6 ms·

Who does it work for far better? Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads.

by guipsp 7y ago

34r45sdg 7y ago
Probably for the best. Id like an internet free of ads. Oh, I have that already thanks to ad-blocking technology. This is more user hostile crap, get it off my internet!
- luckylion 7y ago
  Otoh: ads do serve a purpose. Lots of ads equals low quality content in my experience. The more aggressive the ads, the worse the content. It's like websites are self-reporting their spamminess.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Some places get so strapped for cash that their content isn't even content, but thinly veiled low effort ad copy. I hardly trust online review articles anymore because they mostly focus on one new product by itself vs. in the context of a field of existing alternatives and are rarely critical these days.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      Yeah, it's less and less "use ads to support the content creation", it's "write content to fill the void between the ads". And yes, review articles are a similar problem. And another indicator: if the site has "stars" in the serps, i.e. provides "aggregate rating" as microdata, it's probably shit.
JohnFen 7y ago
> Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads. This isn't a terribly meaningful statement, though. Just because the ad industry managed to dominate the web doesn't mean it had to be that way or that there are no other ways. Also, in my opinion, advertising is doing more harm than good in the web overall.
pavel_lishin 7y ago
There's a fallacy in your argument, but I don't know what it's called. Just because we got here via ads, doesn't mean we couldn't have gotten here without them. And that's even assuming that where we currently are is an optimum state we should shoot for.
- mostindeededly 7y ago
  Furthermore, it misses that we might be somewhere better than here had we not had ads. (I'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion, just one of many possibilities not mentioned.)
  - asdff 7y ago
    It's fun to think about how it could have all been different. No more sites designed to game search result rankings, designed to waste your time to maximize eyeballs on ads, designed to keep you on the site in a garden instead of surfing the web. ISPs should have bundled hosting with internet access. Give everyone the possibility to generate their own site. It would be like a large insurance pool where your monthly bill might subsidize the costs of hosting another user who's site gets millions of views, just like how your monthly insurance premium ultimately covers the salary of someone else's surgeon, nurses, anesthesiologists, and keeping the lights on in the operating room. You can still ask for donations or even paid subscriptions if you wanted a well off full time staff. Instead, we leaned on advertisers to fund our websites, middle men working tirelessly to come up with new ways to extract comfortable profit out of the system. Leeching resources that could have otherwise gone straight to the publisher had we designed the internet to be a little more federalized, a little more universal, with the costs shared among the users of the internet who are already paying for access anyway.
- latexr 7y ago
  > There's a fallacy in your argument, but I don't know what it's called. “False dilemma”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
JoshTriplett 7y ago
> Who does it work for far better? Users. > Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads. Let's not underestimate people's creativity. Let's kill ads completely, and see what creative solutions emerge. After people realize that ads no longer work, I look forward to seeing what happens when they take several giant steps away from adtech and start building real alternatives.

Who does it work for far better? Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads.

by guipsp 7y ago

Who does it work for far better? Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads.

Probably for the best. Id like an internet free of ads. Oh, I have that already thanks to ad-blocking technology. This is more user hostile crap, get it off my internet!

luckylion 7y ago
Otoh: ads do serve a purpose. Lots of ads equals low quality content in my experience. The more aggressive the ads, the worse the content. It's like websites are self-reporting their spamminess.
- asdff 7y ago
  Some places get so strapped for cash that their content isn't even content, but thinly veiled low effort ad copy. I hardly trust online review articles anymore because they mostly focus on one new product by itself vs. in the context of a field of existing alternatives and are rarely critical these days.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Yeah, it's less and less "use ads to support the content creation", it's "write content to fill the void between the ads". And yes, review articles are a similar problem. And another indicator: if the site has "stars" in the serps, i.e. provides "aggregate rating" as microdata, it's probably shit.

JohnFen 7y ago

> Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads. This isn't a terribly meaningful statement, though. Just because the ad industry managed to dominate the web doesn't mean it had to be that way or that there are no other ways. Also, in my opinion, advertising is doing more harm than good in the web overall.

pavel_lishin 7y ago

There's a fallacy in your argument, but I don't know what it's called. Just because we got here via ads, doesn't mean we couldn't have gotten here without them. And that's even assuming that where we currently are is an optimum state we should shoot for.

mostindeededly 7y ago
Furthermore, it misses that we might be somewhere better than here had we not had ads. (I'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion, just one of many possibilities not mentioned.)
- asdff 7y ago
  It's fun to think about how it could have all been different. No more sites designed to game search result rankings, designed to waste your time to maximize eyeballs on ads, designed to keep you on the site in a garden instead of surfing the web. ISPs should have bundled hosting with internet access. Give everyone the possibility to generate their own site. It would be like a large insurance pool where your monthly bill might subsidize the costs of hosting another user who's site gets millions of views, just like how your monthly insurance premium ultimately covers the salary of someone else's surgeon, nurses, anesthesiologists, and keeping the lights on in the operating room. You can still ask for donations or even paid subscriptions if you wanted a well off full time staff. Instead, we leaned on advertisers to fund our websites, middle men working tirelessly to come up with new ways to extract comfortable profit out of the system. Leeching resources that could have otherwise gone straight to the publisher had we designed the internet to be a little more federalized, a little more universal, with the costs shared among the users of the internet who are already paying for access anyway.
latexr 7y ago
> There's a fallacy in your argument, but I don't know what it's called. “False dilemma”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

JoshTriplett 7y ago

> Who does it work for far better? Users. > Because quite a lot of the Internet couldn't exist in its current state without ads. Let's not underestimate people's creativity. Let's kill ads completely, and see what creative solutions emerge. After people realize that ads no longer work, I look forward to seeing what happens when they take several giant steps away from adtech and start building real alternatives.