9 ms·

Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice. How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money?

eiaoa 8y ago
> How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money? 1. Have less annoying ads that respect the user. 2. Charge money. 3. Some novel funding model that's unexplored because obnoxious ads dominate everything and suck all the air out of the room.
- lanewinfield 8y ago
  Let me preface this by a large percentage of people in advertising are not creating #1. BUT: 1. That's fair, but it takes time and talent to create these. 2. Clearly that isn't working; see almost any news site in existence 3. This is a hope, and a nice one. https://scroll.com/ https://scroll.com/
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    3. OK they have a different business model and lots of content partners, but they won't tell you what it is, just invite you to sign up. I'm guessing it involves monetizing email addresses. If this content free proposition is your idea of a nice prospect, what is it based on? Anyone can say they have laudable goals, like beauty contestants who aspire to bring about world peace and end hunger. Perhaps they're just saying nice things without any real capability or intention to deliver?
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  you know, sometimes I wonder how the internet would look like today if every time you loaded content from a server some money would automatically go their way (a tiny payment compensating for server time of sorts)
  - viraptor 8y ago
    That's similar to what https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ tried. (You could set it to auto-pay visited pages)
  - walshemj 8y ago
    Ah the PRESTEL / Dialcom model pay per page and or minute *narrator voice" it didn't turn out well- I should know I was there if you don believe me ask Vint Cerf
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I suspect even worse. People would be less willing to try new things with an upfront cost while clickbait would be even more incentivized as they don't even have to worry about not offending advertisers.
egypturnash 8y ago
Once Patreon became a thing, I turned off all the ads on my comics and never looked back. I am by no means in even the top 50% of earners but I make more than ads ever did and feel a lot better about it.
- lanewinfield 8y ago
  That's awesome and great to hear. The issue I think is at scale, though.
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    Sometimes harmful business models die out, which results in good people losing income. We should still celebrate this progress, even with the casualties.
esotericn 8y ago
Examples, with specific citation: My local bus stop has adverts (London). My local metro station does too (London). They're all over the roads (UK). They're in pubs (UK). They're on paid television services (Sky). They're on paid programs (Windows 10). They're shown before movies (cinema, UK). Advertising is _everywhere_, in paid services, unpaid services, whatever. Unless I'm in my own, or a friend's private home I could probably find an advert by spinning my head around. Ask yourself - why haven't you included an advert on your comment? You could, and it'd allow you to comment on HN more, right?
- lanewinfield 8y ago
  I understand this but it doesn't really counteract my point: it pays for stuff. It (helps) pay for your bus stop (or at least it does in the states), it's on paid television because you'd have to pay EVEN MORE for it, and movies on top of that. Now, if you made an argument that the entire structure is screwed up and the people at the top deserve to make less and therefore not needing as much cash flow and therefore we should be able to cut the ads, THEN I might agree...
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Nah. I don't believe that my train or bus would cost substantially more without the advertising. And even if it did, it's just an internalization of costs. The advertising (if it works) pulls money in through a side channel (someone sees an ad and later buys a thing). It makes far more sense to just pay for the bus. Other examples, like ads at the side of the road, don't even pay for anything. Driving along the road, I see an ad in a farmer's field. I'm not using that field in any meaningful sense. edit: I actually looked up the transport example. Transport for London had approximately a 1:20 ratio of advertising to fare revenue last year. So, I'd have to pay approximately 5% more, or 7 pence per bus fare, to not have adverts plastered on the inside and outside of buses, tubes, station platforms, corridors within stations, and probably various roads under TfL authority as well. I think the world in which we pay 7 pence more for bus fare and have nice artwork on the bus or something instead of hair loss adverts that call us ugly balds is better.
peterwwillis 8y ago
Back in the ancient times, about 20 years ago, people would exchange goods and services for bits of paper and metal trinkets. It seems like the future is getting a free refridgerator that you pay for by watching an ad before you can take out the milk. (Oops, did I just spoil someone's startup?)
- gowld 8y ago
  The history of religion disagrees with your view of ancient times. Swindlers have always been on the psychological attack. The difference now is that they are more invasive in more of the minutes of our lives.
rpowers 8y ago
They would make money by selling a product.
vertexFarm 8y ago
Lots of ways. By contributing to society, perhaps? This advertising model hasn't been around for very long. It's baffling how suddenly nobody can even conceive of how the world would work without malicious advertising and culture-wide psyops digging into everyone's brains. The advertising model is one of the worst inventions in history.
anigbrowl 8y ago
Please, advertising is not the only viable business or economic model. Darn right I hate omnipresent intrusive brainwashing and the cognitive and aesthetic pollution it generates.
BLKNSLVR 8y ago
>Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice The problem is that the perception of the advertising industry at a larger scale is that it's a blood sucking industry with no thought for anything other than taking the attention of everyone away from what they were looking for and towards what the industry has been paid to help sell. It's ironic, I think, that the advertising industry is perceived so badly. How could the advertising industry market itself? "Our knowledge of psychologically attacking the human mind is second-only to the CIA, but we're catching up!"
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Well their job is to please their clients above all else not the ad targets. That crops up a lot like enterprise software being infamously hated because it is geared at looking good to procurers and not the end user - and not even in an "annoying to deal with but it does the job efficiently and cheaply". If you were to say working in advertising Girl Scout Cookies in Cannabis Advocate magazines you would get fired so very quickly even if it boosted their sales substantially because of the controversy. It is part of how Google got their good reputation in the first place - they gave the people what they wanted and were loved for it. Obviously it has greyed over time since.
  - BLKNSLVR 8y ago
    >Well their job is to please their clients above all else not the ad targets. I find this comment fascinating, in that: 1. If more of the 'ad targets' (ie. consumers) knew this, then it wouldn't work so well. 2. The advertising industry, by keeping their clients happy, are treating the customers of their clients as a resource to be squeezed wherever and whenever possible, and the clients are obviously fine with this. 3. Point #2 results in the advertising industry being a lightning rod for angry anti-consumer sentiment, allowing the ad industry clients to remain relatively clean. 4. It would be 'good / right' if the ad-industry clients that sell the various products being shoved in our faces on most of the flat-surfaces to be found on the Internet could be held to account just as much as the ad industry itself, then the ad industry would have more reason to drag itself out of the sewer. See point #1. Edited to add: @Nasrudith, just to clarify, your comment is a great point, and succinct. Well said.
ravenstine 8y ago
Maybe they shouldn't be making money? Advertising allows otherwise unviable businesses to survive. This is true of other things besides the internet, yet nobody wonders how TV shows are supposed to make money without advertising when we pay to watch shows with no interruptions. Streaming television contrasted with cable TV illustrates perfectly how advertising lowers the quality of content. Likewise, it lowers the quality of the audience; if you don't have to pay for something, you're more likely to view said thing, but you probably aren't going value it very much or be a valuable customer in the long run. Advertising is much worse on the internet because it's a lot easier to propagate, not being constrained by time slots in a broadcast. That means that an overwhelming amount of trash is allowed to survive, drowning out a lot of the things that are worthwhile and building up an audience that is low-value and perhaps even dangerous to society in some regards; I would argue such for the amount of "viral" tripe that sways how people view politics, science, religion, etc.

