5 ms·

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet m

What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Only selling user data without a way to use it to target ads? Consumer software that isn't free? Sock puppet marketing run rampant? It would sure be a different world.

jpalomaki 10y ago
Maybe we will see more "sponsored content".
news_to_me 10y ago
I'm hoping it would be something based on micropayments, maybe through a service like flattr. That would keep content accessible (for a small, affordable fee) and completely block out the bad actors (i.e. advertisers).
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  I've been hearing lots of good things about Patreon, especially from Youtube personalities. I haven't heard of Flattr being used much recently.
  - LeoPanthera 10y ago
    Patreon works around the concept of subscriptions, rather than one-off payments. One-off payments seems like the better idea, and a cryptocurrency seems like a natural fit. Perhaps not bitcoin, since the fees are so high, but maybe ethereum or litecoin.
    - jerf 10y ago
      The problem with one-off payments is that payments are just that... one-off. If you make $500 this month, the correlation on making $500 next month isn't strong enough for most people to feel very comfortable trying to make a living or reliable hobby out of whatever you're trying to pay them for. The long tail is generally going to have "hits" where they spike up on certain posts or videos or whathave you, but those are unreliable. People don't generally like their income to follow a power law. So I think that's where the core Patreon advantage lies; get around 1000 people to give you 1-5$ a month and you're living a middle class lifestyle with some reasonable assurance that next month you're not going to make 1/50th what you made last month. (It isn't perfect, but nothing is. There is not a single person reading this who can guarantee me with mathematical 100% precision that next month they're going to have positive income.) In fact I'd point out that when it comes down to it, the incentives created by pervasive, automatic micropayments looks almost identical to what we have now. Clickbait, low-effort high-volume articles would rule. There would be fewer trackers, but that would be about it. I like what the Patreon ecosystem puts out waaaay better than that. I think you actually need that bit of detachment between the product and the payment, if you ever want to see a work produced with a thought other than "How many clicks can this exact article get?" Patreon artists are not severed from the need to make sure they stay popular with their base but at least they can go down tangents and be speculative sometimes without it instantly trashing a noticeable portion of their income.
      - news_to_me 10y ago
        > The problem with one-off payments is that payments are just that... one-off. That makes it pretty similar to ad-supported sites now. The difference is, the revenue comes from the user, who is more likely to incentivize good content. > In fact I'd point out that when it comes down to it, the incentives created by pervasive, automatic micropayments looks almost identical to what we have now. That's a really good point, and as you mention that's pretty much what we have now. I would think that in a micro-payment based world, where you have to pay a bit to read an article, publishers would gain reputation to protect against this. If it cost a teeny bit of my own money to look at a buzzfeed quiz, I'd probably stop doing that pretty quickly. But I do agree that it isn't the best model for all sites, and it would be nice to offer micro-payments along with Patreon-style subscription, for those who know they'll want content from this site a lot. Kind of like how newspapers used to work.
    - bigbugbag 10y ago
      One time payment are bad, they require more overhead and don't provide stability or security. Subscriptions are preferrable. About cryptocurrence, maybe look at steem and steemit.
  - Rmilb 10y ago
    Flattr just got got bought by Adblock Plus...
jpmattia 10y ago
> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Probably a lot like the pre-ad-supported web.
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  Gopher!
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Minuscule?
flubert 10y ago
How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? Is it essentially paid for as a marketing / recruiting aid out of ycombinator funds? Or is it a charity paid for by PG?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? I believe it's two relatively simple servers running the Arc code of HN, and Cloudflare as CDN. HN does not need much processing power or bandwidth - 5 assets (cacheable+versioned CSS/JS, three tiny gifs) and thanks to gzip usually two-digit KB sizes of content. The only real expense is the manpower needed for moderation.
  - ythn 10y ago
    > The only real expense is the manpower needed for moderation. dang, who would want to do that as their job?
    - bradknowles 10y ago
      Punmeister Meisterpunner sees what you did there. ;)
- srtjstjsj 10y ago
  PG has explained that HN is an ad for YC, both indirectly, and directly (YC companies inject "sponsored posts" into HN frontpage, to advertise jobs.)
nkrisc 10y ago
I imagine part of it might look like some sites already look today. Ads that are not served through third-party ad networks, but are created and displayed by the owners of the site based on direct relationships with advertisers and sponsors.
dpflan 10y ago
HTTP 402's and cryptocurrencies (fractional payments for access)? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7857236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7857236 I remember talking to a friend who was trying out 21co's "bitcoin" computer and that 402+cryptocurrency payment seemed like something to evolve from that project. It seems to have changed focus a bit since that discussion. https://21.co/ https://21.co/
- pjc50 10y ago
  Isn't there a global limit of 3 bitcoin transactions per second and a cost of about $10 in electricity too? 21.co was an obvious scam with near zero sales.
  - Rmilb 10y ago
    7 trans actions per seconds. But there are several changes in the pipline to fix this. One solution is having "off-chain" transactions not on the main blockchain, this would allow us to not record every coffee purchase made in bitcoin to be stored on the main chain. Look up Lightning Network if you are interested in how this is being done. Your main point is correct that Bitcoin can only handle 7 tps while Visa can handle 20,000 tps.
pmoriarty 10y ago
It could go the cable television route, where gatekeepers get paid for monthly subscriptions to 200 channels. Similarly, on the web gatekeepers like Facebook could get paid for monthly subscriptions to content from 200 websites (more than anyone could ever need, right?).
visarga 10y ago
> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? It was possible, even though most people disagreed at the time, to make open source thrive and write the largest, most complete encyclopedia. Stackoverflow filled with answers without pay. An ad-free world would be ok, people are creative, we can make our own stuff. I, for example, read mostly comment threads, research papers and watch user made videos. We don't need their content and ads at all.
- Myrmornis 10y ago
  In an ad-free world, only the affluent members of society would pay for access to intelligent journalism. The rest of society would be a mixture of information-starved, and fed information by special interest groups that provide content more cheaply than the paywalls. EDIT: Just to be clear, my own opinion is that online advertising is a horrifically ugly, cynical blight on the human experience, which causes huge amounts of unintelligent visual content to be put in front of billions of human brains. But an ad-free future is hugely problematic for the maintenance of a well-informed society, and we have seen where a dumb electorate gets us.
  - pg314 10y ago
    Isn't that what we have currently? Quality journalism seems hard to pull off with only online ads. Most of it nowadays is supported by subscriptions and/or print editions. They help subsidize free access to some of the content.
    - Myrmornis 10y ago
      Would you say that, today, most people who read quality journalism do so by paying subscriptions? I'm not sure about that. The Guardian is one obvious exception, but I agree the center-right newspapers have moved to subscription. It's very broken though. The whole idea of paying a subscription for a newspaper is outdated -- it's based on the days when the head of household would select a newspaper and have it delivered to the house before breakfast. Most of the time when I'm reading news online I'm wasting time that I would prefer to be using productively, so there's no way I'm going to pay for that. Additionally, there's so much good free material on the internet that there's not enough incentive to pay for it. I think the major newspapers should accept that the days of a single cathedral-like website for their newspaper where devotees will spend hours are gone; if we could pay a small amount effortlessly on a per-article basis, choosing between many different sources, that might make sense.
bigbugbag 10y ago
> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Maybe something like steemit

