33 ms·

Most content is worthless. Content that has actual monetary value to someone, market research data for instance, has no trouble finding people willing to pay fo

by imgabe 11y ago

Most content is worthless. Content that has actual monetary value to someone, market research data for instance, has no trouble finding people willing to pay for it. The fact is most "news" and other article type sites do not serve a purpose other than satisfying some idle curiosity or passing time. Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life. The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. When the content can be easily leveraged to some profitable goal, people are usually more than willing to pay for it.

jhall1468 11y ago
> Most content is worthless. What nonsense. Most content's worth is variable depending on who is consuming it. The issue with ad-blockers is that it isn't killing worthless content. It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. > The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. Yes, because the quality of content supported by ads and the quality of content done by some ad-free blog in someone's free time is always equal. > When the content can be easily leveraged to some profitable goal, people are usually more than willing to pay for it. You mean like instructional YouTube videos, free web-based resources for learning new things (programming, languages, etc). Oh wait, all of that is ad-supported.
- imgabe 11y ago
  > It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. What does that tell you about the value of that content that people are not even willing to be exposed to an ad in order to consume it? This is the proper application of "the customer is always right". When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the customer's fault. It's the vendor's fault for failing to meet the market demands in a suitable way. > Yes, because the quality of content supported by ads and the quality of content done by some ad-free blog in someone's free time is always equal. No, it's not. Sometimes the unbiased opinion of someone who doesn't have to please advertisers results in a much higher quality product. > You mean like instructional YouTube videos, free web-based resources for learning new things (programming, languages, etc). Oh wait, all of that is ad-supported. Do most FOSS doc pages have ads on them? Not that I've seen. O'Reilly and other publishers have no trouble charging money for well-written technical documentation. People are clearly willing to pay for that. Rosetta Stone charges quite a bit for language instruction.
  - jhall1468 11y ago
    > When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the customer's fault. They do want it, but for free. And while they still consume it, for free, they hide behind some non-sense about tracking or privacy, even though if those two issues were resolved they would block it any way because it's not convenient to white list a site. Duckduckgo is perfect evidence of that. > No, it's not. Sometimes the unbiased opinion of someone who doesn't have to please advertisers results in a much higher quality product. And much of the time it isn't.
    - imgabe 11y ago
      > They do want it, but for free. Yes, this is relatively common. People will take something for free that they aren't willing to pay for. Other things they'll pay one amount for, but not a larger amount. Everybody decides for him or herself how much something is worth to them. If the majority of people decide that value is "nothing, not even looking at an ad", then that's what the value of that thing is. That's how markets work.
      - jhall1468 11y ago
        This is a load of BS. The reality is most people install a blocker and never think twice. Your implication that people make a value decision for every website they visit is laughable, and more importantly, exactly the opposite of what most people do.
        click170 11y ago
        You take another breath every few seconds but you don't do it consciously. Not everything you do is a conscious decision you actively make in the forefront of your mind. Your comments lead me to believe you have skin in the game because you seem determined to not acknowledge that the value of something is what your customers will pay for it. If they aren't willing to pay for it then it has no value in the market, regardless of the value you've assigned to it.
bad_user 11y ago
You are probably a middle-class caucasian male from a western country. I can make that assumption because this willingness to pay that you're talking about cannot be a reality for the poor or for citizens of underdeveloped countries, or in other words ... the majority.
- imgabe 11y ago
  You're right. And addressing issues like poverty is one of the many better things we could be doing than trying to figure out how Buzzfeed can get paid to tell us about 35 Things Only Parapalegic Law School Students from Cincinatti Will Understand.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Even if the personal targeting in bad_user's post is uncalled for, the point is still valid: right now, ads serve as a redistribution mechanism, and pretending that Buzzfeed and the likes are the only sites that will be blocked to the lower classes in a paywall-laden web is just demagogy. In fact, Buzzfeed will probably still be available to the general public, since they already engage in "native advertising", where the content is the ad. It's sites that still maintain some editorial independence that will be most affected.
    - imgabe 11y ago
      I agree there is value in making useful information available to people who can't afford it. I don't think advertising is the only way or even the best way to make this happen. We used to consider this such a valuable endeavor that we had whole institutions dedicated to making information available for free, without ads. They were called "libraries".
      - icebraining 11y ago
        I also agree that ads aren't the only or best way to make it happen. But they are the existing way. It's well known what tends to happen when structures are eliminated with promises of better tomorrows.
dwild 11y ago
> Most content is worthless. Which is why ads are the only way to monetize it and be able to actually have it somewhere. > The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. Except nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. If it's not ad networks and if it's not donations (again, mostly because most content is worthless, and probably also because most people are greedy), who will pay for it? > Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life. How old are you? I'm 23, my youth was spent on the internet learning. I wasn't able to pay any content at the time. The website I was reading from were living out of ads, some of them made by minor, that were later able to make a decent living out of it. Yeah we have a bunch of website getting enough donations, but they need to be in the top 100 to actually survive from it. When Youtube Red was announced, I was freaking happy (except about the fact that I'm Canadian and I won't be able to enjoy it), most arguments I've seen against ads was that there was no alternative... except now people are simply complaining that Youtube is simply being greedy and that they can already get that using adblock... It's probably too late to make people realize that content isn't free, that offering it isn't free either. We are in a world where ads and huge investment gave us the opportunity to share and produce really cheaply and it seems like it's all free... you remove the ads, you remove any way to pay for that cheap but existing cost. I still have a little hope on donations though, seeing the amount some live streamers are able to make on Twitch, seeing how Patreon is a way to make a living, seeing how some crowdfunding is able to produce some really decent content (Tabletop, Conman, Fallout Nuka Break and VGHS to name a few), etc... I hope it will grow and allow us to keep at least the same amount of content as before.
- imgabe 11y ago
  > Which is why ads are the only way to monetize it and be able to actually have it somewhere. Why do we need to have it somewhere if nobody wants it enough to pay for it? > Except nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. If it's not ad networks and if it's not donations (again, mostly because most content is worthless, and probably also because most people are greedy), who will pay for it? People who want to disseminate information will pay to do so. Hacker News doesn't have ads. YCombinator is paying for it because it serves their purposes to have an online community for hackers. People write and create other content for a variety of reasons. Usually the best content is not created to maximize the amount of money it makes.
pdkl95 11y ago
> Most content is worthless. I would suggest that quite a bit of so-called "content" is actually negative value. Consumption of this negative value is done for a variety of reasons (paying a minor cost for an indirect social benefit, for example ("I wanted to participate when people talk about #{current_pop_culture}")). These negative values are only worthwhile when the cost is small enough, and we've recently seen advertising raise those costs past important thresholds. The initial reaction is an attempt to lower the cost by installing an ad blocker. In the long run, this will simply lead to a re-evaluation that the rising costs outweigh the benefits. Any attempt to "monetize" something that was previous done for free is by definition imposing a cost on the people involved. This current trend of "ad supported" stuff is really just a complicated type of rent seeking. Rents are only justifiable when scarce resources are involved, so it should be obvious that most interactions on the internet cannot be monetized (anything that has effectively zero marginal cost is not scarce).
- RUG3Y 11y ago
  I agree with you. I refuse to view any ads whatsoever. There isn't a single website on the internet that I can't do without. As long as I can control what I view on my own device, I will. I have no problem with a business model dying, it's the way of the world. I'm a musician myself, and the business model has changed so much that music is virtual worthless in the market. That's ok with me.

