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Google has tried this multiple times with Contributor. They tested a few different models but it never seemed to gain any traction. https://en.wikipedia.org/w

Google has tried this multiple times with Contributor. They tested a few different models but it never seemed to gain any traction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor

UncleMeat 4y ago
Yup. I know some people at Google who just smack their foreheads every time the HN "of course we'd all pay to eliminate ads" narrative shows up. There have been a bunch of attempts at this over time. They've just never got traction and slowly died.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  Speculation but: there will be a huge amount of institutional inertia around this. It sure suits a large number of Google employees that "paying for a service" will fail. Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the assertion that people won't pay for things - even when they've previously been free. Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad debate is long-term done.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    > It sure suits a large number of Google employees that "paying for a service" will fail. Let me get this straight. The idea is that Google has deliberately constructed several different systems over the years to enable micropayments or subscriptions to replace ads with the plan of them failing so they can use this as evidence that the ad model is unstoppable and that people shouldn't try to replace it? And this was done despite knowing that an alternative would make Google more money? And not a single person who was involved in this deliberate sabotage has ever spoken about it? Come on. > Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the assertion that people won't pay for things - even when they've previously been free. Newspapers are a dying industry and are filled with ads. TV is filled with ads. Even paid streaming services like Hulu (and soon maybe Netflix) are ad supported. Spotify has an ad-driven free service. > Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad debate is long-term done. Ad revenue continues to grow every quarter. Yes, Google obviously wants another similarly sized revenue stream and there are very few domains that can generate that kind of revenue. But "the ad debate is long-term done" is just not based in facts.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Hulu has an ad free plan and Netflix is offering an cheaper ad tier.
    - Hasu 4y ago
      I don't think there needs to be a conspiracy. From what I've read about Google (I have never and will never work there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship new stuff, even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up building a bunch of stuff that isn't successful. It's not at all hard for me to believe that a company that has built, shipped, and killed multiple chat apps has also built and killed multiple subscription and micropayments systems. Then, the employees who are pushing adtech can use those failures as evidence that adtech is the only way.
      - joshuamorton 4y ago
        But it isn't the adtech people, it's the contributor people, who are willing to say it's an unviable consumer model.
        Hasu 4y ago
        The same incentive system explains that too, though. The incentive is to ship. Once you've shipped the system, improving it isn't rewarded, so if it isn't immediately viable, who cares, you got your promotion and you can say, "Well we tried".
        joshuamorton 4y ago
        That uhhh... Won't get you promo.
      - UncleMeat 4y ago
        > From what I've read about Google (I have never and will never work there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship new stuff, even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up building a bunch of stuff that isn't successful. I work at Google. What you say here is not true. Yes, Google is indeed often very bad at long term product strategy and has rebooted its chat offerings an embarrassing number of times. But "it shipped, fuck it if it works" is not actually a sufficient justification for promotions.
- judge2020 4y ago
  I mean, it works for YouTube Premium, but maybe it only works there because of how absolutely annoying ads are on YT.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Contributor v1 didn't eliminate google ads, just reduced them. v2 only worked on a random handful of sites and charged per view. Give me something approaching YouTube premium and I'll go for it. Does Scroll support enough sites ye-- oh no Twitter bought them and gutted it.
- slotrans 4y ago
  Isn't it telling that few/none of us have heard of this? Maybe these efforts didn't get traction because Google made no effort to let the world know they existed.
dcminter 4y ago
I'd be slap bang in the cross hairs of this product. I mooch around online reading stuff like HN in my spare time, and yet have never ever heard of it. From an advertising company. Is this the upside or the downside of ad blockers? So hard to decide...
sc00ty 4y ago
I used this when it was announced but it's been a while since I even thought about it. I decided to dig up some old emails and see how it went for me. Invited and signed up on 2015-04-28, service ended 2017-01-17. I had a $2 monthly reoccurring charge to fund the account, but I just accrued a balance, so I cancelled the charge in 2015-11-15 and that balance lasted until the service ended. In the final email they sent they included some stats: > Thanks for being a Contributor! Your contribution of $14.01 helped to fund 351 sites! A refund for your remaining balance of -$0.02 is being processed and your account is now closed. I don't remember it being particularly noticeable, and I think on some sites it would just replace the ads with a banner saying something like "Thanks for being a contributor". I also recall there being tiers / budgets you could set.

