6 ms·

It's going to be interesting to see where this ends up. Ads are inevitable, and in some ways beneficial to both content providers and consumers (i.e. revenue ca

It's going to be interesting to see where this ends up. Ads are inevitable, and in some ways beneficial to both content providers and consumers (i.e. revenue can be earned from users without any direct payment). But are invasive forms of tracking such as 3rd party cookies really that necessary? Could websites survive using only contextual advertising without the excessive tracking?

Fnoord 7y ago
I don't agree ads are beneficial for users (or "consumers" as you put it). They could be, but you pay with your focus/time. I'd rather pay for the content then, or get a free (demo) version (I regard a RSS feed as such). Tracking, however, is on the long term never beneficial for the users. It is a behemoth of a privacy nightmare. This article is about ad trackers.
- babuskov 7y ago
  > I'd rather pay for the content then People like you are a minority. Most people expect Internet content to be free.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Because there is a lot of paid pulp content. Demo versions of qualitative, paid content will sell itself provided the stack is user-friendly enough. Just like people pay for Netflix. Also, if you price yourself conform US or EU salary don't expect poor countries to buy your product.
- a_imho 7y ago
  It's something a person would say with a salary depending on ads. Who likes tracking and popups? TV programming butchered? Endless garbage in the mail? Come on.
  - BigJono 7y ago
    I think it's the opposite. We're in a bubble here. It's easy enough for a software engineer to say they'd pay for the content that's on the web when we have the disposable income to do so without even breaking stride. If you ask the average person whether they'd prefer to pay for web content or cop ads and trackers, they'd probably tell you to shove your subscription service or whatever alternative you can come up with up your ass.
    - dvdkon 7y ago
      The problem with paying for content for people outside of that bubble is that the prices are way too high. Consider how much money an average visitor earns a site through ads. In relation, paying 5USD a month for an ad-free subscription to that same content seems ridiculous. I'd wager that's even more money than a newspaper subscription sans the printing costs.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Does an average visitor earn a site 5 USD per month? That sounds way too high. 5 cents, maybe, if they're a regular visitors. If sites asked users to pay what they earn off advertising to them on average, prices would be very low. Unfortunately, there's nothing stopping sites from asking for money and still advertising.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    In the same way that nobody likes taxes, traffic stops, or insurance salesmen, but almost anyone sees their necessity, things can be beneficial without being enjoyable.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- fauigerzigerk 7y ago
  All widespread forms of online payment require proof of identity and hence take away all anonymity and all privacy. Even after many years of debates and experiments, there is still no practical way to do anonymous micropayments. And I doubt there ever will be, because governments will always want to regulate payments. So direct payment for content will very likely end up being yet another stronghold of all-powerful gatekeepers, just like the app stores.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Good point. Not at all a fan of cryptocurrencies but would a cryptocurrency like Montero be of help here?
    - fauigerzigerk 7y ago
      Only if you believe that governments would ever let businesses receive hundreds of billions per year without any proof of who or where the payer was. In my view, these schemes will only be tolerated as long as they are tiny enough to fly under the radar.
      - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
        They regulate bitcoin, but don't take all anonymity.
        fauigerzigerk 7y ago
        I think there's only a tiny number of bitcoin payments on any given day.
  - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
    >there is still no practical way to do anonymous micropayments Accumulate and pay in bulk.
    - falcolas 7y ago
cmroanirgo 7y ago
I always like to compare the 'advertising' that we see on the net vs the ones we see in a store. In the first instance, the website can and does monetise you, whereas in a store it's just that: a suggestion. In a store, the advertiser might have paid for a placement, but an individual's metrics are not harvested. So, the real dysfunction is that advertisers aren't paying a website up front for 'space'. I will always applaud the termination of the tracking advertising that we have online. I think there final straw that breaks the advertising model is when browsers finally disallow/ discourage cross site communications. ie, even an image hosted on a different domain will be treated the same way mixed http/https is currently treated. Google, of course will no doubt vehemently oppose such moves. On the flip side, I like how HN keeps blatant advertising away, except for the odd YC announcements: it just shows how sites with something tangible don't need to resort to subversive ads.
- joeblubaugh 7y ago
  This isn’t as true these days as it used to be. Many stores use WiFi hotspots and Bluetooth beacons (and computer vision on security cameras) to track customers in their stores to build advertising and placement strategies. Target’s particularly fond of this approach.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Indeed. It's not that physical space advertisers are somehow morally superior to on-line ad networks; it's that until recently, they couldn't afford the level of tracking that was possible on-line. With cheap computer vision and advertising technologies like iBeacon support[0] being included in smartphones by default, and with services for processing this data being available on the market, physical space advertisers can now afford to be just as slimy as their on-line counterparts. -- [0] - which didn't start as advertising technology, but ended up being used this way.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leggomylibro 7y ago
