4 ms·

Take something like Google Search, a service that is ad-supported but is free to use and produces an enormous amount of value for virtually everyone on the inte

by phpnode 10y ago

Take something like Google Search, a service that is ad-supported but is free to use and produces an enormous amount of value for virtually everyone on the internet. What is their business model in a post-adwords world, where they've been forced to adapt? Presumably they'd have to charge for it, which means that the poorest people on the internet would not have access to this amazing tool that we take utterly for granted now. No one likes (poorly targeted, invasive) ads, but is that world preferable?

morgante 10y ago
Exactly. There are also huge problems associated with paying for many of these free services. If it were a pay-per-search model then I'd have to make a mental decision every time I do a search. This would impose massive cognitive overhead and present a deadweight loss. If it were a subscription model, building a competitive search engine would suddenly become much harder. Right now, I can freely experiment between different search engines to find the right one for a given query. If I need a subscription, then it would much more firmly entrench the dominant player. People spend a lot of time railing against advertising without considering how many great services have been supported by it for hundreds of years.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  People also spend a lot of time defending internet advertising without considering the deluge of trash it's unleashed on the web, how it smothered the troves of information people put up there for free, because it costs almost nothing to share and benefits all[0]. The first ones that said "fuck everybody else" were the advertisers. > how many great services have been supported by it for hundreds of years ... wait are you trolling? Ad-blockers grew out of a need. It's been "only" a few decades, and before that advertisement wasn't quite the same thing, was it? Nobody felt they needed an always on filter to protect their focus and attention from a constant 24/7 barrage of shitinformation screaming at you. Because advertisement hasn't always been doing that. Yes it's been lying a lot, maybe a lot more, maybe it always has, and I hate it for that as well, but that's a different discussion. That's not the discussion we're having today. We could have had that discussion but advertisement decided it wanted everything and right now it is paying people to flood the web with clickbait, listicles and other bullshit. [0] at some point (more than 10 years ago), you started to have to be clever and use smart queries to filter and step around the shit advertising. but for years now Google basically stopped returning anything as results that deep. the pages still exist but they won't let you dig deep into the index any more because the 99.9999% shit finally tipped over into rounding error. for a while they called you "robot" if you tried and give you a captcha because robots were mining the trash for different (less noble) purposes. you still get these captcha's some times but they seem to be stale filter triggers from threats long gone. most of the time you just get zero results for 2-3 word queries that used to return hundreds in an era the Internet was 1% of today's size. actually no most of the time you get results that have nothing to do with the query. you just get zero when you insist. and no verbatim mode doesn't help here.
bigbugbag 10y ago
Google search is not only ad-supported, it is also ad-supporting. it is carefully designed to collect and track your every click to feed their advertising business. I suppose google search business model in a post-adwords world could also be "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead". In the event of google search disappearing, affected people would use other search engines and it would make room for better search engines to emerge which is hardly possible right now as google owns the market.
- phpnode 10y ago
  > "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead" They might have the money but why should they give it away? They are not a charity. > it would make room for better search engines to emerge How would those search engines fund themselves? what would their business model be?
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > I suppose google search business model in a post-adwords world could also be "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead". But they only have this money because of AdWords. That means that, in this world, Google would still exist, but no-one could come enter the search space to compete with it—and surely that's not a desireable outcome.

by phpnode 10y ago

morgante 10y ago

Exactly. There are also huge problems associated with paying for many of these free services. If it were a pay-per-search model then I'd have to make a mental decision every time I do a search. This would impose massive cognitive overhead and present a deadweight loss. If it were a subscription model, building a competitive search engine would suddenly become much harder. Right now, I can freely experiment between different search engines to find the right one for a given query. If I need a subscription, then it would much more firmly entrench the dominant player. People spend a lot of time railing against advertising without considering how many great services have been supported by it for hundreds of years.

tripzilch 10y ago
People also spend a lot of time defending internet advertising without considering the deluge of trash it's unleashed on the web, how it smothered the troves of information people put up there for free, because it costs almost nothing to share and benefits all[0]. The first ones that said "fuck everybody else" were the advertisers. > how many great services have been supported by it for hundreds of years ... wait are you trolling? Ad-blockers grew out of a need. It's been "only" a few decades, and before that advertisement wasn't quite the same thing, was it? Nobody felt they needed an always on filter to protect their focus and attention from a constant 24/7 barrage of shitinformation screaming at you. Because advertisement hasn't always been doing that. Yes it's been lying a lot, maybe a lot more, maybe it always has, and I hate it for that as well, but that's a different discussion. That's not the discussion we're having today. We could have had that discussion but advertisement decided it wanted everything and right now it is paying people to flood the web with clickbait, listicles and other bullshit. [0] at some point (more than 10 years ago), you started to have to be clever and use smart queries to filter and step around the shit advertising. but for years now Google basically stopped returning anything as results that deep. the pages still exist but they won't let you dig deep into the index any more because the 99.9999% shit finally tipped over into rounding error. for a while they called you "robot" if you tried and give you a captcha because robots were mining the trash for different (less noble) purposes. you still get these captcha's some times but they seem to be stale filter triggers from threats long gone. most of the time you just get zero results for 2-3 word queries that used to return hundreds in an era the Internet was 1% of today's size. actually no most of the time you get results that have nothing to do with the query. you just get zero when you insist. and no verbatim mode doesn't help here.

bigbugbag 10y ago

Google search is not only ad-supported, it is also ad-supporting. it is carefully designed to collect and track your every click to feed their advertising business. I suppose google search business model in a post-adwords world could also be "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead". In the event of google search disappearing, affected people would use other search engines and it would make room for better search engines to emerge which is hardly possible right now as google owns the market.

phpnode 10y ago
> "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead" They might have the money but why should they give it away? They are not a charity. > it would make room for better search engines to emerge How would those search engines fund themselves? what would their business model be?
JadeNB 10y ago
> I suppose google search business model in a post-adwords world could also be "we have enough cash to run this service until everyone currently alive is dead". But they only have this money because of AdWords. That means that, in this world, Google would still exist, but no-one could come enter the search space to compete with it—and surely that's not a desireable outcome.