I've been participating in Google Contributor since it's inception, this is like the 3rd relaunch of the service. I have no doubt it will fail just like the past iterations because the fundamental flaw is that Google is the heart of the system and they're unwilling to extricate themselves from it. I don't think this type of service is the way forward and the solution will not come from Google or any other ad provider for a number of reasons. The first is that Google is not the only ad network and no one wants to be cut out. The second is that this does nothing to address the privacy or security issues people have today that drive them to ad blockers.
There aren't just a handful of Ad networks, there are thousands if not millions out there. On top of that, they utilize each other to push out ads in a horrid rat king like incestuous jumble. Any payments to avoid ads served by these companies would require compensating all of these companies, the end result predictably would be movie studio accounting that leaves the content provider with nothing in the end.
This setup does nothing to address the privacy issues people have with companies like Google tracking their comings and goings. Google is still at the heart of this system and still knows everything about you. To get any benefit from this system actually requires you to embrace Google. People want to maintain their privacy, they don't want to login to Google to get rid of ads.
It's easy to envision a system utilizing a crypto currency and a digital wallet held by your browser that you fill occasionally and that prompts you to pay a site similar to the manner in which Location Services work simply based on a meta tag a site provider puts in their page head containing their wallet and request pay amount and schedule. It's impossible to imagine Google, Apple, Facebook, or anyone who wants in your pants to allow themselves to be cut out of a revenue stream by such a system. Companies like this are double dipping by charging everyone else to be the broker and also by being the service provider being paid.
I honestly don't know if an ad free web is allowable. It's technically possible but everyone who isn't the content creator is going to do everything they can to stop it form happening.
> Any payments to avoid ads served by these companies would require compensating all of these companies
I think you misunderstood how this iteration of Contributor would work; the publisher integrates Google's contributor code in such a way that if you pay them, they don't show you any ads, no need to worry about the ad ecosystem.
> People want to maintain their privacy
I will start believing this when people start acting like it rather than just saying it. I would be surprised if the group of people who care enough about their privacy to do anything about it is above 1% of internet users in the US.
> It's easy to envision a system utilizing a crypto currency and a digital wallet held by your browser
Brave is really killing it with their user numbers, right?
The only way the privacy issue will be solved is through legislation (or regulation, were the FCC to take a crack at it). Otherwise you're just fighting a highly incentivized system that is already in place and profitable. I can't imagine Google or Facebook sitting idly by and letting some change come about that might very well invalidate their entire business models, so it would take a real large shift in public opinion to get something that wasn't watered down.
I'm of the opinion that the best we could hope for is strong silo protections and the ability to request deletion of our gathered personal information for individual companies, and even that's a stretch. Also, even if we got that, good luck enforcing it on remote entities.
I think the whole "fill up a digital wallet with cryptocurrency" thing is what Brave is (was?) attempting but without much success. I do think it's the future, they just took the wrong approach (Replacing others' ads with your own IS going to create bad blood no matter how you spin it) and were too early for it.
> the end result predictably would be movie studio accounting that leaves the content provider with nothing
This always saddens and upsets me that "movie studio accounting" even exists in the first place. I would be loathe to support a model that could devolve to this.
The solution is Xanadu: get the transaction costs low enough that people can be automatically charged for the content they read.
The acceptance of half-assed worse-is-better partial solutions has doomed us all to scammy, spammy "Links from Around the Web" until these issues arw resolved.
> It's easy to envision a system utilizing a crypto currency and a digital wallet held by your browser that you fill occasionally and that prompts you to pay
Whether it comes from Google, or someone else I believe this is the only way the web survives.
Content creators need to be able to charge different amounts for different quality content.
In depth, well researched reporting needs to be able to earn more than a buzzfeed article. That's not possible with a flat "per-eyeball" cost, where the revenue to the content creator is uncorrelated with the cost to create or the value/quality of the content.
