[drtz]

Here's where I'd normally complain about how our economic system requires prices to increase while product quality degrades to ensure ever-increasing profits for shareholders.

Instead, I'll complain about commercials: why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free? Do we actually value our time less than advertisers do?

[johnnyo]

Because it’s more profitable to have something that is paid for AND has ads.

Same thing happened with cable TV when it first came out, it was advertised as ad free. Then it filled up with ads, and the streaming services came along promising no ads. Now the circle is repeating itself.

Here is the NYTimes in 1981 on the topic https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv...

[drtz]

Thanks for sharing that NYT article.

> ...critics say that the use of sponsorship could make cable programmers more vulnerable to censorship or control by advertisers, particularly in light of recent efforts by organizations such as the Moral Majority and its offshoot, the Coalition for Better Television.

40+ years later I think it's pretty clear this was an accurate prediction.

> A much-cited - and widely disputed - study by the Benton & Bowles advertising agency found that the public would accept advertising if it meant a reduction or a holding-of-the-line on subscription fees...

This is great until a year later when YoY revenue growth is flat and prices are increased anyway.

[vel0city]

The article doesn't once say cable TV never had ads; it only says the public had some perception that would be the case. In fact, it even talks about how cable channels were bringing in millions of dollars in ad revenues despite being very small markets at the time.

In reality, cable TV had ads from day one, decades before this article was published. Originally every cable TV station had ads, because they were just retransmissions of broadcast stations which ran ads. The first nation-wide cable TV station had ads, and many of the early cable-only channels (CNN, USA, others) had ads.

[apwell23]

> Because it’s more profitable to have something that is paid for AND has ads.

how does it work for HBO then.

[TehCorwiz]

Greed is cyclical.

[mitthrowaway2]

The problem is that the most lucrative advertising market is to advertise to those people who are willing to pay extra to not see ads. The people who are willing to save money by seeing ads, are also the people who don't have excess discretionary cash that they'd be willing to spend on the products advertisers are advertising to them. This is the paradox that keeps driving this industry around in circles, swallowing its own tail.

[rrr_oh_man]

An excellent point. This is why we can’t have good things in a growth-paradigm economy.

[milesvp]

There was an interesting interview with a long timer with google on a podcast I listen to (freakanomics?) where the concept of ads came up. Apparently very early on google did the analysis and found that google search provided something like $50 (can't remember the exact number) of actualizable annual value to a typical user. Which is to say they could charge around $5 monthly and it'd still be worth it for most people to pay. But the ads. They could make way more than $50 per user just during the christmas season alone. And so it was a no brainer for them to go with ads (despite anti ad sentiment being a key part of the papers that led to the creation of google...).

So, to answer your question. I think we do value our time less than advertisers do. Worse, is I suspect your eyeballs becomes more valuable to advertisers the more your willing to pay to not see ads...

[xhrpost]

I'm sure this has been going on for a while but I'm noticing an even bigger obsession with companies manifesting ad inventory locations everywhere possible. Biggest standout recently is Lyft placing large ads in their app while I'm waiting on a ride that I'm paying them for! I too used to think something that was paid for directly with actual money meant no ads but not anymore.

[drtz]

I think this was just a short reprieve from ads in some spaces as we were adopting new tech, not a norm that is just recently being broken. Cable TV, newspapers, magazines, and even many taxis and municipal buses have had advertisements for decades.

[maicro]

One of my favorite examples is LCD screens on gas pumps - yelling at you about various deals in the store, as you're standing there _giving them money for the fuel you're pumping_. Some at least have a mute button...

[thomastjeffery]

Monopoly is the best position to implement anti-competitive behavior. Copyright is monopoly. It should be no surprise that Copyright has resulted in anti-competitive behavior.

No one can afford to compete with large media corporations, because Copyright explicitly turns media corporations into monopolies.

[robertlagrant]

Copyright's not monopoly. Do you mean the company that owns a TV show has a "monopoly" on that TV show? That's not what people mean monopoly.

