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> In the future, ads will be indistinguishable from content, and [the] already shaky wall between editorial and advertising will collapse completely. If anythi

> In the future, ads will be indistinguishable from content, and [the] already shaky wall between editorial and advertising will collapse completely. If anything, that should give us even more reason to attack this new form of advertising. Ad-blockers were born out of a pretty mild inconvenience. But hidden ads are far more sinister, and thus - should result in far more people coming up with ways to remove them. > No more dropping in a simple JS ad tag and having some revenue to pay off your hosting bill. At this point, hosting is basically free. You can either pay for it with pocket-change (as is the case with S3), or you could host it on GitHub and use GH-Pages, or even host a non-static site on something like 000webhost (I'm sure that there are more free non-static hosts than just 000webhost, but I haven't looked for one in years). But yeah, it is a shame that people can't make a little cash off of a side project using something like ads. We should come up with a way to fix that... like Flattr or Gittip (Gratipay) have been trying to do.

tlack 11y ago
> But hidden ads are far more sinister, and thus - should result in far more people coming up with ways to remove them. But how? Give me an example on a site like my (admittedly far from perfect) startup, http://lump.co http://lump.co. How would you identify an ad which posed as a gallery, or posed as a photo in a gallery? There would be no way to identify it - at all. On a blog, an entire post could be an advertisement for a product. They wouldn't bother labeling them - to avoid the ad block. The only person that loses is the consumer who can no longer trust what they read. > At this point, hosting is basically free I envy those kinds of sites! My S3 bills were $1200 a month (switched to Incero). I am taking in 2,000 new gallery posts, each with 50 photos that I download, per day, filling 2tb of disk every month or so. Far from free for startups that are data or processing heavy! Even for a blog, WPengine, various SaaS offerings you need, and misc stuff can easily reach $100+, before you add Cloudflare.. And that's before we even consider the human time that goes into it. Running a site ain't free. > Flattr and Gittip This is the best approach. I hope the world becomes comfortable paying tiny amounts for content. Sadly I feel like that's a ways away, especially for the non-US demo. And I hope those systems support refunds because often I'm disappointed by content once I get a chance to really read it. :) p.s. I'm not trying to make this about me. I am just an example of a common case.
dtoidniero 11y ago
We're not talking about a little side cash. All independent (most of the web) middle-sized publishers like me would have to lay off people (who are not all college kids, some who support have families). I caution people who think ad block is "sticking it to the man" because only corporations are going to survive a sudden drought if the ad-supported model dries up. It will kill the indies almost instantly and corporate will just figure out a way around it after they're done picking up bodies at a discount.

tlack 11y ago

> But hidden ads are far more sinister, and thus - should result in far more people coming up with ways to remove them. But how? Give me an example on a site like my (admittedly far from perfect) startup, http://lump.co http://lump.co. How would you identify an ad which posed as a gallery, or posed as a photo in a gallery? There would be no way to identify it - at all. On a blog, an entire post could be an advertisement for a product. They wouldn't bother labeling them - to avoid the ad block. The only person that loses is the consumer who can no longer trust what they read. > At this point, hosting is basically free I envy those kinds of sites! My S3 bills were $1200 a month (switched to Incero). I am taking in 2,000 new gallery posts, each with 50 photos that I download, per day, filling 2tb of disk every month or so. Far from free for startups that are data or processing heavy! Even for a blog, WPengine, various SaaS offerings you need, and misc stuff can easily reach $100+, before you add Cloudflare.. And that's before we even consider the human time that goes into it. Running a site ain't free. > Flattr and Gittip This is the best approach. I hope the world becomes comfortable paying tiny amounts for content. Sadly I feel like that's a ways away, especially for the non-US demo. And I hope those systems support refunds because often I'm disappointed by content once I get a chance to really read it. :) p.s. I'm not trying to make this about me. I am just an example of a common case.

dtoidniero 11y ago

We're not talking about a little side cash. All independent (most of the web) middle-sized publishers like me would have to lay off people (who are not all college kids, some who support have families). I caution people who think ad block is "sticking it to the man" because only corporations are going to survive a sudden drought if the ad-supported model dries up. It will kill the indies almost instantly and corporate will just figure out a way around it after they're done picking up bodies at a discount.