4 ms·

If people aren't willing to look at ads, what will news articles become? ads. What will HN comments become? Ads (many blog posts already are). Advertising cover

If people aren't willing to look at ads, what will news articles become? ads. What will HN comments become? Ads (many blog posts already are). Advertising covers a need

have_faith 7y ago
I know advertising covers a need, there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense. News organisations do not offer anything of consistent high quality that people are willing to pay for though. I have no faith that quality will improve if only we all switched off our adblockers and clicked some ads. People's propensity to read clickbait will not decline as a result of higher revenue from advertising. Most people aren't willing to pay for news because most news is worthless. > what will news articles become? ads This has already been the case for a while. I hope ad-blockers push them so far from legitimacy that they actually die off somewhat. When they had ad revenue bottom of the barrel "news" could survive regardless of the market not wanting to give them any money directly.
- buboard 7y ago
  > quality that people are willing to pay for though You 're only talking about news sites. While they are the loudest to complain, most of the web traffic is not news sites, but sites with immense amounts of valuable information, most of which is not compensated well. The only one who gets compensated well is Google, and we should change that. Businesses are constantly willing to give money for advertising, and they will do that even if 100% of users use adblocking. That is a 0.5 trillion industry which is a great fit for attention-grabbing media, from printed press to the internet. It's not going away. It's just broken, largely because of centralized tracking, and we have to fix that.
  - have_faith 7y ago
    I didn't just mean news sites, they are a good example though. There is a lot of sites out there with very valuable information, I'm not convinced that they inherently need compensating though? but I might be mis-interpreting what you mean. More specifically I don't think encouraging these valuable sites to survive on new ad driven or donation modals is pragmatic, especially one backed by a crypto like BAT. If I create high value content and put it online for free I don't think it's fair I then complain that it doesn't generate enough revenue through ads. I would rather the content not be given to me for free in the first place.
    - buboard 7y ago
      > I'm not convinced that they inherently need compensating though? I am. I find some excellent Youtube channels, and i m sure google is not compensating them enough. I find interesting comments here or on reddit which are never compensated. For small audiences, there is just no way to be compensated. IF people take the time to provide value to me, simple logic says there should be a way to compensate them (but there isn't). It seems like we have the technology to transform the way we live and we don't use it. > create high value content and put it online for free Most people do that with the expectation that once they hit a popularity threshold, they 'll be able to monetize it. At least that's what Google promises them (thats how blogs and youtube took off), and after they bait they switch and start starving creators of income. We can do better than that, imho
      - lliamander 7y ago
        > I am. I find some excellent Youtube channels, and i m sure google is not compensating them enough. Depending upon youtube ads for your revenue is not a good model anyway. Many channel owners have their own monetization through sponsors ("this video was sponsored by..."), patreon, affiliate links, merchandise, etc. For others, they may either produce the content for pleasure (i.e. without intent to monetize) or as a way of driving attention toward their real business (e.g. if they are a consultant or book author). > I find interesting comments here or on reddit which are never compensated. For small audiences, there is just no way to be compensated. IF people take the time to provide value to me, simple logic says there should be a way to compensate them (but there isn't). There are incentives that motivate people aside from money, such as reputation. That aside, I think the reason many participate in sites like this is that ultimately they intend to gain knowledge as well. There's not an explicit exchange, but by all of us willing to share our knowledge and experience, we all end up more educated than we started out. > Most people do that with the expectation that once they hit a popularity threshold, they 'll be able to monetize it. At least that's what Google promises them (thats how blogs and youtube took off), and after they bait they switch and start starving creators of income. We can do better than that, imho Again, depending upon a platform provider (and one that is often secretive and unaccountable with it's decisions) for your main source of income is a bad bet. For content creators, the hard truth is that you have to put a lot of work into connecting directly with your customers and finding ways to disintermediate the publishing platforms and diversify your revenue streams.
