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> Now that consumers have been subjected to piles of abusive ads, they're just blocking all of the ads regardless of how bad they are. Not really; they're blo

> Now that consumers have been subjected to piles of abusive ads, they're just blocking all of the ads regardless of how bad they are. Not really; they're blocking all ads except the ones that are unblockable: ads masquerading as content (sponsored posts, etc). It's inevitable to a degree; most people are willing to whine loudly and pretend they have the moral high ground about things that are immediately visible, but unable to think more than one step ahead about the consequences of their actions. Paid content is, by and large, a miserable failure[1] (just look at the history of paid apps relative to ad-supported and IAP), and ad-blocking is on the rise as well. This is just pushing publishers to break one of the oldest rules (and for good reason), and break down the wall between ads and content. [1] With minor exceptions like publications that have established a very strong brand with people of relatively high net worth. It's not a coincidence that the only publications I read regularly that moved to paywalls happen to be over a hundred years old (NYT, WSJ, Economist)

striking 11y ago
Paid content is not always awful. Take this tasteful, sponsored Ashens video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUGcjkdIfTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUGcjkdIfTk There is a clear disclosure (no misleading marketing!) and he presents a new and interesting version of his usual show while incorporating the product. It's not selling out, and it's fairly enjoyable (as evidenced by the rating counter on the video, as well as the comments). If I must be advertised to, I prefer this method. Having watched the video, I would actually like to purchase the device mentioned. Not because it was shoved down my throat, but because it is relevant to me and I find it interesting. The video merely brought it to my attention.
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  Sure, but as usual, anecdotal evidence isn't worth much[1]. I'm sure I can point you to traditional display ads that I've seen on the Web that are tasteful, useful, and unobtrusive. Does that obviate all the complaints people have about display ads overall? Of course not. Similarly, the amount of times I've heard a podcast say "this episode sponsored by blahblah, [explanation of blahblah]" doesn't erase the amount of examples I've seen of an article with a tiny "sponsored by X" at the top. And as is inevitable when financial pressure is great enough, you end up with even well-respected publishers resorting to stuff like this: http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-shrinks-labeling-natives-ads/294473/ http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-shrinks-labeling-n... [1] I'm aware that you're explicitly providing a counter-example, so I'm not disagreeing with your comment. Just saying that it doesn't really address my point.
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  BTW I realize that my terminology was really confusing. By "paid content", I meant "content that you pay for". You appear to have responded to the part of my post about sponsored content. Just want to make sure that you weren't also reading the part of my comment about paid content and thinking of sponsored content.
wpietri 11y ago
Paid content on the web has been bad because there has been a glut of free content. But if we look at the history of print, paid content did quite well for a very long time. Books, you might recall, were pretty popular. Many magazines and newspapers used to make a great deal of their revenues from subscription fees. Video similarly seems to have worked well when paid: movies have always been profitable. The recent "golden age of television" has been attributed to the increasing volume of paid content; the ad-supported stuff is seen as lower quality. I use an ad blocker because I'm not interested in participating in a system that is based around manipulation of people. I pay for some media both old (e.g., Economist, NYT) and new (e.g., via Patreon). The system of ad-supported print content is certainly in trouble, and if I can help along its demise by using an ad blocker, I'm glad to do it. It'll be exciting to see what comes next.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  > The recent "golden age of television" has been attributed to the increasing volume of paid content Interesting, really? Do you have a source referring to this? The only theory I've heard is that as Hollywood studios have become financially more conservative (cf the dominance of remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels, etc relative to decades past), talent interested in taking risks has fled to television. > Paid content on the web has been bad because there has been a glut of free content. Right, and the glut of free content is facilitated by the incredibly low marginal cost of distribution. Buzzfeed has built their entire business on this: instead of "writers", they have "people with a spare ten minutes to Google a set of gifs"[1]. I don't see how this is a feature of the Internet that is going to disappear, especially since people have spoken loudly and clearly that, en masse, paid media will be ignored in favor of nominally free alternatives. Your book example is particularly useful in proving my point: those books that aren't encumbered by the monopoly power of copyright are freely available on Kindle or through Project Gutenberg. TL;DR: As long as there's a free alternative, people writ large won't pay, and as long > I use an ad blocker because I'm not interested in participating in a system that is based around manipulation of people. This is what bothers me about people who try to take the moral high ground about ad-blocking. How in God's name do you come to the conclusion that "not participating in a system" is anything but "not visiting those sites"? If you think Beats headphones are priced more for brand than quality[2], do you go "I refuse to participate in a system that overprices products based on fooling customers" and then merrily shoplift your way through their inventory? [1] Side note: I love this site. http://buzzfeedminusgifs.tumblr.com/ http://buzzfeedminusgifs.tumblr.com/ [2] Note that I'm very uninterested whether people think Beats are fairly priced or not and don't have an opinion about it myself; I'm not an audiophile and was just parroting something I've heard a bunch of times for the purposes of constructing a hypothetical. Please don't respond to this comment arguing about Beats...