I wish it weren't google (who also already owns advertising), but someone large is the only one who can make it happen.
A model like this is necessary to support quality content online.
>A model like this is necessary to support quality content online.
It's totally not. People essentially enjoy creating and sharing, and love putting up quality content about things they truly give a shit about.
The internet was built on people writing massive forums posts about completely stripping down Kawasaki motorbike engines, and hosting their own websites where they ramble about conditional probability. Wikipedia was written by unpaid but enthusiastic curators, and no one got paid for uploading popular Youtube videos until long after it was already a staple of the internet.
I totally and utterly refute your statement. The world came to the internet for the content that people made for free, because it was the best. It's still the best. After all, you're here reading the comments on hacker news, which we are all freely contributing too with no expectation of compensation.
Quality online content will not vanish if online advertising fails, because quality online content is posted by people who first and foremost /want to post content/. It'll move to different kinds of websites depending on how people want to access content at the time, but it will still be here, just as it always has been. What will vanish is all the mediocre spacefilling bullshit. The stuff so dull you _must_ pay someone to write it because no one would do it for fun or kudos.
And it has to come from the ad networks, because the infrastructure to make this work is already there - hopefully the ultimate form of this wouldn't require site admins to really do anything special, other than twiddling a few settings in their Google advertising accounts.
The real trouble being the more people who use that kind of thing, the more the value of adverts goes down...
If the time taken to read the buzzfeed article is the same as the high quality report, it is worth the same to an advertiser. The high quality report does good for the organization in terms of retention, a reader is likely to come back and read it if he finds good content.
There's something I'm working on that's essentially a paypal button, but acts as a little widget on the site.
I'm still in the testing phases of it, but a lot of people that I've talked to have said "Yes, I'd pay $1-3 to a site that I visit regularly if it didn't have ads"
https://www.trussapp.com/ for the curious (it's still just a hair away from being a beta product, so keep that in mind)
Maybe if Google went with "Pay us $10 per month for us not to show you any AdSense anywhere on the web", this would be successful. In this form, I highly doubt it.
Then naturally, as soon as I try to sign up for it, I get told "Contributor is not yet available in your country" as it seems to be US-only at the moment.
That's okay, uBlock Origin with its whitelist I compiled with sites I know won't violate my browser with ads is still available in my country.
>with sites I know won't violate my browser with ads
But that's one of the problems. You know they haven't violated your browser yet but that's no indication that they won't in the future. A lot of people trust/trusted Imgur and whitelisted their ads, and they were rewarded with an ad network that was redirecting them to malware sites. It's cleaned up now, but what's to say it won't happen again? Ars Technica suffered a similar situation a while back. Reddit has had it happen too. All seemingly trustworthy sites.
It's not safe to turn off your ad blocker, there are no third-party ad networks you can trust. The only acceptable ads IMO are native sponsored content, which sites don't like because it's extra work. But guess what: you can't (easily) block native sponsored content.
This doesn't seem that useful to me as only a small number of sites (none of which I visit) support it.
Hypothetical question: If I were allowed to bid on my own ad impressions - and if I won an auction, no ad would be shown - how much would it cost a month for me to see no adverts? (I realize this is heavily dependent upon the type of sites that are involved, so I guess take the average HN user as an example).
So each ad gets a quality score based on clicks. After a few days of no clicks, your own ads would be pulled for a higher quality and more profitable ad would replace it.
One has to mention the Brave browser for comparison: https://brave.com/ -- similar concept but using Bitcoin. The accounting at https://brave.com/publishers.html looks like you as the reader can DECIDE whether you want to issue micropayments to a particular site or not, and publishers don't have to explicitly opt-in beforehand (thereby instantly including all of the web). A publisher won't be able to charge different prices, but a publisher with goodwill (hence users opting on their own to pay that publisher) will make money. This seems like a better execution.
Google Contributor was a program run by Google that allowed users in the Google Network of content sites to view the websites without any advertisements that are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google.
