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> Google's original post is super gross. It dismisses the idea that there could be alternate ways to fund content (i.e. micropayments). I get why they promote "

by d1zzy 7y ago

> Google's original post is super gross. It dismisses the idea that there could be alternate ways to fund content (i.e. micropayments). I get why they promote "free content" but it is not free at all when you are trading your attention and privacy. That's probably because they actually have tried it: https://contributor.google.com/v/beta https://contributor.google.com/v/beta It may seem frustrating for some of us living in nice places, having our own money and access to easily accessible electronic payment systems but for a lot of the world (geographical, age and economic status) that's not available. So while I support being able to have the option to pay to not see ads I also support being able to just see pages (with ads) without having to configure billing, etc. Otherwise a lot of the high value Internet would be only accessible to the group of people I mentioned above and that would be sad (and going against why Internet has penetrated so much of the world). PS: If you think it's hard to stay anonymous in an Internet of ads, I cannot see how you'd be anonymous in one where you have to configure billing which is traceable (by design) to your physical person.

TACIXAT 7y ago
The CPM on ads is a good way to look at this. On YouTube you get anywhere from 25 cents CPM to 4 dollars, usually dependent on where your customers are from. Let's put that on the high side since I'm in the US. Would I rather pay 0.4 cents per video view or see ads? You bet I'll choose to pay that instead. Now that covers the creator costs, Google needs to take a portion of that to run their platform, so let's round it up to 1 whole cent per video. I'm still game. Now, you have to imagine the CPM is directly related to the value of the goods being sold. That scales per country. It's probably not the perfect proxy, but in the same sense that your viewers from other countries pay out different CPMs, they can probably afford different amounts per video. It isn't about anonymity. It's about abuse of data. I'm not mad that I can't make anonymous phone calls, I'm mad that my phone provider sells my real time location data. I am happy to pay a company that preserves privacy and trust them with my information. This is a bit aside though, because I more or less trust Google with my information, I just don't like ads. It's not about anonymity.
- opportune 7y ago
  If I could load, say, $10 into some Google account and in return that buys me complete exemption from tracking + ads on 10k site visits, I would absolutely do that in a heart beat. I wonder if they have thought about doing that yet
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    That's almost what Contributor is, but how could that possibly exempt you from tracking? They'd have to identify you to exempt you from it...
    - KptMarchewa 7y ago
      On a browser level? Some kind of google extension. Or just build in Chrome.
  - notyourwork 7y ago
    I’m guessing that is not even close to revenue generated. I was told by a pandora engineer a few years ago if all users paid for premium to drop ads they couldn’t stay afloat. It seems the ad industry is milking businesses and users have no choice in the matter.
    - rgbrenner 7y ago
      Just because he worked there, doesn't mean he understands the economics of the business. A premium account is $10/mo.. or $30/quarter. Pandora is part of sirius now.. but spotify has revenue of about 5.50/user/quarter. Either Pandora is 6x more effective at monetization than Spotify (very unlikely), or that engineer was wrong.
    - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
      If this is true why did they constantly inundate you with ads to upgrade to premium? They should have been trying to actively hide the fact they have premium.
  - 7y ago
JohnFen 7y ago
> I support being able to have the option to pay to not see ads I don't care about seeing ads, but I am willing to pay money (and I do, when such an option exists) in exchange for stopping the spying that ads bring.
hedora 7y ago
Paying Google Contributor wouldn’t stop them from tracking you. People want to be able to opt out of Google entirely, and that product didn’t do it.
tripzilch 7y ago
> I also support being able to just see pages (with ads) without having to configure billing, etc. Otherwise a lot of the high value Internet would be only accessible to the group of people I mentioned above and that would be sad Except that the vast majority of the advertising on the internet supports mainly low-quality junk ... The more ads, the scummier and more worthless the site gets, usually. There are exceptions, few and far between, like news websites I guess. But most of the ads on the Internet are used to support content that you never asked for, never wanted, never would visit, and still get shoved in your face occasionally.
rasz 7y ago
>micropayments Afaik nobody really tried true micropayments yet. Micro actually means 10^-6, so as TACIXAT mentioned below/above it comes down to 0.025-0.4 cent per one piece of something. Meanwhile what we have seen from the industry is $.99 macro payments. Did Google Contributor really charge people ~0.025-0.4 cent per impression?
JeremyBanks 7y ago
The Google Contributor that launched was very neutered from what was originally proposed internally. It wasn't a real effort to solve the problem; it was effectively a deliberate failure they could present to justify the status quo.