eiaoa 8y ago

> How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money? 1. Have less annoying ads that respect the user. 2. Charge money. 3. Some novel funding model that's unexplored because obnoxious ads dominate everything and suck all the air out of the room.

lanewinfield 8y ago
Let me preface this by a large percentage of people in advertising are not creating #1. BUT: 1. That's fair, but it takes time and talent to create these. 2. Clearly that isn't working; see almost any news site in existence 3. This is a hope, and a nice one. https://scroll.com/ https://scroll.com/
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  3. OK they have a different business model and lots of content partners, but they won't tell you what it is, just invite you to sign up. I'm guessing it involves monetizing email addresses. If this content free proposition is your idea of a nice prospect, what is it based on? Anyone can say they have laudable goals, like beauty contestants who aspire to bring about world peace and end hunger. Perhaps they're just saying nice things without any real capability or intention to deliver?
TremendousJudge 8y ago
you know, sometimes I wonder how the internet would look like today if every time you loaded content from a server some money would automatically go their way (a tiny payment compensating for server time of sorts)
- viraptor 8y ago
  That's similar to what https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/ tried. (You could set it to auto-pay visited pages)
- walshemj 8y ago
  Ah the PRESTEL / Dialcom model pay per page and or minute *narrator voice" it didn't turn out well- I should know I was there if you don believe me ask Vint Cerf
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I suspect even worse. People would be less willing to try new things with an upfront cost while clickbait would be even more incentivized as they don't even have to worry about not offending advertisers.

egypturnash 8y ago

Once Patreon became a thing, I turned off all the ads on my comics and never looked back. I am by no means in even the top 50% of earners but I make more than ads ever did and feel a lot better about it.

lanewinfield 8y ago
That's awesome and great to hear. The issue I think is at scale, though.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Sometimes harmful business models die out, which results in good people losing income. We should still celebrate this progress, even with the casualties.

esotericn 8y ago

Examples, with specific citation: My local bus stop has adverts (London). My local metro station does too (London). They're all over the roads (UK). They're in pubs (UK). They're on paid television services (Sky). They're on paid programs (Windows 10). They're shown before movies (cinema, UK). Advertising is _everywhere_, in paid services, unpaid services, whatever. Unless I'm in my own, or a friend's private home I could probably find an advert by spinning my head around. Ask yourself - why haven't you included an advert on your comment? You could, and it'd allow you to comment on HN more, right?

