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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When someone publishes something on the web it is free by definition, and by law.
Publishers can chose to not make the content available, but it seems up to now relying on ads and moral shaming is a more profitable way.
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.
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.
There are also ads which pay per impression. CPM ads.
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.