14 ms·
Ad revenue needs to die as a business model for websites. I will continue to block all ads on all websites because I can and they are ugly.
by izzydata 13y ago
Ad revenue needs to die as a business model for websites. I will continue to block all ads on all websites because I can and they are ugly.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoReddit Gold is a fine way to contribute to the company. I salute you.
- izzydata 13y agoI've never been to Reddit. Thanks though.
- dkrich 13y agoDo you find it somewhat presumptuous to argue against the business model of a business you've never visited?
- JacobDemsky 13y agoThat's like saying you've never watched porn. Nice try pretending to be some kind of elitist though.
- izzydata 13y agoNot trying to be elitest. I just don't visit reddit. If I did and enjoyed the experience I'd pay for some service such as Reddit gold. Which mind you was my first visit to Reddit to learn what it was.
- jordigh 13y agoI agree. I do not need my mind polluted with artificial wants for products I don't need. It's not my capitalist duty to watch ads. Website owners, if you're pissed off about me aggressively blocking ads, then make it easy for me to give you money. Don't try to subvert my adblock, because I'm just gonna go away. Don't lecture me about adblock without giving me an option to pay (DuckDuckGo, I'm still waiting on a response for that email on how to send you money instead of watching your ads). I hope that if bitcoin (or any other crypto) takes off, then it really will be easy. Bitcoin works the way money on the internet should have always worked: easy, between individuals, nobody else's business but the people who are actually doing business. :-)
- RussianCow 13y agoStatistically, though, you're in the minority. Most people would be much more willing to see ads than pay up for a service.
- jordigh 13y agoDo you have a citation for that? Is it true that if you make methods of payment accessible to anyone, including people who don't have credit cards, people would still prefer to sit through ads than to pay the lost revenue from that unwatched ad? If I could instantly whisk away a penny for each ad I don't watch or whatever, I imagine this might be more popular.
- zmitri 13y agoI agree. But it also takes people willing to put their money where their mouth is to do that. The notion of "free" has spoiled a lot of folks online and made it a tough sell. I run a site that is entirely reader supported, but statistically it's very unlikely you'd just sign up and join, even though you believe ad revenue needs to die. It's especially tough to do on sites built on user-generated content, because someone could just start a new one that's free and they'd lose their audience.
- jordigh 13y agoI hope we can make tipping website owners easier, for those of us adamant about adblocking. Using my credit card to give a small tip to every website I enjoy is uncomfortable. Sending money to anyone on the internet (no international region locking, no international laws) is what I really want to do with bitcoins.
- yetfeo 13y agoDoes Flattr do what you want with regards to enabling tipping small amounts to a website?
- jordigh 13y agoPerhaps. Seems to allow bitcoin. Maybe some day we can get rid of the middleman and just send bitcoins directly to each other.
- yetfeo 13y agoI agree but Flattr does provide an interesting approach. With them you set aside a set amount per month you want to donate. Then when you tip a site it gets a proportion of that amount based on the number of tips you made in the month. This way you cap your total spend per month. You could do this manually of course. Maybe sites could start a system of including a bitcoin address in a file at a common location in the URL space.
- hellbanTHIS 13y ago
- dec0dedab0de 13y agoI like some ads, as long as they fit in with the site design, aren't in the way of content, and do not target me specifically.
- jordigh 13y agoCan you explain this? Does it give you satisfaction to sit through unobtrusive ads, and you put up with it because you feel like you're helping the website, or do you sit through ads hoping you'll be peddled something you actually wanted to buy but didn't know until you watched that ad?
- dec0dedab0de 13y agoIt's more that I might want something. Say if I was at a video game site, an ad for the new Zelda would be welcome. As long as it didn't get in the way. Also, I kind of wish more sites took the mindset of http://dodiy.org/ http://dodiy.org/ but thats kind of a pipe dream.
- luckyno13 13y agoLets not forget quiet. There is almost nothing worse in web surfing than hitting a website only to be ambushed by sounds. Forbid you click and link and then hit back, only to hear it yet again. I really shouldn't have to browse muted.
- stevesearer 13y agoI run an office design website that shows new office design projects and discusses office design trends. Though some readers probably wish there was no advertising, most of our readers want to know what products exist because they are office designers. I try to treat it like a magazine where the ads look nice and generally unobtrusive. I'm obviously biased because I make my living on advertising.
- aluhut 13y agoI somehow assumed that advertisers know that ads are annoying but they want to do it anyway because this is how they make money. Assuming that they don't know what a pain the whole concept is is somehow scarry.
