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> 'costing them money' and 'denying them revenue' are the same thing No they're not. The point I was making is that you necessarily cost them money every time
by dandelany 17y ago
> 'costing them money' and 'denying them revenue' are the same thing
No they're not. The point I was making is that you necessarily cost them money every time you visit a page, but by blocking the ad, you're also denying them the revenue that would balance out that cost.
> But content providers like Ars want to mislead their customers into thinking they are getting something for free
I think that even the least savvy of Internet users understand the advertising model. No one is "misled" to believe that running a site like Ars costs nothing. They're not "pretending to be free" any more than a newspaper full of ads is.
- vannevar 17y agoYou're correct that visiting the page does impose an infinitesimal marginal cost. The economics would remain the same, however, if there were no cost at all for viewing the site. The content still costs money to produce. The real issue here is the denial of revenue, which as I said flows logically from nullifying the business model. Ars wants people to think that they are in the business of reporting tech news, when in fact they are in the business of selling individuals to advertisers. I don't see any notices on Ars explicitly asking people to view ads in exchange for viewing content. The reason is that doing so would confront people with the reality of the site and turn them off, even though many of them understand the ad model in principle. And yes, a newspaper full of ads is also pretending to be free. If Ars won't explicitly require their users to view ads, then they can hardly complain when people skip them. I have no sympathy.