UncleMeat 4y ago

Yup. I know some people at Google who just smack their foreheads every time the HN "of course we'd all pay to eliminate ads" narrative shows up. There have been a bunch of attempts at this over time. They've just never got traction and slowly died.

randomsearch 4y ago
Speculation but: there will be a huge amount of institutional inertia around this. It sure suits a large number of Google employees that "paying for a service" will fail. Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the assertion that people won't pay for things - even when they've previously been free. Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad debate is long-term done.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  > It sure suits a large number of Google employees that "paying for a service" will fail. Let me get this straight. The idea is that Google has deliberately constructed several different systems over the years to enable micropayments or subscriptions to replace ads with the plan of them failing so they can use this as evidence that the ad model is unstoppable and that people shouldn't try to replace it? And this was done despite knowing that an alternative would make Google more money? And not a single person who was involved in this deliberate sabotage has ever spoken about it? Come on. > Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the assertion that people won't pay for things - even when they've previously been free. Newspapers are a dying industry and are filled with ads. TV is filled with ads. Even paid streaming services like Hulu (and soon maybe Netflix) are ad supported. Spotify has an ad-driven free service. > Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad debate is long-term done. Ad revenue continues to grow every quarter. Yes, Google obviously wants another similarly sized revenue stream and there are very few domains that can generate that kind of revenue. But "the ad debate is long-term done" is just not based in facts.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Hulu has an ad free plan and Netflix is offering an cheaper ad tier.
  - Hasu 4y ago
    I don't think there needs to be a conspiracy. From what I've read about Google (I have never and will never work there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship new stuff, even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up building a bunch of stuff that isn't successful. It's not at all hard for me to believe that a company that has built, shipped, and killed multiple chat apps has also built and killed multiple subscription and micropayments systems. Then, the employees who are pushing adtech can use those failures as evidence that adtech is the only way.
    - joshuamorton 4y ago
      But it isn't the adtech people, it's the contributor people, who are willing to say it's an unviable consumer model.
      - Hasu 4y ago
        The same incentive system explains that too, though. The incentive is to ship. Once you've shipped the system, improving it isn't rewarded, so if it isn't immediately viable, who cares, you got your promotion and you can say, "Well we tried".
        joshuamorton 4y ago
        That uhhh... Won't get you promo.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      > From what I've read about Google (I have never and will never work there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship new stuff, even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up building a bunch of stuff that isn't successful. I work at Google. What you say here is not true. Yes, Google is indeed often very bad at long term product strategy and has rebooted its chat offerings an embarrassing number of times. But "it shipped, fuck it if it works" is not actually a sufficient justification for promotions.
judge2020 4y ago
I mean, it works for YouTube Premium, but maybe it only works there because of how absolutely annoying ads are on YT.
Dylan16807 4y ago
Contributor v1 didn't eliminate google ads, just reduced them. v2 only worked on a random handful of sites and charged per view. Give me something approaching YouTube premium and I'll go for it. Does Scroll support enough sites ye-- oh no Twitter bought them and gutted it.
slotrans 4y ago
Isn't it telling that few/none of us have heard of this? Maybe these efforts didn't get traction because Google made no effort to let the world know they existed.

dcminter 4y ago

I'd be slap bang in the cross hairs of this product. I mooch around online reading stuff like HN in my spare time, and yet have never ever heard of it. From an advertising company. Is this the upside or the downside of ad blockers? So hard to decide...

sc00ty 4y ago

I used this when it was announced but it's been a while since I even thought about it. I decided to dig up some old emails and see how it went for me. Invited and signed up on 2015-04-28, service ended 2017-01-17. I had a $2 monthly reoccurring charge to fund the account, but I just accrued a balance, so I cancelled the charge in 2015-11-15 and that balance lasted until the service ended. In the final email they sent they included some stats: > Thanks for being a Contributor! Your contribution of $14.01 helped to fund 351 sites! A refund for your remaining balance of -$0.02 is being processed and your account is now closed. I don't remember it being particularly noticeable, and I think on some sites it would just replace the ads with a banner saying something like "Thanks for being a contributor". I also recall there being tiers / budgets you could set.