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The problem is what to pay for and how. The WSJ may aggressively wish I were a paying subscriber, but I only read a handful of their articles, so that's never g

The problem is what to pay for and how. The WSJ may aggressively wish I were a paying subscriber, but I only read a handful of their articles, so that's never going to happen. I get news from all over the Internet, often because it gets posted here. Microtransactions might work, but have never taken off. I would happily pay for an all-you-can-eat, ad-free subscription model, just as I'm happy to pay for Spotify. But it has to cover all the content I actually read, which in effect means hundreds of tiny specialist blogs and major publications like WSJ. Unfortunately such a subscription model doesn't exist. And very few businesses are in a position to create it. Perhaps Google could, by offering a no-ads subscription across their adwords networ. They are unlikely to ever offer this though, because it would cannabalise their existing, highly profitable ad business. Hardly anyone else would have the necessary traction to make it work.

dsharlet 10y ago
> Perhaps Google could, by offering a no-ads subscription across their adwords networ. They are unlikely to ever offer this though, because it would cannabalise their existing, highly profitable ad business. Hardly anyone else would have the necessary traction to make it work. https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
- robert_tweed 10y ago
  I am very surprised that this exists at all and I'll be even more surprised if it is successful. It seems like, to make it work, they would need to give more than the vague promise of fewer ads and actually require exclusivity for publishers in the programme. After all, Google ads tend to be among the least obnoxious, so if I were to pay for no ads (on the basis that I simply don't want to see ads and not because of a greater societal benefit of removing them as a perverse incentive) then I would want a very clear contract that says for X group of websites, I will get no ads and they will get revenue from my browsing. I don't want there to exist some group Y that still gets revenue from my subscriptions, even though they continue to show ads anyway. In that case the subscription is unfit for purpose; it might as well be called a donation instead. It's also possible that Google intends to play both sides and offer higher-priced, high-priority ads that are always shown. It could just be the AdBlock mess all over again, which is the trouble with having conflicting interests.
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dsharlet 10y ago

> Perhaps Google could, by offering a no-ads subscription across their adwords networ. They are unlikely to ever offer this though, because it would cannabalise their existing, highly profitable ad business. Hardly anyone else would have the necessary traction to make it work. https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/

robert_tweed 10y ago
I am very surprised that this exists at all and I'll be even more surprised if it is successful. It seems like, to make it work, they would need to give more than the vague promise of fewer ads and actually require exclusivity for publishers in the programme. After all, Google ads tend to be among the least obnoxious, so if I were to pay for no ads (on the basis that I simply don't want to see ads and not because of a greater societal benefit of removing them as a perverse incentive) then I would want a very clear contract that says for X group of websites, I will get no ads and they will get revenue from my browsing. I don't want there to exist some group Y that still gets revenue from my subscriptions, even though they continue to show ads anyway. In that case the subscription is unfit for purpose; it might as well be called a donation instead. It's also possible that Google intends to play both sides and offer higher-priced, high-priority ads that are always shown. It could just be the AdBlock mess all over again, which is the trouble with having conflicting interests.

deleted 10y ago

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