The program started with prominent websites, like The Onion and Mashable among others, to test this service. After November 2015, the program opened up to any publisher who displayed ads on their websites through Google AdSense without requiring any sign-on from publishers.
Since November 2015, the program was available for everyone in the United States. Google Contributor stopped accepting new registrations after December 2016 in preparation for a new version launch in early 2017.[1] On January 17th, Google Contributor was shut down. As of January 17, 2017 8:40 AM no replacement had been announced.
Wait so it only works on those 4 websites? I've only heard of Popular Mechanics, but I rarely (if ever) visit their site.
If this was more like Youtube Red, I'd be all over this. I would love to pay to remove all google ads. I get that uBlock exists, but I want to support the sites I use.
I don't understand why it doesn't work for all Google Ads.
The content creator would just like the money. They don't actually want to display the ads. If they could get the money without displaying the ads, they'd be over the moon.
Why doesn't Google make it work across all sites, and pay the sites using Google Ads the average revenue they were already getting per page view?
A little concerned, I'm bootstrapping my own version of what they have built, but with a clearer charging model and no need to block Ads IMO. If you care about blocking ads you are already doing it.
It'll be launching in literally a week or two... it's very simple to integrate and comes with it's own Wordpress plugin (and instructions to integrate your own CMS).
What advice do people have about this per article payment space; I have a load of ideas I want to try so maybe while Google concentrate on ads I'll be able to look at various optional payment models.
Initially I want to just charge a flat 5% + whatever Stripe fees you use to top up your wallet, but I'm concerned I'll get a lot of noise/scaling issues if I don't charge a monthly fee? Thoughts?
The problem is that most (all?) site subscriptions now are all-or-nothing, and even if you do like a site, you probably like several, and paying $10-$30 per month (or whatever) each for even 5 different sites starts adding up real fast.
If sites were to offer an "article bank", it might be more compelling: you put in $X and that buys you Y articles, which you can read over the span of days, months, or years. But no one seems to be doing that, probably because they believe the economics of breakage is better.
Remember when we were sold that ads payed for content so that could be free? Now you can pay extra to get ads anyway, the non Google networks don't care.
The web is turning into cable, and it only took a few years.
Wow, how much does this have to do with their announcement to add ad blocking to Chrome (only for other networks ads, I'm sure)? How have they not attracted regulator action yet? You'd think the EU would be all over that kind of behaviour.
Everyone is forgetting that Google can provide such tool because of Chrome (60% market share); they don't need to track you. They already are.
Google it's tightening it's grip on the web. Yesterday the announced that they will apply the Better Ad Standard by 2018. They said they'll ban intrusive ads that block the user from the content, ads that play sound automatically, and flashy ads... Now "flashy" is so vague.
Good idea, extremely poor execution. Nobody is going to want to use it if different sites are charging you different amounts per page. People want predictable bills.
I really think a much better system would be for websites to adopt GNU Taler, and allow people to conduct micropayments using digital cash. The system is about as seamless as Flattr, except that the website can actually charge an amount rather than a fraction.
But, most importantly, Flattr guarantees the anonymity of consumers' transactions. So the big G won't have a log of what websites you paid to access.
[+] [-] cptskippy|8 years ago|reply
There aren't just a handful of Ad networks, there are thousands if not millions out there. On top of that, they utilize each other to push out ads in a horrid rat king like incestuous jumble. Any payments to avoid ads served by these companies would require compensating all of these companies, the end result predictably would be movie studio accounting that leaves the content provider with nothing in the end.
This setup does nothing to address the privacy issues people have with companies like Google tracking their comings and goings. Google is still at the heart of this system and still knows everything about you. To get any benefit from this system actually requires you to embrace Google. People want to maintain their privacy, they don't want to login to Google to get rid of ads.
