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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 o

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.
- austenallred 11y ago
  > The moral and responsible thing to do is start paying straight up, and cut out the advertising... That's an outrageous statement I could not disagree with more. The internet being open and available to all is much more valuable to me (and I would contend to society) than the Internet not having any ads that can be annoying at times. I can see how you may feel differently personally, but to project what you prefer onto others by calling it the "moral" or "responsible" thing to do is absolutely farcical. Ads are an Internet tax. One I am happy to pay if that means anybody anywhere can access the content, regardless of monetary means.
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    > is absolutely farcical. You failed to answer the points made by my comment, which includes the linked points. Did you reject my point of view without giving it an honest read? > to project what you prefer onto others by calling it the "moral" or "responsible" thing to do is absolutely farcical. It is not my preference, but my moral view, as I so stated. Is there nothing you disapprove of in society? Racism, sexism, police corruption, robbery, or bribery? Is it farcical projection onto others of what I prefer if I said "The moral and responsible thing to do is to refuse the bribe and report the briber"? You can deny all my points in my comment (including in the link) and consider my reasoning farcical (I welcome rational debate), but to say that my expression of my morality as a statement of what people should do (the very definition of morality) "farcical" (You keep using that word, i do not think it means what you think it means) is nonsense. > Ads are an Internet tax. You are begging the question. > if that means anybody anywhere can access the content, regardless of monetary means. Are you saying there is no other way we could do this? If you read my points, you will understand that providing internet access this way costs society more than if we, as a society, paid for the internet and the content without advertising. Perhaps you also skipped my earlier comment herein: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937155

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.

austenallred 11y ago
> The moral and responsible thing to do is start paying straight up, and cut out the advertising... That's an outrageous statement I could not disagree with more. The internet being open and available to all is much more valuable to me (and I would contend to society) than the Internet not having any ads that can be annoying at times. I can see how you may feel differently personally, but to project what you prefer onto others by calling it the "moral" or "responsible" thing to do is absolutely farcical. Ads are an Internet tax. One I am happy to pay if that means anybody anywhere can access the content, regardless of monetary means.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  > is absolutely farcical. You failed to answer the points made by my comment, which includes the linked points. Did you reject my point of view without giving it an honest read? > to project what you prefer onto others by calling it the "moral" or "responsible" thing to do is absolutely farcical. It is not my preference, but my moral view, as I so stated. Is there nothing you disapprove of in society? Racism, sexism, police corruption, robbery, or bribery? Is it farcical projection onto others of what I prefer if I said "The moral and responsible thing to do is to refuse the bribe and report the briber"? You can deny all my points in my comment (including in the link) and consider my reasoning farcical (I welcome rational debate), but to say that my expression of my morality as a statement of what people should do (the very definition of morality) "farcical" (You keep using that word, i do not think it means what you think it means) is nonsense. > Ads are an Internet tax. You are begging the question. > if that means anybody anywhere can access the content, regardless of monetary means. Are you saying there is no other way we could do this? If you read my points, you will understand that providing internet access this way costs society more than if we, as a society, paid for the internet and the content without advertising. Perhaps you also skipped my earlier comment herein: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937155