lanewinfield 8y ago
I understand this but it doesn't really counteract my point: it pays for stuff. It (helps) pay for your bus stop (or at least it does in the states), it's on paid television because you'd have to pay EVEN MORE for it, and movies on top of that. Now, if you made an argument that the entire structure is screwed up and the people at the top deserve to make less and therefore not needing as much cash flow and therefore we should be able to cut the ads, THEN I might agree...
- esotericn 8y ago
  Nah. I don't believe that my train or bus would cost substantially more without the advertising. And even if it did, it's just an internalization of costs. The advertising (if it works) pulls money in through a side channel (someone sees an ad and later buys a thing). It makes far more sense to just pay for the bus. Other examples, like ads at the side of the road, don't even pay for anything. Driving along the road, I see an ad in a farmer's field. I'm not using that field in any meaningful sense. edit: I actually looked up the transport example. Transport for London had approximately a 1:20 ratio of advertising to fare revenue last year. So, I'd have to pay approximately 5% more, or 7 pence per bus fare, to not have adverts plastered on the inside and outside of buses, tubes, station platforms, corridors within stations, and probably various roads under TfL authority as well. I think the world in which we pay 7 pence more for bus fare and have nice artwork on the bus or something instead of hair loss adverts that call us ugly balds is better.

peterwwillis 8y ago

Back in the ancient times, about 20 years ago, people would exchange goods and services for bits of paper and metal trinkets. It seems like the future is getting a free refridgerator that you pay for by watching an ad before you can take out the milk. (Oops, did I just spoil someone's startup?)

gowld 8y ago
The history of religion disagrees with your view of ancient times. Swindlers have always been on the psychological attack. The difference now is that they are more invasive in more of the minutes of our lives.

rpowers 8y ago

They would make money by selling a product.

vertexFarm 8y ago

Lots of ways. By contributing to society, perhaps? This advertising model hasn't been around for very long. It's baffling how suddenly nobody can even conceive of how the world would work without malicious advertising and culture-wide psyops digging into everyone's brains. The advertising model is one of the worst inventions in history.

anigbrowl 8y ago

Please, advertising is not the only viable business or economic model. Darn right I hate omnipresent intrusive brainwashing and the cognitive and aesthetic pollution it generates.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago

>Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice The problem is that the perception of the advertising industry at a larger scale is that it's a blood sucking industry with no thought for anything other than taking the attention of everyone away from what they were looking for and towards what the industry has been paid to help sell. It's ironic, I think, that the advertising industry is perceived so badly. How could the advertising industry market itself? "Our knowledge of psychologically attacking the human mind is second-only to the CIA, but we're catching up!"

Nasrudith 8y ago
Well their job is to please their clients above all else not the ad targets. That crops up a lot like enterprise software being infamously hated because it is geared at looking good to procurers and not the end user - and not even in an "annoying to deal with but it does the job efficiently and cheaply". If you were to say working in advertising Girl Scout Cookies in Cannabis Advocate magazines you would get fired so very quickly even if it boosted their sales substantially because of the controversy. It is part of how Google got their good reputation in the first place - they gave the people what they wanted and were loved for it. Obviously it has greyed over time since.
- BLKNSLVR 8y ago
  >Well their job is to please their clients above all else not the ad targets. I find this comment fascinating, in that: 1. If more of the 'ad targets' (ie. consumers) knew this, then it wouldn't work so well. 2. The advertising industry, by keeping their clients happy, are treating the customers of their clients as a resource to be squeezed wherever and whenever possible, and the clients are obviously fine with this. 3. Point #2 results in the advertising industry being a lightning rod for angry anti-consumer sentiment, allowing the ad industry clients to remain relatively clean. 4. It would be 'good / right' if the ad-industry clients that sell the various products being shoved in our faces on most of the flat-surfaces to be found on the Internet could be held to account just as much as the ad industry itself, then the ad industry would have more reason to drag itself out of the sewer. See point #1. Edited to add: @Nasrudith, just to clarify, your comment is a great point, and succinct. Well said.

ravenstine 8y ago

Maybe they shouldn't be making money? Advertising allows otherwise unviable businesses to survive. This is true of other things besides the internet, yet nobody wonders how TV shows are supposed to make money without advertising when we pay to watch shows with no interruptions. Streaming television contrasted with cable TV illustrates perfectly how advertising lowers the quality of content. Likewise, it lowers the quality of the audience; if you don't have to pay for something, you're more likely to view said thing, but you probably aren't going value it very much or be a valuable customer in the long run. Advertising is much worse on the internet because it's a lot easier to propagate, not being constrained by time slots in a broadcast. That means that an overwhelming amount of trash is allowed to survive, drowning out a lot of the things that are worthwhile and building up an audience that is low-value and perhaps even dangerous to society in some regards; I would argue such for the amount of "viral" tripe that sways how people view politics, science, religion, etc.