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Isn't mining in a browser a direct threat to their ad-driven business? If you get rid of ads in exchange of some spare CPU/GPU cycles, their business model woul

by bitL 9y ago

Isn't mining in a browser a direct threat to their ad-driven business? If you get rid of ads in exchange of some spare CPU/GPU cycles, their business model would no longer be relevant; no wonder they would love to ban it. I'd however gladly exchange it for ad-free websites.

lawlessone 9y ago
I hate ads but i'd prefer them to this.
bhaak 9y ago
But cryptomining in browsers is highly inefficient. No user likes their laptop's or desktop machine's fans going crazy when visiting a site. Regardless if the reason is cryptomining or some stupid javascript code. Google should be much more concerned about stuff like BAT (Basic Attention Token).
- ndury 9y ago
  TPB has implemented miners over ads and I have absolutely no issue with that whatsoever. I rather have the folks around me hear fans spinning than random russian lady dancing in my browser. For some, it could very well be an alternative.
- prepend 9y ago
  Without ad blockers my fan frequently kicks in from flash/js ads. I frequently have to kill tabs like YouTube and even Reddit for hitting high cpu just from doing dumb stuff. I still visit those sites anyway.
bpicolo 9y ago
Not at all. In-browser cryptomining is not even within an order of magnitude as lucrative as ads (probably not even two orders of magnitude), and users actively despise having the browser slow to a crawl because these are in the background. It's far worse for users than standard advertising.
- prepend 9y ago
  Even though it’s much less lucrative than ads, it can still disrupt google. It’s work examining the equivalent of mining in CPM terms to compare. But precisely why it’s less lucrative is why it’s a threat. Remember when Napster came out and the argument was “they’ll never make as much money as the record industry?” For new entrants making an order of magnitude less is perfectly fine because they are a new market. Why would they care if google loses $1B in ad revenue if they make $100M. Especially since you don’t really need a market maker like Google matching ad buyers to content makers, the $100M can go directly to content creators running sites. The payout for Adsense is super low for display. They don’t reveal the payout ratio for clicks, but I expect it’s 10-30%. So for comparison for $1B in current AdSense payout to content sites, content creators only get $100-300M based on clicks. If you replaced this with crypto miners then you only need 10-30% payout from browser miners in order for content creators to break even. But ad in all the readers who never click (like me, the ads are not relevant) this gets more attractive. If google is smart, they do recognize this as a threat.
  - simias 9y ago
    Given that every day more people browse the web on relatively weaker handheld devices running on batteries I have a hard time believing that most people will be fine with having websites drain their batteries and if it becomes commonplace I expect that many people will block them. And remember that mining is effectively a zero-sum game, the more people mine the harder it becomes to mine. It effectively means that every new websites who switches to mining for monetization makes it less valuable for all the other websites already doing it since you're all sharing the same cake.
    - bitL 9y ago
      > is effectively a zero-sum game That's only true for deflationary currencies. One can conjure up an ad-replacement currency, let's call it impre$$ion, that would be inflationary and perhaps linearly related to the time spent on the page regardless of computing performance of a viewer (though some viewers might be more valuable than others, e.g. those running iOS). Then there could be a separate market/stock-exchange for impre$$ions, replacing ad income. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was in the works already.

by bitL 9y ago

lawlessone 9y ago

I hate ads but i'd prefer them to this.

bhaak 9y ago

But cryptomining in browsers is highly inefficient. No user likes their laptop's or desktop machine's fans going crazy when visiting a site. Regardless if the reason is cryptomining or some stupid javascript code. Google should be much more concerned about stuff like BAT (Basic Attention Token).

ndury 9y ago
TPB has implemented miners over ads and I have absolutely no issue with that whatsoever. I rather have the folks around me hear fans spinning than random russian lady dancing in my browser. For some, it could very well be an alternative.
prepend 9y ago
Without ad blockers my fan frequently kicks in from flash/js ads. I frequently have to kill tabs like YouTube and even Reddit for hitting high cpu just from doing dumb stuff. I still visit those sites anyway.

bpicolo 9y ago

Not at all. In-browser cryptomining is not even within an order of magnitude as lucrative as ads (probably not even two orders of magnitude), and users actively despise having the browser slow to a crawl because these are in the background. It's far worse for users than standard advertising.

prepend 9y ago
Even though it’s much less lucrative than ads, it can still disrupt google. It’s work examining the equivalent of mining in CPM terms to compare. But precisely why it’s less lucrative is why it’s a threat. Remember when Napster came out and the argument was “they’ll never make as much money as the record industry?” For new entrants making an order of magnitude less is perfectly fine because they are a new market. Why would they care if google loses $1B in ad revenue if they make $100M. Especially since you don’t really need a market maker like Google matching ad buyers to content makers, the $100M can go directly to content creators running sites. The payout for Adsense is super low for display. They don’t reveal the payout ratio for clicks, but I expect it’s 10-30%. So for comparison for $1B in current AdSense payout to content sites, content creators only get $100-300M based on clicks. If you replaced this with crypto miners then you only need 10-30% payout from browser miners in order for content creators to break even. But ad in all the readers who never click (like me, the ads are not relevant) this gets more attractive. If google is smart, they do recognize this as a threat.
- simias 9y ago
  Given that every day more people browse the web on relatively weaker handheld devices running on batteries I have a hard time believing that most people will be fine with having websites drain their batteries and if it becomes commonplace I expect that many people will block them. And remember that mining is effectively a zero-sum game, the more people mine the harder it becomes to mine. It effectively means that every new websites who switches to mining for monetization makes it less valuable for all the other websites already doing it since you're all sharing the same cake.
  - bitL 9y ago
    > is effectively a zero-sum game That's only true for deflationary currencies. One can conjure up an ad-replacement currency, let's call it impre$$ion, that would be inflationary and perhaps linearly related to the time spent on the page regardless of computing performance of a viewer (though some viewers might be more valuable than others, e.g. those running iOS). Then there could be a separate market/stock-exchange for impre$$ions, replacing ad income. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was in the works already.