- cyborgx7 7y ago
  >there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense. There is so much wrong with advertising in an academic sense. - They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product. - They distort the media market as getting people to look in your direction is the only thing that has value. Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising, and wouldn't exist without it. - They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation. I also believe this to be a big factor in the decrease in trust in media. Since the stuff that is meant to inform you is always surrounded by stuff trying to manipulate you, how could you ever build trust to it?
  - have_faith 7y ago
    I'm talking about the basic principles of advertising. A simple sign in the street is advertising, as is a static graphic on a niche hobby website advertising products from a company people within that community respect. There's nothing wrong with letting people know your products exist. The problem is always in the execution. > They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product. I don't see any alternative to letting people make claims and making laws to stop them blatantly lying. What is the "best" product in any category? How does the best product surface in front of me without advertising in any context? > Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising Advertising is a part of it, sure, but it's not the whole picture. > They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation 100% agree, which is why I promote adblockers. But I don't think this is a problem with the principle of advertising, it's an execution problem. Like many others mention if a website had a small sidebar with static graphic ads that weren't invasive I wouldn't block them as they wouldn't be requiring me to expend energy to counteract them and I would still think it would be ethical to block them if someone wished to. It's never unethical to choose what code runs on my machine after being sent to me, if you don't want me to have free content then don't send me content for free. I think we're mostly on the same page, I just don't have a problem with ads at the bottom end of the manipulation and annoyance scale.
    - 7y ago
criddell 7y ago
There are a decent number of us that don't object to ads, we object to tracking and surveillance. I'd probably use a browser that blocked all trackers and ad networks that do tracking/user profiling but did allow other kinds of ads. If enough people did that, the ad tech companies would have to evolve and target the producer and content rather than the consumer. That would be a big step forward IMO.
- smichel17 7y ago
  AdNauseam has a setting to allow non-tracking ads (the list of which I believe is maintained by the EFF).
Barrin92 7y ago
>what will news articles become? there will be fewer of them which is a good thing because the signal to noise ratio of journalism is about one to two magnitudes too high, they will be smaller and funded by communities who have authentic interest in keeping them alive rather than be incentivised to maximise engagement, and I'd wager they'd be more responsive to the needs of their readers and members.
- buboard 7y ago
  > funded by communities who have authentic interest in keeping them alive That's naive. Traditional media were always coopted to serve interests
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    yes, traditional media is for the most part ad-funded and that's why it suffers from the same problem. There is plenty of non-traditional or local media that functions perfectly fine based on subscriptions. Diminishing or better destroying the ad model will be good for them.
    - buboard 7y ago
      > traditional media is for the most part ad-funded Traditional media were often bankrupt , but kept alive for political influence. Subscripptions don't solve the problem, they only work for major publications , and they give them an incentive to coddle their hardcore audience , creating a bubble. If anything ad-supported media can afford to be more unbiased (but still 'safe' enough for their advertisers).
cwkoss 7y ago
This has already happened.

