5 ms·

And yet I don't see a micropayments solution from either yet for when the ad-pocalypse hits.

Buge 11y ago
Well Google does have Contributor. https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
- akerro 11y ago
  Even more tracking in ads? Ad-companies make most money on tracking and profiling than on actual ads. I'll stay with uBlock and PB for longer probably.
  - Klathmon 11y ago
    How can someone implement micropayments without any sort of tracking?
    - ccozan 11y ago
      The same way you buy electricity from a provider, but the grid doesn't know who you are.
      - Klathmon 11y ago
        But the company does know who you are, they have a meter on the side of your home that measures how much electricity you use, they know your address and often your banking information... The "grid" might not (i'm not even sure what that means?), but in this case the website doesn't know who you are, the ad itself doesn't know who you are (especially because it's not shown), only the ad-network-provider knows who you are.
      - random28345 11y ago
        > but the grid doesn't know who you are. Sure, the grid only knows where you live, if you own or rent, size of your household, when you're home or away. Heck with a bit of data mining on "smart meters", I bet you could infer the energy usage of certain appliances such as hair dryer, curling iron, stove, etc., starting to give insight into age, gender, ethnicity, eating habits, you name it. By itself that data will only generate weak correlations, but I'd certain that energy companies are finding buyers for that data who could match it with your credit report, background check, etc. Face it, the only thing protecting your anonymity is your lack of notoriety.
        cbr 11y ago
        > I bet you could infer the energy usage of certain > appliances such as hair dryer, curling iron, stove ... https://sense.com/ https://sense.com/ does this, figuring out what different things you run at home and knowing when they're on.
      - cbr 11y ago
        Trust works differently selling electricity. At each step in the chain from generation to distribution to consumption everyone involved can easily measure what they're getting. This means that each entity only needs information about the entities that it buys from or sells to. With ads this sort of verification is far harder, and passing lots of information back from the browser to each party involved is the only way the industry has figured out for keeping fraud down. There's actually a weird way that control over your devices and privacy on your devices are at odds here: if your device was running signed code from the ground up, where you were given a browser and had no ability to modify anything, then we could build an ad system that leaked no information to the various ad industry companies but still let them be sure that a view was a real view and a click was a real click. But of course we do want to be able to control the software we run, and we successfully rejected trusted computing for most uses in the '00s, so instead we have all this tracking.
  - daveguy 11y ago
    PB? Can't seem to find reference to it. I use uBlock Origin. Is there something I am missing?
    - akerro 11y ago
      PrivacyBadger to block tracking cookies. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/privacy-badger-firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/privacy-badge...
  - sergiosgc 11y ago
    > Ad-companies make most money on tracking and profiling than on actual ads. This is a bit too much over the top, where it concerns tin-foil hat fashion. Ad companies track and profile so that they can show you ads. There's no secret campaign there. Just plain basic ad target segmentation. They do make money on ads -- they're ad companies, not profiling companies.
  - Buge 11y ago
    Are you saying this has more tracking than regular ads?
    - akerro 11y ago
      Yes, this requires user to be logged-in, so you have to use your account do it. You can remove or don't save cookies for regular ads, block 3rd party domains, etc. In this type of ad you're signing yourself for tracking and profiling.
- peteretep 11y ago
  I missed that. Interesting that they're taking it seriously.
TheLogothete 11y ago
>when the ad-pocalypse hits. I wouldn't hold my breath.
matt4077 11y ago
This is so desperately needed. Or (better), a Spotify-style flatrate (which would encourage consumption that doesn't cost the publisher but is a benefit for the reader). It's the one remaining hope for quality journalism, but apparently they need to stare into the abyss before they get their act together. That, or it needs a mass extinction first until it is obvious that the supply of original content is visibly reduced (unlike now, where about 10-15 publications produce excellent content and thousands turn it into autogenerated slideshow).
- z3t4 11y ago
  There is a far bigger and more important issue. It's that people do not have time to read "news". Besides hacker news, witch is free. People don't care what happens in the world or around them.
- wehadfun 11y ago
  This is exactly what they probably need. To meet up and develop a joint payment that includes them all. No one wants to pay for 25 different websites content.
sergiosgc 11y ago
I can see this happening hand-in-hand with the ad-pocalypse. Have a micropayment system associated with ad blockers. It can use the same revenue flow as ads. For every thousand (suppressed) impressions, pay a dollar to the site. Sites, who are now actively blocking ad blockers, can stop blocking and get similar revenue. Users, who do not want ads, can get that experience without the guilt associated with freeloading. All it takes is for one major browser vendor to take the first step. Mozilla, are you listening? Microsoft, this is how you undermine adwords.
downandout 11y ago
>when the ad-pocalypse hits. It won't hit. Most people just won't pay for content, but publishers have to make money. If ad-blocker use continues to rise, everything will simply go native. It means more clickbait article titles with even less thinly-veiled ads masquerading as legitimate content. The current native advertising model, where advertisers negotiate individually with each site where they want content to be posted, will quickly evolve into a more efficient AP-style network. Companies will submit articles into a feed that will be disseminated to and automatically displayed on revenue and content-hungry sites across the Internet. Sites will be compensated on a CPM or CPC basis. Ads are not going anywhere. They will just take a slightly different form.
- wslh 11y ago
  > It means more clickbait article And then, we add clickbait recognition (e.g. find the source, compare similar topic articles) and we solve this problem.
- belorn 11y ago
  Did everyone go to the native model when ad-pocalypse hit e-mail and everyone started to use spam filters? Current ad-blocks are similar to blacklists. They are very basic, but they do get the vast majority of unsolicited advertisement, so it works. I remember the days when some argued that you only needed to block chines IP ranges in order to stop spam. Then the world started to use content filtering, looking for specific words or statistically pattern that provide a probability patter for spam vs ham. I would predict that a AP-style network that automatically submit articles into multiple "spammy" websites would automatically be flagged by anti-spam organizations and thus be quickly blocked. Native ads is also currently in a bit of a problem with tax and customer protection laws. That might just be growing pains however.
  - downandout 11y ago
    >Did everyone go to the native model when ad-pocalypse hit e-mail and everyone started to use spam filters? Actually, yes. Everyone started creating opt-in email newsletters. The smarter marketers started creating niche newsletters that appeared to not be associated with any particular brand, then worked in mentions of their benefactors everywhere they could. That's native advertising.
jamesjansson 11y ago
Well I'm building one right now with my cofounders. We're nearing production and we have recently received a small investment. https://www.zipsub.com/ https://www.zipsub.com/
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  Another competitor in this space. Welcome!