The ads that I find most useful are the ones which mimic olde newspaper/magazine ads by simply showing things relevant to their general readership. The advertisers don't need to know a thing about me, they just need to know the general demographics and interests of the publication. For example, the ads on this blog[1] are far more relevant and less invasive/annoying than anything that Google ever showed me before I started aggressively blocking ad networks. I assume that it is because the blog knows what I am interested in better than Google does, simply because I voluntarily go to their website and read their content. [1]: https://hackaday.com/ https://hackaday.com/
- gear54rus 7y ago
  Consider this though, would those marketing schmucks invest that much money into dystopian tracking on the web if they didn't have the data to back it up? The problem is in the user. They do this because we let them. Spread the adblock around your non-technical peers whenever you can.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    I think this phenomenon has also a lot to do with self marketing of ad agencies. To stand out against the numerous competitors, they want to provide as much information as possible to their clients about potential customers, target groups, etc. I agree that we should block those even harder. The bad side is that whitelisting sites doesn't work well and well behaved actors are punished too. Especially those, since they do not employ measures against blocking in the first place. That does cost those sites that you actually do want to support. So the current situation is that bad actors ruin it for everyone.
- ec109685 7y ago
  Are you sure hackaday isn’t using third party ad networks?
  - leggomylibro 7y ago
    Nope - but I see the same sort of ads on every machine including public ones, they don't follow me, and they aren't annoying. So if they do use an ad network, it seems like one that can connect me with products that I'm interested in without being intrusive. I guess that I have no assurances that they aren't collecting my information and not using it, but down that road lies madness.
estomagordo 7y ago
How could ads benefit users? Obviously, if the revenue that content creators receive from ads came directly from the consumers, the middle (ad) man would be cut out and all others would benefit.
- buboard 7y ago
  The same way that reading HN can benefit users. A lot of the posted blog articles are covert advertising anyway. Ads do not benefit the user directly, they benefit the business, which expands and improves its products, which itself benefits the user. Advertising is indispensable for business growth, and are never going to go away, they 'll just change format
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > A lot of the posted blog articles are covert advertising anyway. And a lot of them aren't, and a big reason why people read HN or /r/$someNiche instead of an industry news site is because community link aggregators do a good job at weeding out the advertising. > Ads do not benefit the user directly, they benefit the business, which expands and improves its products, which itself benefits the user. I'd be careful, because this line of argument can justify anything a business does to make more money, because "they'll expand and improve its products". In reality, the "improvement" of a product is measured by its profitability, so if you let a business play unfairly and abusively, they'll only do more of that.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  The media is financed by ads to the tune of around 50%. That business is sort of necessary for democracy, as decision-making requires information to close the feedback loop. Therefore, I wouldn't quite so readily cheer the downfall of the industry with nothing more than the typical "be better and you'll find more paying customers" advice.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > The media is financed by ads to the tune of around 50%. That's because it's the easiest and most profitable business model available. Kill it off, and media will shift to a different model. Advertising isn't necessary for media to exist, and it's not like people want media to exist because of ads. > That business is sort of necessary for democracy, as decision-making requires information to close the feedback loop. Sort of, kind of. Some news reporting is the part that's necessary for democracy. Not the entirety of what news sites serve today, and definitely not the larger media industry. News reporting is already pretty much as low as it can get, thanks to advertising-based business model. Facts and reasoned opinions matter little; fake news and outrage-inducing reporting generates more page views, leading to more ad impressions, and thus more money for the news organization.
buboard 7y ago
Yes they can. Online advertising is on the rise. Businesses have been spending the same % in advertising for a century. If it is not possible to use trackers, businesses will keep spending the same, and advertisers should be paying out the same to publishers. The bigger question for me is why publisher payouts keep dropping even while online advertising spend is skyrocketing. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Soloveichik/publication/320618148/figure/fig2/AS:553454859767808@1508965329425/Advertising-Revenue-as-a-Share-of-GDP-Percent.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Soloveichik/publ... https://ark-invest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/internet-advertising-growth-graph-3-1030x851.png https://ark-invest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/internet-a...
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  Because Google and Facebook take the majority of that money, leaving the rest of the publishers less and less of that pie.
  - buboard 7y ago
    Which is why they need more competitors, and being unable to use their trackers means smaller competitors can get a chance.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Alternatively, we need to corner the market into a kill box by letting it depend on a few large players, and then start shooting at it with regulations, technology and cultural shifts. Personally, I do not want a healthy competition in adtech breeding further innovation. That's like wanting a healthy competition in bacteria breeding super germs. I want the adtech market to die.

