4 ms·

I'm sorry, I don't understand this comment. You want to solve captcha in order to be served text ads? Why would you want to do that?

z3t4 7y ago
Think from the publisher side of view. You want to have an easy way to monetize content, and ads used to work well, but now you get very little or nothing from ads because most impressions and clicks are made by bots. So instead of adding a "paywall" to see the content, you add a "captcha" and the users will be able to see the content for free along with some unobtrusive text ads. I think it's already proven that users rather solve a "captcha" then use their credit card to gain access.
- asaph 7y ago
  > Think from the publisher side of view. Any publisher with any sense at all knows that annoying users will simply drive them away. Then there will be no audience at all, except perhaps bots which can solve captchas.
  - 0xCMP 7y ago
    I mean, that's what a pay wall is isn't it? think of all things people do on HN to go around those. Solving a captcha is probably worse because it's not annoying enough to go around so you actually just have to do it, but now it's more likely a legitimate user.
- ianai 7y ago
  But only one captcha per day per site, max, please. Seems a good trade off for me. Especially if it unlocks solely text ads.
- noxToken 7y ago
  Iff the answer to paywalls (and not site access) is CAPTCHA, then I would have been game. Problem is that I'm still not going to disable uBlock due to the poor practices of ad companies destroying web usability.
- magashna 7y ago
  If I need to solve a captcha to read an article or watch a video I'll read or watch something else. If I can't adblock it, it's not worth my time
  - judge2020 7y ago
    As it happened, that was only true for a minority of visitors. Many people would happily punch in an answer to recaptcha v1 to read the article one of their friends sent them, and might not have even known it was to increase the legitimacy of ad clicks.
  - darepublic 7y ago
    ordinarily I would say the same but if the service seemed valuable I would be okay with solving a captcha
  - LowLevelHacker 7y ago
    It is an unusual perspective, most would happily click a few images than pay for access to a site. Then ad revenue may go up too since you now have a more captive audiance
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Doesn't Google's current version of reCaptcha work mostly invisible? I am confident that they use a similar system atm to detect bots. I know the "checkmark" version used e.g. mouse movement to detect humans.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    Unless you're using TOR or another anonymizer, which eats a lot of the clues that the bot detector uses.

z3t4 7y ago

Think from the publisher side of view. You want to have an easy way to monetize content, and ads used to work well, but now you get very little or nothing from ads because most impressions and clicks are made by bots. So instead of adding a "paywall" to see the content, you add a "captcha" and the users will be able to see the content for free along with some unobtrusive text ads. I think it's already proven that users rather solve a "captcha" then use their credit card to gain access.

asaph 7y ago
> Think from the publisher side of view. Any publisher with any sense at all knows that annoying users will simply drive them away. Then there will be no audience at all, except perhaps bots which can solve captchas.
- 0xCMP 7y ago
  I mean, that's what a pay wall is isn't it? think of all things people do on HN to go around those. Solving a captcha is probably worse because it's not annoying enough to go around so you actually just have to do it, but now it's more likely a legitimate user.
ianai 7y ago
But only one captcha per day per site, max, please. Seems a good trade off for me. Especially if it unlocks solely text ads.
noxToken 7y ago
Iff the answer to paywalls (and not site access) is CAPTCHA, then I would have been game. Problem is that I'm still not going to disable uBlock due to the poor practices of ad companies destroying web usability.
magashna 7y ago
If I need to solve a captcha to read an article or watch a video I'll read or watch something else. If I can't adblock it, it's not worth my time
- judge2020 7y ago
  As it happened, that was only true for a minority of visitors. Many people would happily punch in an answer to recaptcha v1 to read the article one of their friends sent them, and might not have even known it was to increase the legitimacy of ad clicks.
- darepublic 7y ago
  ordinarily I would say the same but if the service seemed valuable I would be okay with solving a captcha
- LowLevelHacker 7y ago
  It is an unusual perspective, most would happily click a few images than pay for access to a site. Then ad revenue may go up too since you now have a more captive audiance
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Doesn't Google's current version of reCaptcha work mostly invisible? I am confident that they use a similar system atm to detect bots. I know the "checkmark" version used e.g. mouse movement to detect humans.
- jfengel 7y ago
  Unless you're using TOR or another anonymizer, which eats a lot of the clues that the bot detector uses.