5 ms·

Ads pay for some web sites. People pay for ads because they want the attention of the sites' readers to get them to buy their products. People buy their product

by morsch 11y ago

Ads pay for some web sites. People pay for ads because they want the attention of the sites' readers to get them to buy their products. People buy their products, which pays for the ads, which pay the websites. I prefer to be able to steer my own attention, and not have it be steered by those who win the bids for it. I don't like paying a surcharge on every product to enable this practice. It seems like an inefficient way to finance the web.

reasonality 11y ago
Are you also against relevant adverts in magazines? Some of those are pretty useful...
- ccozan 11y ago
  Nobody disputes the usefulness of some ad(vert)s. But while an ad on a website is coming with tracking, a nice advert in a magazine does exactly what is the intention: inform people of something, either a product or a service. And I can watch that ad anonymously. While I would like to watch online ads, for the information might be useful to me, is impossible to disable the tracking, somewhere in a log file an IP will be associated with receiving and/or clicking this ad. This IP might be associated already with my identity because I did login to Gmail from the same IP, for example. That's why I am using ad-blocker.
  - Ao7bei3s 11y ago
    > a nice advert in a magazine does exactly what is the intention: inform people of something, either a product or a service. And I can watch that ad anonymously. Even ads in magazines aren't there to "inform" people. "Informing" would be objective. Ads are meant to show the product in the best possible light and get people to buy them.
  - majewsky 11y ago
    > Nobody disputes the usefulness of some ad(vert)s. I do. Some years ago, I've read an essay where the author, among other things, considered banning paid advertisements, i.e. getting paid to promote someone else's work. I sadly didn't save a link at the time, and I can't find it on Google. The author argued that today's social networks are effective ways for word-of-mouth advertising, which is why classical advertising is not strictly required for a new product to take off (esp. when combined with crowdfunding). Furthermore, advertisements regularly create requirements that are irrational and even harmful to the people involved (e.g. sodas and sweets) or the society or its natural resources. I can see how banning paid advertisement could help in transitioning to a zero-growth economy, which I consider one of the most remarkable challenges of our generation. I would love to see these ideas explored with scientific scrutiny, because, as always with economic policies on this scale, it's near impossible to estimate their effect in advance.
themartorana 11y ago
But after a decade and more of attempted monetization in a plethora of different models, this is the only one that kind of works. In general, people won't pay for content and expect the web to be free, when we all know it's not even close to free to run. Ad blockers are popular because ads got creepy. Seriously creepy. And majorly intrusive and auto-playing and so on and so forth. No one considers TV ads or print ads to be "inefficient" - yes, there are pay channels, but even the bulk of paid cable channels show ads, and pay magazines are sometimes a full 50% or more ads. I can't expect you to suddenly cheer for ads. They're everywhere and there is definitely fatigue throughout the day. They uglify highways, they can definitely be pushy. But it's not like people haven't attempted other ways of monetizing content.
- morsch 11y ago
  I'm not sure that I agree that it works (even kind of; but that is mostly down to "working" being ill-defined), nor am I sure that there aren't other models that have worked out (parts of the web are still ad-free). But taken at face value, my first thought was that it's just difficult to establish an alternative model against an incumbent. Advertising was there first, but on a level playing field, maybe micropayments could have taken off? Of course, elsewhere, incumbents fall all the time. So I guess it's just difficult to establish an alternative model against an incumbent that sells the illusion that you're getting something for free. At the same time, people routinely spend 10+ cents for every web page access through mobile access charges. I don't even think about it when I browse the web on the subway. Let me hasten to add that not all alternatives to classic ads are an improvement. Native advertising and other forms of embedded marketing come to mind. Although I am hopeful that readers will fairly quickly come to despise it even more than the more honest and easier to ignore ads.
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    >Advertising was there first, but on a level playing field, maybe micropayments could have taken off? The biggest barrier to micropayments is the same as it's always been: no real framework for achieving it. You can't add micropayments to your website, but you can add advertising. We're closer than we've ever been, though.
mseebach 11y ago
> I prefer to be able to steer my own attention, and not have it be steered by those who win the bids for it. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Very few people are going to create content for you for free. If you don't want your attention steered, prepare to pay the piper. > I don't like paying a surcharge on every product to enable this practice. The theory that advertising is a "surcharge on every product" assumes that the dynamics of sales and competition wouldn't be hurt in the absence of ads, that honest, unbiased, uncommercial content would pick up the information slack from ads. These assumptions does not stand up to basic scrutiny: a: Ads support the entrance of new products into the market. For new products to be successful, they need to drive either new value, higher efficiency, better status-signalling or lower prices. b: There is nothing to keep uncommercial content from recommending alternative equal-quality non-advertising products, which we would then expect to be cheaper, as they don't incur the surcharge. Certainly, there are examples of such products (eg. consumables that have a store-brand alternative), but if the theory were true, those alternatives would be widely available throughout the market. Consumer Reports routinely recommend products from brands with expensive ad campaigns. c: Status-signalling is a thing, it really is, and while certainly exploited and supported by the ad industry, it wasn't invented by it, and won't go away if the ad industry does. > It seems like an inefficient way to finance the web. Perhaps so, but in a century and a half(?) of ad-supported mass media, not a lot of viable alternatives have appeared. Subscriptions (newspapers, magazines, still contains ads), donations (NPR), tax support (BBC and the like). It's not obvious to me either model would support the almost absurdly rich pluralism of content the web has with ad-finance. EDIT: spelling, cleaned up ambiguous language.
- SoMuchToGrok 11y ago
  People block ads because they can. It's that simple. Morals and philosophy have little room when all it takes is a few mouse clicks to disable virtually all ads. The barrier of entry (or de-entry, if you will) is incredibly low. > Ads support the entrance of new products into the market. It's going to be difficult for this trend to stop until there are some technical hurdles built. Until then, I think it's unrealistic to say we should subject ourselves to ads because "historically the market has worked that way". It may have worked that way in the past, but times are changing.
dwild 11y ago
To be the most efficient way, it has to work. As far as I know, this is the most efficient way to finance a website. What's your most efficient way?

