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> Enjoy your future of pay walls! I love how people say "I will!" For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who pro

> Enjoy your future of pay walls! I love how people say "I will!" For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who probably still have their parents paying their bills. Or they don't really fully understand what the implications are. Also, subscription models have proven to be poor solutions and don't work very well at best, and at worst, completely fail taking the website with it. Another thing, what about poor people? We talk about how people "are happy to pay for content they like!" Only, there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way. If the entire internet turned into "pay as you go", the poor & working class are screwed. They're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit. Not just poor people in the U.S but what about all that traffic from other countries? And there is a lot of it... That's a lot of people who used to be able to keep up with current events, study science, math, history (educate themselves), chat on forums, make new friends, play games who now can't, because they can't afford it. To me, that's a shame. A travesty even if you take into account the educational aspect. I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. I mean, I thought about it myself the last time it came up on hackernews for weeks, no, months and I still have no clue how the internet would evolve as a result. And what little I did conclude wasn't good. Yet these people seem to be so certain...

746F7475 11y ago
Majority of people aren't blocking ads and considering how low ad revenues are while the amount of ads blocked might seem high it doesn't really affect the revenue as much as advertisers like to suggest.
pdkl95 11y ago
I've already addressed your claims in this thread, but as for these new arguments: > most won't This is an unsubstantiated claim. > subscription models have proven to be poor solutions Really? I guess you haven't seen the people that have moved from youtube to twitch.tv (because of the subscriptions) and patreon. > what about poor people? Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. As we have repeatedly discussed on HN, if it's free, you are the product[1]. Moving to explicit payments - or other forms of funding - is a huge improvement over taking advantage of the ignorance most people have about what they are paying for "free" content. > study science, math, history (educate themselves) Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. [1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...
- ry_ry 11y ago
  Wikipedia does have a large, irritating begging banner though, so kinda. I guess.
  - bovermyer 11y ago
    That banner is directly from the service itself, which means the product is still Wikipedia, not its users. Very important distinction.
  - tommorris 11y ago
    It isn't there for 11 months of the year.
- gjm11 11y ago
  I mostly agree with you, but ... > Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. I don't think it does. The poorer you are, the more money is worth to you relative to other things. (Because as you get more money, what you spend it on is in rough order of priority, which means the things you buy when richer are less valuable to you per dollar than the things you buy when poorer.) In particular, other things being equal, money is worth more to you relative to attention when you are poorer. Therefore, "cheaper internet but more ads" is a better tradeoff for richer people than for poorer people. So it's at least credible that relatively-well-off people agitating for more expensive internet but fewer ads might, if successful, make life worse overall for poorer people. (This is far from watertight. For instance, if being poor makes ads more harmful to you or reduces the total amount of attention you can bestow on things -- for both of which I can at least imagine possible mechanisms -- then more-ads-more-money might not after all be a better tradeoff for poorer people than richer people even though X more-X-more-money is for most bad things X.)
- mahranch 11y ago
  > Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit Are you really suggesting or implying that the poor won't be affected by this? This is a huge issue and trying to claim the concern isn't valid by calling it "a cheap emotional gambit" is shockingly dishonest and disingenuous. Quite the contrary, it's a massive concern. It's reminds me of the whole idiotic & naive "flat tax" ideology. Millionaires love the idea because it hurts the poor the most. They're the ones most directly impacted. > it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. They are. Practically the entire internet is free. Do you have to pay to use youtube, facebook or reddit? Do you pay when you go to carforums.com and chat with other people about cars? Or video game forums to chat about the latest Call of duty game? If you instead had to pay a $5 per month subscription to youtube, or reddit or facebook, the entire internet changes overnight. The fact you don't see this pretty much solidifies my idea that you really haven't thought this through. > Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? Are you suggesting people only educate themselves on wikipedia and academic websites? Because I've learned considerably more from non-academic sites. Sites like Reddit's /r/Askscience, /r/TodayIlearned or /r/Askhistory. Or sites that popularize learning & education, like Mentafloss, Zidbits or even Cracked.com > You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. No, quite the opposite. You haven't really began to comprehend just how much of an impact the changes you suggest would be. And how it would eventually directly & indirectly effect everything else. You haven't fully connected all the dots yet. Do you know how I know you haven't connected all the dots yet? Because nobody has. Nobody can predict the outcome of something like that, though we can make some educated guesses about some things. I think that's the difference between our opinions; I freely admit that I have no idea, while you claim to know everything and have an answer for everything. Only, that's impossible. Nobody is omniscient.
Margh 11y ago
> there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way In that case, they probably can't really afford to buy all the things targeted advertising is pushing on them either.
jdietrich 11y ago
The problem for both creators and consumers isn't advertising, it is poor quality advertising. Pages get filled with crap because ad rates are pitifully low. The default method of ad selling online is directly equivalent to what traditional publishers do with remnant ad space that they can't sell themselves. Online advertising has been systematically devalued by poor sales practice and an over-reliance on algorithmic methods. Advertising is treated as an afterthought to be tacked on rather than an integral part of the business. Savvy web publishers don't fear adblockers. An adblocker can't detect product placement in a video, it can't detect a podcaster reading an ad for Squarespace, it can't detect branded content. Better ad sales practice is a win-win-win situation - content creators increase their revenues, advertisers get better value and users get a less intrusive experience. Buzzfeed are a good example of a web publisher with a deep understanding of the right way to sell ads. They carry no traditional advertising. Their branded content is genuinely valuable to their audience, so delivers much better engagement for their advertisers. There is also a great deal of space in online publishing for business models that aren't reliant on advertising. A large proportion of the content creators I care about are predominantly reliant on patronage. Subscription is a perfectly sensible model for publishers who serve a niche market with highly valuable content.
gglitch 11y ago
> I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. This sounds ironic, considering that with cookie- and tracker-supported content, people also don't and can't know the full implications of their online transactions. If there were terms of service I had to agree to for every single business who was going to view or handle my data for every single ad I loaded before the ad loaded, then I'd be considering the full implications of the ad-based model.
marssaxman 11y ago
There was lots of fun stuff to read on the web before advertising and paywalls came along, and there will still be lots of fun stuff to read on the web should those awkward business models finally wither away. I'm not worried about it.