[wilg]

Absolutely, advertisers are big companies who don't really care how much they're spending on ads. Especially big brands, they have no idea how much advertising helps them, and they don't care about the budget that much. They'll absolutely pay more to put an ad in front of you than you think it's worth to remove it. That's the whole thing with ads.

[gretch]

> why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free?

We can. You just have to make it first.

This is not a question to ask of others, it a just question you ask yourself. Once you answer it for yourself, then just realize that same answer applies to everyone from their perspective.

[Terr_]

> We can. You just have to make it first.

They've been made. Repeatedly. They just don't persist.

Our economic system won't let them.

[drtz]

> We can. You just have to make it first.

But how? I don't have the resources to build something like this on my own. I'm skeptical I could convince many investors to give me money to build something pitched as "just like Prime Video but without the ad revenue" when Amazon has certainly already done market research and determined this is the best path to maximize profit.

[duped]

> our economic system requires prices to increase while product quality degrades to ensure ever-increasing profits for shareholders

Only in the absence of competition. Prices go down all the time while growth remains positive.

> why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free

You can, it just costs more. Ads are a way to make sure that there's a product for more price sensitive customers while keeping revenue high.

The real problem for streamers isn't pricing, it's churn.

[edanm]

> Instead, I'll complain about commercials: why can't we just have something that's truly paid and ad-free? Do we actually value our time less than advertisers do?

Yes, clearly, as revealed by the way most consumers act.

How many people do you know that actually pay for YouTube to get rid of ads? I personally do, and I encourage everyone else to do so, but I assume it's a tiny market.

[whartung]

It is paid and ad free. You just have to pay the new rate.

Perhaps they should have raised the rate of base Prime, and then offered a lower priced paid w/ads option. But there was probably an issue with the annual holders in that case.

So, instead they lowered the features and now folks can up to the new subscription.

[int_19h]

How long until the current ad-free tier becomes "less ads", and you have to pay even more to get rid of those?

[joemaller1]

Advertisers are sort of benevolent here, if not lesser victims.

Google, Facebook and now Amazon realized the big money is in brokering ads. As brokers, they know everything and control everything, exploiting both the viewers and advertisers.

[neogodless]

Amazon's market research suggested to them that you (might) value your time enough to pay an extra $3/month to avoid watching ads.

[johnnyo]

More specifically, the total revenue of ads + the people willing to pay $3/month is greater than the revenue lost when people cancel their service due to ads

[al_borland]

Their market research clearly saw me as some kind of anomaly if that’s the case.

If they had simply raised the price of Prime, I would have been mildly annoyed for 30 minutes and moved on with my life, as I had done many times before. Instead, on top of my yearly Prime membership, I was going to get charge a monthly fee… this just hit all the wrong notes for me. It felt so cheap. Here I am paying for a premium service and they are going to nickel and dime me with a monthly charge on top of the yearly one. Not a chance in hell. I cancelled my Prime membership after 15 years over this move and have no regrets.

I hope I’m not alone in that. Prime Video is my least watched steaming service and waiting a few extra days for free shipping hasn’t been a big deal.

When cancelling there was no point where they asked why, which I found interesting.

I am a person who will pay to avoid ads. I have YouTube Premium and pay for the ad free Hulu tier. I also always pay extra to get the Kindle without ads, and pay to remove ads in any app I download within minutes. I even pay for my search engine (Kagi) instead of using Google or DDG. I’m the person they were after, but not like this.

I’m curious how many people they expected to pay for this. A modest price hike for everyone would likely have been more profitable and been mostly ignored by everyone. If they wanted to start breaking down the services to offer cheaper options to people looking for it, they should revamp the whole system. Present the 50 Prime offers and let people pick what they want, or have a few different bundles. Shipping and Videos were basically the only 2 things I used, so everything else was of no value to me.

[dgrin91]

I mean you can, it just costs $3/month more now. Basically any service out there has truly ad free versions if you pay more.

It sucks that the price point keeps getting farther away, but it does exist.

[r00fus]

Greed. That's why. Having a wildly profitable business isn't enough. It has to be as profitable as the market will bear. Pure capitalism.