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The valuable parts of the internet are, with few exceptions, ad-free. Forums like HN, personal blogs and sites, paid services—these are the places where real va

The valuable parts of the internet are, with few exceptions, ad-free. Forums like HN, personal blogs and sites, paid services—these are the places where real value is to be found on the internet. The ad-funded content and services are almost universally low quality and designed exclusively to hack brains to keep them scrolling, not provide real value. What few exceptions there are to this rule are not worth the enormous drain on society that the ad-funded model has been. > and as far as I can tell that is far less popular than the ad model we have. This is a classic market failure. Corporations have figured out how to manipulate people into pursuing the corporation's interest (scroll indefinitely through pages and pages of ads and spend money on the things so advertised) at the expense of the consumer's interest (do anything else with their time and money). Popularity is irrelevant when it's clearly achieved by exploitative design, not value delivered.

dgrin91 2y ago
Is this really true? Virtually all news sites, regardless what side you agree with, have ads. Basically all entertainment has ads (or subscriptions). Productivity stuff is either full of sales or upsells, aka ads, or alternatively sell your data (for future ads). Those are all valuable things. The ad free ones are the exceptions. More over they only exist ad free because the money comes from elsewhere.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > Virtually all news sites, regardless what side you agree with, have ads. Virtually all news sites, regardless of what side you agree with, are composed mostly of garbage designed to draw your attention, not inform you about things that really matter. They may provide some value in addition to that, but the advertising model ensures that they must hack your attention as their primary goal. > Basically all entertainment has ads (or subscriptions). Similarly, our entertainment options were better before they had to be designed to keep you on a specific streaming platform for a certain length of time. > Productivity stuff is either full of sales or upsells, aka ads, or alternatively sell your data (for future ads). Depends on who you're buying productivity stuff from. My Fastmail account does just fine with no ads and no data sales, and covers basically everything I need. Most other "productivity" tools I've tried have felt palpably exploitative. > More over they only exist ad free because the money comes from elsewhere. Ad-funded products are a civilization-wide trap like credit card rewards. They create an illusion that things are coming for free, but companies don't do this out of charity—they pay for ads because they have good data that strongly suggests that the people who see them will, on average, pay them back and more. I'd rather make the cost of a service explicit than hide it behind hard-to-quantify behavioral hacks.
  - withinboredom 2y ago
    Reminds me of the days when ads were 5 or so minutes long, not just to convince you to buy it, but inform you why you should buy it. It wasn’t a dopamine laden 30s that tells you nothing about the product.
    - mahirsaid 2y ago
      Fast forward to now where essentially every YT ad is some guy convincing you his trading and market strategy is better than anyone else’s.
      - smartbit 2y ago
        Happy HN-reader here who recently discovered Brave browser on Apple devices as an alternative YT player. I removed google’s YT app and live mostly advertisement free.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      When was this time? I listened to "The Shadow" radio episodes from the 1940s, sponsored by "Blue Coal". At 0:45 of https://www.beyondthebreaker.com/the-shadow-of-blue-coal/ https://www.beyondthebreaker.com/the-shadow-of-blue-coal/ "All signs point to a severe winter. Be prepared! If you want to be sure of even, dependable, helpful heat in any kind of weather, insist on Blue Coal. America’s finest anthracite mined from the fields of northern Pennsylvania. The coal that is colored a harmless blue at the mine for your protection." That's about 20 seconds, and the blue color was 'a marketing ploy to distinguish its coal from that of its competitors. But the company took it one step further by actually promoting its product as being superior, longer burning, and even more “healthful” than other coal. No wonder the PR “spin” profession was so poorly regarded in that era!' Also, 1971's "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", was 1 minute long, and did not inform.
- icehawk 2y ago
  Not really sure how you come to the conclusion those are all valuable things.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  News (especially national or global) is largely idle entertainment for middle class people, and comes with large servings of propaganda. Subscriptions/commerce are fine. Productivity stuff IME is almost all FOSS or paid for. Ads tend to optimize for the opposite of productivity: engagement. Existing ad-free because the money comes from somewhere is the point. That somewhere is more ethical and prevents the conflicts of interest that make ad-based services inevitably worth their nominal price. Some obvious very high value parts of the Internet with no monetization: government services and information, free educational materials from pre-school through graduate university and research level, basically all software I use, creative commons music, art, and CAD designs, forums and blogs where world experts like Terence Tao post, forums and blogs where hobbyists post. If you look to the Internet for ways to improve your life, you'll find the associated resources (which I'd characterize as the high value parts of the Internet) generally have no ads. It should be obvious why.
beepbopboopp 2y ago
My brother in code, Hackernews is a blatant ad for YC, look at title bar. They just decided they could afford the subsidy to run it enough to be the sole supporter. In general, its easiest to charge the wealthiest group with the greatest motivation to spend and that combination means in almost all cases corporations are better customers than individuals. Hence, advertising replacing subscription. Additionally this why consumer internet is so hard to standup and SaaS feels so much easier to take from 0 to 1.
- imoreno 2y ago
  The term is "content marketing", and yes, ads are ads but ultimately people trying to release quality content for free to shill their brand is not very high on the list of worst things about advertising, I'm sure you'll agree.
  - beepbopboopp 2y ago
    Im not sure im following
Vaslo 2y ago
This comment doesn’t make sense. Someone is paying for it, and sometimes those people paying for it are making money through advertisement to pay for this site (I.e. if Google “sponsors” your site.” Someone is paying for it, there is no “failure” here. This is just classic leftist talk - you are welcome to create a new model and show everyone how it’s done. But then you will need money to host, code, etc. I’m happy to take something free if you want to pay for it.
- lolinder 2y ago
  A) I know I'm doing something right when I'm alternatingly accused of being a leftist and a right-winger. Thanks for providing the regular counter to the usual accusations I get of shilling right-wing politics! Can I quote you on that next time I get one of those? B) If there's an argument against my stance in your comment here I'm missing it. I'd love to have a dialog if you have a counterargument!

