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> If I sat down with a troubled couple who was having a hard time communicating, I wouldn't periodically interrupt and say "let's pause a moment for an ad. I th

> If I sat down with a troubled couple who was having a hard time communicating, I wouldn't periodically interrupt and say "let's pause a moment for an ad. I think that's going to really open up a better and more free exchange between the both of you." Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. I mean obviously not, but only because a professional counselor can only see about 8 couples per day while a search engine can serve several billion. Brave is saying it in a very PR / marketing speak way, but I get the underlying point. Instead of funding our service with your own money, let some big companies fund it in exchange for your attention. The unspoken issue (well it gets spoken on HN a lot) is that your searchers no longer become your customers. So it's advantageous to improve your service for the sake of the advertisers to the detriment of the searchers, at least until a threshold that would make the majority of them quit. It only benefits "free and open exchange of information" for as long as that also benefits the advertisers.

SebastianKra 4y ago
I hate that ads are now seen as a necessary evil for funding free access to services. The money still comes from you, just through the purchase of products. What's worse, if you pay for YouTube Premium or Kagi, you're effectively paying for your content twice. No wonder, poorer people can't afford that. I guess you could frame it like this: "Company are overcharging us by insane amounts anyways, so at least some of that money goes back into something useful through ads."
- pempem 4y ago
  Its more pernicious imho. "Let us pay for this service by serving you ads which undermine your comprehension of what you actually need and cause you to constantly have an investigative part of your mind on, or mindlessly consume." Its truly more than walletshare and tremendously mentally taxing or can destroy your financial wellbeing if unchecked.
  - heresie-dabord 4y ago
    At this point, I feel you are understating the perniciousness. "We will expose you to advertising and claim for a time to conduct ethical oversight, but when the revenue is large enough, forcing the advertising on you will become our primary business. We will enable the surveillance economy and take money from any source however dubious."
- awillen 4y ago
  You're not forced to buy any products, though. And in this case they specifically allow you to pay $3/month and not have ads. I'd wager virtually no one will take that option, though, since folks tend to be very vocally opposed to ads until it's time to pay instead.
- s3p 4y ago
  >What's worse, if you pay for YouTube Premium or Kagi, you're effectively paying for your content twice. No wonder, poorer people can't afford that. How is this true with YT premium? There are no ads if you pay.
  - dcow 4y ago
    Or with Kagi?
  - perryizgr8 4y ago
    > There are no ads if you pay. That's not true. Almost all high quality channels on Youtube have some sort of sponsorship inside the video. It doesn't go away even if you pay for Youtube red.
    - hollerith 4y ago
      "Almost all" is not my experience.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Isn't there a browser extension that attempts to skip these?
      - perryizgr8 4y ago
        There is, I use it. But then why would I pay for YouTube red? I'd rather donate to the extension dev.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Only if you use SponsorBlock. Something something LTTStore.com (okay I've actually bought mech from them, but it's like 3x per episode plus the hardware sponsor segment).
  - SebastianKra 4y ago
    To clarify: When you pay to remove ads, you're still paying indirectly for the production and delivery of ads. Just because you didn't see an advertisement from Apple doesn't mean you're not going to buy from them. So you now pay the cost of producing and delivering ads _as well as_ a premium so that you won't have to see them. It's like paying for the construction of a guillotine and then pay to not have to stick your head in it. Of course this is a simplified view: Not all companies benefit equally from advertising. Not all companies spend equally on ads, etc...
- Melatonic 4y ago
  Not sure I get the Kagi part ?
- slenk 4y ago
  Wait - I pay for YT Premium and see ZERO ads on YouYube. How exactly am I paying for my content twice?
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    Why not adblocking for free?
amelius 4y ago
> Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. Ads can only pay a couple of dollars at most. That's one of the problem with ads: they don't scale. You can only sell cheapish stuff using them; you can never increase your price above a certain point. It's very much a broken form of monetization in many ways.
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  I imagine that divorce attorney ads would go for quite the premium
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    I've done ad stuff for a bank doing small to medium business loans. Over $100 per click on certain ads. It's insane. But we also had a high "quality score" (about 3% of clicks lead to a loan over 100k)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
danbruc 4y ago
Instead of funding our service with your own money, let some big companies fund it in exchange for your attention. The big companies are not magically getting their money out of thin air, you are still paying with your money, just indirectly through the share of the ad budget included in the price of everything you buy. Some of the money gets lost on the way to pay the marketing people, some of the money goes to the web sites. But it is not enough that they now have your money, no, you also have to look at the stuff the marketing people made with your money in order to see the content you payed for. And this is still not enough, they also want every last bit of information about you, so that they can annoy you in a more targeted way. And last but not least, there are no real incentives that the ads represent the product objectively but there are incentives to overpromise and manipulate you.
fakedang 4y ago
> Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. I'm going to take a short break from our session to tell you guys that this session was sponsored by NordVPN, the only VPN you'll ever need. Co-sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends, an amazing MMORPG that you guys should really give a try.
- heresie-dabord 4y ago
  "And by the way," said the counsellor, "Everything that we have discussed in this session is confidential, of course. But the word means nothing because I don't know how to implement privacy controls, you weren't using a VPN, and I'll monetise everything about your visit. Thanks for your business!"
egberts1 4y ago
In short, Brave has gone the way of the alphabet corporations.

