New York Times app autoplays video ads on articles even with paid subscription | Hacker News Reader

New York Times app autoplays video ads on articles even with paid subscription

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219 pointsjamesknelson77 comments

I wrote the following in 2015:

"...people who can afford to pay for content are people with money, or people with buying power, in other words, the exact same people advertisers look to target. The more buying power you demonstrate, the more advertisers will target you. So the more you pay to keep ads away, the more advertisers will pay to put them back in. With the way the world currently works, selling ads, it seems, will always be more profitable than selling content."

Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9935803

This is a really interesting point. And to be honest, I don't even really mind that I'm being shown ads after purchasing a subscription. The thing is, the ads have to be in good taste.

When I was searching for a way to disable the video ads, somebody made the point that the New York Times' business model has involved showing ads to subscribers for longer than I've been alive. The difference is, those ads didn't move around the page and start screaming at you.

Like most things, there's a sensible middle ground here. Show people with buying power ads, but don't drive those people away with your desperation.

I killed my subscription largely because of the ad issue - if I’m paying I don’t want ads. Thankfully most premium streaming services work this way.

Funnily enough they don't. Netflix is pretty big in product placement.

https://ben.productplacement.com/

> The thing is, the ads have to be in good taste.

That will never be the case, except may be for some isolated incidents. As far as ads are concerned from NYT's perspective -- we are not the customers (we are the product), advertisers are. In fact, they are so much the customers, that they not only control the ads, they also control the content (by saying which content their ads can be shown on (hence for which content they will pay to be produced) -- but I digress).

Now, you might say, advertisers would want to have ads in "good taste" -- yes, but you know what they'd want even more -- those ads to leave an imprint on your consciousness. So if they can't make an ad in good taste, or the ad in good taste is less effective than an obnoxious ad -- they'll choose the latter, any day, 10 out of 10. That is why we'll rarely have "tasteful" adds.

Another thing tangentially related to taste: how many times exactly you'd want to see a "tasteful ad"? 1, 3, 5 or 500? After how many repetitions the "tasteful ad" becomes "distasteful"?

As it was aptly put in "Ready Player One" -- ad industry will only stop putting ads on your screen once you start having seizures (because at this point it will physically prevent you from buying their stuff). Until then anything goes.

Hoping that you can pay and no longer see ads is naive. Ad revenue is so lofty, nothing end users can pay can even remotely match advertising budgets of the giants.

If I have seen your ad multiple times and not taken action, it is time to show me another ad, or fix your checkout flow.

In general though ad tech is so primitive it is embarrassing. I am an Atheist (and have plugged this into Facebook), then they try to sell me ads for magic crystals. An Atheist would by definition not be interested in that.

Then they tried to sell me gas, from a gas company 300 kilometers away. Then, after I had filled out the section about my education, showed me ads for the exact degree from the exact university I had told them I got the degree from.

I am a single man, so Facebook decided I wanted to be showed crappy for pay dating sites[0]. The only dating sites where I would have a chance are the big sites and you don't get big in the dating space by charging.

I searched for and got an apartment, then google showed me six months worth of ads for a crappy apartment finder site.

Google any electronics and you get ads for it weeks after you buy it.

Instead of figuring out what people by after and then show ads for that -- I might still be interested in buying custom fitted curtains, for example.

There must be products and services out there that would actually benefit me, and I certainly have the capacity to purchase them, but somehow those never show up.

[0]: you should never use them http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dat...

> In general though ad tech is so primitive it is embarrassing

It's not that it's primitive, it's that it's still run by humans. At least from what I saw while working in ad tech, targeting is very much a manual process. There's no algorithm deciding that you might be interested in magic crystals, there's a magic crystal seller targeting their ads at people in whatever demographic you're in. They decided that (for example) people ages 25-34, in certain income brackets, who are interested in fitness might also be interested in crystals, and Facebook was happy to take their $0.001/impression in exchange. To my knowledge most ads aren't targeted with a scheme like "hey targeting server, figure out who might like this kind of ad", or at least they weren't as of this time last year when I couldn't take working in the industry anymore.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I mean I am totally in the demographic for the comp sci degree, I just already had it.

I do mind. I mean it used to be that ads paid for print costs and also that they where somewhat useful -- I would be unlikely to hear about a sale in any other way.

Now though, well I have clicked on two ads that I remember being interested in, in all the time I have been on the internet -- why? Because what we are producing is generally shit, or already known, or priced too high (not surprisingly, guess who has to pay for those ads)?

