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I pay my ISP $70/month for a home internet connection. I pay my mobile provider $40/month for 2GB Data I pay $100/Yr to a hosting service for my ad-free web s

by boznz 10y ago

I pay my ISP $70/month for a home internet connection. I pay my mobile provider $40/month for 2GB Data I pay $100/Yr to a hosting service for my ad-free web site and email for my business which will always be there while my business is running (as will the ad-free web sites of most other businesses I know of). In addition to the above I pay various donations and subscriptions to certain sites I like and buy almost exclusively on line. It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising. To the multitude of news/media/blogs/click-bait sites duplicating the same content and that rely on advertising for their business model then good luck to you all, unobtrusive advertising was and still is ok with me, but because of the bad-apples it is now in your face and I ad-block everything.

alwaysdownvoted 10y ago
I'll bet a lot of folks would keep paying those prices even if all they did was use email. I'll bet further that is still the main reason many people have a home internet connection. That and internet banking, etc. Things subsidized by ads like YouTube and myriad other distractions are a bonus. If they were to disappear no one would be dropping their internet connection. Trust me, with bandwdth as it is, free video is not going to disappear. All things considered I think non-commercial websites like Wikipedia or Internet Archive are actually the most valuable ones. And even without ads they will not disappear because passionate dedicated people create them for non-commercial reasons. And the cost for the individual to store data and publish online keeps decreasing. The internet has heaps of inherent value that has nothing to do with advertising. Especially with today's computing power and bandwidth. It's like long distance calling anywhere in the world for a set monthly fee. And anyone can write software to send and receive over the network. Sign me up. For life. Anyone who used the internet in the late 80's early 90's before commercial activity was permitted, when bandwidth was limited and expensive, knows this. By all means argue for ads if it's your cash cow - try you best to save your golden goose, but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value. Indeed. Some would argue they reduce the value of the internet.
- bad_user 10y ago
  The Internet Archive would be nothing without actual content to archive. There are of course hundreds of thousands of valuable blogs (millions? tens of millions?), along with forums where people gather, discuss and share, such as this one. Such things won't disappear, because the act of publishing, talking to people, sharing has value even when done for free. That said I do worry about the future of the Internet. I think for example the game industry has been ruined by in-app payments, because of the "free to play, pay to win" model. It's only natural that this evolved of course, as the attraction towards "free" stuff is irresistible. We are so irrational in our decision making process, that we'd rather try out something free that will frustrate us endlessly until we pay. I also think the music industry is ruined by streaming services. Yeah, we had radio stations before these, but those were valuable for discovering music, after which you ended up buying vinyl records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, CDs, etc. And people owned those after buying them. The concept of collecting music is fading away. Even once respectable software is moving in that direction. My favorite subject being 1Password, which is moving to a subscription based model, managing to be both rentware and expensive. It's just evolution on one hand, but right now the pendulum is not swinging towards freedom. The main problem is that people will pirate if given the opportunity. This says something about how unfair the copyright law is of course, but the response of the industry isn't to make stuff free as in freedom, but to rob people of the opportunity to pirate, punishing and locking-in honest customers in the process. And how are they doing that? Well, they cheat and they lobby and they play mind tricks and they push hostile software and devices on us, etc. And we gladly accept all of that, with a smile on our faces, in the name of grandmas everywhere that need handholding. And going back to ads, you might hate ads, you might not think they provide value, but alternative business models are coming and I believe they'll be far worse. And that's because, judging by recent industry trends, there's no reason to suspect otherwise.
rtpg 10y ago
None of that money seems to be going towards producers of content on the internet. It's like paying to keeps the light on at the grocery store, but not for the food. Sure, it makes for a good place to Counter Strike/Paintball, but not so much for content. Though if you're spending your time on non-news-sites and the like, maybe you're fine without the newstand.
Aoyagi 10y ago
>It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising. Heh, maybe if you live in the US or some other place with high wages.
- mirimir 10y ago
  That is probably the key issue. Even with prices at current ad-auction level, perhaps on the order of $0.001-$0.01 per page view, people who live on $1 per day would be SOL. Maybe they could earn access solving CAPTCHAs, or whatever. Or maybe access could just be free. After all, forcing ads on people with ~no money arguably does ~no good.
alanwatts 10y ago
>It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising. Curious how many seem to think money is literally the lifeblood that the internet runs on. "Money" as we know it (i.e. the dollar) is a legacy centralized paper-based information system. The internet is a decentralized/distributed electric information system. The internet runs on electricity, not paper. Electricity is a renewable resource.

