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People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. This being HN, an aggregator for people who spend most of their day on computers(& the web), I think it's s

People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. This being HN, an aggregator for people who spend most of their day on computers(& the web), I think it's safe to say most of us have become immune to ads, and the effort(however minimal) in setting up\managing ads would ultimately be futile. What HN could possibly do is have an affiliate link when a product is featured; I think most people would make the conscious effort to buy via HN to support it.

DanBC 15y ago
> People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. Is that true? I remember someone saying that ad-blockers were evil because the website got revenue for views, not just clicks, and ad-blockers were killing that revenue. (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking...) >There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers.
- conorgdaly 15y ago
  OK, my initial post was premature, After some googling, sites can get income using the CPM/CPI model(Cost per thousand impressions). I stand corrected.
  - conorgdaly 15y ago
    Continuing with that thought though: if the people advertising didn't see some sort of gain(financial or otherwise), they wouldn't be long in pulling the ads from HN. It's great getting eyeballs & all but if that doesn't turn into something more concrete, nobody's gonna pay. Sure, other advertisers would step in but they'd see the same results(minimal\zereo ROI) as previous advertisers, and before long, HN would be regarded as a no go for CPI/CPM ads.
  - fakelvis 15y ago
    There's also another way of making money from advertising: flat rate. While I'm opposed to the idea of ads on HN, if it were to be implemented I can't imagine PG looking at CPI/CPC methods. Rather, I suspect advertising space would be 'rented' on a monthly basis for a much higher fee to technology companies, etc. But I'll reiterate: I'm against advertising on HN for multiple reasons (poor revenue model for a community like this; there are better alternatives; I don't like them), and I would not be surprised if PG was too (although I've not way of knowing).

DanBC 15y ago

> People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. Is that true? I remember someone saying that ad-blockers were evil because the website got revenue for views, not just clicks, and ad-blockers were killing that revenue. (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking...) >There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers.

conorgdaly 15y ago
OK, my initial post was premature, After some googling, sites can get income using the CPM/CPI model(Cost per thousand impressions). I stand corrected.
- conorgdaly 15y ago
  Continuing with that thought though: if the people advertising didn't see some sort of gain(financial or otherwise), they wouldn't be long in pulling the ads from HN. It's great getting eyeballs & all but if that doesn't turn into something more concrete, nobody's gonna pay. Sure, other advertisers would step in but they'd see the same results(minimal\zereo ROI) as previous advertisers, and before long, HN would be regarded as a no go for CPI/CPM ads.
- fakelvis 15y ago
  There's also another way of making money from advertising: flat rate. While I'm opposed to the idea of ads on HN, if it were to be implemented I can't imagine PG looking at CPI/CPC methods. Rather, I suspect advertising space would be 'rented' on a monthly basis for a much higher fee to technology companies, etc. But I'll reiterate: I'm against advertising on HN for multiple reasons (poor revenue model for a community like this; there are better alternatives; I don't like them), and I would not be surprised if PG was too (although I've not way of knowing).