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The answer may not be pleasing, but it's true: because "paid subscribers" represent a valuable advertising demographic/segment. They are nearly certain you are
by pixelmonkey 8y ago
The answer may not be pleasing, but it's true: because "paid subscribers" represent a valuable advertising demographic/segment. They are nearly certain you are human traffic, and you have enough disposable income that you pay for news.
- mhb 8y agoThat may be true, but it doesn't answer the question since there are many other similar examples without advertising.
- izacus 8y agoYou can pretty much make this argument for everything - Ferraris should be plastered by LCDs with ads then. Business class airplanes filled with blinking video ads. Entrances to highend butiques crowded with people pushing ad leaflets into rich peoples hands.... Why is it acceptable on the web?
- pixelmonkey 8y agoThis does happen in other places. Do you ever notice that your in-flight magazine has ads? You've already paid for the flight. Your in-theater movie kicks off with trailers and previews -- you have already paid for the movie ticket. And so on.
- twblalock 8y agoAnd if you subscribe to a paper newspaper or magazine, that has ads too.
- mhb 8y agoConsumer Reports doesn't have ads.
- justboxing 8y ago> Do you ever notice that your in-flight magazine has ads? Yes. And on a recent trip to India, it got even worse. SpiceJet (domestic airlines) has ads on the back of the headrest of EVERY SEAT. Physical paper printed Ads! So you are staring at it for the entirety of your trip. I kid you not.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y agoWait until screens get cheap enough... you'll have 4k ads rolling on each screen that are tailored from your name in your ticket.
- angott 8y agoThis already happens on Air Canada (although at least the ads are not personalized). Before each movie or show you play on your IFE screen in economy class, they make you watch two 30 seconds ads. I was very annoyed, especially since AC tickets are already overpriced (little/no competition on domestic flights in Canada).
- 52-6F-62 8y agoAir Canada IFE pro tip: You can skip the ads. Just scrub ahead.
- fphhotchips 8y agoStop telling people this. Just like everything good on the internet, once people find out about it, it will be gone.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y agoIf there IFE system is like all the others that I've experienced so far, you'll lose more time trying to find the start of the movie than you'd lose by letting the ads run :(
- andy_ppp 8y ago
- izacus 8y agoSo what does that mean? That we need to be shoved ads in our faces at every step of our life even if we pay for products? Just because someone wants to make even more money? What's your takeaway here?
- na85 8y agoThe takeaway is that advertisers don't care what you think and do in fact believe that they should shove ads in your face every step of your life, even if you pay for a product. Welcome to the world. Half the users of this site are actively perpetuating the corporate dystopia we inhabit.
- matheusmoreira 8y agoI'm sure they'd start caring if everyone started blocking their ads instead of accepting them. Maybe one day we'll have augmented reality glasses with built in ad blockers; I wonder how they'd react to that.
- hrktb 8y agoTalking about advertisers, I think the main qualities we can credit them is grit and smarts. Block their ads on the web ? you still have them on billboards if they’re local. They’ll mass DM whole regions if it makes economical sense. Your Netflix drama series will start mentionning them in passing. They’ll make ‘news’ pieces with a product CEO saving a baby chimpanzee that was not endangered in the first place. You know they’ll find a way to your eyeballs by whatever mean, as long as it makes any sense to them.
- flukus 8y agoAssuming we have sufficient control over our augmented reality glasses. If someone like google, MS, facebook, etc corner the market then I'd expect them to insert ads into reality.
- pixelmonkey 8y agoI don't have a "takeaway", but the Bezos quote, "Your margin is my opportunity," comes to mind. We live in capitalism, and in this system, "good user experience" only matters insofar as it is profitable for whoever is providing that user experience. If ads for subscribers are so annoying that people stop subscribing, then companies might stop advertising to them. But if they are not annoying enough to affect those numbers, then it isn't that surprising that they try to earn more revenue from their attention. One other way to look at this: perhaps by advertising to subscribers, these publishers can afford to offer a lower subscription cost to their customers. Let's also remember that most publishing companies don't have massive digital revenue scale or growth, compared especially to the big tech companies. And let's also remember that big tech companies like Amazon and Google monetize customers "on the side" six ways from Sunday. I guess what you are responding to with outrage, I am responding to with a shrug.
- sixdimensional 8y agoCable television being another completely obvious one, you literally pay to be advertised to, and for the ability to fast forward through ads.
- expertentipp 8y agoPublic media and TV in Europe, including the one with the largest budget on the entire planet - German, play and display ads even though are sponsored from compulsory per-household fees.
- isostatic 8y agoWow, higher than bbc. What's more annoying is adverts are a mere 7% of income, yet make it unwatchable. So lucky in the UK.
- sixdimensional 8y agoIs this actually a market inefficiency? Maybe this is an opportunity to discover how humanity can still make information known about products and services without having to make our entire cultures about consumption. I mean, advertising is about information sharing in a way. Can it be more efficient without clobbering art and media?
- xg15 8y agoAds are less about "information sharing" and more about manipulation though. If I think about "information sharing", I'd imagine that the information is the thing of value to be shared and the goal is to enable the recipient to perform their own decisions with and increased base of background information. However, ads work the other way around: You start with certainly outcomes that you would potential customers arrive at in their decisions and then think which information you can deliver to them to reach that outcome.
- sixdimensional 8y agoGood points. So what does an ad that doesn't have a behavioral component look like, and can they be presented in a different way? And could we still make that effective? Or is it a class of ad that is ethical vs not? I know I'm way off in the weeds here, just brainstorming.
- Pulcinella 8y agoFerraris are plastered with ads https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_SF71H#/media/File%3ASebastian_Vettel-Test_Days_2018_(4)_(cropped).jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_SF71H#/media/File%3A...
