But that's true isn't it? What's with this entitlement that sites should be ad-free while still providing value? I own a blog, there is no way I could have a profitable subscription based model (believe me, I tried).
Exactly. People don't get that getting rid of ads helps only the big players (because they can require subscriptions), while hurting the little guys.
People may subscribe for big newspapers and such, but they won't subscribe to a lot of smaller blogs, for example, on various blogging platforms, which do provide value, but they are not big enough to warrant a subscription.
Ads solve this case and I haven't heard any viable alternative for them for small players.
You can see this in action on HN when people constantly use big publications like The Verge and NYT when complaining about ads or suggesting that everyone needs to find a new business model.
Meanwhile my forum now costs more money than it brings in. It's been giving teens a place to write collaborative fiction for over 10 years now.
Seems a bit sad that we'll eventually just be left with the sites big enough to live without ads. We're in the middle of a great centralization which you'd think most of HN would be wary of.
Instead I see the opposite, people basically welcoming it with a bloodlust in their eyes. What they don't realize is that their favorite examples of ad-dependent websites cast around HN like The Verge will be the last to die.
There's an entitlement problem, but it isn't on the part of readers. Advertisers, ad networks, and publishers have made so many terrible decisions that they drove readers like me to ad blockers.
I'm not against ads, but I don't want to be tracked. I don't want a 500 word article to download megabytes of crappy javascript.
Publishers are probably costing their audience more in battery life and bandwidth than they are ever making from the ad they are showing.
"Publishers are probably costing their audience more in battery life and bandwidth than they are ever making from the ad they are showing". Have you done any calculation? The bandwidth/battery life cost for serving JS negligible. It's nothing compare to fetching/rendering images/videos, or even your mobile OS.
I've done some rough calculations. Just going by bandwidth, I pay $10 / GB (Google Fi). For that page with 500 words that I want to read that's been bloated out with 5 MB of ads and tracking script, I'm paying 5 cents.
I understand your issues... But I'm downloading your code, how it is displayed, and whether I run it your way is up to me - I already requested it, and your server fulfilled the request. If you wanted contractual obligations, they need to happen before you hand over the content.
That isn't a very good argument. Just cause you downloaded something doesn't give you the rights to it.
If that was the case piracy would be legal, software trails wouldn't be legal. Windows license or photoshop trial up? Well I downloaded, your server fulfilled the request. I have legal rights to it now.
Oh, this art? I am selling it. Well I saw it on the internet, my computer downloaded, their servers fulfilled it. If they didn't want to hand over the rights they should've blocked me from viewing it.
That kind of argument is an argument I expect in a non-tech site with people making excuses. You know that isn't a solid argument you made at all.
The way the internet works doesn't create a vector that allows that. If they did implement that you'd need a multiple round trip check, the site would be slammed for being slow to respond cause it have to download a script, check if your blocking, report back then start the downloading process for the site. Just not feasible.
Those smaller sites would lose to bigger sites that can get away with slower response times or ignore pre-checking anyways.
> If that was the case piracy would be legal, software trails wouldn't be legal. Windows license or photoshop trial up? Well I downloaded, your server fulfilled the request. I have legal rights to it now.
Piracy is someone intentionally breaking a known license contract. Software trials require contracts first. Either upon download or installation. You agree to a license before you use Windows. Those agreements are binding. The web also has systems in place for similar contract negotiation. If you don't use that, it's kinda on you. Some users will choose to use your content in the way you intended, others won't, and you have no recourse.
> You know that isn't a solid argument you made at all.
Unfortunately for you, it's already held up under law. There's a reason the big players are trying for new solutions than attempting to ban users from blocking them.
> If they did implement that you'd need a multiple round trip check, the site would be slammed for being slow to respond cause it have to download a script, check if your blocking, report back then start the downloading process for the site. Just not feasible.
We already have that. Quite seriously. HTTP has the structure for authorisation, and the process for handling it if you're not. Not using that structure, is a choice that leaves you vulnerable.
The servers are entitled to send what data they want. The client is entitled to accept what and how they render it. That is how the protocols work. The servers can block visitors who don't login or load the ads but that has its own costs as they often find them not worth unblocking and just stop visiting.
Given the security issues involved with ads as a vector, general abusiveness, and poor programming leading to memory leaks and insane waste blocking by default is wise.
Even big ad networks have been caught hosting outright viruses from lack of vetting. There is no right to a business model and they have no right to access client systems.
If I'm correct you only gain money from advertising when the user clicks on an ad. If the user does not click (and you could argue that people who install adblockers will not) than no money was lost.
The entire debate around copyright and online monetisation is trapped in "entitlement" of publishers in the METHOD of extracting value. Have you ever considered that maybe it's not that people don't want to support you financially, but that you're methods are wrong?
So maybe subscriptions don't work, but let's take pirates as an example. Multiple studies have proven that pirates spend more money on the things they pirate than non-pirates. So in actuality piratisation is increasing the amount of money publishers are making since the act of piracy it self actually represents no cost to the publisher.
But ads don't provide money until clicked on. So there's no money lost by implementing ad blocking. The only real thing lost is the potential that someone will click on the ad.
Remember, we're discussing a blog here. CPM, with rates in the $2 range, are not going to provide anything resembling reasonable revenue - let alone profit - for a blog post.
There are notable exceptions to this for bloggers who can get hundreds of thousands of views on a regular basis - but most people are lucky to get a thousand unique views.
CPM, for a personal blog, is going to provide negative revenue (the cost in time and upkeep of the advertising platform and integration). Do blog posters really think that alienating someone over their decision on what to render in their browsers is worth that 2/10th of a penny?