dgrin91 2y ago

Is this really true? Virtually all news sites, regardless what side you agree with, have ads. Basically all entertainment has ads (or subscriptions). Productivity stuff is either full of sales or upsells, aka ads, or alternatively sell your data (for future ads). Those are all valuable things. The ad free ones are the exceptions. More over they only exist ad free because the money comes from elsewhere.

lolinder 2y ago
> Virtually all news sites, regardless what side you agree with, have ads. Virtually all news sites, regardless of what side you agree with, are composed mostly of garbage designed to draw your attention, not inform you about things that really matter. They may provide some value in addition to that, but the advertising model ensures that they must hack your attention as their primary goal. > Basically all entertainment has ads (or subscriptions). Similarly, our entertainment options were better before they had to be designed to keep you on a specific streaming platform for a certain length of time. > Productivity stuff is either full of sales or upsells, aka ads, or alternatively sell your data (for future ads). Depends on who you're buying productivity stuff from. My Fastmail account does just fine with no ads and no data sales, and covers basically everything I need. Most other "productivity" tools I've tried have felt palpably exploitative. > More over they only exist ad free because the money comes from elsewhere. Ad-funded products are a civilization-wide trap like credit card rewards. They create an illusion that things are coming for free, but companies don't do this out of charity—they pay for ads because they have good data that strongly suggests that the people who see them will, on average, pay them back and more. I'd rather make the cost of a service explicit than hide it behind hard-to-quantify behavioral hacks.
- withinboredom 2y ago
  Reminds me of the days when ads were 5 or so minutes long, not just to convince you to buy it, but inform you why you should buy it. It wasn’t a dopamine laden 30s that tells you nothing about the product.
  - mahirsaid 2y ago
    Fast forward to now where essentially every YT ad is some guy convincing you his trading and market strategy is better than anyone else’s.
    - smartbit 2y ago
      Happy HN-reader here who recently discovered Brave browser on Apple devices as an alternative YT player. I removed google’s YT app and live mostly advertisement free.
  - eesmith 2y ago
    When was this time? I listened to "The Shadow" radio episodes from the 1940s, sponsored by "Blue Coal". At 0:45 of https://www.beyondthebreaker.com/the-shadow-of-blue-coal/ https://www.beyondthebreaker.com/the-shadow-of-blue-coal/ "All signs point to a severe winter. Be prepared! If you want to be sure of even, dependable, helpful heat in any kind of weather, insist on Blue Coal. America’s finest anthracite mined from the fields of northern Pennsylvania. The coal that is colored a harmless blue at the mine for your protection." That's about 20 seconds, and the blue color was 'a marketing ploy to distinguish its coal from that of its competitors. But the company took it one step further by actually promoting its product as being superior, longer burning, and even more “healthful” than other coal. No wonder the PR “spin” profession was so poorly regarded in that era!' Also, 1971's "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", was 1 minute long, and did not inform.
icehawk 2y ago
Not really sure how you come to the conclusion those are all valuable things.
ndriscoll 2y ago
News (especially national or global) is largely idle entertainment for middle class people, and comes with large servings of propaganda. Subscriptions/commerce are fine. Productivity stuff IME is almost all FOSS or paid for. Ads tend to optimize for the opposite of productivity: engagement. Existing ad-free because the money comes from somewhere is the point. That somewhere is more ethical and prevents the conflicts of interest that make ad-based services inevitably worth their nominal price. Some obvious very high value parts of the Internet with no monetization: government services and information, free educational materials from pre-school through graduate university and research level, basically all software I use, creative commons music, art, and CAD designs, forums and blogs where world experts like Terence Tao post, forums and blogs where hobbyists post. If you look to the Internet for ways to improve your life, you'll find the associated resources (which I'd characterize as the high value parts of the Internet) generally have no ads. It should be obvious why.

beepbopboopp 2y ago

My brother in code, Hackernews is a blatant ad for YC, look at title bar. They just decided they could afford the subsidy to run it enough to be the sole supporter. In general, its easiest to charge the wealthiest group with the greatest motivation to spend and that combination means in almost all cases corporations are better customers than individuals. Hence, advertising replacing subscription. Additionally this why consumer internet is so hard to standup and SaaS feels so much easier to take from 0 to 1.

imoreno 2y ago
The term is "content marketing", and yes, ads are ads but ultimately people trying to release quality content for free to shill their brand is not very high on the list of worst things about advertising, I'm sure you'll agree.
- beepbopboopp 2y ago
  Im not sure im following

Vaslo 2y ago

This comment doesn’t make sense. Someone is paying for it, and sometimes those people paying for it are making money through advertisement to pay for this site (I.e. if Google “sponsors” your site.” Someone is paying for it, there is no “failure” here. This is just classic leftist talk - you are welcome to create a new model and show everyone how it’s done. But then you will need money to host, code, etc. I’m happy to take something free if you want to pay for it.

lolinder 2y ago
A) I know I'm doing something right when I'm alternatingly accused of being a leftist and a right-winger. Thanks for providing the regular counter to the usual accusations I get of shilling right-wing politics! Can I quote you on that next time I get one of those? B) If there's an argument against my stance in your comment here I'm missing it. I'd love to have a dialog if you have a counterargument!