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> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way. This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads

> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way. This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads invaded the web. In most ways it was better because it was built by people who cared, rather than by companies who wanted to extract money and power from their visitors.

refoundglory 8y ago
Is the first ad on the web some known thing? When was it?
phantomathkg 8y ago
But is it sustainable that way?
- ardy42 8y ago
  >>> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way. >> This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads invaded the web. In most ways it was better because it was built by people who cared, rather than by companies who wanted to extract money and power from their visitors. > But is it sustainable that way? Yes. It'd be different, but sustainable. Sites like Wikipedia are proof of that. It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when a counterexample is one of the top three links on nearly all of their searches.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    Doesn't Wikipedia run on donations? Or are you saying you think that works for the majority of sites?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      It does. No, that would not make sense of the majority of sites. Majority of sites have limited audience (topically, or geographically), so costs would be nowhere as high, and could be handled by personal input + donations (for private sites), or written off as marketing expense (for company sites). Yes, websites do not have to pay for themselves directly. The idea they should is underlying lots of current web problems.
  - bonesss 8y ago
    > It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when [obviously it can] It's a question of the content you put in the word "web". As a corrolary: I believe that "TV" would not exist without advertising. I know that electomagnetic radiation, signal processing, and ray tubes are wholly orthogonal to Kelloggs selling cereal. But the modern television media landscape and its dedication to Brave New World style audience-capture is unfathomable without people splashing money at it to sell things. So what is "the web"? Telnet, TCP, and HTTP? We don't need your stinking banners! We have oodles of excess server bandwidth and our websites are rarely more than 10K (of gorgeous hand-crafted fully-accessible HTML, natch). But is "the web" your advertiser-supported newspaper? Your advertiser-supported searches? Your advertiser-supported social media news feed? Your advertiser-supported free phone app? Your advertiser-supported image host? Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising. Crack the micro-currency and micro-valuation code for everyone online and maybe that "web" can live without ads... we're not there yet though :)
    - CaptSpify 8y ago
      > Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising. Really? Then I guess sites and creators that are sponsored via donations never got that memo. We have plenty of money coming in via ethical channels. Sure, not as much as with asdvertising, but IME, most sites have severely bloated budgets compared to what they actually need for sustainability, and thats why we have the problems that exist today.
      - bonesss 8y ago
        You've moved goal-posts ;) Sorry, but there are no donation based major national news organizations or donation based search titans with historically large market caps or donation based social media empire whose CEOs political whims shake national elections the world round. Facebook, Google, PictureHostOfTheMoment, and the media giants with traditional business models are the essence of what most people are using their time on online. That's "the web" for most people most of the time. I mean... Grab a random high-schoolers phone and see what percentage of services they're using are (in)directly funded by advertising and advertisers. Your observations about the economics of the bulk of web-development are probably correct, but relatively minor compared to the mega-billions in suboptimal efficiency in every other aspect of those organizations... And the issue is always that "sustainability" is not growth, and growing frequently requires actions that are unsustainable in the long-term to achieve. Businesses grow, transition, and reshape themselves within the context of new revenue streams, and acquiring those new revenue streams is how you make owners richer and secure any desired financing. So yeah, really, as of todays date "the web", a la "TV", is a pure advertising apparatus to capture audience and move product with peripheral benefits in political manipulation. Other models have not been validated by the market, nor consumers. Remember we all want ads, in the abstract.
watwut 8y ago
Web build by people who care and don't earn money on it still exists. Its audience is smaller proportion of total audience then it used to be. And also, people who care want pay raise too. They enjoy living in better flat, going at better holidays, buying better bicycle for children or eventually have periods of life where it is impossible to have job, family and time consuming hobby at the same time.
- CaptSpify 8y ago
  Who said they couldn't be paid? Patreon, kickstarter, etc show that you can do what you care about and still make money ethically.
  - watwut 8y ago
    I very intentionally wrote "pay raise" instead of "some minimal amount of money". Also, both succesfull patreon and succesfull kickstarter require significant effort to pull off. You have to create materials, build community and promote promote and so on. It is a lot of managerial work. We are not talking about "buy third yacht" level of money here. We are talking about "I can finally afford dentist or something else basic" amount of money here. It makes difference in people's lives.
    - CaptSpify 8y ago
      Are you suggesting that everyone who wants a pay raise deserves it just because they can build a website? If so, then I want a pay raise. But I'm unwilling to sacrifice my users' security and privacy to do it. Nobody said it was easy to raise money. If it was, everyone would do it. Crowdfunding and donations make plenty if money to afford a dentist or other basic needs. There are plenty of full-time groups making money with it. I don't know why you think thats not possible when it is already happening.
      - watwut 8y ago
        You are changing the topic. It started with false dichotomy between ads and caring for content and continued through "this form of monetization is more effective then the other one". I am suggesting that using "want money" as dirty word as if it wad something people (who don't even earn a lot) should be ashamed off is manipulative false argument. Most crowdfunding campaigns fail. Most pay for medical campaigns fail. Most including those succesfull don't earn enough to be full time. Inspirational feel good article about succesfull campaign is not representative of average case.

