[aviraldg]

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

[masswerk]

How about tracking back to content related advertising rather than tracking based advertising? All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway. And, as these metrics (and ethics) suggest, it has been an illegitimate invasion, right from the beginning. The fancy "conversion rate" dashboards are just not worth it.

Bonus: Maybe this will be an opportunity for content providers to reset the decline of advertising prices that has happened over the last decade. (Remember the blooming blogger scene in the 2000s, when you could still make substantial revenues? Remember the thriving online news papers? We could get back there, if advertising became less invasive and less aggressive and also more profitable for content providers, e.g., how it had been in print.)

[aerosmile]

> All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway.

This is very common on HN these days - stating something with a lot of confidence that turns out to be some self-constructed mental model that has nothing to do with reality. Then, add the obligatory "all related studies are showing it" and you have met the publishing standards.

Legally or illegally, morally or immorally, for better or worse, Facebook has created the most sophisticated ad targeting engine the world has ever seen. You want proof? Look at their financial statements. You want more proof? Look at all the companies that went public on the back of Facebook's ad targeting engine. Again, perhaps it shouldn't exist in the first place, but trust me, it works.

[saint_abroad]

Indeed, maybe it's about time advertisers got back to sponsoring quality content their target audience enjoys, rather than direct marketing through the back door on the lowest common denominator.

[bserge]

Still not sure why that didn't become predominant. Dynamic content based ads seemed to be the new fad in late 00's, then it kinda disappeared, with user tracking becoming the norm.

[PaulHoule]

Tracking is necessary for the advertising economy to control bad behavior on the part of publishers and advertisers, not just to serve targeted ads.

No matter what there would be discrepancies in the numbers (publisher says it sent 75 clicks, advertiser says it got 70) and that breeds mistrust. Participants have a reason to lie. Having multiple third party watch the whole thing helps them trust each other.

[masswerk]

P.S.: An interesting experiment may be an ad-blocker with an option "block animated ads and tracking only" (or rather, "show static ads only"). And maybe another option "filter ads to greyscale".

I guess, reducing distraction and moving towards a client-based and user-controlled "ads manager" may have a decisive impact on overall blocking habits.

[makecheck]

This is not destroying the whole concept of ads, it is only pushing back against awful variants.

It is definitely possible to have “nice” ads, like simple text or images, with no creepy or CPU-draining elements in them. Nothing is preventing those ads from supporting free services.

[derefr]

However, the reason companies looking to place ads, will choose modern-adtech-platform-X (Google, Facebook, etc.) over traditional advertising medium Y (billboards, TV, etc.) is that the former promises to be more targeted (using the ad”tech”) than the latter, such that there’s higher value-per-click or value-per-impression.

Without that promise, there’s no reason to favor advertising on these platforms over other platforms. Which, if you flip it around, means that there’s no reason that these platforms should be valued in excess of the traditional-advertising-impression-value of their MAU. (Which is, to be clear, a lot lower than the value these companies currently have!)

[rascul]

I vaguely recall that Google used to use text ads. Not sure if they still do, or if I recall correctly.

[umanwizard]

Simple text and image ads can't provide enough revenue to keep something like Facebook running.

(Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective.)

[cheschire]

If subscriptions were always as easy to manage in one place like they are on an iPhone, I would have absolutely no problem with 20 subscriptions.

Where’s the subscription management startup model?

[Workaccount2]

I've thought about this a lot, but the stumbling block for me is getting services onboard.

The problem is that subscription services make billions annually on forgotten subscriptions. None of them want an easy "disable" slider next to their name in a convenient app. It also makes à la carte subing easy, where you sub for a month every few months to "catch up".

Basically, good luck getting an API with an easy unsubscribe command from any subscription based service.

[addingnumbers]

> Where’s the subscription management startup model?

https://patreon.com/

[bin_bash]

I highly doubt that most users would be comfortable paying for 20 subscriptions—or even 1.

[_greim_]

Brave's BATs (Basic Attention Tokens) spring to mind.

[alkonaut]

If sites can’t fund their content with ads based information I’m willing to give up, then they can beg me for money, or charge for the content, or beg me to look at ads or whatever. But I want that transaction to be transparent and deliberate. And I don’t care if 90% of content online just disappears because we click the privacy button. Then it was never a viable business model to begin with.

[rchaud]

> Then it was never a viable business model to begin with.

I think there's much more evidence to the contrary than there is for your position.

Facebook is absurdly, staggeringly profitable. Uber and WeWork by comparison are the BS business models, needing to break local laws and requiring nation-state levels of VC backing and still nowhere near profitability.

[JKCalhoun]

Yes, if Facebook goes away due to lack of ads and no paid subscribers it means it simply was not worth paying for in enough people's minds.

Imagine that your entire business is only appealing to people if it is free.

I mean a lot of crappy 70's sitcoms would not exist if people had to buy tickets to watch. Honestly, I would not mind that world. :-)

[JKCalhoun]

I don't know. I think when ad supported free services start shutting down people will move on with their lives. We'll find out instead how really unimportant Facebook, etc. was in people's lives. Put another way, how on earth did people get along without Facebook before there was a Facebook?

I'm reminded of a comment from the guy that created the TV-B-Gone. He would turn off TV's in public places like self-service laundromats, etc. He said he was surprised by the general reaction of those that had just recently been transfixed by the flickering 60Hz cathode glow. Mostly they just turned away form the TV and went back to quiet thoughts or whatever.

It was like the TV could go away and people would be like, "okay".