by imgabe 11y ago

jhall1468 11y ago

> Most content is worthless. What nonsense. Most content's worth is variable depending on who is consuming it. The issue with ad-blockers is that it isn't killing worthless content. It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. > The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. Yes, because the quality of content supported by ads and the quality of content done by some ad-free blog in someone's free time is always equal. > When the content can be easily leveraged to some profitable goal, people are usually more than willing to pay for it. You mean like instructional YouTube videos, free web-based resources for learning new things (programming, languages, etc). Oh wait, all of that is ad-supported.

imgabe 11y ago
> It's killing content that survives between the insane traffic of Facebook and the complete lack of traffic in personal blogs that 12 people visit. What does that tell you about the value of that content that people are not even willing to be exposed to an ad in order to consume it? This is the proper application of "the customer is always right". When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the customer's fault. It's the vendor's fault for failing to meet the market demands in a suitable way. > Yes, because the quality of content supported by ads and the quality of content done by some ad-free blog in someone's free time is always equal. No, it's not. Sometimes the unbiased opinion of someone who doesn't have to please advertisers results in a much higher quality product. > You mean like instructional YouTube videos, free web-based resources for learning new things (programming, languages, etc). Oh wait, all of that is ad-supported. Do most FOSS doc pages have ads on them? Not that I've seen. O'Reilly and other publishers have no trouble charging money for well-written technical documentation. People are clearly willing to pay for that. Rosetta Stone charges quite a bit for language instruction.
- jhall1468 11y ago
  > When the customer doesn't want what you're selling, it's not the customer's fault. They do want it, but for free. And while they still consume it, for free, they hide behind some non-sense about tracking or privacy, even though if those two issues were resolved they would block it any way because it's not convenient to white list a site. Duckduckgo is perfect evidence of that. > No, it's not. Sometimes the unbiased opinion of someone who doesn't have to please advertisers results in a much higher quality product. And much of the time it isn't.
  - imgabe 11y ago
    > They do want it, but for free. Yes, this is relatively common. People will take something for free that they aren't willing to pay for. Other things they'll pay one amount for, but not a larger amount. Everybody decides for him or herself how much something is worth to them. If the majority of people decide that value is "nothing, not even looking at an ad", then that's what the value of that thing is. That's how markets work.
    - jhall1468 11y ago
      This is a load of BS. The reality is most people install a blocker and never think twice. Your implication that people make a value decision for every website they visit is laughable, and more importantly, exactly the opposite of what most people do.
      - click170 11y ago
        You take another breath every few seconds but you don't do it consciously. Not everything you do is a conscious decision you actively make in the forefront of your mind. Your comments lead me to believe you have skin in the game because you seem determined to not acknowledge that the value of something is what your customers will pay for it. If they aren't willing to pay for it then it has no value in the market, regardless of the value you've assigned to it.

