5 ms·

Ads aren’t bad. They’re a way to get content without needing to exchange money for it. The user suffer more when the content goes away.

jjulius 4y ago
Ads aren't, generally. Targeted advertising, however, is trash and needs to go away.
tacker2000 4y ago
I get your argument, but more ads mean more intrusive JS and longer load times, which make the user experience worse. But yes, of course one needs to weigh these two sides. Free content needs to be monetized. And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Seems like content creators didnt even get any of the promised benefits out of it.
- jonas21 4y ago
  > And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Wait, what? At the time it was introduced, it was literally the only counterbalance to the incentives of adding as many ads to your site as possible. Google has better ways of penalizing bad practices now, but that wasn't the case 7 years ago.
arrosenberg 4y ago
Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Ads force people to pay with their attention span, which seems to have serious consequences - the user is suffering from attention deficit far more than an imagined lack of content.
- paulcole 4y ago
  Well if money isn’t exchanged for the service of content (in some way), the content eventually goes away. The lack of content stops being imaginary.
  - immibis 4y ago
    Cool. Let me pay $20/month for an ad-free Internet (not just one site). I already have Youtube Premium.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      This is like saying "Cool. Let me pay $10,000 for a Ferrari. I already have a tricycle."
      - immibis 4y ago
        I suspect YouTube alone makes up the majority of my casual browsing data volume. You could even make it $100/month if you wanted.
  - account42 4y ago
    That content is only ever produced out of monetary motivations is the biggest lie capitalism has sold us.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  > Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Sounds like advertising meets that description. It's a transaction of value - potential future customers via the service of advertising.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    It does not. Attention is a limited good, not capital. Capital is capital.
    - nkozyra 4y ago
      You've changed your definition. Advertising is a service, it is fundamentally no different than any other service. We may find it annoying or distasteful, but it is a natural good from natural actors in a capitalist system.
      - arrosenberg 4y ago
        Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system. What a ridiculous idea. Advertising is a service, it should be paid for with capital, not used as a subsidy or alternate form of payment.
        nkozyra 4y ago
        > Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system You're looking at the wrong thing as capital and the wrong thing as the service. The service is customer sourcing and the capital is literally capital. It is a very natural capitalist creation, self-evidently so.
        arrosenberg 4y ago
        I don't think I am. Internet users are not being fairly compensated for their data and unless you block the entire Facebook and Instagram namespaces, they track you whether or not you have consented. The platforms are acting like feudal landlords, not capitalists.
UberFly 4y ago
You are correct overall that they are a legitimate way to trade for something with your attention but their application is so abused now. The push-back is worthwhile.
Sakos 4y ago
There's a German news site (I think Zeit?) that has an interesting approach. When you try to access the site, it gives you an explicit choice (between two buttons) between the site with ads or subscribing to the site.
- dijksterhuis 4y ago
  I respect being given a conscious choice up front. NPR used to do something similar for GDPR — either accept their cookies or view the site content in plain text. (edit: probably not in line with GDPR but heyho)
  - immibis 4y ago
    NPR's plaintext site is one of the best news sites ever. Obviously, if you visit a news article and select to be redirected to plaintext, they don't redirect you to that article on the plaintext page for that article, but to the homepage, which makes it inconvenient in the hopes you won't select that option again. But once you see where to insert the article ID, it's good.
itronitron 4y ago
Ads don't have to be bad, but most are for a variety of reasons... jarring graphics, animation, unrelated to the content. If a news organization is showing a lot of junky ads then I'm going to assume it is a failing news organization.

jjulius 4y ago

Ads aren't, generally. Targeted advertising, however, is trash and needs to go away.

tacker2000 4y ago

I get your argument, but more ads mean more intrusive JS and longer load times, which make the user experience worse. But yes, of course one needs to weigh these two sides. Free content needs to be monetized. And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Seems like content creators didnt even get any of the promised benefits out of it.

jonas21 4y ago
> And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Wait, what? At the time it was introduced, it was literally the only counterbalance to the incentives of adding as many ads to your site as possible. Google has better ways of penalizing bad practices now, but that wasn't the case 7 years ago.

arrosenberg 4y ago

Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Ads force people to pay with their attention span, which seems to have serious consequences - the user is suffering from attention deficit far more than an imagined lack of content.

paulcole 4y ago
Well if money isn’t exchanged for the service of content (in some way), the content eventually goes away. The lack of content stops being imaginary.
- immibis 4y ago
  Cool. Let me pay $20/month for an ad-free Internet (not just one site). I already have Youtube Premium.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    This is like saying "Cool. Let me pay $10,000 for a Ferrari. I already have a tricycle."
    - immibis 4y ago
      I suspect YouTube alone makes up the majority of my casual browsing data volume. You could even make it $100/month if you wanted.
- account42 4y ago
  That content is only ever produced out of monetary motivations is the biggest lie capitalism has sold us.
nkozyra 4y ago
> Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Sounds like advertising meets that description. It's a transaction of value - potential future customers via the service of advertising.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  It does not. Attention is a limited good, not capital. Capital is capital.
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    You've changed your definition. Advertising is a service, it is fundamentally no different than any other service. We may find it annoying or distasteful, but it is a natural good from natural actors in a capitalist system.
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system. What a ridiculous idea. Advertising is a service, it should be paid for with capital, not used as a subsidy or alternate form of payment.
      - nkozyra 4y ago
        > Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system You're looking at the wrong thing as capital and the wrong thing as the service. The service is customer sourcing and the capital is literally capital. It is a very natural capitalist creation, self-evidently so.
        arrosenberg 4y ago
        I don't think I am. Internet users are not being fairly compensated for their data and unless you block the entire Facebook and Instagram namespaces, they track you whether or not you have consented. The platforms are acting like feudal landlords, not capitalists.

UberFly 4y ago

You are correct overall that they are a legitimate way to trade for something with your attention but their application is so abused now. The push-back is worthwhile.

Sakos 4y ago

There's a German news site (I think Zeit?) that has an interesting approach. When you try to access the site, it gives you an explicit choice (between two buttons) between the site with ads or subscribing to the site.

dijksterhuis 4y ago
I respect being given a conscious choice up front. NPR used to do something similar for GDPR — either accept their cookies or view the site content in plain text. (edit: probably not in line with GDPR but heyho)
- immibis 4y ago
  NPR's plaintext site is one of the best news sites ever. Obviously, if you visit a news article and select to be redirected to plaintext, they don't redirect you to that article on the plaintext page for that article, but to the homepage, which makes it inconvenient in the hopes you won't select that option again. But once you see where to insert the article ID, it's good.

itronitron 4y ago

Ads don't have to be bad, but most are for a variety of reasons... jarring graphics, animation, unrelated to the content. If a news organization is showing a lot of junky ads then I'm going to assume it is a failing news organization.