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Doubtful. Many websites across the Internet are ad-free when you pay for it, such as Ars Technica [1] and Slashdot [2]. Many apps do the same thing, offering In

Doubtful. Many websites across the Internet are ad-free when you pay for it, such as Ars Technica [1] and Slashdot [2]. Many apps do the same thing, offering In-App Purchases of "Disable Ads, $0.99". People wouldn't offer the option unless (1) they're inept and illogical or (2) it actually makes money. I'm willing to bet it's the latter. And even then, people love getting rid of ads. Whether you're blocking them with AdBlock Plus [3] or blocking things in a hosts file or firewall [4], or even just pirating things outright [I'm not posting a link to TPB], people hate having their minds filled with garbage. It's a waste of time, waste of space, and honestly will just disappear asymptotically. It will probably never leave us entirely, but it will effectively be gone (as far as I know). [1]: http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/ http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/ [2]: http://slashdot.org/faq/subscriptions.shtml http://slashdot.org/faq/subscriptions.shtml [3]: http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet-users-that-employ-AdBlock-Plus-or-similar-ad-blocking-plugins http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet-user... [4]: http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Tutorial-How-to-disable-Skype-advertisements/td-p/3316902 http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Tutoria...

jshelly 11y ago
Netflix can be added to that list as well
- sethd 11y ago
  Assuming you don't consider product placement to be a form of advertising. Their original series are full of obvious product placements.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    It's definitely a different experience though. If the narrative calls for [someobject] to be in a scene and an advertiser pays to make it their object, that doesn't generally detach me from the story like an ad interstitial does.
- mcculley 11y ago
  Not exactly. Have you noticed the products inserted into some movies and television shows?
austenallred 11y ago
The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay for all of the content I come across. Of course, not all sites are created equal. I'm willing to pay for Netflix to get rid of ads in TV, I pay for Spotify so there are no ads in my music, and I pay for Kindle books, so no ads there either. But I also make a lot more money than the average person, and am a lot more invested in the media I consume than most people. Yet, even for me, a lot of the stuff I access online I'm accessing very casually, and would never pay a significant amount for. It's not that I don't care for it to exist, but I'm not invested in its existence enough to pull out my credit card. Basically, ads everywhere are your tax for using the Internet. If, theoretically, some micro-tipping system worked out, where you filled up your wallet with $x/month and it was drained each time you visited a site, my guess is people would be blown away at how expensive it was to brows the Internet. To make such an ad-removal system work at scale ( to make ads "disappear"), you would either have to 1. Have every site with an opt-out ad system, or 2. have every site do that and lock people out who don't pay. #1 will never happen, because Facebook knows it makes more from advertisers than you will pay. #2 will never happen because most people won't pay for content - only a few sites can get away with that, and just barely.
- 8_hours_ago 11y ago
  > The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay for all of the content I come across. It would be interesting to have a browser extension that kept a running tally of how much advertising revenue has been generated by your browsing. "You have seen $x of ads today"
  - austenallred 11y ago
    Some adblock extensions have that function as a number. You could estimate that with a CPM, but the price of ads varies greatly.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  > than I am [willing] to pay for all of the content I come across There is no free lunch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237. You are paying for all of that content, one way or another. Or if you somehow avoid buying any product that has advertising costs baked into the price you pay, most other consumers are subsidizing you. The moral and responsible thing to do is start paying straight up, and cut out the advertising middlemen and all the extra costs, both economic and social, associated with advertising.
dhimes 11y ago
According to Yahoo Finance, Facebook made $13.5 B between 13 March 2014 and 31 March 2015. In December 2014, they reported 1.19 B monthly active users. That works out to about $0.95/user/month. I would love to have the option pay $25/month[1] to be able to get out of the tracking crap. I don't even particularly mind banner ads that appear because I am viewing a page. I just don't want to be tracked. If I go to Dockside Tropical Cafe's fb page, sure show me an ad for some trop-rock artist or Caribbean vacation. But don't do it when saying happy birthday to my friends or on a site about car repair. I don't always want one to know about the other. [1] Edit: I meant $25/year- I'm not sure I'd pay $25/month for fb. Maybe $5/month though.
- oliwarner 11y ago
  But you don't just contribute to your own "user value", you interact with friends and they with you and together, they know where you all are, what you like doing, and what you like to buy. And it's actually worse than you make out. It's not just Facebook pages. They could track you on third party sites that have "share on Facebook" code on them (lots). They have real ability to track almost everything you read online, if you have an active Facebook session (or had one on your IP recently). They could then sell this data bank out to third parties for A/B switching based on real demographic data. We assume Google knows everything, but Facebook probably knows more.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    I understand that they rely on the network effect, but my point is that if they went to a pay version (note that I edited what I said I would be willing to pay- the first was an accident) their revenue would increase. If a significant number of us did so then perhaps they could even reduce costs by not having to meddle as much with advertisers. $25/year more than doubles their revenue from me. And they can still show me some ads. The tracking is ridiculously comprehensive as you point out- yet they don't get the value that they could get from direct payment. So I'm suggesting that they do us all a favor and let us opt-out of privacy invasion with cash.