- theknown99 13y agoDo you understand you're an outlier? You're a small but vocal minority. Just like people who don't own TVs, people who don't listen to pop music, watch reality TV, indulge in celebrity gossip etc. You're an outlier - understand and accept that the vast majority of people are not like you.
- lazugod 13y agoIs there a particular conclusion you want them to draw from being in a minority?
- theknown99 13y agoThe conclusion is, that if you want to make money, you probably don't want to think of yourself as a customer, especially if you're such an outlier. You want to think about what 'normal' people do, and like. Because there's a hell of a lot more of them. Of course you can have success with a niche product catering to minorities, but it's a lot easier to just make something most people want.
- samolang 13y agoYou realize that would put Google out of business?
- blumkvist 13y agogoogle, facebook, yahoo and pretty much 99% of the sites who serve more than a 1M pageviews. People who talk like the "grandfather" have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. It seems like a good idea in their head, but that's only because they see it only through their eyes and they have 0 experience in the publishing business.
- CaptainSwing 13y agooh dear, we don't want that. back to the drawing board...
- legohead 13y agowhat do you suggest in place of ads?
- luckyno13 13y agoReddit is one of very few websites I unblock from Adblock because they aren't annoying, intrusive, obnoxious, or otherwise a pain in the ass. If you can do it out of the way, keep it classy, and not tag me like a wild animal to be tracked, Im fine.
- billmalarky 13y agoIt should be noted that Reddit also loses a large amount of money each year. Reddit has never not lost money. Reddit is not an example of a successful ad solution because their ads are so out of the way and "classy" that they don't even bring in enough revenue to come close to covering their costs. It still remains to be seen if reddit can ever build a sustainable business.
- MitziMoto 13y agoAs an advertiser, Reddit's problem is their ad platform. It is the most awful thing I have ever had the displeasure of losing money with.
- billmalarky 13y agoTheir other issue, is a userbase that is completely militant against advertising. The only way to successfully advertise on reddit is through guerrilla marketing. Which of course reddit doesn't see a penny of.
- tedsanders 13y agoDo you contribute to those websites in other ways? Reddit now allows the purchase of Reddit Gold. OkCupid allows you to pay $5 to never see ads again. Wikipedia periodically asks for donations. I wonder if those options will proliferate in the future.
- mindslight 13y agoI prefer to support future-viable distributed technologies, like letting torrents seed as long as I can.
- tedsanders 13y agoAt the risk of getting off-topic... are you confident that your opinion isn't just justifying your own selfishness? (sincerely curious, not meaning to offend/attack) I could imagine the same logic applying to someone who shoplifts, which is hopefully clearly wrong. E.g., "I prefer to support future-viable business models, and stores that allow shoplifting are not future-viable. I'm just trying to help the world reach a better equilibrium sooner by imposing extra costs on non-future-viable businesses." What do you think is the main distinction between your position and the hypothetical shoplifter?
- mindslight 13y agoAvoiding the hyperbole and answering the heart of your question: No, I honestly don't believe that centralized content silos are a good thing for anybody besides their owners who are hoping to become the new gatekeeper communications middlemen. Your shoplifting analogy would only be appropriate I were saying that I run Adblock to make anti-Adblock technology stronger. The problem is not that centralized websites allow the possibility of "freeloaders", it's that in addition to being expensive, the centralization itself has harmful effects on expression, culture, and self-determination. Just look at something like Youtube - you have content restrictions (no "porn", etc), internationalized lowest-common-denominator copyright restrictions, public pressure to hide majority-objectionable content from searches, length restrictions, extrajudicial takedowns from an algorithm rejecting a video with no legal judgment, an unchangeable UI, a UI that changes when you don't want it to, terrible search, nagging of asking for signups/G+ account linking/etc, no ability to easily download videos for later viewing or posterity's sake, limitations on video quality, and I'm sure a whole host of other features that I cannot even fathom because they're impossible to experiment with. A market of many centralized providers will indeed correct some of these things with time, but there's always going to be details that competition will never fix, especially while battling the inherent non-linear network effects. As another straightforward example, take something as benevolent [1] as Wikipedia. The main thing they need these massive donations for are because they distribute content by fulfilling every individual request, using a massive number of servers. Imagine a different system instead using current technology - Wikipedia could instead publish a magnet link in DNS, which interested clients would periodically refresh and restart the torrent. If Wikipedia was not a popular site, their initial seed would be enough to handle the load of casually-interested people who retrieve what they want and close the torrent. But as they get popular, people incidentally contribute to helping them host by re-serving content. Current torrent clients of course have limitations that would make this annoying and/or not scalable across sites. But this is merely a straightforward example meant to wet your whistle. [1] Since their editing process is centralized as well, we can certainly question whether it's universally benevolent. But for this example, let's keep our focus on their publishing method - of course similar things can go on on the content-production side. There should really be no need for me to be submitting this comment only to news.ycombinator.com, supposedly agreeing to their terms, hoping they indefinitely rehost what I have to say, suffering the annoying dead-continuation bug on long posts, etc
- hotpockets 13y agoThat's very shortsighted and sounds very elitist. Do you also steal from brick & mortars that don't have business models or store layouts that are agreeable to you?
