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Full disclosure: I work in ad-tech. 1. Why do you guys downvote civil, informative posts that just happen to be philosophically different than yours? Seems ant

Full disclosure: I work in ad-tech. 1. Why do you guys downvote civil, informative posts that just happen to be philosophically different than yours? Seems anti-knowledge, and a net negative to HN. 2. What do you think pays for the internet? This is the first time I've ever engaged in a discussion, but I've been lurking for a year or two, and at least half of the links shared in the comments are ad-supported. Probably more. Sharing information is going to be more difficult when the money dries up and everything is behind a paywall. 3. People are annoyed that they see the same ad over and over again, but "tracking" is a cardinal sin. How is this supposed to work?

ericheymer 9y ago
The notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated. Recent research shows massive amounts of fraud with the involvement of the ad industry which eats through the money flowing through the ecosystem. See https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders-are-connected-to-a-fraud-scheme-that?utm_term=.cqVM0x3aYJ#.pnzYnK19rE https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders... and https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertising-operation-b84cd38d6b85 https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertis....
- wweee 9y ago
  I don't see how the two links you posted supports the assertion that the "notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated." First link is about fraud against advertisers, selling them fake ad impressions. Second link is about a sophisticated scheme to deliver malware to the end users using the ad ecosystem. How does that dispute the fact that people who have websites can profit from putting ads on them?
lucb1e 9y ago
> How is this supposed to work? By paying, not with your data but with your money. Why does Linux work if nobody pays for it? People like to work on it and it's a community project useful to everyone. Lots of site are run this way, but too many see that they could make a few pennies out of it and turn that way. Then it turns to a dependency, people start blocking ads, and oh my god the whole internet cannot be paid for, you argue. I'd much rather pay for things that are expensive (large sites like HN and Reddit, streaming licenses like Spotify, bandwidth and storage of Youtube, etc.) if then they didn't try to invade my privacy. In fact, I do pay for Reddit and Spotify. Youtube won't stop invading my privacy because they're Google's and HN does not have a donation option. I host websites myself and it costs me a little, but even HN-frontpage events are not expensive enough to warrant subjecting my visitors to modern ads (which means not only annoying ads, but sometimes malware, and always invasive tracking). > 1. Why do you guys downvote civil, informative posts that just happen to be philosophically different than yours? I suspect you can't point out which post you're talking about or you'd reveal your real account, so I don't know what you're talking about specifically. I'm going to wager it's because they think those arguments didn't further the discussion and are really just plain wrong. (That's what I think they think, not saying that I think so, because I still have no idea which post it is about.)

ericheymer 9y ago

The notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated. Recent research shows massive amounts of fraud with the involvement of the ad industry which eats through the money flowing through the ecosystem. See https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders-are-connected-to-a-fraud-scheme-that?utm_term=.cqVM0x3aYJ#.pnzYnK19rE https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders... and https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertising-operation-b84cd38d6b85 https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertis....

wweee 9y ago
I don't see how the two links you posted supports the assertion that the "notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated." First link is about fraud against advertisers, selling them fake ad impressions. Second link is about a sophisticated scheme to deliver malware to the end users using the ad ecosystem. How does that dispute the fact that people who have websites can profit from putting ads on them?

lucb1e 9y ago

> How is this supposed to work? By paying, not with your data but with your money. Why does Linux work if nobody pays for it? People like to work on it and it's a community project useful to everyone. Lots of site are run this way, but too many see that they could make a few pennies out of it and turn that way. Then it turns to a dependency, people start blocking ads, and oh my god the whole internet cannot be paid for, you argue. I'd much rather pay for things that are expensive (large sites like HN and Reddit, streaming licenses like Spotify, bandwidth and storage of Youtube, etc.) if then they didn't try to invade my privacy. In fact, I do pay for Reddit and Spotify. Youtube won't stop invading my privacy because they're Google's and HN does not have a donation option. I host websites myself and it costs me a little, but even HN-frontpage events are not expensive enough to warrant subjecting my visitors to modern ads (which means not only annoying ads, but sometimes malware, and always invasive tracking). > 1. Why do you guys downvote civil, informative posts that just happen to be philosophically different than yours? I suspect you can't point out which post you're talking about or you'd reveal your real account, so I don't know what you're talking about specifically. I'm going to wager it's because they think those arguments didn't further the discussion and are really just plain wrong. (That's what I think they think, not saying that I think so, because I still have no idea which post it is about.)