[b3morales]

This might just be me, but I've always found that TVs in public have this weird pull to them. Even if I have no feelings at all about what's on the screen (a soap opera I've never seen?) my gaze is still repeatedly drawn to it. If there's one around I generally try to position myself so it's not in my peripheral vision or I have to spend some effort ignoring it. It feels like whatever it is that keeps kids, as we say, "glued to the screen" doesn't always go away in adulthood.

I would definitely find it relieving if someone showed up with a TV-B-Gone and clicked it off.

[8ytecoder]

You seem to think it’s a bad thing. I’d argue “Free” products destroy innovation. It’s extremely hard to beat gmail or Facebook without massive VC funding.

[JohnFen]

Yes, and just to underline your use of quote marks there, those "free" products aren't even remotely free. You're just paying with a different currency, and -- in my view -- it's absurdly expensive.

[fleddr]

Underrated comment, well said. The "free" model supports billionaires and mega big tech.

When paid services are normalized, it opens up a huge amount of potential for smaller players to innovate.

[yarcob]

You are making a few assumptions:

1) People want the services more than they value their privacy. Maybe they'll just not use the service if they can't use it without tracking

2) That invasive tracking is required to sell ads. The media industry made billions (trillions?) of revenue from ads before tracking became a thing.

3) That platform ads are the only way to make services that are free for consumers. For example, Vimeo offers an ad free video delivery service that the content creator pays for. If Youtube was no longer free, maybe content creators would just pay for content delivery instead of having consumers indirectly pay for deliver with ads. Content creators have no issue selling ads / sponsorships without any tracking whatsoever. The result would be the same as now (content free for consumers) only that now non-targeted ads would pay for everything.

4) And finally, you are assuming that targeting via tracking actually works well enough to make it worthwhile. From what I've read, ad targeting is nowhere near as good as Facebook et al would have advertisers believe. Maybe invading your users privcy just doesn't make such a big difference in the end.

[suction]

At least then they'll be aware of the deal they're agreeing to.

[Iv]

Mark my words: as soon as the world starts to turn their back on advertisement, there will be several micropayement unicorns flourishing in the next 6 months.

20+ paid subscriptions make no sense, but checking a box with your ISP to get a 2 USD monthly credit to use on the articles you click on, could work.

[kalleboo]

I'm still disappointed that Flattr never took off

[naravara]

> As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds.

Or they'll just go outside and find better uses for their time.

[_zzaw]

Or these ad companies could come up with ways of making money that people don't want to block.

I despise ads, and generally approve of anything that makes ad companies sweat, but it didn't have to be that way. We are where we are because those ad companies have a sociopathically disrespectful attitude towards the people whose attention they need. With tactics like auto-playing videos, popovers, animated ads, and hideously obtrusive design, it was simply inevitable that people would try to get rid of that garbage. That approach to advertising is borne of greed and laziness, and it deserves to fail.

But there are tech blogs I read that do not adopt that approach. They have small, tasteful, non-animated ads. They don't need to violate my privacy to have a good idea of the kinds of things I'd be interested in; the fact that I'm on a tech blog means I'm more receptive to ads for tech-related tools and services. The people who run these sites have more respect for their visitors, so they choose a more respectful approach to ads.

Like I said: most companies' approach to ads is rooted in abject contempt for the people they need. If your business strategy is based on treating people badly, you have no grounds to complain when they decide not to put up with that anymore. You can either whine about how unfair it is and fail, or you can identify an approach that is appealing enough to be sustainable.

This could be a chance for that much-vaunted market-force-shaped innovation. Facebook's current strategy—whining—suggests they're still stuck in the old way of thinking: greed and laziness.

[abruzzi]

This sums up my thoughts perfectly. I would add a comment--all of the anti-apple voices in the article talk only about the poor business that will be hurt. The never talk about the benefit or drawback to the people being tracked. Their approach can be summed up as "we have a right to this data and telling people about our tracking and asking if it is alright with them is not alright." So businesses have rights but individuals don't.

Personally, I hope things like this start to kill off the "free internet." I'd much rather pay for the things that I use.

[shadilay]

Or people will realize the service isn't as valuable as what's being charged. No one asked for 80% of facebooks features, it could be run/maintained by a much smaller team.

[wintermutestwin]

So much this. All I wanted was a simple way to share pics and updates with family and friends. Instead, I got an anal probe and mind control. Seriously, it is harder and harder to actually find my family and friends on their convoluted mess of a site.

[handrous]

It's hard to know what the Web, social media, and tech generally might look like if the spyvertising money-spigot gets shut off. Paid and fully-free-and-open alternatives to spying-paid "free" services & content are nearly impossible in the former case, and discouraging to participate or work on in the latter, in the current environment. There may be other models, too, that are in some sense better or preferable, or at least acceptable or sufficient, but currently not viable.

[pyronik19]

I loose no sleep if these products go paid only and facebook loses its influence massively and with it their ability to censor and manipulate information and our elections.

[walkedaway]

Ads still exist. Advertising has existed for a long time, effectively, without personal tracking. This will weed out the players from the wannabes.

[lkrubner]

"Users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't"

Which gives them leverage. If they were better organized, they could make demands based on that leverage.

[ggggtez]

The problem with this kind of thinking is that if Cable TV is any indication, things that start as subscription services will slowly begin to double-dip and you'll be paying money upfront and watching ads anyway.

[Workaccount2]

At least now we have piracy as a counter balance for that.

[wolpoli]

Do you have any examples of ad supported free services that you think are at risk of shutting down?