jshelly 11y ago

Netflix can be added to that list as well

sethd 11y ago
Assuming you don't consider product placement to be a form of advertising. Their original series are full of obvious product placements.
- fixermark 11y ago
  It's definitely a different experience though. If the narrative calls for [someobject] to be in a scene and an advertiser pays to make it their object, that doesn't generally detach me from the story like an ad interstitial does.
mcculley 11y ago
Not exactly. Have you noticed the products inserted into some movies and television shows?

austenallred 11y ago

The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay for all of the content I come across. Of course, not all sites are created equal. I'm willing to pay for Netflix to get rid of ads in TV, I pay for Spotify so there are no ads in my music, and I pay for Kindle books, so no ads there either. But I also make a lot more money than the average person, and am a lot more invested in the media I consume than most people. Yet, even for me, a lot of the stuff I access online I'm accessing very casually, and would never pay a significant amount for. It's not that I don't care for it to exist, but I'm not invested in its existence enough to pull out my credit card. Basically, ads everywhere are your tax for using the Internet. If, theoretically, some micro-tipping system worked out, where you filled up your wallet with $x/month and it was drained each time you visited a site, my guess is people would be blown away at how expensive it was to brows the Internet. To make such an ad-removal system work at scale ( to make ads "disappear"), you would either have to 1. Have every site with an opt-out ad system, or 2. have every site do that and lock people out who don't pay. #1 will never happen, because Facebook knows it makes more from advertisers than you will pay. #2 will never happen because most people won't pay for content - only a few sites can get away with that, and just barely.

8_hours_ago 11y ago
> The fundamental disconnect is this: Advertisers are willing to pay more for a split second of my attention when I'm casually browsing than I am to pay for all of the content I come across. It would be interesting to have a browser extension that kept a running tally of how much advertising revenue has been generated by your browsing. "You have seen $x of ads today"
- austenallred 11y ago
  Some adblock extensions have that function as a number. You could estimate that with a CPM, but the price of ads varies greatly.
eevilspock 11y ago
> than I am [willing] to pay for all of the content I come across There is no free lunch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237. You are paying for all of that content, one way or another. Or if you somehow avoid buying any product that has advertising costs baked into the price you pay, most other consumers are subsidizing you. The moral and responsible thing to do is start paying straight up, and cut out the advertising middlemen and all the extra costs, both economic and social, associated with advertising.

dhimes 11y ago

According to Yahoo Finance, Facebook made $13.5 B between 13 March 2014 and 31 March 2015. In December 2014, they reported 1.19 B monthly active users. That works out to about $0.95/user/month. I would love to have the option pay $25/month[1] to be able to get out of the tracking crap. I don't even particularly mind banner ads that appear because I am viewing a page. I just don't want to be tracked. If I go to Dockside Tropical Cafe's fb page, sure show me an ad for some trop-rock artist or Caribbean vacation. But don't do it when saying happy birthday to my friends or on a site about car repair. I don't always want one to know about the other. [1] Edit: I meant $25/year- I'm not sure I'd pay $25/month for fb. Maybe $5/month though.

oliwarner 11y ago
But you don't just contribute to your own "user value", you interact with friends and they with you and together, they know where you all are, what you like doing, and what you like to buy. And it's actually worse than you make out. It's not just Facebook pages. They could track you on third party sites that have "share on Facebook" code on them (lots). They have real ability to track almost everything you read online, if you have an active Facebook session (or had one on your IP recently). They could then sell this data bank out to third parties for A/B switching based on real demographic data. We assume Google knows everything, but Facebook probably knows more.
- dhimes 11y ago
  I understand that they rely on the network effect, but my point is that if they went to a pay version (note that I edited what I said I would be willing to pay- the first was an accident) their revenue would increase. If a significant number of us did so then perhaps they could even reduce costs by not having to meddle as much with advertisers. $25/year more than doubles their revenue from me. And they can still show me some ads. The tracking is ridiculously comprehensive as you point out- yet they don't get the value that they could get from direct payment. So I'm suggesting that they do us all a favor and let us opt-out of privacy invasion with cash.