3 ms·

While generally I agree, and I do run an adblocker for safety reasons, I'll also contend that you get what you deserve if you block ads and don't pony up in som

While generally I agree, and I do run an adblocker for safety reasons, I'll also contend that you get what you deserve if you block ads and don't pony up in some other way. It's easy to forget this when every article has a web archive link bypassing a paywall, or you watch YouTube with Sponsorblock, but ultimately someone has to pay the bill at the end of the day. An individual writing an investigative piece over months incurs a lot of expenses, the 10 minute YouTube video you watched probably took many hours or days to produce, the storage and bandwidth cost of the 4K video you watched is not nil. An ideal world would have properly regulated ads on platforms like YouTube and Adwords held to the same standards as some European ad agencies. But since we don't live in an ideal world, pay for a subscription to a newspaper you read a lot. Give someone you enjoy like $5 on Patreon, maybe more if they're not the type to double dip with sponsorship spots AND have a Patreon (personal pet peeve) and immediately unsubscribe, that's worth several thousand ad-supported views depending on their CPM. Like having LTS versions? Donate to the devs or don't be surprised when they burn out[0]. Currently, almost everything you enjoy on the internet is made by other humans. Support them in doing so. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/linux-gives-up-on-6-year-lts-thats-fine-for-pcs-bad-for-android/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/linux-gives-up-on-6-...

akira2501 3y ago
> I'll also contend that you get what you deserve if you block ads and don't pony up in some other way. I explicitly reject this idea. What did media do for centuries? They had a brick and mortar sales operation that went out and sold advertisements, took in creative, and than ran those ads inline. For those not big enough to support this, there are agencies that will do the entire thing for you. This idea that we need to allow untrusted third parties to run code on our computer because poor website operators would just have no other way to make money is bogus. This is particularly true for journalists who should be extremely uncomfortable that google has full access to their articles and can manipulate them before they're shown to end users. In an ideal world, people would take and make 100% of the advertising money for themselves, and pennies-on-the-dollar advertising aggregators would have no reason to exist.
- tootie 3y ago
  We may get back there but the 2005-2020 era just ruined everything for a while. The game of monetizing eyeballs became too lucrative for too many low quality content farms. That has to unwind and consumers have to recognize value again. For now, whoever runs the most aggressive ads for the most people will get the most resources. For reference, I work at a smallish media company doing high quality news and content. We have a small and strapped sales team. They sell what they can but the buyers have the same conundrum. They aren't all looking for partners when they can just buy traffic at predictable prices and put their faith in brand safety tools. They want to maximize their efficiency of their ad spend and that usually doesn't involve looking for partners and relationships when they can just click a button and get more views. The result is that we've been hit by malicious ads more than once.
thefurdrake 3y ago
Look. I remember what the internet was like before the adtech hegemony was so entrenched. I was happier with my internet experience back then. I legit do not care if every service on the internet that relies on ads ceased. If it all went away tomorrow, I'd be fucking fine. Sure, I'd have to find something to occupy my time that isn't Daily Youtube Binge, but that'd be a /healthy/ outcome for me. I'm fine with going back to paying 5 bucks a month to self-host content I want to share. The newstertainment industry with all their paywalls don't actually provide much value to my life, and if they went away, I'd be fine as well, and so would you (probably?). I'm fine with paying 5 dollars a month for a reliable search engine, too. I've been collecting the patreons of every youtube channel I follow and pretty quick here I'm going to be setting aside part of my monthly budget to it. Supporting healthy monetization schemes is part of my beliefs. Hell, I'd be 100% happy to participate in a good-faith attempt to charge me a small fee PER ARTICLE I READ (similar to how I was happy to pay for music when it became possible to buy individual tracks and not entire albums), but the industry collectively failed to grab its sac and make that change already, so I don't care about them or how Kantian philosophy applied to what I believe would ruin their way of life. That is, in fact, the point. Adtech is amoral, and it disgusts me how we've normalized it to the point we have.
plagiarist 3y ago
I'll not be paying for a subscription to something that then contains ads, so newspapers are out. I'm with you on contributing directly to content creators with Patreon when they don't have sponsorship spots.
stevenicr 3y ago
We need a universal 'support this icon' which opens up dozens of options with search and suggest. a little click / tap - open up options - send a small payment (paypal, venmo, crypcoin, more) - setup a regular support (patreon, superfans, etc), - watch an ad (able to choose type of ad and content to watch or avoid) - share this content via ..social, your site, etc.. remix.. - give a like / subscribe / follow on .. (the site owner can choose defaults / add info maybe) and a bridge for people to add money into a bucket that can be translated to wherever.. I've run into people online I needed to send money to (and offline too) where figuring out how to get money from me to them is just crazy. I believe the problems with micropayments in the past have been mainly with not accepting enough payment gateways - having a search / suggest option would make it easier. Some people are happy to do this or that if you make it easier to do that or this, but often it's not. Is there a portal we can click to that does some basic how to get a few dollars from [where you are] to [where it's going] the easiest, least cost, most secure / less worry? This is different for many people and places. ai - give me a coffee cup mixed with light bulb and coin and bucket with speech bubbles that pop up with..