It's easy to envision a system utilizing a crypto currency and a digital wallet held by your browser that you fill occasionally and that prompts you to pay a site similar to the manner in which Location Services work simply based on a meta tag a site provider puts in their page head containing their wallet and request pay amount and schedule. It's impossible to imagine Google, Apple, Facebook, or anyone who wants in your pants to allow themselves to be cut out of a revenue stream by such a system. Companies like this are double dipping by charging everyone else to be the broker and also by being the service provider being paid.
I honestly don't know if an ad free web is allowable. It's technically possible but everyone who isn't the content creator is going to do everything they can to stop it form happening.
[+] [-] Eridrus|8 years ago|reply
I think you misunderstood how this iteration of Contributor would work; the publisher integrates Google's contributor code in such a way that if you pay them, they don't show you any ads, no need to worry about the ad ecosystem.
> People want to maintain their privacy
I will start believing this when people start acting like it rather than just saying it. I would be surprised if the group of people who care enough about their privacy to do anything about it is above 1% of internet users in the US.
> It's easy to envision a system utilizing a crypto currency and a digital wallet held by your browser
Brave is really killing it with their user numbers, right?
[+] [-] kbenson|8 years ago|reply
I'm of the opinion that the best we could hope for is strong silo protections and the ability to request deletion of our gathered personal information for individual companies, and even that's a stretch. Also, even if we got that, good luck enforcing it on remote entities.
[+] [-] kemonocode|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] infogulch|8 years ago|reply
This always saddens and upsets me that "movie studio accounting" even exists in the first place. I would be loathe to support a model that could devolve to this.
[+] [-] bitwize|8 years ago|reply
The acceptance of half-assed worse-is-better partial solutions has doomed us all to scammy, spammy "Links from Around the Web" until these issues arw resolved.
[+] [-] Justsignedup|8 years ago|reply
uBlock is gonna be just as easy to install as hassling with setting up a contributor account.
[+] [-] henningpeters|8 years ago|reply
Check out: https://satoshipay.io/
[+] [-] tomcam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threepipeproblm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BoiledCabbage|8 years ago|reply
Content creators need to be able to charge different amounts for different quality content.
In depth, well researched reporting needs to be able to earn more than a buzzfeed article. That's not possible with a flat "per-eyeball" cost, where the revenue to the content creator is uncorrelated with the cost to create or the value/quality of the content.
I wish it weren't google (who also already owns advertising), but someone large is the only one who can make it happen.
A model like this is necessary to support quality content online.
[+] [-] Sir_Substance|8 years ago|reply
It's totally not. People essentially enjoy creating and sharing, and love putting up quality content about things they truly give a shit about.
The internet was built on people writing massive forums posts about completely stripping down Kawasaki motorbike engines, and hosting their own websites where they ramble about conditional probability. Wikipedia was written by unpaid but enthusiastic curators, and no one got paid for uploading popular Youtube videos until long after it was already a staple of the internet.
I totally and utterly refute your statement. The world came to the internet for the content that people made for free, because it was the best. It's still the best. After all, you're here reading the comments on hacker news, which we are all freely contributing too with no expectation of compensation.
Quality online content will not vanish if online advertising fails, because quality online content is posted by people who first and foremost /want to post content/. It'll move to different kinds of websites depending on how people want to access content at the time, but it will still be here, just as it always has been. What will vanish is all the mediocre spacefilling bullshit. The stuff so dull you _must_ pay someone to write it because no one would do it for fun or kudos.
[+] [-] FroshKiller|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathw|8 years ago|reply
The real trouble being the more people who use that kind of thing, the more the value of adverts goes down...
[+] [-] anilshanbhag|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp33k3rph433k|8 years ago|reply
I'm still in the testing phases of it, but a lot of people that I've talked to have said "Yes, I'd pay $1-3 to a site that I visit regularly if it didn't have ads"
https://www.trussapp.com/ for the curious (it's still just a hair away from being a beta product, so keep that in mind)
[+] [-] wand3r|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r3bl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemonocode|8 years ago|reply
That's okay, uBlock Origin with its whitelist I compiled with sites I know won't violate my browser with ads is still available in my country.
