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Comment by iAMAGuest | Hacker News Reader

I like pretty much everyone else dislikes advertising, but it is a genuine source for a company to generate revenue.

I really don't know any other real alternatives other than making the user pay, which would in turn make the internet just basically one big subscription model. The majority of the "free" services which many people enjoy now, like YouTube, Facebook, etc probably could not exist as they do.

What is needed is some clear boundaries (legislation), and education. I believe without advertising that the internet would not have been what it is today, and I don't think it would have exponentially better.

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Amazon's model wins (this customer). Prime is something that I'm 100% willing to pay for (between shipping, music, video -- again, for this customer). That it comes with WP digital access is a nice add-on. If there were a $10/mo hike in price for lots of other digital access products, I would go without. If the price hike were mandatory to keep prime, I'd keep prime.

Again, for this customer...

I'm moving soon and seriously considering not signing up for internet at my new address (new job, I'll be at work a ton, and the common area has free wifi I could use for the occasional email or weekend netflix download). But I won't cancel my prime subscription. That's what made me realize how sticky amazon is: I will pay 3 figures for access, even without instant access to the network that lets me get to them!

I think there are some services which people will pay for. People have been paying to be entertained for decades with pay TV models.

Advertising isn't that profitable per-user basis anyway, you need a huge amount to break-even. I doubt the average user generates more than a few euros worth of advertising per month. Not to mention the indirect cost of advertising paid by the consumer as well.

I doubt the average user generates more than a few euros worth of advertising per month

We know exactly what the number is. Take Facebook’s revenue and divide it by their number of users.

Of course the average is as nonsensical as saying the average American has 2.5 kids.

Most users probably make facebook almost nothing, and then a smaller portion make them far more.

A subscription model at a few Euros a month might attract only those users with high spending power, and whose ads (presumably) generate much more than a few Euros a month.

Do you think the users are not already paying for it? If you click on an ad and buy the product, you’re paying for that impression as well as 100s of others that resulted in a small annoyance instead of a conversion.

> If you click on an ad and buy the product, you’re paying for that impression as well as 100s of others that resulted in a small annoyance instead of a conversion.

Free shipping isn't really free, the cost of a product can include multiple different factors.

As far as the annoyance point, I guess that is somewhat balanced out by the importance of the site.

But that isn't the point I was making, the point I am making is that advertising is genuine way for companies to make money from offering services. There isn't really any other valid alternatives to this over than user pays or giving it away.

Do we know how much Youtube, Facebook, etc. make in ad revenue per user? It can't be much. If micro-payments are an option, the ability to pay $0.75 a month for an ad-free social network would be fantastic.

I think the problem behind this is that ad revenue is not the same as a subscription revenue. You cannot assume that if a user was worth $3 a month in ad revenue that that would translate to a $3 a month subscription.

For example, I would have no doubt the the customer acquisition cost for an "free" application with advertising is a lot lower than trying to sell that same user a membership.

When it comes to social networks I would suggest that the stickiness is because your friends/family etc are on the same network. It's not if you are willing to pay, it is only really worth it, if your friends are willing to pay.

If you are talking more about a paid and free version, then there are already services out there like YouTube Red (available in some areas for $9.99+ USD). There are always options out there.

What about all the work that goes into maintaining the ad network and distribution, advertiser acquisition etc? That isn't free either.

In the US, Facebook makes $27/user/year. Worldwide it's $6

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/facebook-earnings-q4-2017-ar...

So $3 a month to turn off ads would be a pretty good deal for them.

For the US, the entire digital ad market is $83B/yr, which works out to $257 per person per year, or $717 per household. Keep in mind that about half of the country's population is "frequent internet users", so that number is almost certainly an underestimate for anyone who browses HN.

For comparison, this number just recently passed TV advertising, which is about $70B/yr ($217/person, $605/household).

Yeah, also let’s not forget that the whole idea of ads is to sell people crap they don’t need. Industries are built to turn the environment into disposable products that people would not miss at all if they wouldn’t know about them. There’s obviously the question what would people do if they would not work for companies that produce waste and their actual needs have been met but I don’t think the current way is the correct answer, and there’s a huge part of the world who’s needs (food, shelter, clothing, self-actualization) are not being met.

> Yeah, also let’s not forget that the whole idea of ads is to sell people crap they don’t need.

That doesn't have to be true. Done right, ads can be about making more people aware of a product, to reach people who genuinely benefit from it but would not otherwise have heard about it. That's the advertising future I'd like to see, even if it's not how things are right now.

If that were true all ads would simply be a bullet point list of features - branding would not exist, there would be no pretty models in the ad, etc etc etc

The argument that ads are about informing consumer just doesn’t stand up to reality. The whole concept is flawed.

You were probably downvoted for taking the position that you are the judge of what other people need, but besides that error, I think you bring up an interesting point.

It is an uncomfortable truth that we have yet to really contemplate as a society.

Consumerism ISN'T sustainable, and society will grow to a point where we are going to see seemingly fundamental systems start to crumble beneath the sheer weight of consumption.

We have to be willing to ask "should we?" in addition to "can we?"

> but it is a genuine source for a company to generate revenue.

That's a common cultural belief that I do not subscribe to, seems to come with our currently trendy variants of capitalism/liberalism. I personally belief it is more akin to a crime that is currently not punished.

> probably could not exist as they do.

More industries have been outlawed in history.

> I believe without advertising that the internet would not have been what it is today,

I can take that as fact. But I do not think that "without ads" (on the internet or not) is "economically worse". I think without ads we would produce better quality; it's complete guessing, but that's just my expectation.

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