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No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close th

No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close the company.

jrabone 14y ago
Good. It's time for a better business model. Ads suck - they're badly implemented, bloated, bug-ridden, privacy invading security holes at worst, and not much better at best. Every network I have admin for gets a Privoxy HTTP proxy by default and adblock plus/noscript/requestpolicy as strongly advised. My users love it. These guys are right - it's time for change.
- coderdude 14y ago
  You say that the creators of this device are right about something that I don't believe they set out to change. If sites stopped displaying ads then no one would buy their product. If the creators become successful in selling this device then they can only continue being successful as long as ads are a problem to a large enough number of people. The ideal world in which their business model can thrive is one where ads are awful and stay that way.
- jakejake 14y ago
  I feel like most people are OK with a certain amount of ads when they're getting a free product. The problem seems to me that a publisher with one ad makes 1x dollars. Then a marketing genius comes up with a great idea, lets put two ads on the page and make 2x dollars! The 2x dollars maybe lasts for a little while until the advertisers realize they aren't getting 2x the sales so the value of the ad goes down. Marketing genius gets another idea. Hey, how about three ads? Four ads? Pop-up ads..?! Now you just have an overload of cheap, crappy ads that everybody hates and people start figuring out ways to block them. A better solution would be for smaller number of ads with higher cost to the advertiser. They would all be more valuable and get more clicks because we're not so over-saturated with ads. I don't see how it could ever be that way due to human nature, greed, etc. But it would make a lot more sense.
hyperbovine 14y ago
Radical new model: charge money in return for services. I'd gladly pay Google a nontrivial amount of money each month if it meant I could search and use Gmail without having to worry about them amassing enough personal information to predict the time and location of my bowel movements.
- imtyler 14y ago
  I visit hundreds of websites every week, not just Google. Would that mean I have to pay them all "nontrivial" amounts of money? The internet is largely ad-supported; you're talking about a (admittedly) radical shift in the _entire_ internet ecosystem. Kind of audacious, no?
- relix 14y ago
  That already exists for Gmail and it's called Google Apps, $50 per year, http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Works for some things, but what about the phpBB forum for enthusiasts of some obscure classic car that is run not-for-profit by an enthusiast who pays the hosting bill by running a few banner ads from a company that sells refurbed parts? People who host these type of sites often give donate options but in most cases the donations would not cover the hosting costs.
  - belorn 14y ago
    Most often, people who host these type of sites do it for free because they want to contribute to the community the site serves. I honestly do not know why people are surprised by this. People who play sports (say football) have no issue driving kids to matches. People who goes to bars, sometimes buy a friend a beer. In a internet community of 10-500 people, someone will have the spare 10$ for a domain name, and someone else will have a other spare 10$ for some server space. sometimes, its the same person. Server and domain names are not expensive, and is about the same cost of a few beers. If you spend hundred and hundred of hours on the site, work on the design and add new features to it, spending 20-30$ a month is basically a non-issue (just look at mmorpg players). The problem arrives when those 200 people turn into 200k people, but then, the economy tend to change. Members fees, donations, t-shirts, and sponsorship tend to be the solutions in those situations. If you have a site for classic cars with 200k daily visitors, I doubt you will have a problem finding a sponsor, even if you have a no-ads policy. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a car seller would not happily sponsor such community, and then send some nice profession images of "nice looking cars, just by chance available to be bought".
mibbitier 14y ago
If everyone got one of these, websites would just change a bit of code, and ads would work again. Thankfully, most people find advertising a useful part of their lives - adblock usage is still something like 1% of users. blocking ads is as ridiculous as trying to block porn. Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial. Also I'm not convinced this method of removing ads would work on ads served over https, where they can't inspect the traffic.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial. Ever tried getting past someone who thinks they can force you to watch ads? Also trivial.
- glassx 14y ago
  > most people find advertising a useful part of their lives Citation needed. "Most people" might not use AdBlock because they don't know about it or don't know how to install it.
- kylec 14y ago
  Presumably they'll keep the devices continually updated to keep up with the changing code of websites. Plus, they don't really have to block everything everywhere - this would still be useful even if it only blocked most or even some ads. Regarding SSL, they could have the device issue an SSL certificate that you install on your devices and it could intercept that traffic as well.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

No ads on the Internet? Seriously, how do you think the economy would work without ads? If everyone got one of these, I could tell my boss on monday to close the company.