Fnoord 7y ago

I don't agree ads are beneficial for users (or "consumers" as you put it). They could be, but you pay with your focus/time. I'd rather pay for the content then, or get a free (demo) version (I regard a RSS feed as such). Tracking, however, is on the long term never beneficial for the users. It is a behemoth of a privacy nightmare. This article is about ad trackers.

babuskov 7y ago
> I'd rather pay for the content then People like you are a minority. Most people expect Internet content to be free.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Because there is a lot of paid pulp content. Demo versions of qualitative, paid content will sell itself provided the stack is user-friendly enough. Just like people pay for Netflix. Also, if you price yourself conform US or EU salary don't expect poor countries to buy your product.
a_imho 7y ago
It's something a person would say with a salary depending on ads. Who likes tracking and popups? TV programming butchered? Endless garbage in the mail? Come on.
- BigJono 7y ago
  I think it's the opposite. We're in a bubble here. It's easy enough for a software engineer to say they'd pay for the content that's on the web when we have the disposable income to do so without even breaking stride. If you ask the average person whether they'd prefer to pay for web content or cop ads and trackers, they'd probably tell you to shove your subscription service or whatever alternative you can come up with up your ass.
  - dvdkon 7y ago
    The problem with paying for content for people outside of that bubble is that the prices are way too high. Consider how much money an average visitor earns a site through ads. In relation, paying 5USD a month for an ad-free subscription to that same content seems ridiculous. I'd wager that's even more money than a newspaper subscription sans the printing costs.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Does an average visitor earn a site 5 USD per month? That sounds way too high. 5 cents, maybe, if they're a regular visitors. If sites asked users to pay what they earn off advertising to them on average, prices would be very low. Unfortunately, there's nothing stopping sites from asking for money and still advertising.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  In the same way that nobody likes taxes, traffic stops, or insurance salesmen, but almost anyone sees their necessity, things can be beneficial without being enjoyable.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
fauigerzigerk 7y ago
All widespread forms of online payment require proof of identity and hence take away all anonymity and all privacy. Even after many years of debates and experiments, there is still no practical way to do anonymous micropayments. And I doubt there ever will be, because governments will always want to regulate payments. So direct payment for content will very likely end up being yet another stronghold of all-powerful gatekeepers, just like the app stores.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Good point. Not at all a fan of cryptocurrencies but would a cryptocurrency like Montero be of help here?
  - fauigerzigerk 7y ago
    Only if you believe that governments would ever let businesses receive hundreds of billions per year without any proof of who or where the payer was. In my view, these schemes will only be tolerated as long as they are tiny enough to fly under the radar.
    - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
      They regulate bitcoin, but don't take all anonymity.
      - fauigerzigerk 7y ago
        I think there's only a tiny number of bitcoin payments on any given day.
- GoblinSlayer 7y ago
  >there is still no practical way to do anonymous micropayments Accumulate and pay in bulk.
  - falcolas 7y ago

cmroanirgo 7y ago

I always like to compare the 'advertising' that we see on the net vs the ones we see in a store. In the first instance, the website can and does monetise you, whereas in a store it's just that: a suggestion. In a store, the advertiser might have paid for a placement, but an individual's metrics are not harvested. So, the real dysfunction is that advertisers aren't paying a website up front for 'space'. I will always applaud the termination of the tracking advertising that we have online. I think there final straw that breaks the advertising model is when browsers finally disallow/ discourage cross site communications. ie, even an image hosted on a different domain will be treated the same way mixed http/https is currently treated. Google, of course will no doubt vehemently oppose such moves. On the flip side, I like how HN keeps blatant advertising away, except for the odd YC announcements: it just shows how sites with something tangible don't need to resort to subversive ads.