akira2501 3y ago

> I'll also contend that you get what you deserve if you block ads and don't pony up in some other way. I explicitly reject this idea. What did media do for centuries? They had a brick and mortar sales operation that went out and sold advertisements, took in creative, and than ran those ads inline. For those not big enough to support this, there are agencies that will do the entire thing for you. This idea that we need to allow untrusted third parties to run code on our computer because poor website operators would just have no other way to make money is bogus. This is particularly true for journalists who should be extremely uncomfortable that google has full access to their articles and can manipulate them before they're shown to end users. In an ideal world, people would take and make 100% of the advertising money for themselves, and pennies-on-the-dollar advertising aggregators would have no reason to exist.

tootie 3y ago
We may get back there but the 2005-2020 era just ruined everything for a while. The game of monetizing eyeballs became too lucrative for too many low quality content farms. That has to unwind and consumers have to recognize value again. For now, whoever runs the most aggressive ads for the most people will get the most resources. For reference, I work at a smallish media company doing high quality news and content. We have a small and strapped sales team. They sell what they can but the buyers have the same conundrum. They aren't all looking for partners when they can just buy traffic at predictable prices and put their faith in brand safety tools. They want to maximize their efficiency of their ad spend and that usually doesn't involve looking for partners and relationships when they can just click a button and get more views. The result is that we've been hit by malicious ads more than once.

thefurdrake 3y ago

Look. I remember what the internet was like before the adtech hegemony was so entrenched. I was happier with my internet experience back then. I legit do not care if every service on the internet that relies on ads ceased. If it all went away tomorrow, I'd be fucking fine. Sure, I'd have to find something to occupy my time that isn't Daily Youtube Binge, but that'd be a /healthy/ outcome for me. I'm fine with going back to paying 5 bucks a month to self-host content I want to share. The newstertainment industry with all their paywalls don't actually provide much value to my life, and if they went away, I'd be fine as well, and so would you (probably?). I'm fine with paying 5 dollars a month for a reliable search engine, too. I've been collecting the patreons of every youtube channel I follow and pretty quick here I'm going to be setting aside part of my monthly budget to it. Supporting healthy monetization schemes is part of my beliefs. Hell, I'd be 100% happy to participate in a good-faith attempt to charge me a small fee PER ARTICLE I READ (similar to how I was happy to pay for music when it became possible to buy individual tracks and not entire albums), but the industry collectively failed to grab its sac and make that change already, so I don't care about them or how Kantian philosophy applied to what I believe would ruin their way of life. That is, in fact, the point. Adtech is amoral, and it disgusts me how we've normalized it to the point we have.

plagiarist 3y ago

I'll not be paying for a subscription to something that then contains ads, so newspapers are out. I'm with you on contributing directly to content creators with Patreon when they don't have sponsorship spots.

stevenicr 3y ago

We need a universal 'support this icon' which opens up dozens of options with search and suggest. a little click / tap - open up options - send a small payment (paypal, venmo, crypcoin, more) - setup a regular support (patreon, superfans, etc), - watch an ad (able to choose type of ad and content to watch or avoid) - share this content via ..social, your site, etc.. remix.. - give a like / subscribe / follow on .. (the site owner can choose defaults / add info maybe) and a bridge for people to add money into a bucket that can be translated to wherever.. I've run into people online I needed to send money to (and offline too) where figuring out how to get money from me to them is just crazy. I believe the problems with micropayments in the past have been mainly with not accepting enough payment gateways - having a search / suggest option would make it easier. Some people are happy to do this or that if you make it easier to do that or this, but often it's not. Is there a portal we can click to that does some basic how to get a few dollars from [where you are] to [where it's going] the easiest, least cost, most secure / less worry? This is different for many people and places. ai - give me a coffee cup mixed with light bulb and coin and bucket with speech bubbles that pop up with..