If they ever actually cure cancer, or get a weightloss pill that works, I will probably hear about it. Until then?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a consequence, the ad-driven web is much more open and inclusive. The marginal cost of serving another page view to a Pakistani reader is zero, while a $10 subscription is a massive expense for someone who might earn just $100 a month. So if the content can be monetized by selling western eyeballs, the ad driven web works as a massive cultural redistribution to societies that can't really afford to develop similar resources in either subscription or ad-supported models.

This is among the most interesting and insightful things I’ve read on this topic. Thanks for sharing this idea.

This is definitely true, though it doesn't exclude a hybrid approach (where you can choose between free/ads, paid/no ads), which is what I believe the parent comment was talking about.

But if all the people who can afford to buy stuff buy "no ads", then there won't be a free/ads option at all, because advertisers are only interested in the people who can afford to buy stuff, who don't see the ads.

That's a fair point, but realistically, everyone won't be paying to hide ads - lots of people would prefer to browse for free, even if they could afford the subscription.

The people that can afford to pay and do not is a less valuable population than the people that can afford to pay and do.

Edit: valuable from an advertisement point of view.

Indeed, which is how we got into this comment thread to begin with. Personally I'd gladly pay to hide ads in services I use frequently, but that also makes me more attractive to the advertisers. Fortunately most services that I use that have an ad-free option have also kept it ad-free, at least for now.

  But if all the people who can afford
  to buy stuff buy "no ads"

Have you ever heard of a newspaper editor complaining "Too many of our readers are paying subscribers" ?

I haven't - seems to me that's a problem a lot of publications would love to have!

Newspaper subscribers still see ads... that's the whole point of this discussion.

Doesn't that run the risk that content is then "optimized" only for those Western eyeballs?

This accessibility benefit also applies to "freemium" business models (mobile apps with a free tier and premium features) or Fortnite's free-to-play mode where payment does not change game mechanics. It is not limited to advertising.

The problem with ad-driven content is that the content is no longer 'pure' -- it is optimized to maximize eyeballs rather than serve its purpose (e.g. news is meant to keep readers up to date with current affairs they're interested in, art and literature is meant to, well, do what art and literature do). When these things are driven by the desire to maximize advertising revenue, they take on a completely different quality.

Was any content ever 'pure'? Newspapers always relied on ad revenue, and there was always the potential for a conflict of interest there. Whether it's internet sites or papers or TV news shows, they can't afford to annoy their advertisers too much.

The only ways to avoid this are either:

A: Go with publically/government funded content, which will likely have a government bias (or one that encourages people to pay for them).

B: Go with free fan/volunteer run sources which don't have monetary interests, and that's becoming rarer and rarer nowadays.

> The marginal cost of serving another page view to a Pakistani reader is zero

Considering how much bloat news websites currently serve, I'm not sure it would even load properly.

> As a consequence, the ad-driven web is much more open and inclusive.

It's also much more addictive, manipulative, and creepy. Is it desirable for Facebook to be accessible to everyone if the net effect of them accessing it is depression, anxiety, and pervasive behavioural tracking?

The specific example of Pakistan is also illustrative[1] because the ad-driven web acts as an arm of the government surveillance apparatus in states without robust privacy rights. Is "free" worth it in these cases? Maybe in the short-term, but I think the long-term outlook is much more grim.

[1] https://tribune.com.pk/story/992765/facebook-user-data-reque...

The "ad-driven web" might as well not show ads to the Pakistani reader: near zero cost and near zero revenue.

> As a consequence, the ad-driven web is much more open and inclusive.

Nearly all the best and most useful community sites to me in my lifetime were the ones that start with no ad model and struggle as they scale.

I tend to think of it from the other side. What advertiser wants to hear the pitch of, "you can reach the segment of our audience who is too cheap or disengaged to pay for our content"

I think that the Patreon model is pretty good for this sort of stuff, though obviously it doesn't quite work for organizations which are not likable or decent enough that people will just give them money to give away their work.

... the more will cancel their subscriptions and leave. The less the ads will work.

True. The more you're willing and able to pay to avoid advertising, the more you'll have to.

This does, of course, have the effect of keeping me from feeling the least bit guilty for 'pirating' their content by reading it in private-browsing mode without paying for it.

NYT is still desperate to gets ad revenue because they've chosen a subscription model that doesn't work. The same subscription model that doesn't work for a gazillion other newspapers and magazines online, precisely because it's a gazillion-subscription model. Most people are information omnivores. Few want to pay $X/month to the New York Times and $X/month to the Washington Post and $X/month to the Wall Street Journal and $X/month to each of a dozen other publications, just to read an average of less than one article per month on each of them. It's not just the expense, it's also the hassle of having to create logins and remember passwords for all of them, plus the security risk of having to trust every one of their IT departments not to leak your info.