- shitlord 13y agoBlocking ads is not stealing. It's not even in the same boat. You don't get to dictate to your users how they should be consuming content on the web. All you can do is present the ad and hope that it shows up.
- chc 13y agoWhy not? The site owner is saying, "Here, I made this cool thing. You can use it in exchange for $THING." Do you think it's fair to use it and then refuse to give him $THING? How is that any better than your employer deciding not to pay you the agreed-upon wage for the work you do?
- shitlord 13y ago> The site owner is saying, "Here, I made this cool thing. You can use it in exchange for $THING." Name one popular website that explicitly states you can browse their website ONLY if you look at ads. The notion that your users will look at ads isn't an obligation; it's an expectation. In contrast, wages are a contractually-bound obligation. It's not morally wrong to refuse to live up to someone's expectations. If you owned a website, would you refuse to serve anyone browsing with Lynx? They sure aren't going to be looking at any ads.
- chc 13y agoBut it's kind of a dick move to take something from somebody knowing full well that they expect something in return and then deliberately refuse to reciprocate. Sure, if you're using Lynx, you really don't have an option. That's fair enough. But in many other cases, it seems disrespectful to me to use somebody's site and tell them, "No, you can't have anything in return for giving me this even though you clearly wanted to." You have the option of doing your part, but you decline to do so. That isn't how I like to treat people I appreciate. I guess I basically just don't like mooching.
- jeremymims 13y agoOk, education time. You may not like ads but they heavily subsidize great content. In fact, the price of a New York Times subscription would be close to $1,500 per year if it weren't for advertisers keeping it closer to $300 (and that's if all their existing subscribers could even afford it). Alexander Hamilton (newspaper owner, secretary of the treasury, founder of the Bank of New York) said: "It is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a newspaper in this country, without a very exhaustive advertising support, would receive less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic." The fact is people dramatically underestimate what it costs to produce high quality content and that as a rule you'd need to spend much more than you'd expect to have access to it. Advertising has essentially made information free or cheap for the user for a long time. Just because you think ads are ugly and annoying doesn't change this fundamental reality.
- atmosx 13y agoYes I totally got that when Newsweek published an article called "In defense of Goldman Sachs" came out the day after their 2009 bonuses were made public. Of course there was nothing in the world to defend GS (or Newsweek for the matter who got sold for 1 USD a couple of weeks later IIRC). I killed my subscription the next day. I guess if GS wasn't sponsoring, the article would never have appeared or made frontpage, but it did. The current "advertising model" leaves most newspapers open to foreign interests which go against press freedom almost all the time. That's why WikiLeaks published more interesting content in 5 years and made more scoops than the entire western press in ~ 30 years or so. In this new Digital Age, the Press needs to find a new model - which mind you, I don't have a clue what exactly should be, since advertisement is what GENERALLY makes the world go round - or face extinction.
- mahranch 13y ago"In this new Digital Age, the Press needs to find a new model" It did. In this digital age, small time publishers and blogs can now have an audience thanks to advertisers. If they're popular and providing great content they will, at minimum, make enough to cover the cost of hosting. They have a potential viewership of 6 billion people. Without advertisers, this just wouldn't exist. The internet would be different at the fundamental level. Most people severely underestimate what advertisers bring to the table in terms of enabling content producers.
- shitlord 13y ago> Ad revenue needs to die as a business model for websites. What other business model do you prefer? Would you prefer that websites collect massive amounts of information about you, datamine it, and sell it to third parties? Or should reddit users have to pay a monthly fee to look at shitty maymays?
- mindslight 13y agoWhat business model do you have for posting this comment?
- shitlord 13y agoI don't have a business. I like responding to edgy, baseless crap on the internet.
- mindslight 13y agoSo if you agree that a business model is not required to motivate contribution, then why would someone have to choose one to endorse?
- ksk 13y agoCould you rephrase that into something that makes sense?
- CaptainSwing 13y agoI fucking love this comment.
- jfoster 13y agoCan you suggest an alternative business model for websites? Companies will tend to abandon the ad revenue business model as soon as a superior (and just as widely applicable) model comes along.