[contravariant]

There's a particular part in the discussion that rubs me the wrong way (which is more about micropayments as alternative to ads, rather than micropayments themselves)

It tends to go something like, if not micropayments then ads, if not ads then subscriptions. And people dislike subscriptions more than ads, and ads more than micropayments so the conclusion is micropayments.

But I don't like the way ads are presented as inevitable. Usually in some alarmist fashion listing all the stuff that would work should this revenue cease.

Ads are a way for the incumbent to seek rent, the eventual return on investment after destroying all alternatives.

So don't complain to me what will happen when I decline to download ads over _my_ network, send tracking from _my_ devices, show them on _my_ screens. When people start listing the giants that will topple the only word that crosses my mind is

Good.

[zeta0134]

The irritating thing to me here is that I actually don't mind the concept of advertising. Mostly it's the implementation. Newspaper ads don't bug me one bit, because they're not physically capable of moving, animating, dancing, and trying to get my attention. They're not physically capable of tracking my habits and reporting them back to the mothership. They're just... there. Passive. Occasionally interesting, or at least pleasantly designed.

If internet advertising was more like newspaper advertising, I wouldn't feel quite so compelled to go out of my way to block it. But no, someone somewhere along the way decided it had to be actively distracting, and track those impressions, and the industry just can't help itself. It's rotten to the core.

[wolvoleo]

They didn't bug me in the 90s but 3 decades of deeply annoying internet ads have kinda made me allergic to them.

I don't think I'll ever stop using an adblocker. Even if ads would become less annoying or if it would become illegal to use an adblocker or something.

[nabbed]

100% agree!

The other day I was thinking how pleasant it was to read a newspaper (26 years ago) compared to reading the news online today.

With a newspaper, the paragraph you are currently reading doesn't suddenly jump out of view just because some ad finally loaded or was replaced by a different sized ad. The ads were static and so inoffensive back then, but they still made the newspapers lots of money.

There are downsides to newspapers, of course: they are unwieldy on the train, they kill trees, and they get out-of-date really fast.

If some decent publication could replicate the good parts of a newspaper for a modern tablet device ($0.50 or whatever per issue, the ads are static images and never replaced after the page is loaded, and no jumping content), I think I would pay.

[dylan604]

Magazines on the other hand could get annoying, especially with the scratch-n-sniff perfume/cologne ads.

Otherwise, I agree with the bad thing about ads is adTech and not ads themselves. The internet just allowed our worst selves to run rampant with the obvious result coming to fruition.

[HoldOnAMinute]

Anyone who visited a Wendy's in the 1980s or 1990s knows that newspaper ads can also make for interesting tabletop decorations

[SllX]

You gotta punch the monkey though! Isn’t that fun?!

But no, that is how we got here. Internet ads were novel until they were just irritating.

[vladms]

But do you think the concept of advertising is the best solution to the problem it tries to solve? I have serious doubts.

Sure, 100 years ago you had no other way to make something known, but today with everybody having a smartphone there might be other ways. I always would like to see reviews of stuff from my immediate network of friends (or, let's say 2-3 connections) - wouldn't that be much better? Of course, the whole ad industry will have zero interest to promote something like this, where they loose control and the process might be actually efficient.

[bonoboTP]

Why would ads go away just because you pay? Print newspapers and magazines have had ads forever and they cost money. Even expensive glossy magazines like National Geographic have full page ads, half page ads, etc.

There is no natural law that ads will go away. Ads will only disappear if their presence would make the company lose more customers than they gain on ads. Ads make them money. If people don't mind it so much to abandon the service/website, there will be ads. Publications are businesses and want to maximize profits. They don't just want to cover some fixed ongoing costs, like hosting and journalist salaries. As a business they use the available tools to make more profits. There is no "enough" in business.

[jdejean]

Exactly, we see this play out clearly with streaming apps. Disney sells a subscription to remove ads, then one day they change their mind and now you only see “less ads” and they introduce an even more expensive plan that removes ads. The behavior should be criminal yet every major streaming app does this.

These companies like to pretend ads are the pro-consumer approach when in reality they’d much rather scale through advertising than anything else. They get to increase revenue without touching acquisition cost. The only loser is the poor chump trying to watch their favorite TV show.

[hn_acc1]

True, but also, businesses have used "coupons" for a long time. I saw one article where this was described as "selling the same product at multiple tiers".

eg. if you're rich, you don't bother with coupons (in general) - your time is more valuable than clipping the coupon and remembering to take it. if you're middle class, you use the coupon to feel like you're getting a deal, but if you forget, oh well. if you're lower class, you wait for a sale and then use the coupon to be able to afford it at all.

