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.

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zeta0134 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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.

	▲	vladms 4 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		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.
	▲	wolvoleo 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		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.
	▲	SllX 26 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		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.

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bonoboTP 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

	▲	michaelt 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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kelvinjps10 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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rjbwork an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

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TheGRS an hour ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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mrighele an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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airstrike an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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calebkaiser an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There is a platform called ethical ads for developer focused advertising: https://www.ethicalads.io/

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AuthAuth an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Mozilla tried this. But the only people who want this is consumers. Advertisers want as much info as possible to target ads so would never choose this option unless heavily pressured by consumers.

	▲	davidfischer 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Founder of EthicalAds here. In my view, this is only partially true and publishers (sites that show ads) have choices here but their power is dispersed. Advertisers will run advertising as long as it works and they will pay an amount commensurate with how well it works. If a publisher chooses to run ads without tracking, whether that's a network like ours or just buyout-the-site-this-month sponsorships, they have options as long as their audience generates value for advertisers. That said, we 100% don't land some advertisers when they learn they can't run 3rd party tracking or even 3rd party verification.

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tcfhgj 9 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oxymoron

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nemomarx an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

does Google AdWords still exist? text only ads solves a lot of these issues

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Loughla an hour ago | parent [-]

My favorite forum has ads on every page. One header and one footer. Text only as a link to the site or product being advertised. The advertisers pay the site owner himself.

I've bought things from those ads because they're targeting the demographic on that site, not targeting me specifically. They're actually more relevant.

Now that's not probably sustainable, but I have to imagine that the roi for the advertisers is higher than general targeted ads. I've never even clicked on one of those except by accident.

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nemomarx 26 minutes ago | parent [-]

I don't understand why more companies don't do contextual ads, yeah. Why track users all around the web when you can go to a website about cars and put in car ads, or a website about music and sell concert tickets or etc? You already know everyone on that website is interested in the topic, and the analytics would be much cheaper this way.

	▲	davidfischer 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They absolutely do. Every sponsorship you see on a podcast or a youtube video or a streamer is a contextual ad. Many open source sponsorships are actually a form of marketing. You could argue that search ads are pretty contextual although there's more at work there. Every ad in a physical magazine is a contextual ad. Physical billboards take into account a lot of geographical context: the ads you see driving in LA are very different than the ones you see in the Bay Area. Ads on platforms like Amazon, HomeDepot, etc. are highly contextual and based on search terms.

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giantrobot an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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.