by morsch 11y ago

reasonality 11y ago

Are you also against relevant adverts in magazines? Some of those are pretty useful...

ccozan 11y ago
Nobody disputes the usefulness of some ad(vert)s. But while an ad on a website is coming with tracking, a nice advert in a magazine does exactly what is the intention: inform people of something, either a product or a service. And I can watch that ad anonymously. While I would like to watch online ads, for the information might be useful to me, is impossible to disable the tracking, somewhere in a log file an IP will be associated with receiving and/or clicking this ad. This IP might be associated already with my identity because I did login to Gmail from the same IP, for example. That's why I am using ad-blocker.
- Ao7bei3s 11y ago
  > a nice advert in a magazine does exactly what is the intention: inform people of something, either a product or a service. And I can watch that ad anonymously. Even ads in magazines aren't there to "inform" people. "Informing" would be objective. Ads are meant to show the product in the best possible light and get people to buy them.
- majewsky 11y ago
  > Nobody disputes the usefulness of some ad(vert)s. I do. Some years ago, I've read an essay where the author, among other things, considered banning paid advertisements, i.e. getting paid to promote someone else's work. I sadly didn't save a link at the time, and I can't find it on Google. The author argued that today's social networks are effective ways for word-of-mouth advertising, which is why classical advertising is not strictly required for a new product to take off (esp. when combined with crowdfunding). Furthermore, advertisements regularly create requirements that are irrational and even harmful to the people involved (e.g. sodas and sweets) or the society or its natural resources. I can see how banning paid advertisement could help in transitioning to a zero-growth economy, which I consider one of the most remarkable challenges of our generation. I would love to see these ideas explored with scientific scrutiny, because, as always with economic policies on this scale, it's near impossible to estimate their effect in advance.