jrabone 14y ago

Good. It's time for a better business model. Ads suck - they're badly implemented, bloated, bug-ridden, privacy invading security holes at worst, and not much better at best. Every network I have admin for gets a Privoxy HTTP proxy by default and adblock plus/noscript/requestpolicy as strongly advised. My users love it. These guys are right - it's time for change.

coderdude 14y ago
You say that the creators of this device are right about something that I don't believe they set out to change. If sites stopped displaying ads then no one would buy their product. If the creators become successful in selling this device then they can only continue being successful as long as ads are a problem to a large enough number of people. The ideal world in which their business model can thrive is one where ads are awful and stay that way.
jakejake 14y ago
I feel like most people are OK with a certain amount of ads when they're getting a free product. The problem seems to me that a publisher with one ad makes 1x dollars. Then a marketing genius comes up with a great idea, lets put two ads on the page and make 2x dollars! The 2x dollars maybe lasts for a little while until the advertisers realize they aren't getting 2x the sales so the value of the ad goes down. Marketing genius gets another idea. Hey, how about three ads? Four ads? Pop-up ads..?! Now you just have an overload of cheap, crappy ads that everybody hates and people start figuring out ways to block them. A better solution would be for smaller number of ads with higher cost to the advertiser. They would all be more valuable and get more clicks because we're not so over-saturated with ads. I don't see how it could ever be that way due to human nature, greed, etc. But it would make a lot more sense.

hyperbovine 14y ago

Radical new model: charge money in return for services. I'd gladly pay Google a nontrivial amount of money each month if it meant I could search and use Gmail without having to worry about them amassing enough personal information to predict the time and location of my bowel movements.

imtyler 14y ago
I visit hundreds of websites every week, not just Google. Would that mean I have to pay them all "nontrivial" amounts of money? The internet is largely ad-supported; you're talking about a (admittedly) radical shift in the _entire_ internet ecosystem. Kind of audacious, no?
relix 14y ago
That already exists for Gmail and it's called Google Apps, $50 per year, http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html
jiggy2011 14y ago
Works for some things, but what about the phpBB forum for enthusiasts of some obscure classic car that is run not-for-profit by an enthusiast who pays the hosting bill by running a few banner ads from a company that sells refurbed parts? People who host these type of sites often give donate options but in most cases the donations would not cover the hosting costs.
- belorn 14y ago
  Most often, people who host these type of sites do it for free because they want to contribute to the community the site serves. I honestly do not know why people are surprised by this. People who play sports (say football) have no issue driving kids to matches. People who goes to bars, sometimes buy a friend a beer. In a internet community of 10-500 people, someone will have the spare 10$ for a domain name, and someone else will have a other spare 10$ for some server space. sometimes, its the same person. Server and domain names are not expensive, and is about the same cost of a few beers. If you spend hundred and hundred of hours on the site, work on the design and add new features to it, spending 20-30$ a month is basically a non-issue (just look at mmorpg players). The problem arrives when those 200 people turn into 200k people, but then, the economy tend to change. Members fees, donations, t-shirts, and sponsorship tend to be the solutions in those situations. If you have a site for classic cars with 200k daily visitors, I doubt you will have a problem finding a sponsor, even if you have a no-ads policy. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a car seller would not happily sponsor such community, and then send some nice profession images of "nice looking cars, just by chance available to be bought".

mibbitier 14y ago

If everyone got one of these, websites would just change a bit of code, and ads would work again. Thankfully, most people find advertising a useful part of their lives - adblock usage is still something like 1% of users. blocking ads is as ridiculous as trying to block porn. Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial. Also I'm not convinced this method of removing ads would work on ads served over https, where they can't inspect the traffic.

Karunamon 14y ago
>Ever tried getting past adblock? It's very trivial. Ever tried getting past someone who thinks they can force you to watch ads? Also trivial.
glassx 14y ago
> most people find advertising a useful part of their lives Citation needed. "Most people" might not use AdBlock because they don't know about it or don't know how to install it.
kylec 14y ago
Presumably they'll keep the devices continually updated to keep up with the changing code of websites. Plus, they don't really have to block everything everywhere - this would still be useful even if it only blocked most or even some ads. Regarding SSL, they could have the device issue an SSL certificate that you install on your devices and it could intercept that traffic as well.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]