5 ms·

I disagree. Ads can be detrimental, sure, but they're also in many ways complementary to digital, frictionless distribution. For example, ads encourage sharing

I disagree. Ads can be detrimental, sure, but they're also in many ways complementary to digital, frictionless distribution. For example, ads encourage sharing. With a paid product, you have to gate access. But then there's a sort of implicit conflict between wanting as many consumers as possible, but wanting to get paid. And especially because it's hard to know the quality of digital media without consuming it, it's hard to know whether it's worth paying for. So there's a ton of friction. That barrier to entry stops virality cold, which limits distribution, and also revenue. There are ways to do ads well. Google is the obvious example. Highly relevant, not particularly distracting, and take advantage of the intentionality of the searcher. I think ads are a naturally better revenue stream for digital content. Not to say that they can't or won't be abused.

officemonkey 15y ago
If the Wikipedia Foundation can cover their costs by donations from users, than I would resist ads forever. >There are ways to do ads well. Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest. Those gatekeepers become a very costly additional expense. One that you very quickly become dependent on, Wikipedia has already grown into a great resource from donations. If they can maintain solvency, I don't see any compelling reason why they should change.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  > Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest. Those gatekeepers become a very costly additional expense. One that you very quickly become dependent on, Only if they want to sell lots of different ads. If it were "buy the one ad slot on Wikipedia for a day for $150k" (that's supposedly the going rate for Twitter's promoted tweets, IIRC), quality control wouldn't be very hard.
  - jwdunne 15y ago
    I think this would work well just for the homepage and nothing else. The main issue I have is an irrelevant ad plastered across every page would be pretty tacky. Having relevant ads on article pages would work better but there are a few problems with that: a) Each article isn't of equal value in terms of advertising, which would make pricing much more complicated, which would also increase costs involved. b) Pages (or whole topics) with rented ad space could be subject to spammy tactics to increase the amount of visitors, such as dubious SEO techniques (the Wikipedia domain would make this easy). I haven't thought about this deeply enough but it could be a huge problem since it can't really be controlled.
    - ceejayoz 15y ago
      The ads almost have to be irrelevant, or there'd be accusations of bias. An ad for Google above the Bing article would cause a lot of criticism. It could be kept tasteful - something akin to how NPR does it, it could be a bit of text up the top right... "Wikipedia is sponsored by [Google Chrome] and readers like you".
- white_devil 15y ago
  Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest Something like The Deck would solve that problem: http://decknetwork.net/ http://decknetwork.net/

officemonkey 15y ago

If the Wikipedia Foundation can cover their costs by donations from users, than I would resist ads forever. >There are ways to do ads well. Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest. Those gatekeepers become a very costly additional expense. One that you very quickly become dependent on, Wikipedia has already grown into a great resource from donations. If they can maintain solvency, I don't see any compelling reason why they should change.

ceejayoz 15y ago
> Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest. Those gatekeepers become a very costly additional expense. One that you very quickly become dependent on, Only if they want to sell lots of different ads. If it were "buy the one ad slot on Wikipedia for a day for $150k" (that's supposedly the going rate for Twitter's promoted tweets, IIRC), quality control wouldn't be very hard.
- jwdunne 15y ago
  I think this would work well just for the homepage and nothing else. The main issue I have is an irrelevant ad plastered across every page would be pretty tacky. Having relevant ads on article pages would work better but there are a few problems with that: a) Each article isn't of equal value in terms of advertising, which would make pricing much more complicated, which would also increase costs involved. b) Pages (or whole topics) with rented ad space could be subject to spammy tactics to increase the amount of visitors, such as dubious SEO techniques (the Wikipedia domain would make this easy). I haven't thought about this deeply enough but it could be a huge problem since it can't really be controlled.
  - ceejayoz 15y ago
    The ads almost have to be irrelevant, or there'd be accusations of bias. An ad for Google above the Bing article would cause a lot of criticism. It could be kept tasteful - something akin to how NPR does it, it could be a bit of text up the top right... "Wikipedia is sponsored by [Google Chrome] and readers like you".
white_devil 15y ago
Yes there are, And Wikipedia would have to pay gatekeepers to prevent it becoming a spammy "wack-a-mole" fest Something like The Deck would solve that problem: http://decknetwork.net/ http://decknetwork.net/