themartorana 11y ago

But after a decade and more of attempted monetization in a plethora of different models, this is the only one that kind of works. In general, people won't pay for content and expect the web to be free, when we all know it's not even close to free to run. Ad blockers are popular because ads got creepy. Seriously creepy. And majorly intrusive and auto-playing and so on and so forth. No one considers TV ads or print ads to be "inefficient" - yes, there are pay channels, but even the bulk of paid cable channels show ads, and pay magazines are sometimes a full 50% or more ads. I can't expect you to suddenly cheer for ads. They're everywhere and there is definitely fatigue throughout the day. They uglify highways, they can definitely be pushy. But it's not like people haven't attempted other ways of monetizing content.

morsch 11y ago
I'm not sure that I agree that it works (even kind of; but that is mostly down to "working" being ill-defined), nor am I sure that there aren't other models that have worked out (parts of the web are still ad-free). But taken at face value, my first thought was that it's just difficult to establish an alternative model against an incumbent. Advertising was there first, but on a level playing field, maybe micropayments could have taken off? Of course, elsewhere, incumbents fall all the time. So I guess it's just difficult to establish an alternative model against an incumbent that sells the illusion that you're getting something for free. At the same time, people routinely spend 10+ cents for every web page access through mobile access charges. I don't even think about it when I browse the web on the subway. Let me hasten to add that not all alternatives to classic ads are an improvement. Native advertising and other forms of embedded marketing come to mind. Although I am hopeful that readers will fairly quickly come to despise it even more than the more honest and easier to ignore ads.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  >Advertising was there first, but on a level playing field, maybe micropayments could have taken off? The biggest barrier to micropayments is the same as it's always been: no real framework for achieving it. You can't add micropayments to your website, but you can add advertising. We're closer than we've ever been, though.

mseebach 11y ago

> I prefer to be able to steer my own attention, and not have it be steered by those who win the bids for it. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Very few people are going to create content for you for free. If you don't want your attention steered, prepare to pay the piper. > I don't like paying a surcharge on every product to enable this practice. The theory that advertising is a "surcharge on every product" assumes that the dynamics of sales and competition wouldn't be hurt in the absence of ads, that honest, unbiased, uncommercial content would pick up the information slack from ads. These assumptions does not stand up to basic scrutiny: a: Ads support the entrance of new products into the market. For new products to be successful, they need to drive either new value, higher efficiency, better status-signalling or lower prices. b: There is nothing to keep uncommercial content from recommending alternative equal-quality non-advertising products, which we would then expect to be cheaper, as they don't incur the surcharge. Certainly, there are examples of such products (eg. consumables that have a store-brand alternative), but if the theory were true, those alternatives would be widely available throughout the market. Consumer Reports routinely recommend products from brands with expensive ad campaigns. c: Status-signalling is a thing, it really is, and while certainly exploited and supported by the ad industry, it wasn't invented by it, and won't go away if the ad industry does. > It seems like an inefficient way to finance the web. Perhaps so, but in a century and a half(?) of ad-supported mass media, not a lot of viable alternatives have appeared. Subscriptions (newspapers, magazines, still contains ads), donations (NPR), tax support (BBC and the like). It's not obvious to me either model would support the almost absurdly rich pluralism of content the web has with ad-finance. EDIT: spelling, cleaned up ambiguous language.

SoMuchToGrok 11y ago
People block ads because they can. It's that simple. Morals and philosophy have little room when all it takes is a few mouse clicks to disable virtually all ads. The barrier of entry (or de-entry, if you will) is incredibly low. > Ads support the entrance of new products into the market. It's going to be difficult for this trend to stop until there are some technical hurdles built. Until then, I think it's unrealistic to say we should subject ourselves to ads because "historically the market has worked that way". It may have worked that way in the past, but times are changing.

dwild 11y ago

To be the most efficient way, it has to work. As far as I know, this is the most efficient way to finance a website. What's your most efficient way?