Similar with ads - if you won't let me access your site without showing me ads (even with an adblocker) - I really don't need your product that badly. Sell to those who have a lot of spare attention or willpower to look past your ads.

I don't mean I click on ads - EVER - but they're distracting. VERY distracting. I mean, the few times I've had to use yahoo mail from a browser without an ad blocker, it was an unbelievably bad experience. (yes, I still use yahoo. I got at least one of those accounts right around the time "BackRub" was renamed "Google")

[michaelt]

When people are trying to justify ads, they often lean on "our servers cost $X per month and we have Y journalists paid $Z per month, therefore we need revenue from ads" which makes it sound like they need to raise a fixed, finite amount.

That sounds much more persuasive than "our billionaire owner paid a lot of money for this for-profit business, and he'd really like a return on his investment"

But you're right, of course - the fact someone pays a lot of money for something doesn't mean it won't be plastered with tawdry ads.

[kelvinjps10]

I don't mind sponsored ads that are mostly static inside the video or text. Also if creators accept sponsors that are too bad their reputation might be affected.

The only thing that can be in some cases it's influencing the content and the creator not providing genuine content because conflict of interest

[atoav]

A particular aspect of the discussion is also: What makes you trust that once micropayments are around ads will stop? Look at other services, like Netflix for example. They will happily have you pay and show you ads if they feel they can get away with it.

I am not at all against paying for journalism (I already do in many ways), but IMO, it would be best if there was a way to pay money to one place and then have it go to all journalistic media that deserves that name and has a track record of not being factually wrong multiple times per day.

Thinking about how journalism ought to be payed in this day and age also means to think about what kind of journalism we want to incentivise and which one we want to disincentivise. What we need is the kind that is factually correct and a check to the most wealthy and powerful people, organisations, companies and countries on earth. What we don't need is the kind that is captured by exactly those people, the kind that bends reality to stoke the lowest impulses etc.

With this in mind, we should think about how to design a incentive structure that makes that result benefitial, while all others are unsupported.

[rjbwork]

I don't think most people mind ads. Throw up an animated gif or a jpg banner that you serve from your domain. Nobody is blocking that.

What people dislike are mountains of javascript that track everything you do across broad swathes of the internet and then sell that to businesses and governments that are effectively engaging in mass psychological experiments on us.

[TheGRS]

Well, people legitimately hated banner ads and pop-ups. When I get linked to some small news publisher I'm often reading the article between these giant ads, sometimes I don't realize there's actually more content to an article because the ads take up so much space! I typically close those sites out and try to find what I'm looking for elsewhere.

[mrighele]

I think that most people don't really care about tracking, but the fact that often ads make their experience miserable.

You open a link, you get a full screen ad, and have to wait 10 seconds or more. When you finally can close the ad, a popup appears asking if you want to subscribe to their newsletter. you close that too. A cookie banner reminds you that they care about your privacy, that's why they share your details with 1000+ partners. When you find the hidden button to say that you don't accept finally the article appears, but the bottom half is occupied by an overlay with a video ad. All the while the page scrolls terribly because of the amount of javascript loaded.

Or, sometimes, you get ad, cookie banner and then they tell you that you have to pay to access the content.

I suspect that if people had to choose between ads without tracking and tracking without the ads, they would choose the latter.

[giantrobot]

This is exactly my problem with ads. They've turned into a spying mechanism that eats my battery, bandwidth, and privacy. Not only do the ad platforms want to track me but then sell their data to an innumerate number of "partners". I have no control or influence over how any of the data is used. I also have no meaningful way to opt out.

Clicking a link on the web is not tacit permission to endlessly surveil me. Viewing a blog post is not informed consent to be tracked. Even a cookie banner isn't informed consent.

While I never enjoyed magazine or television ads I never minded them. Some were even useful and introduced me to a product I ended up wanting/needing. They also didn't track me all over the web. I don't mind ads, I do mind surveillance.

[airstrike]

Feels like there's an opportunity for an "ethical ads" platform

[akoboldfrying]

Not only news giants need revenue. Everyone producing news needs it, including any hoped-for smaller, more democratised new entrants to the industry.

Where will that revenue come from?

Should we expect high-quality journalism for free?

[contravariant]

Should people expect high quality journalism if revenue is based on the number of views?

Good journalism costs money, people should expect to pay.

Though I'd point out that publishing news is now cheaper than ever, and people were more than willing to pay for access before, so why shouldn't they be willing to pay less now?

Or perhaps more to the point, why are they _not_ willing to pay now? And is the reason something ad-based perhaps?

[charcircuit]

Those are not mutually exclusive. You can have a site that requires a subscription, includes ads, and requires a micropayment for each article read.