If people aren't willing to look at ads, what will news articles become? ads. What will HN comments become? Ads (many blog posts already are). Advertising covers a need

have_faith 7y ago

I know advertising covers a need, there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense. News organisations do not offer anything of consistent high quality that people are willing to pay for though. I have no faith that quality will improve if only we all switched off our adblockers and clicked some ads. People's propensity to read clickbait will not decline as a result of higher revenue from advertising. Most people aren't willing to pay for news because most news is worthless. > what will news articles become? ads This has already been the case for a while. I hope ad-blockers push them so far from legitimacy that they actually die off somewhat. When they had ad revenue bottom of the barrel "news" could survive regardless of the market not wanting to give them any money directly.

buboard 7y ago
> quality that people are willing to pay for though You 're only talking about news sites. While they are the loudest to complain, most of the web traffic is not news sites, but sites with immense amounts of valuable information, most of which is not compensated well. The only one who gets compensated well is Google, and we should change that. Businesses are constantly willing to give money for advertising, and they will do that even if 100% of users use adblocking. That is a 0.5 trillion industry which is a great fit for attention-grabbing media, from printed press to the internet. It's not going away. It's just broken, largely because of centralized tracking, and we have to fix that.
- have_faith 7y ago
  I didn't just mean news sites, they are a good example though. There is a lot of sites out there with very valuable information, I'm not convinced that they inherently need compensating though? but I might be mis-interpreting what you mean. More specifically I don't think encouraging these valuable sites to survive on new ad driven or donation modals is pragmatic, especially one backed by a crypto like BAT. If I create high value content and put it online for free I don't think it's fair I then complain that it doesn't generate enough revenue through ads. I would rather the content not be given to me for free in the first place.
  - buboard 7y ago
    > I'm not convinced that they inherently need compensating though? I am. I find some excellent Youtube channels, and i m sure google is not compensating them enough. I find interesting comments here or on reddit which are never compensated. For small audiences, there is just no way to be compensated. IF people take the time to provide value to me, simple logic says there should be a way to compensate them (but there isn't). It seems like we have the technology to transform the way we live and we don't use it. > create high value content and put it online for free Most people do that with the expectation that once they hit a popularity threshold, they 'll be able to monetize it. At least that's what Google promises them (thats how blogs and youtube took off), and after they bait they switch and start starving creators of income. We can do better than that, imho
    - lliamander 7y ago
      > I am. I find some excellent Youtube channels, and i m sure google is not compensating them enough. Depending upon youtube ads for your revenue is not a good model anyway. Many channel owners have their own monetization through sponsors ("this video was sponsored by..."), patreon, affiliate links, merchandise, etc. For others, they may either produce the content for pleasure (i.e. without intent to monetize) or as a way of driving attention toward their real business (e.g. if they are a consultant or book author). > I find interesting comments here or on reddit which are never compensated. For small audiences, there is just no way to be compensated. IF people take the time to provide value to me, simple logic says there should be a way to compensate them (but there isn't). There are incentives that motivate people aside from money, such as reputation. That aside, I think the reason many participate in sites like this is that ultimately they intend to gain knowledge as well. There's not an explicit exchange, but by all of us willing to share our knowledge and experience, we all end up more educated than we started out. > Most people do that with the expectation that once they hit a popularity threshold, they 'll be able to monetize it. At least that's what Google promises them (thats how blogs and youtube took off), and after they bait they switch and start starving creators of income. We can do better than that, imho Again, depending upon a platform provider (and one that is often secretive and unaccountable with it's decisions) for your main source of income is a bad bet. For content creators, the hard truth is that you have to put a lot of work into connecting directly with your customers and finding ways to disintermediate the publishing platforms and diversify your revenue streams.
cyborgx7 7y ago
>there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense. There is so much wrong with advertising in an academic sense. - They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product. - They distort the media market as getting people to look in your direction is the only thing that has value. Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising, and wouldn't exist without it. - They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation. I also believe this to be a big factor in the decrease in trust in media. Since the stuff that is meant to inform you is always surrounded by stuff trying to manipulate you, how could you ever build trust to it?
- have_faith 7y ago
  I'm talking about the basic principles of advertising. A simple sign in the street is advertising, as is a static graphic on a niche hobby website advertising products from a company people within that community respect. There's nothing wrong with letting people know your products exist. The problem is always in the execution. > They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product. I don't see any alternative to letting people make claims and making laws to stop them blatantly lying. What is the "best" product in any category? How does the best product surface in front of me without advertising in any context? > Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising Advertising is a part of it, sure, but it's not the whole picture. > They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation 100% agree, which is why I promote adblockers. But I don't think this is a problem with the principle of advertising, it's an execution problem. Like many others mention if a website had a small sidebar with static graphic ads that weren't invasive I wouldn't block them as they wouldn't be requiring me to expend energy to counteract them and I would still think it would be ethical to block them if someone wished to. It's never unethical to choose what code runs on my machine after being sent to me, if you don't want me to have free content then don't send me content for free. I think we're mostly on the same page, I just don't have a problem with ads at the bottom end of the manipulation and annoyance scale.
  - 7y ago

criddell 7y ago

There are a decent number of us that don't object to ads, we object to tracking and surveillance. I'd probably use a browser that blocked all trackers and ad networks that do tracking/user profiling but did allow other kinds of ads. If enough people did that, the ad tech companies would have to evolve and target the producer and content rather than the consumer. That would be a big step forward IMO.

smichel17 7y ago
AdNauseam has a setting to allow non-tracking ads (the list of which I believe is maintained by the EFF).

Barrin92 7y ago

>what will news articles become? there will be fewer of them which is a good thing because the signal to noise ratio of journalism is about one to two magnitudes too high, they will be smaller and funded by communities who have authentic interest in keeping them alive rather than be incentivised to maximise engagement, and I'd wager they'd be more responsive to the needs of their readers and members.

buboard 7y ago
> funded by communities who have authentic interest in keeping them alive That's naive. Traditional media were always coopted to serve interests
- Barrin92 7y ago
  yes, traditional media is for the most part ad-funded and that's why it suffers from the same problem. There is plenty of non-traditional or local media that functions perfectly fine based on subscriptions. Diminishing or better destroying the ad model will be good for them.
  - buboard 7y ago
    > traditional media is for the most part ad-funded Traditional media were often bankrupt , but kept alive for political influence. Subscripptions don't solve the problem, they only work for major publications , and they give them an incentive to coddle their hardcore audience , creating a bubble. If anything ad-supported media can afford to be more unbiased (but still 'safe' enough for their advertisers).

cwkoss 7y ago

This has already happened.