by d1zzy 7y ago

TACIXAT 7y ago

The CPM on ads is a good way to look at this. On YouTube you get anywhere from 25 cents CPM to 4 dollars, usually dependent on where your customers are from. Let's put that on the high side since I'm in the US. Would I rather pay 0.4 cents per video view or see ads? You bet I'll choose to pay that instead. Now that covers the creator costs, Google needs to take a portion of that to run their platform, so let's round it up to 1 whole cent per video. I'm still game. Now, you have to imagine the CPM is directly related to the value of the goods being sold. That scales per country. It's probably not the perfect proxy, but in the same sense that your viewers from other countries pay out different CPMs, they can probably afford different amounts per video. It isn't about anonymity. It's about abuse of data. I'm not mad that I can't make anonymous phone calls, I'm mad that my phone provider sells my real time location data. I am happy to pay a company that preserves privacy and trust them with my information. This is a bit aside though, because I more or less trust Google with my information, I just don't like ads. It's not about anonymity.

opportune 7y ago
If I could load, say, $10 into some Google account and in return that buys me complete exemption from tracking + ads on 10k site visits, I would absolutely do that in a heart beat. I wonder if they have thought about doing that yet
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  That's almost what Contributor is, but how could that possibly exempt you from tracking? They'd have to identify you to exempt you from it...
  - KptMarchewa 7y ago
    On a browser level? Some kind of google extension. Or just build in Chrome.
- notyourwork 7y ago
  I’m guessing that is not even close to revenue generated. I was told by a pandora engineer a few years ago if all users paid for premium to drop ads they couldn’t stay afloat. It seems the ad industry is milking businesses and users have no choice in the matter.
  - rgbrenner 7y ago
    Just because he worked there, doesn't mean he understands the economics of the business. A premium account is $10/mo.. or $30/quarter. Pandora is part of sirius now.. but spotify has revenue of about 5.50/user/quarter. Either Pandora is 6x more effective at monetization than Spotify (very unlikely), or that engineer was wrong.
  - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
    If this is true why did they constantly inundate you with ads to upgrade to premium? They should have been trying to actively hide the fact they have premium.
- 7y ago

JohnFen 7y ago

> I support being able to have the option to pay to not see ads I don't care about seeing ads, but I am willing to pay money (and I do, when such an option exists) in exchange for stopping the spying that ads bring.

hedora 7y ago

Paying Google Contributor wouldn’t stop them from tracking you. People want to be able to opt out of Google entirely, and that product didn’t do it.

tripzilch 7y ago

> I also support being able to just see pages (with ads) without having to configure billing, etc. Otherwise a lot of the high value Internet would be only accessible to the group of people I mentioned above and that would be sad Except that the vast majority of the advertising on the internet supports mainly low-quality junk ... The more ads, the scummier and more worthless the site gets, usually. There are exceptions, few and far between, like news websites I guess. But most of the ads on the Internet are used to support content that you never asked for, never wanted, never would visit, and still get shoved in your face occasionally.

rasz 7y ago

>micropayments Afaik nobody really tried true micropayments yet. Micro actually means 10^-6, so as TACIXAT mentioned below/above it comes down to 0.025-0.4 cent per one piece of something. Meanwhile what we have seen from the industry is $.99 macro payments. Did Google Contributor really charge people ~0.025-0.4 cent per impression?

JeremyBanks 7y ago

The Google Contributor that launched was very neutered from what was originally proposed internally. It wasn't a real effort to solve the problem; it was effectively a deliberate failure they could present to justify the status quo.