Buge 11y ago

Well Google does have Contributor. https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/

akerro 11y ago
Even more tracking in ads? Ad-companies make most money on tracking and profiling than on actual ads. I'll stay with uBlock and PB for longer probably.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  How can someone implement micropayments without any sort of tracking?
  - ccozan 11y ago
    The same way you buy electricity from a provider, but the grid doesn't know who you are.
    - Klathmon 11y ago
      But the company does know who you are, they have a meter on the side of your home that measures how much electricity you use, they know your address and often your banking information... The "grid" might not (i'm not even sure what that means?), but in this case the website doesn't know who you are, the ad itself doesn't know who you are (especially because it's not shown), only the ad-network-provider knows who you are.
    - random28345 11y ago
      > but the grid doesn't know who you are. Sure, the grid only knows where you live, if you own or rent, size of your household, when you're home or away. Heck with a bit of data mining on "smart meters", I bet you could infer the energy usage of certain appliances such as hair dryer, curling iron, stove, etc., starting to give insight into age, gender, ethnicity, eating habits, you name it. By itself that data will only generate weak correlations, but I'd certain that energy companies are finding buyers for that data who could match it with your credit report, background check, etc. Face it, the only thing protecting your anonymity is your lack of notoriety.
      - cbr 11y ago
        > I bet you could infer the energy usage of certain > appliances such as hair dryer, curling iron, stove ... https://sense.com/ https://sense.com/ does this, figuring out what different things you run at home and knowing when they're on.
    - cbr 11y ago
      Trust works differently selling electricity. At each step in the chain from generation to distribution to consumption everyone involved can easily measure what they're getting. This means that each entity only needs information about the entities that it buys from or sells to. With ads this sort of verification is far harder, and passing lots of information back from the browser to each party involved is the only way the industry has figured out for keeping fraud down. There's actually a weird way that control over your devices and privacy on your devices are at odds here: if your device was running signed code from the ground up, where you were given a browser and had no ability to modify anything, then we could build an ad system that leaked no information to the various ad industry companies but still let them be sure that a view was a real view and a click was a real click. But of course we do want to be able to control the software we run, and we successfully rejected trusted computing for most uses in the '00s, so instead we have all this tracking.
- daveguy 11y ago
  PB? Can't seem to find reference to it. I use uBlock Origin. Is there something I am missing?
  - akerro 11y ago
    PrivacyBadger to block tracking cookies. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/privacy-badger-firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/privacy-badge...
- sergiosgc 11y ago
  > Ad-companies make most money on tracking and profiling than on actual ads. This is a bit too much over the top, where it concerns tin-foil hat fashion. Ad companies track and profile so that they can show you ads. There's no secret campaign there. Just plain basic ad target segmentation. They do make money on ads -- they're ad companies, not profiling companies.
- Buge 11y ago
  Are you saying this has more tracking than regular ads?
  - akerro 11y ago
    Yes, this requires user to be logged-in, so you have to use your account do it. You can remove or don't save cookies for regular ads, block 3rd party domains, etc. In this type of ad you're signing yourself for tracking and profiling.
peteretep 11y ago
I missed that. Interesting that they're taking it seriously.