746F7475 11y ago

Majority of people aren't blocking ads and considering how low ad revenues are while the amount of ads blocked might seem high it doesn't really affect the revenue as much as advertisers like to suggest.

pdkl95 11y ago

I've already addressed your claims in this thread, but as for these new arguments: > most won't This is an unsubstantiated claim. > subscription models have proven to be poor solutions Really? I guess you haven't seen the people that have moved from youtube to twitch.tv (because of the subscriptions) and patreon. > what about poor people? Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. As we have repeatedly discussed on HN, if it's free, you are the product[1]. Moving to explicit payments - or other forms of funding - is a huge improvement over taking advantage of the ignorance most people have about what they are paying for "free" content. > study science, math, history (educate themselves) Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. [1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

ry_ry 11y ago
Wikipedia does have a large, irritating begging banner though, so kinda. I guess.
- bovermyer 11y ago
  That banner is directly from the service itself, which means the product is still Wikipedia, not its users. Very important distinction.
- tommorris 11y ago
  It isn't there for 11 months of the year.
gjm11 11y ago
I mostly agree with you, but ... > Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. I don't think it does. The poorer you are, the more money is worth to you relative to other things. (Because as you get more money, what you spend it on is in rough order of priority, which means the things you buy when richer are less valuable to you per dollar than the things you buy when poorer.) In particular, other things being equal, money is worth more to you relative to attention when you are poorer. Therefore, "cheaper internet but more ads" is a better tradeoff for richer people than for poorer people. So it's at least credible that relatively-well-off people agitating for more expensive internet but fewer ads might, if successful, make life worse overall for poorer people. (This is far from watertight. For instance, if being poor makes ads more harmful to you or reduces the total amount of attention you can bestow on things -- for both of which I can at least imagine possible mechanisms -- then more-ads-more-money might not after all be a better tradeoff for poorer people than richer people even though X more-X-more-money is for most bad things X.)
mahranch 11y ago
> Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit Are you really suggesting or implying that the poor won't be affected by this? This is a huge issue and trying to claim the concern isn't valid by calling it "a cheap emotional gambit" is shockingly dishonest and disingenuous. Quite the contrary, it's a massive concern. It's reminds me of the whole idiotic & naive "flat tax" ideology. Millionaires love the idea because it hurts the poor the most. They're the ones most directly impacted. > it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. They are. Practically the entire internet is free. Do you have to pay to use youtube, facebook or reddit? Do you pay when you go to carforums.com and chat with other people about cars? Or video game forums to chat about the latest Call of duty game? If you instead had to pay a $5 per month subscription to youtube, or reddit or facebook, the entire internet changes overnight. The fact you don't see this pretty much solidifies my idea that you really haven't thought this through. > Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? Are you suggesting people only educate themselves on wikipedia and academic websites? Because I've learned considerably more from non-academic sites. Sites like Reddit's /r/Askscience, /r/TodayIlearned or /r/Askhistory. Or sites that popularize learning & education, like Mentafloss, Zidbits or even Cracked.com > You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. No, quite the opposite. You haven't really began to comprehend just how much of an impact the changes you suggest would be. And how it would eventually directly & indirectly effect everything else. You haven't fully connected all the dots yet. Do you know how I know you haven't connected all the dots yet? Because nobody has. Nobody can predict the outcome of something like that, though we can make some educated guesses about some things. I think that's the difference between our opinions; I freely admit that I have no idea, while you claim to know everything and have an answer for everything. Only, that's impossible. Nobody is omniscient.

Margh 11y ago

> there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way In that case, they probably can't really afford to buy all the things targeted advertising is pushing on them either.

jdietrich 11y ago

The problem for both creators and consumers isn't advertising, it is poor quality advertising. Pages get filled with crap because ad rates are pitifully low. The default method of ad selling online is directly equivalent to what traditional publishers do with remnant ad space that they can't sell themselves. Online advertising has been systematically devalued by poor sales practice and an over-reliance on algorithmic methods. Advertising is treated as an afterthought to be tacked on rather than an integral part of the business. Savvy web publishers don't fear adblockers. An adblocker can't detect product placement in a video, it can't detect a podcaster reading an ad for Squarespace, it can't detect branded content. Better ad sales practice is a win-win-win situation - content creators increase their revenues, advertisers get better value and users get a less intrusive experience. Buzzfeed are a good example of a web publisher with a deep understanding of the right way to sell ads. They carry no traditional advertising. Their branded content is genuinely valuable to their audience, so delivers much better engagement for their advertisers. There is also a great deal of space in online publishing for business models that aren't reliant on advertising. A large proportion of the content creators I care about are predominantly reliant on patronage. Subscription is a perfectly sensible model for publishers who serve a niche market with highly valuable content.

gglitch 11y ago

> I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. This sounds ironic, considering that with cookie- and tracker-supported content, people also don't and can't know the full implications of their online transactions. If there were terms of service I had to agree to for every single business who was going to view or handle my data for every single ad I loaded before the ad loaded, then I'd be considering the full implications of the ad-based model.

marssaxman 11y ago

There was lots of fun stuff to read on the web before advertising and paywalls came along, and there will still be lots of fun stuff to read on the web should those awkward business models finally wither away. I'm not worried about it.