bad_user 11y ago

You are probably a middle-class caucasian male from a western country. I can make that assumption because this willingness to pay that you're talking about cannot be a reality for the poor or for citizens of underdeveloped countries, or in other words ... the majority.

imgabe 11y ago
You're right. And addressing issues like poverty is one of the many better things we could be doing than trying to figure out how Buzzfeed can get paid to tell us about 35 Things Only Parapalegic Law School Students from Cincinatti Will Understand.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Even if the personal targeting in bad_user's post is uncalled for, the point is still valid: right now, ads serve as a redistribution mechanism, and pretending that Buzzfeed and the likes are the only sites that will be blocked to the lower classes in a paywall-laden web is just demagogy. In fact, Buzzfeed will probably still be available to the general public, since they already engage in "native advertising", where the content is the ad. It's sites that still maintain some editorial independence that will be most affected.
  - imgabe 11y ago
    I agree there is value in making useful information available to people who can't afford it. I don't think advertising is the only way or even the best way to make this happen. We used to consider this such a valuable endeavor that we had whole institutions dedicated to making information available for free, without ads. They were called "libraries".
    - icebraining 11y ago
      I also agree that ads aren't the only or best way to make it happen. But they are the existing way. It's well known what tends to happen when structures are eliminated with promises of better tomorrows.

dwild 11y ago

> Most content is worthless. Which is why ads are the only way to monetize it and be able to actually have it somewhere. > The purpose can easily be filled by some alternate, free material. Except nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. If it's not ad networks and if it's not donations (again, mostly because most content is worthless, and probably also because most people are greedy), who will pay for it? > Very little of it has a material impact on anyone's day to day life. How old are you? I'm 23, my youth was spent on the internet learning. I wasn't able to pay any content at the time. The website I was reading from were living out of ads, some of them made by minor, that were later able to make a decent living out of it. Yeah we have a bunch of website getting enough donations, but they need to be in the top 100 to actually survive from it. When Youtube Red was announced, I was freaking happy (except about the fact that I'm Canadian and I won't be able to enjoy it), most arguments I've seen against ads was that there was no alternative... except now people are simply complaining that Youtube is simply being greedy and that they can already get that using adblock... It's probably too late to make people realize that content isn't free, that offering it isn't free either. We are in a world where ads and huge investment gave us the opportunity to share and produce really cheaply and it seems like it's all free... you remove the ads, you remove any way to pay for that cheap but existing cost. I still have a little hope on donations though, seeing the amount some live streamers are able to make on Twitch, seeing how Patreon is a way to make a living, seeing how some crowdfunding is able to produce some really decent content (Tabletop, Conman, Fallout Nuka Break and VGHS to name a few), etc... I hope it will grow and allow us to keep at least the same amount of content as before.

imgabe 11y ago
> Which is why ads are the only way to monetize it and be able to actually have it somewhere. Why do we need to have it somewhere if nobody wants it enough to pay for it? > Except nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. If it's not ad networks and if it's not donations (again, mostly because most content is worthless, and probably also because most people are greedy), who will pay for it? People who want to disseminate information will pay to do so. Hacker News doesn't have ads. YCombinator is paying for it because it serves their purposes to have an online community for hackers. People write and create other content for a variety of reasons. Usually the best content is not created to maximize the amount of money it makes.

pdkl95 11y ago

> Most content is worthless. I would suggest that quite a bit of so-called "content" is actually negative value. Consumption of this negative value is done for a variety of reasons (paying a minor cost for an indirect social benefit, for example ("I wanted to participate when people talk about #{current_pop_culture}")). These negative values are only worthwhile when the cost is small enough, and we've recently seen advertising raise those costs past important thresholds. The initial reaction is an attempt to lower the cost by installing an ad blocker. In the long run, this will simply lead to a re-evaluation that the rising costs outweigh the benefits. Any attempt to "monetize" something that was previous done for free is by definition imposing a cost on the people involved. This current trend of "ad supported" stuff is really just a complicated type of rent seeking. Rents are only justifiable when scarce resources are involved, so it should be obvious that most interactions on the internet cannot be monetized (anything that has effectively zero marginal cost is not scarce).

RUG3Y 11y ago
I agree with you. I refuse to view any ads whatsoever. There isn't a single website on the internet that I can't do without. As long as I can control what I view on my own device, I will. I have no problem with a business model dying, it's the way of the world. I'm a musician myself, and the business model has changed so much that music is virtual worthless in the market. That's ok with me.