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Subscription Models Could Emerge. There are already tens of millions of folks using ad blocking. Anti-ad-blocking technology is not difficult to implement. O

Subscription Models Could Emerge. There are already tens of millions of folks using ad blocking. Anti-ad-blocking technology is not difficult to implement. OKCupid had nice messages asking for donations to adblock users. Reddit thanks users for not blocking ads. I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sites. Something like flattr I think is doing something like this. I think this model could be implemented today if you could get several big media/net companies behind the effort. The current state where Google pays AdBlock a whole bunch of money to unblock their ads isn't really cool - I think this subscription model would be a win for publishers, win for adblock (revenues), win for users (at least in developed countries, making payments is relatively easy/we're used to it & most want to support content/music/filmmakers,etc.!) [Disclosure: I am the founder of the Epic Privacy Browser which blocks ads because they almost always involve trackers/tracking]

lutusp 13y ago
> I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sites. But that's a kind of ransom, and once established, the payments could only become larger. It would be like a government demanding tribute with no benefit to the payer, just so they won't invent a reason to throw you in jail. Oh, wait, that's already true. :) Seriously though, if a pay-the-advertisers scheme were to be considered, wouldn't it make more sense to pay individual websites a subscription fee directly? That would be more efficient, and by being focused on specific sites it would improve the relation between quality content and income. Obviously if a website had reliable subscribers, they could do away with the advertising. So could television and radio. I don't fully understand why this isn't the model, but I suspect it has something to do with people thinking they're getting something for nothing. But if we've learned anything from nature, it's that you only get nothing for nothing.

lutusp 13y ago

> I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sites. But that's a kind of ransom, and once established, the payments could only become larger. It would be like a government demanding tribute with no benefit to the payer, just so they won't invent a reason to throw you in jail. Oh, wait, that's already true. :) Seriously though, if a pay-the-advertisers scheme were to be considered, wouldn't it make more sense to pay individual websites a subscription fee directly? That would be more efficient, and by being focused on specific sites it would improve the relation between quality content and income. Obviously if a website had reliable subscribers, they could do away with the advertising. So could television and radio. I don't fully understand why this isn't the model, but I suspect it has something to do with people thinking they're getting something for nothing. But if we've learned anything from nature, it's that you only get nothing for nothing.