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We could also pay for all the sites we use (google, youtube, gmail, reddit, etc.), but it would be pretty pricey if you visit a lot of sites. Most people would

We could also pay for all the sites we use (google, youtube, gmail, reddit, etc.), but it would be pretty pricey if you visit a lot of sites. Most people would choose tracking instead.

creato 7y ago
We know the price for youtube + google music: $10/mo. I wonder how many people are choosing that?
- tadzik_ 7y ago
  With Google being a tracking company, I expect that $10/mo gets rid of the ads but still does all the possible tracking it can – I'm not surprised if anti-tracking people don't buy into it. Product-first companies seem to be doing fine – Spotify doesn't exactly have a problem with people not wanting to pay for it.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    If anything, indicating you pay for such things makes advertising to you outside of youtube is far more valuable.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Compare stock price vs. S&P500 for NYSE:SPOT and NASDAQ:GOOGL for some fun. Then realize that Spotify allows you to target ads for more fun.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
People would start to priorize. Not a bad thing.
Kaiyou 7y ago
..or not visiting sites anymore.
fock 7y ago
it would be pricey if customers still have to pay for exorbitant salaries, payout of investors, exponential growth and moonshot-projects. That way you end up with the 10 USD Jimmy Wales is charging. If you strip all this and just make an old-fashioned public service business, maybe operated by a lean, tech-led non-profit (looking at you Mozilla...) you are suddenly ending up with a pretty cheap (e.g. cents instead of $) service (at least compared to what classic media costs). Maybe you also have to cut corners on things like free xK-Upload, but I think most people (ie consumers) could live with some surcharge there.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  > That way you end up with the 10 USD Jimmy Wales is charging. At least he's honest about it. If $10 sounds like a lot, you aren't sufficiently scared of ad-tech yet.
  - fock 7y ago
    I pay around 10USD for the VPS hosting my personal email and "cloud" services and I'm fairly confident that I could run a mastodon instance there too. Of course I'm cheating here on the management/personel cost, but the operating expenses could easily (and do) host a larger user population (and will go down with scale) and you won't need a lot of personel either. So I don't know why Jimmy Wales needs to charge 10$ for his network if he's only interested in sustainable operation. If it's the early adopter package for development expenses, I'm all in, but I don't know how he shouldn't eventually get away with 1 Mio. users paying 10$/per year if he doesn't intend to market it as a a startup/make money in successful startup scales.
wastedhours 7y ago
But there's also a middle ground of advertising without excessive tracking - YouTube and Reddit (and most major websites, including social media sites where you're actively following interests) already have enough information on your intent to show relevant ads for the content you're viewing, without tying that to you individually. A lot of the inventory I buy is now on intent-based sites, and the passive profiles used for cross-site banner display for example, for us, tend to drive the lowest quality conversions. Advertising can still have a place, but it requires effort to do well (like buying a sponsored post on a subreddit right now). Higher effort though I'd wager will lead to better conversions for all in the long run.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  That was the whole point of Google's advertising platform: it would deliver ads based on the content of the page you were on. That's why it is called "AdSense." It has since morphed into something else entirely.
deltron3030 7y ago
Ultimately it comes down to how much free time you have to pursuit the things that interest you, or to discover new things. You may visit many sites, but how active are you on those sites or how deep are you involved in those topics? There could be a free casual web, for people who just want to check things out or get a general overview, and offers for those with a deeper interest, who maybe spend a lot of time there and have very different demands. What doesn't work is gating casual information.
forgetfulusr 7y ago
I wished I could believe that I won't be tracked or I won't see ads if I paid. That is a myth that is easily busted. These guys raced to get big and now really have no clue how to be a tech company. The only innovations I've seen in the past ten years is how to make ads more annoying. Sorry this rant is not directed at you.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  This is the exact reason I don’t pay for YouTube Premium despite being able to afford it and wishing to support creators. The scummy company whose entire business is based on violating people’s privacy asks me to create an account and give out real personal information like name and address? Fuck that. Same thing with paid newspapers, you’re trading off a pseudonymous ID gathered via cookies/browser fingerprinting against which you can defend with ad-blockers to your actual identity you give them when signing up and then logging in every single time. And Google and Facebook just leech off that since their trackers are also loaded on every page.
12xo 7y ago
You'd have 12 people running a few servers, not 100k trying to scour your mind for intent and subconscious clicks... Think POF.com vs Match.com 3 guys and a few servers or 3000 people doing something...