TheLogothete 11y ago

>when the ad-pocalypse hits. I wouldn't hold my breath.

matt4077 11y ago

This is so desperately needed. Or (better), a Spotify-style flatrate (which would encourage consumption that doesn't cost the publisher but is a benefit for the reader). It's the one remaining hope for quality journalism, but apparently they need to stare into the abyss before they get their act together. That, or it needs a mass extinction first until it is obvious that the supply of original content is visibly reduced (unlike now, where about 10-15 publications produce excellent content and thousands turn it into autogenerated slideshow).

z3t4 11y ago
There is a far bigger and more important issue. It's that people do not have time to read "news". Besides hacker news, witch is free. People don't care what happens in the world or around them.
wehadfun 11y ago
This is exactly what they probably need. To meet up and develop a joint payment that includes them all. No one wants to pay for 25 different websites content.

sergiosgc 11y ago

I can see this happening hand-in-hand with the ad-pocalypse. Have a micropayment system associated with ad blockers. It can use the same revenue flow as ads. For every thousand (suppressed) impressions, pay a dollar to the site. Sites, who are now actively blocking ad blockers, can stop blocking and get similar revenue. Users, who do not want ads, can get that experience without the guilt associated with freeloading. All it takes is for one major browser vendor to take the first step. Mozilla, are you listening? Microsoft, this is how you undermine adwords.

downandout 11y ago

>when the ad-pocalypse hits. It won't hit. Most people just won't pay for content, but publishers have to make money. If ad-blocker use continues to rise, everything will simply go native. It means more clickbait article titles with even less thinly-veiled ads masquerading as legitimate content. The current native advertising model, where advertisers negotiate individually with each site where they want content to be posted, will quickly evolve into a more efficient AP-style network. Companies will submit articles into a feed that will be disseminated to and automatically displayed on revenue and content-hungry sites across the Internet. Sites will be compensated on a CPM or CPC basis. Ads are not going anywhere. They will just take a slightly different form.

wslh 11y ago
> It means more clickbait article And then, we add clickbait recognition (e.g. find the source, compare similar topic articles) and we solve this problem.
belorn 11y ago
Did everyone go to the native model when ad-pocalypse hit e-mail and everyone started to use spam filters? Current ad-blocks are similar to blacklists. They are very basic, but they do get the vast majority of unsolicited advertisement, so it works. I remember the days when some argued that you only needed to block chines IP ranges in order to stop spam. Then the world started to use content filtering, looking for specific words or statistically pattern that provide a probability patter for spam vs ham. I would predict that a AP-style network that automatically submit articles into multiple "spammy" websites would automatically be flagged by anti-spam organizations and thus be quickly blocked. Native ads is also currently in a bit of a problem with tax and customer protection laws. That might just be growing pains however.
- downandout 11y ago
  >Did everyone go to the native model when ad-pocalypse hit e-mail and everyone started to use spam filters? Actually, yes. Everyone started creating opt-in email newsletters. The smarter marketers started creating niche newsletters that appeared to not be associated with any particular brand, then worked in mentions of their benefactors everywhere they could. That's native advertising.

jamesjansson 11y ago

Well I'm building one right now with my cofounders. We're nearing production and we have recently received a small investment. https://www.zipsub.com/ https://www.zipsub.com/

jacques_chester 11y ago
Another competitor in this space. Welcome!