refoundglory 8y ago

Is the first ad on the web some known thing? When was it?

phantomathkg 8y ago

But is it sustainable that way?

ardy42 8y ago
>>> All the free content and services on the web has to be paid for somehow, and that is the way. >> This is false. We had a perfectly healthy ecosystem before ads invaded the web. In most ways it was better because it was built by people who cared, rather than by companies who wanted to extract money and power from their visitors. > But is it sustainable that way? Yes. It'd be different, but sustainable. Sites like Wikipedia are proof of that. It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when a counterexample is one of the top three links on nearly all of their searches.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  Doesn't Wikipedia run on donations? Or are you saying you think that works for the majority of sites?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    It does. No, that would not make sense of the majority of sites. Majority of sites have limited audience (topically, or geographically), so costs would be nowhere as high, and could be handled by personal input + donations (for private sites), or written off as marketing expense (for company sites). Yes, websites do not have to pay for themselves directly. The idea they should is underlying lots of current web problems.
- bonesss 8y ago
  > It baffling that people claim that the web requires ads and trackers to survive when [obviously it can] It's a question of the content you put in the word "web". As a corrolary: I believe that "TV" would not exist without advertising. I know that electomagnetic radiation, signal processing, and ray tubes are wholly orthogonal to Kelloggs selling cereal. But the modern television media landscape and its dedication to Brave New World style audience-capture is unfathomable without people splashing money at it to sell things. So what is "the web"? Telnet, TCP, and HTTP? We don't need your stinking banners! We have oodles of excess server bandwidth and our websites are rarely more than 10K (of gorgeous hand-crafted fully-accessible HTML, natch). But is "the web" your advertiser-supported newspaper? Your advertiser-supported searches? Your advertiser-supported social media news feed? Your advertiser-supported free phone app? Your advertiser-supported image host? Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising. Crack the micro-currency and micro-valuation code for everyone online and maybe that "web" can live without ads... we're not there yet though :)
  - CaptSpify 8y ago
    > Those things are, so far, only sustainably available through advertising. Really? Then I guess sites and creators that are sponsored via donations never got that memo. We have plenty of money coming in via ethical channels. Sure, not as much as with asdvertising, but IME, most sites have severely bloated budgets compared to what they actually need for sustainability, and thats why we have the problems that exist today.
    - bonesss 8y ago
      You've moved goal-posts ;) Sorry, but there are no donation based major national news organizations or donation based search titans with historically large market caps or donation based social media empire whose CEOs political whims shake national elections the world round. Facebook, Google, PictureHostOfTheMoment, and the media giants with traditional business models are the essence of what most people are using their time on online. That's "the web" for most people most of the time. I mean... Grab a random high-schoolers phone and see what percentage of services they're using are (in)directly funded by advertising and advertisers. Your observations about the economics of the bulk of web-development are probably correct, but relatively minor compared to the mega-billions in suboptimal efficiency in every other aspect of those organizations... And the issue is always that "sustainability" is not growth, and growing frequently requires actions that are unsustainable in the long-term to achieve. Businesses grow, transition, and reshape themselves within the context of new revenue streams, and acquiring those new revenue streams is how you make owners richer and secure any desired financing. So yeah, really, as of todays date "the web", a la "TV", is a pure advertising apparatus to capture audience and move product with peripheral benefits in political manipulation. Other models have not been validated by the market, nor consumers. Remember we all want ads, in the abstract.

watwut 8y ago

Web build by people who care and don't earn money on it still exists. Its audience is smaller proportion of total audience then it used to be. And also, people who care want pay raise too. They enjoy living in better flat, going at better holidays, buying better bicycle for children or eventually have periods of life where it is impossible to have job, family and time consuming hobby at the same time.

CaptSpify 8y ago
Who said they couldn't be paid? Patreon, kickstarter, etc show that you can do what you care about and still make money ethically.
- watwut 8y ago
  I very intentionally wrote "pay raise" instead of "some minimal amount of money". Also, both succesfull patreon and succesfull kickstarter require significant effort to pull off. You have to create materials, build community and promote promote and so on. It is a lot of managerial work. We are not talking about "buy third yacht" level of money here. We are talking about "I can finally afford dentist or something else basic" amount of money here. It makes difference in people's lives.
  - CaptSpify 8y ago
    Are you suggesting that everyone who wants a pay raise deserves it just because they can build a website? If so, then I want a pay raise. But I'm unwilling to sacrifice my users' security and privacy to do it. Nobody said it was easy to raise money. If it was, everyone would do it. Crowdfunding and donations make plenty if money to afford a dentist or other basic needs. There are plenty of full-time groups making money with it. I don't know why you think thats not possible when it is already happening.
    - watwut 8y ago
      You are changing the topic. It started with false dichotomy between ads and caring for content and continued through "this form of monetization is more effective then the other one". I am suggesting that using "want money" as dirty word as if it wad something people (who don't even earn a lot) should be ashamed off is manipulative false argument. Most crowdfunding campaigns fail. Most pay for medical campaigns fail. Most including those succesfull don't earn enough to be full time. Inspirational feel good article about succesfull campaign is not representative of average case.