joeblubaugh 7y ago
This isn’t as true these days as it used to be. Many stores use WiFi hotspots and Bluetooth beacons (and computer vision on security cameras) to track customers in their stores to build advertising and placement strategies. Target’s particularly fond of this approach.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Indeed. It's not that physical space advertisers are somehow morally superior to on-line ad networks; it's that until recently, they couldn't afford the level of tracking that was possible on-line. With cheap computer vision and advertising technologies like iBeacon support[0] being included in smartphones by default, and with services for processing this data being available on the market, physical space advertisers can now afford to be just as slimy as their on-line counterparts. -- [0] - which didn't start as advertising technology, but ended up being used this way.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

leggomylibro 7y ago

The ads that I find most useful are the ones which mimic olde newspaper/magazine ads by simply showing things relevant to their general readership. The advertisers don't need to know a thing about me, they just need to know the general demographics and interests of the publication. For example, the ads on this blog[1] are far more relevant and less invasive/annoying than anything that Google ever showed me before I started aggressively blocking ad networks. I assume that it is because the blog knows what I am interested in better than Google does, simply because I voluntarily go to their website and read their content. [1]: https://hackaday.com/ https://hackaday.com/

gear54rus 7y ago
Consider this though, would those marketing schmucks invest that much money into dystopian tracking on the web if they didn't have the data to back it up? The problem is in the user. They do this because we let them. Spread the adblock around your non-technical peers whenever you can.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  I think this phenomenon has also a lot to do with self marketing of ad agencies. To stand out against the numerous competitors, they want to provide as much information as possible to their clients about potential customers, target groups, etc. I agree that we should block those even harder. The bad side is that whitelisting sites doesn't work well and well behaved actors are punished too. Especially those, since they do not employ measures against blocking in the first place. That does cost those sites that you actually do want to support. So the current situation is that bad actors ruin it for everyone.
ec109685 7y ago
Are you sure hackaday isn’t using third party ad networks?
- leggomylibro 7y ago
  Nope - but I see the same sort of ads on every machine including public ones, they don't follow me, and they aren't annoying. So if they do use an ad network, it seems like one that can connect me with products that I'm interested in without being intrusive. I guess that I have no assurances that they aren't collecting my information and not using it, but down that road lies madness.

estomagordo 7y ago

How could ads benefit users? Obviously, if the revenue that content creators receive from ads came directly from the consumers, the middle (ad) man would be cut out and all others would benefit.

buboard 7y ago
The same way that reading HN can benefit users. A lot of the posted blog articles are covert advertising anyway. Ads do not benefit the user directly, they benefit the business, which expands and improves its products, which itself benefits the user. Advertising is indispensable for business growth, and are never going to go away, they 'll just change format
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > A lot of the posted blog articles are covert advertising anyway. And a lot of them aren't, and a big reason why people read HN or /r/$someNiche instead of an industry news site is because community link aggregators do a good job at weeding out the advertising. > Ads do not benefit the user directly, they benefit the business, which expands and improves its products, which itself benefits the user. I'd be careful, because this line of argument can justify anything a business does to make more money, because "they'll expand and improve its products". In reality, the "improvement" of a product is measured by its profitability, so if you let a business play unfairly and abusively, they'll only do more of that.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
The media is financed by ads to the tune of around 50%. That business is sort of necessary for democracy, as decision-making requires information to close the feedback loop. Therefore, I wouldn't quite so readily cheer the downfall of the industry with nothing more than the typical "be better and you'll find more paying customers" advice.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > The media is financed by ads to the tune of around 50%. That's because it's the easiest and most profitable business model available. Kill it off, and media will shift to a different model. Advertising isn't necessary for media to exist, and it's not like people want media to exist because of ads. > That business is sort of necessary for democracy, as decision-making requires information to close the feedback loop. Sort of, kind of. Some news reporting is the part that's necessary for democracy. Not the entirety of what news sites serve today, and definitely not the larger media industry. News reporting is already pretty much as low as it can get, thanks to advertising-based business model. Facts and reasoned opinions matter little; fake news and outrage-inducing reporting generates more page views, leading to more ad impressions, and thus more money for the news organization.

buboard 7y ago

Yes they can. Online advertising is on the rise. Businesses have been spending the same % in advertising for a century. If it is not possible to use trackers, businesses will keep spending the same, and advertisers should be paying out the same to publishers. The bigger question for me is why publisher payouts keep dropping even while online advertising spend is skyrocketing. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Soloveichik/publication/320618148/figure/fig2/AS:553454859767808@1508965329425/Advertising-Revenue-as-a-Share-of-GDP-Percent.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Soloveichik/publ... https://ark-invest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/internet-advertising-growth-graph-3-1030x851.png https://ark-invest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/internet-a...

9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
Because Google and Facebook take the majority of that money, leaving the rest of the publishers less and less of that pie.
- buboard 7y ago
  Which is why they need more competitors, and being unable to use their trackers means smaller competitors can get a chance.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Alternatively, we need to corner the market into a kill box by letting it depend on a few large players, and then start shooting at it with regulations, technology and cultural shifts. Personally, I do not want a healthy competition in adtech breeding further innovation. That's like wanting a healthy competition in bacteria breeding super germs. I want the adtech market to die.