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What about all the content available right now for free, without ads? Will it magically disappear just because some ad-supported businesses (that provide conten

What about all the content available right now for free, without ads? Will it magically disappear just because some ad-supported businesses (that provide content as a side-effect) are unable to find another way of sustaining themselves? Your argument is based on the premise that intrusive ads and contentcalypse are the only alternatives. This is simply false.

logicallee 10y ago
>What about all the content available right now for free, without ads? Sure. We're on one of these pages right now. It has a full-time paid moderator (dang), pays for its own servers, and has no content monetization of any kind. It is subsidized by a startup incubator, not the readers. This isn't an objection on my part. But I literally can't tell if the conversation is being influenced, and neither can you. It's simply indistinguishable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494500 It could be great, it could be draconian, you never know. When I read about Wall Street in the Wall Street Journal, I'd prefer not to have to make the same guesses. I prefer to see advertising in the Wall Street Journal, with an editorial iron curtain between the advertising and content divisions, and advertising very clearly labelled. The Wall Street Journal without any clearly-labelled advertising would be a scary thing.
- pjc50 10y ago
  This ship has sailed. The WSJ has already run adverts as editorial ( http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-jou... ). Moreover, it's a Murdoch paper and therefore reflects the prejudices of its owner. The idea that the old printed press is some sort of politically and financially neutral arbiter of facts is convenient but has never been entirely true. The same has also happened to the Telegraph in the UK: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-have-resigned-from-telegraph https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-...
  - logicallee 10y ago
    I got a lot of downvotes, but here is why your first link, the Guardian, works: http://imgur.com/1ze5jZM http://imgur.com/1ze5jZM (I'm drawing attention to the editorially independent advertisement.) The cut-off portion reads: >In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. It's literally an exact demonstration of the separation effect that I'm talking about. The Guardian is your trusted source, because it gets to display well-marked, editorially independent advertisement, instead of writing it into stories. This might be eroding - your link is from 2011 after all - but the fastest way to erode it completely is to remove advertising revenue and make newspapers more beholden to native advertising or shallow advertising-like content.
    - klibertp 10y ago
      Why do you insist that the only alternative is for newspapers to be: "more beholden to native advertising or shallow advertising-like content"? There are other ways of generating revenue while still producing high-quality content. And it's not like the whole world is going to turn adblockers on overnight, the trend is visible but it's slow, newspapers and other related businesses have plenty of time to think this through and implement other ways of getting money. Also, the trend may well die out if there is a significant change in how intrusive ads are in general. Another thing is that, in capitalism, this kind of thing is supposed to happen all the time, isn't it? Isn't it just that "the newspaper market is ready for disruption"? Is publishing industry that dependent on this single stream of revenue? It's like Saudi Arabia and the oil, then. I can't help but think that publishers are lamenting because "free lunch is over". There was no Internet and everything was fine. Then the WWW (and AdWords) came and suddenly it was easier than ever to show your ads to thousands and later up to millions of users. Someone discovered that such advertising actually "works" (for some definition of "works"...), people started taking it seriously and publishers naturally expanded their businesses to the Internet. Their contribution to the Internet is mainly ads and DRM. Anyway, it worked for a long time and now it may be slowly dying out, some publishers may go bankrupt, but many will find ways to replace ads revenue on the Internet with something else. Basically, what's the big deal? What am I missing here?

logicallee 10y ago

>What about all the content available right now for free, without ads? Sure. We're on one of these pages right now. It has a full-time paid moderator (dang), pays for its own servers, and has no content monetization of any kind. It is subsidized by a startup incubator, not the readers. This isn't an objection on my part. But I literally can't tell if the conversation is being influenced, and neither can you. It's simply indistinguishable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494500 It could be great, it could be draconian, you never know. When I read about Wall Street in the Wall Street Journal, I'd prefer not to have to make the same guesses. I prefer to see advertising in the Wall Street Journal, with an editorial iron curtain between the advertising and content divisions, and advertising very clearly labelled. The Wall Street Journal without any clearly-labelled advertising would be a scary thing.

pjc50 10y ago
This ship has sailed. The WSJ has already run adverts as editorial ( http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-jou... ). Moreover, it's a Murdoch paper and therefore reflects the prejudices of its owner. The idea that the old printed press is some sort of politically and financially neutral arbiter of facts is convenient but has never been entirely true. The same has also happened to the Telegraph in the UK: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-have-resigned-from-telegraph https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-...
- logicallee 10y ago
  I got a lot of downvotes, but here is why your first link, the Guardian, works: http://imgur.com/1ze5jZM http://imgur.com/1ze5jZM (I'm drawing attention to the editorially independent advertisement.) The cut-off portion reads: >In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. It's literally an exact demonstration of the separation effect that I'm talking about. The Guardian is your trusted source, because it gets to display well-marked, editorially independent advertisement, instead of writing it into stories. This might be eroding - your link is from 2011 after all - but the fastest way to erode it completely is to remove advertising revenue and make newspapers more beholden to native advertising or shallow advertising-like content.
  - klibertp 10y ago
    Why do you insist that the only alternative is for newspapers to be: "more beholden to native advertising or shallow advertising-like content"? There are other ways of generating revenue while still producing high-quality content. And it's not like the whole world is going to turn adblockers on overnight, the trend is visible but it's slow, newspapers and other related businesses have plenty of time to think this through and implement other ways of getting money. Also, the trend may well die out if there is a significant change in how intrusive ads are in general. Another thing is that, in capitalism, this kind of thing is supposed to happen all the time, isn't it? Isn't it just that "the newspaper market is ready for disruption"? Is publishing industry that dependent on this single stream of revenue? It's like Saudi Arabia and the oil, then. I can't help but think that publishers are lamenting because "free lunch is over". There was no Internet and everything was fine. Then the WWW (and AdWords) came and suddenly it was easier than ever to show your ads to thousands and later up to millions of users. Someone discovered that such advertising actually "works" (for some definition of "works"...), people started taking it seriously and publishers naturally expanded their businesses to the Internet. Their contribution to the Internet is mainly ads and DRM. Anyway, it worked for a long time and now it may be slowly dying out, some publishers may go bankrupt, but many will find ways to replace ads revenue on the Internet with something else. Basically, what's the big deal? What am I missing here?