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Because when someone pays you directly, you're offering them something they value and would pay for rather than invading their brain with ads that they don't wa

by aditya 17y ago

Because when someone pays you directly, you're offering them something they value and would pay for rather than invading their brain with ads that they don't want to see?

axod 17y ago
It works for some things. But charging users money to use facebook/twitter/most websites just wouldn't work.
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- mquander 17y ago
  There's no good fundamental reason why it wouldn't work. The only reasons are cultural (people like getting things for "free", especially on the internet) and technical (you have to dig out your credit card, sign up with it, and trust Facebook not to screw you, in order to pay them a dollar a month.)
  - axod 17y ago
    I disagree. The reasons are more straightforward. If there's a choice between a paid website, and a free website, the free one will win out. And advertising means you can offer users something for 'free'. So lets say google switched to charging users for access to their search engine, a competitor would just popup that was 'free', and everyone would use that instead.
    - mquander 17y ago
      Well, I agree. That's what I meant to say when I referred to the cultural reason; since free alternatives always appear, people always expect a good free version to be available, and are even more hesitant to pay. However, I don't think that's a good place for us to be. Firstly, it remains to be seen whether it's technically sustainable; if ad blockers continue to become more mainstream and more sophisticated, ads will start bringing in less and less money. Secondly, I think that many non-ad-blocking users are making a poor choice when they choose an ad-supported free version, because it's very hard to evaluate the costs to you of having ads on content. It puts a mental burden on you, wastes your time, and may (invisibly to you) cause you to make poor purchasing decisions later. Those are all real costs, but it's impossible for you to put a dollar value on them.
      - davidw 17y ago
        Whether we think that's a good place to be or not does not really matter. What matters are the underlying economics, which seem to pretty much continuously push in the direction of free services.
      - axod 17y ago
        >> "Firstly, it remains to be seen whether it's technically sustainable; if ad blockers continue to become more mainstream and more sophisticated, ads will start bringing in less and less money." It's been rising steadily for 10+ years :/ Advertising in general has been pretty strong for 100+ years. I doubt that'll change in our lifetimes. Advertisers always want to get their message to audiences, audiences always want to hear about new products. It's a pretty safe bet.
  - ericd 17y ago
    Charging for things works best in areas where there are weak or no network effects. In something like facebook, having half of the customer base drop out would be disasterous, because those remaining are left with a worse product - having all of their friends on it is one of the strongest features. In small business software a la 37 signals, you don't care how many other customers are there except for the vetting it provides. In landgrabs in a high network-effect area, you can't afford to charge more than one's competitors. Hence, advertising.

by aditya 17y ago

Because when someone pays you directly, you're offering them something they value and would pay for rather than invading their brain with ads that they don't want to see?

axod 17y ago

It works for some things. But charging users money to use facebook/twitter/most websites just wouldn't work.

deleted 17y ago
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deleted 17y ago
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mquander 17y ago
There's no good fundamental reason why it wouldn't work. The only reasons are cultural (people like getting things for "free", especially on the internet) and technical (you have to dig out your credit card, sign up with it, and trust Facebook not to screw you, in order to pay them a dollar a month.)
- axod 17y ago
  I disagree. The reasons are more straightforward. If there's a choice between a paid website, and a free website, the free one will win out. And advertising means you can offer users something for 'free'. So lets say google switched to charging users for access to their search engine, a competitor would just popup that was 'free', and everyone would use that instead.
  - mquander 17y ago
    Well, I agree. That's what I meant to say when I referred to the cultural reason; since free alternatives always appear, people always expect a good free version to be available, and are even more hesitant to pay. However, I don't think that's a good place for us to be. Firstly, it remains to be seen whether it's technically sustainable; if ad blockers continue to become more mainstream and more sophisticated, ads will start bringing in less and less money. Secondly, I think that many non-ad-blocking users are making a poor choice when they choose an ad-supported free version, because it's very hard to evaluate the costs to you of having ads on content. It puts a mental burden on you, wastes your time, and may (invisibly to you) cause you to make poor purchasing decisions later. Those are all real costs, but it's impossible for you to put a dollar value on them.
    - davidw 17y ago
      Whether we think that's a good place to be or not does not really matter. What matters are the underlying economics, which seem to pretty much continuously push in the direction of free services.
    - axod 17y ago
      >> "Firstly, it remains to be seen whether it's technically sustainable; if ad blockers continue to become more mainstream and more sophisticated, ads will start bringing in less and less money." It's been rising steadily for 10+ years :/ Advertising in general has been pretty strong for 100+ years. I doubt that'll change in our lifetimes. Advertisers always want to get their message to audiences, audiences always want to hear about new products. It's a pretty safe bet.
- ericd 17y ago
  Charging for things works best in areas where there are weak or no network effects. In something like facebook, having half of the customer base drop out would be disasterous, because those remaining are left with a worse product - having all of their friends on it is one of the strongest features. In small business software a la 37 signals, you don't care how many other customers are there except for the vetting it provides. In landgrabs in a high network-effect area, you can't afford to charge more than one's competitors. Hence, advertising.