striking 11y ago

Paid content is not always awful. Take this tasteful, sponsored Ashens video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUGcjkdIfTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUGcjkdIfTk There is a clear disclosure (no misleading marketing!) and he presents a new and interesting version of his usual show while incorporating the product. It's not selling out, and it's fairly enjoyable (as evidenced by the rating counter on the video, as well as the comments). If I must be advertised to, I prefer this method. Having watched the video, I would actually like to purchase the device mentioned. Not because it was shoved down my throat, but because it is relevant to me and I find it interesting. The video merely brought it to my attention.

wutbrodo 11y ago
Sure, but as usual, anecdotal evidence isn't worth much[1]. I'm sure I can point you to traditional display ads that I've seen on the Web that are tasteful, useful, and unobtrusive. Does that obviate all the complaints people have about display ads overall? Of course not. Similarly, the amount of times I've heard a podcast say "this episode sponsored by blahblah, [explanation of blahblah]" doesn't erase the amount of examples I've seen of an article with a tiny "sponsored by X" at the top. And as is inevitable when financial pressure is great enough, you end up with even well-respected publishers resorting to stuff like this: http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-shrinks-labeling-natives-ads/294473/ http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-shrinks-labeling-n... [1] I'm aware that you're explicitly providing a counter-example, so I'm not disagreeing with your comment. Just saying that it doesn't really address my point.
wutbrodo 11y ago
BTW I realize that my terminology was really confusing. By "paid content", I meant "content that you pay for". You appear to have responded to the part of my post about sponsored content. Just want to make sure that you weren't also reading the part of my comment about paid content and thinking of sponsored content.

wpietri 11y ago

Paid content on the web has been bad because there has been a glut of free content. But if we look at the history of print, paid content did quite well for a very long time. Books, you might recall, were pretty popular. Many magazines and newspapers used to make a great deal of their revenues from subscription fees. Video similarly seems to have worked well when paid: movies have always been profitable. The recent "golden age of television" has been attributed to the increasing volume of paid content; the ad-supported stuff is seen as lower quality. I use an ad blocker because I'm not interested in participating in a system that is based around manipulation of people. I pay for some media both old (e.g., Economist, NYT) and new (e.g., via Patreon). The system of ad-supported print content is certainly in trouble, and if I can help along its demise by using an ad blocker, I'm glad to do it. It'll be exciting to see what comes next.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wutbrodo 11y ago
> The recent "golden age of television" has been attributed to the increasing volume of paid content Interesting, really? Do you have a source referring to this? The only theory I've heard is that as Hollywood studios have become financially more conservative (cf the dominance of remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels, etc relative to decades past), talent interested in taking risks has fled to television. > Paid content on the web has been bad because there has been a glut of free content. Right, and the glut of free content is facilitated by the incredibly low marginal cost of distribution. Buzzfeed has built their entire business on this: instead of "writers", they have "people with a spare ten minutes to Google a set of gifs"[1]. I don't see how this is a feature of the Internet that is going to disappear, especially since people have spoken loudly and clearly that, en masse, paid media will be ignored in favor of nominally free alternatives. Your book example is particularly useful in proving my point: those books that aren't encumbered by the monopoly power of copyright are freely available on Kindle or through Project Gutenberg. TL;DR: As long as there's a free alternative, people writ large won't pay, and as long > I use an ad blocker because I'm not interested in participating in a system that is based around manipulation of people. This is what bothers me about people who try to take the moral high ground about ad-blocking. How in God's name do you come to the conclusion that "not participating in a system" is anything but "not visiting those sites"? If you think Beats headphones are priced more for brand than quality[2], do you go "I refuse to participate in a system that overprices products based on fooling customers" and then merrily shoplift your way through their inventory? [1] Side note: I love this site. http://buzzfeedminusgifs.tumblr.com/ http://buzzfeedminusgifs.tumblr.com/ [2] Note that I'm very uninterested whether people think Beats are fairly priced or not and don't have an opinion about it myself; I'm not an audiophile and was just parroting something I've heard a bunch of times for the purposes of constructing a hypothetical. Please don't respond to this comment arguing about Beats...