SebastianKra 4y ago

I hate that ads are now seen as a necessary evil for funding free access to services. The money still comes from you, just through the purchase of products. What's worse, if you pay for YouTube Premium or Kagi, you're effectively paying for your content twice. No wonder, poorer people can't afford that. I guess you could frame it like this: "Company are overcharging us by insane amounts anyways, so at least some of that money goes back into something useful through ads."

pempem 4y ago
Its more pernicious imho. "Let us pay for this service by serving you ads which undermine your comprehension of what you actually need and cause you to constantly have an investigative part of your mind on, or mindlessly consume." Its truly more than walletshare and tremendously mentally taxing or can destroy your financial wellbeing if unchecked.
- heresie-dabord 4y ago
  At this point, I feel you are understating the perniciousness. "We will expose you to advertising and claim for a time to conduct ethical oversight, but when the revenue is large enough, forcing the advertising on you will become our primary business. We will enable the surveillance economy and take money from any source however dubious."
awillen 4y ago
You're not forced to buy any products, though. And in this case they specifically allow you to pay $3/month and not have ads. I'd wager virtually no one will take that option, though, since folks tend to be very vocally opposed to ads until it's time to pay instead.
s3p 4y ago
>What's worse, if you pay for YouTube Premium or Kagi, you're effectively paying for your content twice. No wonder, poorer people can't afford that. How is this true with YT premium? There are no ads if you pay.
- dcow 4y ago
  Or with Kagi?
- perryizgr8 4y ago
  > There are no ads if you pay. That's not true. Almost all high quality channels on Youtube have some sort of sponsorship inside the video. It doesn't go away even if you pay for Youtube red.
  - hollerith 4y ago
    "Almost all" is not my experience.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Isn't there a browser extension that attempts to skip these?
    - perryizgr8 4y ago
      There is, I use it. But then why would I pay for YouTube red? I'd rather donate to the extension dev.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Only if you use SponsorBlock. Something something LTTStore.com (okay I've actually bought mech from them, but it's like 3x per episode plus the hardware sponsor segment).
- SebastianKra 4y ago
  To clarify: When you pay to remove ads, you're still paying indirectly for the production and delivery of ads. Just because you didn't see an advertisement from Apple doesn't mean you're not going to buy from them. So you now pay the cost of producing and delivering ads _as well as_ a premium so that you won't have to see them. It's like paying for the construction of a guillotine and then pay to not have to stick your head in it. Of course this is a simplified view: Not all companies benefit equally from advertising. Not all companies spend equally on ads, etc...
Melatonic 4y ago
Not sure I get the Kagi part ?
slenk 4y ago
Wait - I pay for YT Premium and see ZERO ads on YouYube. How exactly am I paying for my content twice?
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  Why not adblocking for free?

amelius 4y ago

> Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. Ads can only pay a couple of dollars at most. That's one of the problem with ads: they don't scale. You can only sell cheapish stuff using them; you can never increase your price above a certain point. It's very much a broken form of monetization in many ways.

_aavaa_ 4y ago
I imagine that divorce attorney ads would go for quite the premium
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  I've done ad stuff for a bank doing small to medium business loans. Over $100 per click on certain ads. It's insane. But we also had a high "quality score" (about 3% of clicks lead to a loan over 100k)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

danbruc 4y ago

Instead of funding our service with your own money, let some big companies fund it in exchange for your attention. The big companies are not magically getting their money out of thin air, you are still paying with your money, just indirectly through the share of the ad budget included in the price of everything you buy. Some of the money gets lost on the way to pay the marketing people, some of the money goes to the web sites. But it is not enough that they now have your money, no, you also have to look at the stuff the marketing people made with your money in order to see the content you payed for. And this is still not enough, they also want every last bit of information about you, so that they can annoy you in a more targeted way. And last but not least, there are no real incentives that the ads represent the product objectively but there are incentives to overpromise and manipulate you.

fakedang 4y ago

> Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. I'm going to take a short break from our session to tell you guys that this session was sponsored by NordVPN, the only VPN you'll ever need. Co-sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends, an amazing MMORPG that you guys should really give a try.

heresie-dabord 4y ago
"And by the way," said the counsellor, "Everything that we have discussed in this session is confidential, of course. But the word means nothing because I don't know how to implement privacy controls, you weren't using a VPN, and I'll monetise everything about your visit. Thanks for your business!"

egberts1 4y ago

In short, Brave has gone the way of the alphabet corporations.