[+] [-] freehunter|8 years ago|reply
But that's one of the problems. You know they haven't violated your browser yet but that's no indication that they won't in the future. A lot of people trust/trusted Imgur and whitelisted their ads, and they were rewarded with an ad network that was redirecting them to malware sites. It's cleaned up now, but what's to say it won't happen again? Ars Technica suffered a similar situation a while back. Reddit has had it happen too. All seemingly trustworthy sites.
It's not safe to turn off your ad blocker, there are no third-party ad networks you can trust. The only acceptable ads IMO are native sponsored content, which sites don't like because it's extra work. But guess what: you can't (easily) block native sponsored content.
[+] [-] wnissen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Leynos|8 years ago|reply
Hypothetical question: If I were allowed to bid on my own ad impressions - and if I won an auction, no ad would be shown - how much would it cost a month for me to see no adverts? (I realize this is heavily dependent upon the type of sites that are involved, so I guess take the average HN user as an example).
[+] [-] dtech|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuschku|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gaelan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrem|8 years ago|reply
https://www.hochmanconsultants.com/cost-of-ppc-advertising/
[+] [-] brianwawok|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netsharc|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] comm1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElijahLynn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chr4004|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiderfarmer|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
Google Contributor was a program run by Google that allowed users in the Google Network of content sites to view the websites without any advertisements that are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google.
The program started with prominent websites, like The Onion and Mashable among others, to test this service. After November 2015, the program opened up to any publisher who displayed ads on their websites through Google AdSense without requiring any sign-on from publishers.
Since November 2015, the program was available for everyone in the United States. Google Contributor stopped accepting new registrations after December 2016 in preparation for a new version launch in early 2017.[1] On January 17th, Google Contributor was shut down. As of January 17, 2017 8:40 AM no replacement had been announced.
[+] [-] d2kx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catskull|8 years ago|reply
If this was more like Youtube Red, I'd be all over this. I would love to pay to remove all google ads. I get that uBlock exists, but I want to support the sites I use.
Unrelated: the sidenav thing is empty? WTF?
[+] [-] SamBam|8 years ago|reply
The content creator would just like the money. They don't actually want to display the ads. If they could get the money without displaying the ads, they'd be over the moon.
Why doesn't Google make it work across all sites, and pay the sites using Google Ads the average revenue they were already getting per page view?
[+] [-] andy_ppp|8 years ago|reply
It'll be launching in literally a week or two... it's very simple to integrate and comes with it's own Wordpress plugin (and instructions to integrate your own CMS).
What advice do people have about this per article payment space; I have a load of ideas I want to try so maybe while Google concentrate on ads I'll be able to look at various optional payment models.
Initially I want to just charge a flat 5% + whatever Stripe fees you use to top up your wallet, but I'm concerned I'll get a lot of noise/scaling issues if I don't charge a monthly fee? Thoughts?
[+] [-] wehadfun|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] time4tea|8 years ago|reply
Then buy subscription to sites you like.
Dont give google a percentage of everything.
[+] [-] kelnos|8 years ago|reply
If sites were to offer an "article bank", it might be more compelling: you put in $X and that buys you Y articles, which you can read over the span of days, months, or years. But no one seems to be doing that, probably because they believe the economics of breakage is better.
[+] [-] rtpg|8 years ago|reply
Credit card processors, the post office, transportation companies. ISPs, kinda.
"A percentage of everything" is another way of saying "in the infrastructure business".
[+] [-] JetSpiegel|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinjlynn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waterflame|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fiahil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omarforgotpwd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyphar|8 years ago|reply
But, most importantly, Flattr guarantees the anonymity of consumers' transactions. So the big G won't have a log of what websites you paid to access.
[+] [-] nextlevelwizard|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostbunnies|8 years ago|reply