jpalomaki 10y ago

Maybe we will see more "sponsored content".

news_to_me 10y ago

I'm hoping it would be something based on micropayments, maybe through a service like flattr. That would keep content accessible (for a small, affordable fee) and completely block out the bad actors (i.e. advertisers).

theandrewbailey 10y ago
I've been hearing lots of good things about Patreon, especially from Youtube personalities. I haven't heard of Flattr being used much recently.
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  Patreon works around the concept of subscriptions, rather than one-off payments. One-off payments seems like the better idea, and a cryptocurrency seems like a natural fit. Perhaps not bitcoin, since the fees are so high, but maybe ethereum or litecoin.
  - jerf 10y ago
    The problem with one-off payments is that payments are just that... one-off. If you make $500 this month, the correlation on making $500 next month isn't strong enough for most people to feel very comfortable trying to make a living or reliable hobby out of whatever you're trying to pay them for. The long tail is generally going to have "hits" where they spike up on certain posts or videos or whathave you, but those are unreliable. People don't generally like their income to follow a power law. So I think that's where the core Patreon advantage lies; get around 1000 people to give you 1-5$ a month and you're living a middle class lifestyle with some reasonable assurance that next month you're not going to make 1/50th what you made last month. (It isn't perfect, but nothing is. There is not a single person reading this who can guarantee me with mathematical 100% precision that next month they're going to have positive income.) In fact I'd point out that when it comes down to it, the incentives created by pervasive, automatic micropayments looks almost identical to what we have now. Clickbait, low-effort high-volume articles would rule. There would be fewer trackers, but that would be about it. I like what the Patreon ecosystem puts out waaaay better than that. I think you actually need that bit of detachment between the product and the payment, if you ever want to see a work produced with a thought other than "How many clicks can this exact article get?" Patreon artists are not severed from the need to make sure they stay popular with their base but at least they can go down tangents and be speculative sometimes without it instantly trashing a noticeable portion of their income.
    - news_to_me 10y ago
      > The problem with one-off payments is that payments are just that... one-off. That makes it pretty similar to ad-supported sites now. The difference is, the revenue comes from the user, who is more likely to incentivize good content. > In fact I'd point out that when it comes down to it, the incentives created by pervasive, automatic micropayments looks almost identical to what we have now. That's a really good point, and as you mention that's pretty much what we have now. I would think that in a micro-payment based world, where you have to pay a bit to read an article, publishers would gain reputation to protect against this. If it cost a teeny bit of my own money to look at a buzzfeed quiz, I'd probably stop doing that pretty quickly. But I do agree that it isn't the best model for all sites, and it would be nice to offer micro-payments along with Patreon-style subscription, for those who know they'll want content from this site a lot. Kind of like how newspapers used to work.
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    One time payment are bad, they require more overhead and don't provide stability or security. Subscriptions are preferrable. About cryptocurrence, maybe look at steem and steemit.
- Rmilb 10y ago
  Flattr just got got bought by Adblock Plus...

jpmattia 10y ago

> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Probably a lot like the pre-ad-supported web.

