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Something has always bothered me about companies like Facebook and Google that generate such a high percentage of their revenue from advertising. They strike me
by bwh2 17y ago
Something has always bothered me about companies like Facebook and Google that generate such a high percentage of their revenue from advertising. They strike me as quite vulnerable.
- csytan 17y agoWhy? Advertising has been around for hundreds of years, and is involved in nearly every medium of communication. I'd wager that a high percentage of HN users who own businesses are advertising on Google or Facebook.
- bwh2 17y agoWell, my main issue is that for said companies, ads are essentially the only source of revenue. So what would happen if that source of revenue was cut off? Perhaps an ad blocker becomes wildly popular. Well, that destroys Facebook and Google's revenue model. But it's also the nature of ads. I've never intentionally clicked on an ad. Anecdotally speaking, I've observed that the more sophisticated a user is, the less likely s/he is to click an ad. So in my opinion, a revenue model based solely on ads doesn't seem to bode well in an increasingly tech-savvy society.
- freshfunk 17y agoI'm a pretty sophisticated web user and I have intentionally clicked on ads while doing Google searches. Why? Because I was looking to purchase something and I was looking for merchants. The organic listings were either equivalent or less relevant. Perfect example: Sending my mom flowers for Mother's day. I really don't have a favorite retailer I go to. I just go to Google. Many people make this argument that the only thing Google has really made money from is ads. I take it to be FUD. Many business do extremely well by being really, really good at one thing.