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Your comment gave me a small idea: What if adblockers kept (locally stored) stats on sites you visited (where ads were blocked) and how often, and provided a l

Your comment gave me a small idea: What if adblockers kept (locally stored) stats on sites you visited (where ads were blocked) and how often, and provided a link to donate to them, if you were so inclined. In your case, it might say "You visit guardian 10 times per week. To donate, click here, or to subscribe, click here".

ams6110 10y ago
Honestly I don't think it would make a lot of difference. If I can read The Guardian for free, I'm not going to pay for it. Period. And I'm going to block the ads if I can. Note that I'm not saying I would never pay for access to content; I do, e.g. Netflix, and my town's local newspaper website (which has subscription-only access). Content is either worth paying for or it isn't. News orgnizations are in a tough spot here because there are so many news sources online it's not necessary to pay anyone. Anything newsworthy will be covered by a number of sources. The exceptions are local news, or highly technical/industry-specific news and analysis.
noway421 10y ago
Adblock actually acquired flattr to do exactly that.
mathw 10y ago
That kind of thing has been speculated on repeatedly. Nobody's really built a system to do it that's ever caught on, but there seem to be an increasing number of attempts as the online advertising model continues to collapse. I think we'll see a mainstream effort at some point, and at the moment with rumours of an ad blocker being built into Chrome I think it may well come from Google. They already had a sort of prototype microtransaction system, it's not at all inconceivable that they could expand that programme. And with their own ad network already running, they might be able to make the transition very easy for people who're running Google ads - they are theoretically in the position that they could say okay, anybody visiting a Google Ads site using Chrome has the choice to see the adverts or pay a small fee, the browser will handle it smoothly for them and the payment will go through the existing AdSense arrangements with the site owner.

ams6110 10y ago

Honestly I don't think it would make a lot of difference. If I can read The Guardian for free, I'm not going to pay for it. Period. And I'm going to block the ads if I can. Note that I'm not saying I would never pay for access to content; I do, e.g. Netflix, and my town's local newspaper website (which has subscription-only access). Content is either worth paying for or it isn't. News orgnizations are in a tough spot here because there are so many news sources online it's not necessary to pay anyone. Anything newsworthy will be covered by a number of sources. The exceptions are local news, or highly technical/industry-specific news and analysis.

noway421 10y ago

Adblock actually acquired flattr to do exactly that.

mathw 10y ago

That kind of thing has been speculated on repeatedly. Nobody's really built a system to do it that's ever caught on, but there seem to be an increasing number of attempts as the online advertising model continues to collapse. I think we'll see a mainstream effort at some point, and at the moment with rumours of an ad blocker being built into Chrome I think it may well come from Google. They already had a sort of prototype microtransaction system, it's not at all inconceivable that they could expand that programme. And with their own ad network already running, they might be able to make the transition very easy for people who're running Google ads - they are theoretically in the position that they could say okay, anybody visiting a Google Ads site using Chrome has the choice to see the adverts or pay a small fee, the browser will handle it smoothly for them and the payment will go through the existing AdSense arrangements with the site owner.