my wallet, and they would probably make more money that way, since I never click ads (so they get CPM revenue only).

When I think about watching TV when I was younger, the details of the shows themselves have faded, but the small but constant miseries of ad breaks are relatively vivid. Sure, the show was good enough to leave an overall positive impression, or else I wouldn't be watching it - although I am sure this is part of the reason I watched relatively little TV - but pleasure and annoyance don't just cancel out; they remain in the mind as parallel memories, each with its own effect. Today, I only watch TV on paid video services that lack ads, and it continues to surprise me just how enjoyable a 'clean high' without interruptions is. Instead of my interest level rollercoastering up as the show plays, sharply down as the ads start playing - ending just before it's gotten low enough for me to abandon ship - it just goes up at the beginning and stays there until the end of the episode.

YouTube videos are different from TV shows, of course - they're typically much shorter, and each viewed as only one element out of many in a session of Internet sensory overload, where no one piece of content lasts long enough to engender the level of concentration characteristic of most other types of activities. When there's constant context switching, an additional switch for an ad isn't nearly as bad. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with it, especially when there's an different possible compensation structure that in theory better rewards both me and the creator.

Re: Google Contributor

#63

Post by username223 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56
username223 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Protection rackets aren't exactly a new way to make money. People don't like ads, and Google serves many of the ads, so they can shake people down, and use the extra money to make their competitors' lives harder. Meanwhile, their tracking business is unaffected.

Re: Google Contributor

#64

Post by greedoshotlast »

primitivesuave wrote: post #21

This could be huge if applied to YouTube content, as I'm sure there are many parents of iPad children who don't want their kids seeing ads.

YouTube is experimenting with it. However the margin they pay at is still lower compared to say Vimeo for example where the revenue split is 90/10. YouTube is having their content talent being poached and move to other platforms as individual content providers wake up to this reality.

Re: Google Contributor

#65

Post by koala_man »

declan wrote: post #57
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…

I don't think Contributor is intended to directly benefit sites at all.

If you use Contributor, the site receives $0.00136* and a blank ad is shown, paid for by you.

If you don't use Contributor, the sites receives $0.00136 and an Initech ad is shown, paid for by Initech.

It will make no direct difference in revenue for the site, but hopefully they can get indirect benefits from people being less inclined to use ad blockers.

* $2 CPM at 68% revenue share

Re: Google Contributor

#66

Post by koala_man »

jonlucc wrote: post #27
lettergram wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess (haven't researched yet) is that Google is taking a percentage, and Google needs that percentage needs to be high enough to make it worth while.

Perhaps, but I think $1 across enough sites would be fine to me. The problem for me is that my dollar will almost certainly go to one or two of the sites each month. In that case, I'll just go pay for that website's upgraded service.

my dollar will almost certainly go to one or two of the sites each month.

Why? Do you only visit one or two sites in a given month?

Re: Google Contributor

#67

Post by TeMPOraL »

dikaiosune wrote: post #58
TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I stand with you here. I also don't really do much about tracking, but I want to be able to let Google Contributor through without enabling normal ads.

Re: Google Contributor

#68

Post by bufordsharkley »

I get some warm-and-fuzzy feelings when I first see this (and signed up for the waitlist), but it also makes me a bit uncomfortable with what this implies.

Has anybody else here seen Black Mirror, "Fifteen Million Merits"?

Re: Google Contributor

#69

Post by x0x0 »

dpweb wrote: post #36

At the risk of being an unpopular opinion, advertising has been a huge boon in the growth of the Internet. I dislike the ad crazy "news" sites that bombard you and destroy the entire user-experience, but I would equate a not-too-intrusive advertisement as being not an obnoxious thing, and something that allows you to get something, not totally for free, but at the cost of a second of your attention. I'm sure popular…

Except non-awful advertising doesn't appear to be a stable equilibrium. Inventory is essentially infinite; publishers see ever-declining margins; we see ever more intrusive advertising. Plus the usual stories about people getting what they want -- lots and lots of clickbait. Yuck.

Re: Google Contributor

#70

Post by IgorPartola »

This severely breaks down when you find a site you disagree with. Say you go on some anti-vaccines blog just to find after reading through a bunch of articles that they are a part of this program. Can you take your money back? Or what about a political campaign site for your rival? Or the Westboro Baptist clan?
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