LeoPanthera 10y ago
Gopher!
kalleboo 10y ago
Minuscule?

flubert 10y ago

How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? Is it essentially paid for as a marketing / recruiting aid out of ycombinator funds? Or is it a charity paid for by PG?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 10y ago
> How does HN pay the server bills, etc.? I believe it's two relatively simple servers running the Arc code of HN, and Cloudflare as CDN. HN does not need much processing power or bandwidth - 5 assets (cacheable+versioned CSS/JS, three tiny gifs) and thanks to gzip usually two-digit KB sizes of content. The only real expense is the manpower needed for moderation.
- ythn 10y ago
  > The only real expense is the manpower needed for moderation. dang, who would want to do that as their job?
  - bradknowles 10y ago
    Punmeister Meisterpunner sees what you did there. ;)
srtjstjsj 10y ago
PG has explained that HN is an ad for YC, both indirectly, and directly (YC companies inject "sponsored posts" into HN frontpage, to advertise jobs.)

nkrisc 10y ago

I imagine part of it might look like some sites already look today. Ads that are not served through third-party ad networks, but are created and displayed by the owners of the site based on direct relationships with advertisers and sponsors.

dpflan 10y ago

HTTP 402's and cryptocurrencies (fractional payments for access)? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7857236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7857236 I remember talking to a friend who was trying out 21co's "bitcoin" computer and that 402+cryptocurrency payment seemed like something to evolve from that project. It seems to have changed focus a bit since that discussion. https://21.co/ https://21.co/

pjc50 10y ago
Isn't there a global limit of 3 bitcoin transactions per second and a cost of about $10 in electricity too? 21.co was an obvious scam with near zero sales.
- Rmilb 10y ago
  7 trans actions per seconds. But there are several changes in the pipline to fix this. One solution is having "off-chain" transactions not on the main blockchain, this would allow us to not record every coffee purchase made in bitcoin to be stored on the main chain. Look up Lightning Network if you are interested in how this is being done. Your main point is correct that Bitcoin can only handle 7 tps while Visa can handle 20,000 tps.

pmoriarty 10y ago

It could go the cable television route, where gatekeepers get paid for monthly subscriptions to 200 channels. Similarly, on the web gatekeepers like Facebook could get paid for monthly subscriptions to content from 200 websites (more than anyone could ever need, right?).

visarga 10y ago

> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? It was possible, even though most people disagreed at the time, to make open source thrive and write the largest, most complete encyclopedia. Stackoverflow filled with answers without pay. An ad-free world would be ok, people are creative, we can make our own stuff. I, for example, read mostly comment threads, research papers and watch user made videos. We don't need their content and ads at all.

Myrmornis 10y ago
In an ad-free world, only the affluent members of society would pay for access to intelligent journalism. The rest of society would be a mixture of information-starved, and fed information by special interest groups that provide content more cheaply than the paywalls. EDIT: Just to be clear, my own opinion is that online advertising is a horrifically ugly, cynical blight on the human experience, which causes huge amounts of unintelligent visual content to be put in front of billions of human brains. But an ad-free future is hugely problematic for the maintenance of a well-informed society, and we have seen where a dumb electorate gets us.
- pg314 10y ago
  Isn't that what we have currently? Quality journalism seems hard to pull off with only online ads. Most of it nowadays is supported by subscriptions and/or print editions. They help subsidize free access to some of the content.
  - Myrmornis 10y ago
    Would you say that, today, most people who read quality journalism do so by paying subscriptions? I'm not sure about that. The Guardian is one obvious exception, but I agree the center-right newspapers have moved to subscription. It's very broken though. The whole idea of paying a subscription for a newspaper is outdated -- it's based on the days when the head of household would select a newspaper and have it delivered to the house before breakfast. Most of the time when I'm reading news online I'm wasting time that I would prefer to be using productively, so there's no way I'm going to pay for that. Additionally, there's so much good free material on the internet that there's not enough incentive to pay for it. I think the major newspapers should accept that the days of a single cathedral-like website for their newspaper where devotees will spend hours are gone; if we could pay a small amount effortlessly on a per-article basis, choosing between many different sources, that might make sense.

bigbugbag 10y ago

> What would a post-ad-supported web looks like? Maybe something like steemit