We could also pay for all the sites we use (google, youtube, gmail, reddit, etc.), but it would be pretty pricey if you visit a lot of sites. Most people would choose tracking instead.

creato 7y ago

We know the price for youtube + google music: $10/mo. I wonder how many people are choosing that?

tadzik_ 7y ago
With Google being a tracking company, I expect that $10/mo gets rid of the ads but still does all the possible tracking it can – I'm not surprised if anti-tracking people don't buy into it. Product-first companies seem to be doing fine – Spotify doesn't exactly have a problem with people not wanting to pay for it.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  If anything, indicating you pay for such things makes advertising to you outside of youtube is far more valuable.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Compare stock price vs. S&P500 for NYSE:SPOT and NASDAQ:GOOGL for some fun. Then realize that Spotify allows you to target ads for more fun.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago

People would start to priorize. Not a bad thing.

Kaiyou 7y ago

..or not visiting sites anymore.

fock 7y ago

it would be pricey if customers still have to pay for exorbitant salaries, payout of investors, exponential growth and moonshot-projects. That way you end up with the 10 USD Jimmy Wales is charging. If you strip all this and just make an old-fashioned public service business, maybe operated by a lean, tech-led non-profit (looking at you Mozilla...) you are suddenly ending up with a pretty cheap (e.g. cents instead of $) service (at least compared to what classic media costs). Maybe you also have to cut corners on things like free xK-Upload, but I think most people (ie consumers) could live with some surcharge there.

guitarbill 7y ago
> That way you end up with the 10 USD Jimmy Wales is charging. At least he's honest about it. If $10 sounds like a lot, you aren't sufficiently scared of ad-tech yet.
- fock 7y ago
  I pay around 10USD for the VPS hosting my personal email and "cloud" services and I'm fairly confident that I could run a mastodon instance there too. Of course I'm cheating here on the management/personel cost, but the operating expenses could easily (and do) host a larger user population (and will go down with scale) and you won't need a lot of personel either. So I don't know why Jimmy Wales needs to charge 10$ for his network if he's only interested in sustainable operation. If it's the early adopter package for development expenses, I'm all in, but I don't know how he shouldn't eventually get away with 1 Mio. users paying 10$/per year if he doesn't intend to market it as a a startup/make money in successful startup scales.

wastedhours 7y ago

But there's also a middle ground of advertising without excessive tracking - YouTube and Reddit (and most major websites, including social media sites where you're actively following interests) already have enough information on your intent to show relevant ads for the content you're viewing, without tying that to you individually. A lot of the inventory I buy is now on intent-based sites, and the passive profiles used for cross-site banner display for example, for us, tend to drive the lowest quality conversions. Advertising can still have a place, but it requires effort to do well (like buying a sponsored post on a subreddit right now). Higher effort though I'd wager will lead to better conversions for all in the long run.

reaperducer 7y ago
That was the whole point of Google's advertising platform: it would deliver ads based on the content of the page you were on. That's why it is called "AdSense." It has since morphed into something else entirely.

deltron3030 7y ago

Ultimately it comes down to how much free time you have to pursuit the things that interest you, or to discover new things. You may visit many sites, but how active are you on those sites or how deep are you involved in those topics? There could be a free casual web, for people who just want to check things out or get a general overview, and offers for those with a deeper interest, who maybe spend a lot of time there and have very different demands. What doesn't work is gating casual information.

forgetfulusr 7y ago

I wished I could believe that I won't be tracked or I won't see ads if I paid. That is a myth that is easily busted. These guys raced to get big and now really have no clue how to be a tech company. The only innovations I've seen in the past ten years is how to make ads more annoying. Sorry this rant is not directed at you.

Nextgrid 7y ago
This is the exact reason I don’t pay for YouTube Premium despite being able to afford it and wishing to support creators. The scummy company whose entire business is based on violating people’s privacy asks me to create an account and give out real personal information like name and address? Fuck that. Same thing with paid newspapers, you’re trading off a pseudonymous ID gathered via cookies/browser fingerprinting against which you can defend with ad-blockers to your actual identity you give them when signing up and then logging in every single time. And Google and Facebook just leech off that since their trackers are also loaded on every page.

12xo 7y ago

You'd have 12 people running a few servers, not 100k trying to scour your mind for intent and subconscious clicks... Think POF.com vs Match.com 3 guys and a few servers or 3000 people doing something...