- izacus 8y agoDid you deliberately misunderstand my point just to nitpick something fully unrelated to discussion? :/
- csydas 8y agoBecause your point is pretty shallow, to be honest. The simple fact is that such tactics do happen in virtually every situation you described. Ad-metrics are super important to virtually every industry now; it may not be the backbone of these industries, but no one scoffs at the paycheck once it's said and done. Your point really doesn't add much to a conversation, since its premise is faulty. We accept such advertising on the web because we accept it in virtually every aspect of our lives.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- antidesitter 8y ago> Because your point is pretty shallow, to be honest. The simple fact is that such tactics do happen in virtually every situation you described. Not to the same extent. That’s the point, and it’s an interesting question why this happens. What economic factors account for the differences in advertising between these two markets? It’s not “shallow” as your own shallow dismissal alleges. > Your point really doesn't add much to a conversation, since its premise is faulty. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
- briandear 8y agoThose are race team sponsorships. People pay the owner of the car to put those ads on the car. That’s the exact opposite of the point under discussion: the owner is getting revenue by choosing to put ads on the car, that is much different than Ferrari putting ads on a car you buy in order to make more money for Ferrari. Those sponsor ads make money for the owner of the car/team.
- samstave 8y ago>Ferraris should be plastered by LCDs with ads TBF, the Ferrari IS the ad - for Ferrari and whatever aggregate-lifestyle-image you are promoting. "Hey everyone, look at how I have succeeded to the point where I can drive car [X]" Not that there is anything wrong with that, though. For example - I like to wear the same hiker-couture gear everyday to feel comfortable, functional and good about myself appearance. I am an advertisement for my thinking and decision making capability.
- chrisseaton 8y ago> Why is it acceptable on the web? It's acceptable because it's the only thing they offer.
- radoslawc 8y agoI don't know if Ferraris sold here have this, but many cars sold in Poland have licence plate frame with dealer's name and contact even though you have no agreement with them to advertise their company when you're buying new car. For some (Mitsubishi iirc) they put some kind of semi translucent sticker on your trunk with dealer's name about 2 x 3 inches.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoI never understood those. Why almost everyone has an ad on their license plate frames? One explanation I heard is that companies give them for free, so most people are happy to take them and don't bother with removing the ad.
- user5994461 8y agoDon't you pay for license plates in the US? It was 30 euros last I did that.
- ChristianGeek 8y agoOP means the license plate frame.
- jstarfish 8y agoPeople generally let the dealer sock them with an additional $500 to cover car registration for them (so they don't have to go to the DMV themselves). When this happens, the dealer gets to install the plate for the customer, and they'll throw on the dealer frame at the same time. After this point, customers don't have much reason to remove the plate or frame unless they really hate the ad, happen to be self-installing a rearview camera or are selling the car.
- mianos 8y agoFunny thing is I removed mine when I got my new car home. When I took my car in for a service it came back with new plate surround.
- pleasecalllater 8y agoIn the Ferrari case, you just got one huge expensive advertisement of the company. Just because you are not famous. If you'd be famous, then the Ferrari would pay you for wearing their logo. If you are not, you have to pay them lots of money for the same.
- kurtisc 8y agoAnd if you want the models that get pre-allocated, you'd better get an Instagram following.
- loceng 8y agoRe: Ferraris - Part of the product is the aesthetic and function. The other part is that there are other vehicles just as sexy or cool looking as Ferrari - meaning, if there aren't good alternatives that don't have the advertising then they perhaps could get away with it; what an advertiser would be willing to pay a single fixed ad on a vehicle doesn't really put much of a dent in the cost of that vehicle, however ad revenue in digital form certainly covers a much higher portion of the cost of serving web content. Content that requires a lot of effort to produce however fits less of a Facebook average level of post content. It seems the answer is creating a competitive environment for investigative journalism, and then people will have options - if content is equal - to pay a platform that doesn't have ads. For free products online that have an ad model, it's the VC complex perpetuating that model heavily - where the money is available initially and to scale quickly (because it's an easy calculation). The mantra isn't just "Move fast and break things" but also seems to be "if I don't do it - someone else will get there first" as part of the desire to be first-to-market (by any means) as a means to reach/capture a few of the main defense mechanisms of economies of scale and network effects; you don't need defense mechanisms if you have a good product however, and have a reasonable cost structure - it sure will be more profitable in the short-term though, not sustainable however. Facebook, Cambridge Analytica et al, perhaps needed to happen to wake people up to understand the importance of accountability and of community, moderation, and such.
- presscast 8y ago>Ferraris should be plastered by LCDs Why are you so certain that Ferrari doesn't remarket their buyers?
- isostatic 8y agoBuy a cheap computer and you get (or at least used to) tons of shovelware. Buy a decent one and you don't.
- ChristianGeek 8y agoGive me any of these (ok, maybe not the Ferrari) at a significant discount in exchange for putting up with ads and we can talk!
- emmanuel_1234 8y agoAirline blasts you with ads for expensive watches, hotels and perfume on the in-flight entertainment, be you in Economy or First class.
- majewsky 8y ago> You can pretty much make this argument for everything - Ferraris should be plastered by LCDs with ads then. Not a Ferrari, but my mother got a discount on her Toyota Yaris by letting the car dealer put a decal ad on it for 1 or 2 years. (Back in 2002 or so.)
- loceng 8y agoWe have to decide as a society to not support platforms or organizations who attempt to extract all possible value. This of course creates opportunity for competition, however with perhaps more difficulty once an incumbent has reached large economies of scale and has strong network effects.
- redleggedfrog 8y agoDon't sh*t where you eat, newspapers. Eventually, you'll get sick, and die.
- sizzle 8y agoI'll stick with my ad blocker if that's their logic.