by boznz 10y ago

alwaysdownvoted 10y ago

I'll bet a lot of folks would keep paying those prices even if all they did was use email. I'll bet further that is still the main reason many people have a home internet connection. That and internet banking, etc. Things subsidized by ads like YouTube and myriad other distractions are a bonus. If they were to disappear no one would be dropping their internet connection. Trust me, with bandwdth as it is, free video is not going to disappear. All things considered I think non-commercial websites like Wikipedia or Internet Archive are actually the most valuable ones. And even without ads they will not disappear because passionate dedicated people create them for non-commercial reasons. And the cost for the individual to store data and publish online keeps decreasing. The internet has heaps of inherent value that has nothing to do with advertising. Especially with today's computing power and bandwidth. It's like long distance calling anywhere in the world for a set monthly fee. And anyone can write software to send and receive over the network. Sign me up. For life. Anyone who used the internet in the late 80's early 90's before commercial activity was permitted, when bandwidth was limited and expensive, knows this. By all means argue for ads if it's your cash cow - try you best to save your golden goose, but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value.

ktRolster 10y ago
but spare us the absurd arguments that ads are what give the internet value. Indeed. Some would argue they reduce the value of the internet.
bad_user 10y ago
The Internet Archive would be nothing without actual content to archive. There are of course hundreds of thousands of valuable blogs (millions? tens of millions?), along with forums where people gather, discuss and share, such as this one. Such things won't disappear, because the act of publishing, talking to people, sharing has value even when done for free. That said I do worry about the future of the Internet. I think for example the game industry has been ruined by in-app payments, because of the "free to play, pay to win" model. It's only natural that this evolved of course, as the attraction towards "free" stuff is irresistible. We are so irrational in our decision making process, that we'd rather try out something free that will frustrate us endlessly until we pay. I also think the music industry is ruined by streaming services. Yeah, we had radio stations before these, but those were valuable for discovering music, after which you ended up buying vinyl records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, CDs, etc. And people owned those after buying them. The concept of collecting music is fading away. Even once respectable software is moving in that direction. My favorite subject being 1Password, which is moving to a subscription based model, managing to be both rentware and expensive. It's just evolution on one hand, but right now the pendulum is not swinging towards freedom. The main problem is that people will pirate if given the opportunity. This says something about how unfair the copyright law is of course, but the response of the industry isn't to make stuff free as in freedom, but to rob people of the opportunity to pirate, punishing and locking-in honest customers in the process. And how are they doing that? Well, they cheat and they lobby and they play mind tricks and they push hostile software and devices on us, etc. And we gladly accept all of that, with a smile on our faces, in the name of grandmas everywhere that need handholding. And going back to ads, you might hate ads, you might not think they provide value, but alternative business models are coming and I believe they'll be far worse. And that's because, judging by recent industry trends, there's no reason to suspect otherwise.

rtpg 10y ago

None of that money seems to be going towards producers of content on the internet. It's like paying to keeps the light on at the grocery store, but not for the food. Sure, it makes for a good place to Counter Strike/Paintball, but not so much for content. Though if you're spending your time on non-news-sites and the like, maybe you're fine without the newstand.

Aoyagi 10y ago

>It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising. Heh, maybe if you live in the US or some other place with high wages.

mirimir 10y ago
That is probably the key issue. Even with prices at current ad-auction level, perhaps on the order of $0.001-$0.01 per page view, people who live on $1 per day would be SOL. Maybe they could earn access solving CAPTCHAs, or whatever. Or maybe access could just be free. After all, forcing ads on people with ~no money arguably does ~no good.

alanwatts 10y ago

>It seems to me there is plenty of money to keep the internet going without advertising. Curious how many seem to think money is literally the lifeblood that the internet runs on. "Money" as we know it (i.e. the dollar) is a legacy centralized paper-based information system. The internet is a decentralized/distributed electric information system. The internet runs on electricity, not paper. Electricity is a renewable resource.