5 ms·

> For instance, when looking for current weather, I want to input my location and a time span, and get weather data. I want to be able to script that. I don't w

> For instance, when looking for current weather, I want to input my location and a time span, and get weather data. I want to be able to script that. I don't want to waste time looking at ads, pretty pictures, non-relevant text and links. I feel the same way. But those ads are there because that's the entire business model of people putting weather data out there for free. On most free sites, ads aren't just a sideshow, they're the driving engine. Take away the ads, and there goes the business model. What we need is some other way to pay for the weather data. Maybe this could be a service provided by your ISP, like NTP or DNS. Or some third party subscription service. Or maybe even taxpayer funded. But if you're using a service that relies on ads as their revenue model, then expect to put up with ads. They're part of the deal.

leovailati 8y ago
Micropayments is another possible solution that comes to mind. Say, pay one tenth of a penny every time you want to look at weather data. Assuming that we can come up with something that works for insignificant amounts and is fast, cheap, and secure to transact. If that is the case, you would just have to send a confirmation token with your first HTTP GET request to access a website with no ads. Competition would hopefully drive prices down and quality up.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
That's a fair point, and a prelude to a much larger discussion about business models on the web. Suffice it to say, I'd happily accept some deal for compensating the data provider - be it ads, micropayments, or even regular subscriptions - if the resulting data was available in a) machine-readable form, and b) decluttered form on the webpage, so that I could read it efficiently (possibly with support of userscripts/userstyles). As a bonus, such sensible data display will save the provider's bandwidth costs, as on the typical site, 90+% of transferred bytes are not part of the content.
CaptSpify 8y ago
The web used to exist without ads, and it was more functional and useable for users. This idea that we need ads to fund webpages has always been nonsense. They are not at all part of the deal.

leovailati 8y ago

Micropayments is another possible solution that comes to mind. Say, pay one tenth of a penny every time you want to look at weather data. Assuming that we can come up with something that works for insignificant amounts and is fast, cheap, and secure to transact. If that is the case, you would just have to send a confirmation token with your first HTTP GET request to access a website with no ads. Competition would hopefully drive prices down and quality up.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

That's a fair point, and a prelude to a much larger discussion about business models on the web. Suffice it to say, I'd happily accept some deal for compensating the data provider - be it ads, micropayments, or even regular subscriptions - if the resulting data was available in a) machine-readable form, and b) decluttered form on the webpage, so that I could read it efficiently (possibly with support of userscripts/userstyles). As a bonus, such sensible data display will save the provider's bandwidth costs, as on the typical site, 90+% of transferred bytes are not part of the content.

CaptSpify 8y ago

The web used to exist without ads, and it was more functional and useable for users. This idea that we need ads to fund webpages has always been nonsense. They are not at all part of the deal.