I for one would be glad to pay several times the single-publication price to have a single subscription that would work across all of them, with articles on any counting against my monthly quota. I suspect I'm far from alone, but because nobody's making that offer we all continue to use ad blockers and workarounds, while the publishers continue to be desperate. That's why they keep getting in our faces like this, and also why their product is cruddier than it used to be. If we want a strong press, we need a better subscription model.

  I for one would be glad to pay several times the single-
  publication price to have a single subscription that
  would work across all of them

Perhaps you'd like to try https://blendle.com ? Although it's in beta in the US, I got an invite to join the beta within minutes of expressing an interest.

Admittedly it doesn't cover every publication, but you can't expect them to when it's not even out of beta yet.

Only one I didn't see there that I read commonly is Bloomberg. But they (like NYT and so many others) can be easily worked around by using an Incognito window - use up all your "free articles", close the window, open another one, here's 10 more...

Which makes me inclined to believe that, knowing it is relatively easy to work around their pay wall, they are more concerned with total eye balls than total subscriptions.

As another data point, while you can read the main Bloomberg this way, you can't read their Bloomberg Terminal Online without a horrendously expensive subscription - which I suspect reflects what the true cost of news is...

> ...but because nobody's making that offer...

You've just described Google Contributor [1], "An ad-removal pass for the web". You load your account up with credit, and for each article on a participating website that you view, they'll deduct an amount from your credit. You can choose which websites you want to use your credit on, and which ones you want to see ads.

However, from my experience as a beta tester, no websites are signing up to participate. There were some large newspapers in Australia that signed up, but it seems they've since left the program. I guess that means those newspapers are earning much more than 4c/pageview in advertising revenue from the kind of people who would be prepared to pay to join such a program.

[1] https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

No. It works. It works really well actually. But it is just one source of revenue.

Likewise the subscription model for The New Yorker works and many other publications.

It dorsn’t work for all, but that doesn’t means it’s ineffective.

I’m a subscriber, and like a print newspaper I’m fine with ads. Yet the online version of NYT was a large inspiration for propping a PiHole. Why? Because unlike print, the ads are blinky and distracting. And because ad blockers don’t help in the NYT iOS app. So now I, a high-income subscriber, don’t see your ads anymore, NYT. You pushed me too far, NYT, and the only one that suffers is you, because my experience just improved.

Adguard works, too. I’ve been using it a while but eventually would like to try a PiHole. Do you find yourself having to adjust the settings often, or does it work fairly well?

It’s pretty much fire-and-forget. Set your lists (or take the defaults), point your router DNS to the Pi-Hole, sorted. That’s the simple version. You’re on HN, you’ll want to fiddle, but if just loaded it with default lists and never updated it, it would still probably serve well for some years.

Once in a great while I’ll disable it for five minutes to look at something (Facebook or the like). But that a few button clicks.

Contrast with the very small world of cash flow positive paid subscription sites like The Information.

2.8 million views for each and every of The Information’s 730 yearly articles based on $1.90 average CPM to break even on revenue with paid subscriptions.

> The subscription model is easier with The Information because of the focus. People know what they’re getting. If you’re The New York Times, not everyone is interested in everything you do. You’re just counting on people who like your brand.”

> Assuming the site makes at least 4 million from 730 stories a year, according to some back-of-the-napkin math, the site generates about $5,500 per article published. To earn that same amount from general display advertising — which advisory firm Peter J. Solomon Company pegs at an average CPM of $1.90 — each and every article The Information publishes would need to attract more than 2.8 million ad impressions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15901500

What is the value proposition for the user to use the app over the website? I tend to avoid content apps because they seem to offer the company more value then the consumer. Web browser works just fine and I can more easily determine what the publisher is up to.

I like NYT’s articles, but have been hesitant to actually subscribe due to issues like this, and other stories where they make it hard to unsubscribe, require you call them etc.

Subscribe through iTunes or (I think) Amazon. I know on iTunes it’s a flip of a switch to unsubscribe. And then run some form of PiHole to turn off the adds.

The Economists had the same bullshit (plus it was an international call, only in a limited hours), so I sent them a very angry (and I admit abusive, which I am not proud of, even if what they were doing were basically fraud) email. Wof now I am unsubscribed, no call necessary.

There is a great deal of magical thinking surrounding the idea that if you pay companies they wont exploit your data and sell you to advertisers.

This is not, and never has been true.

The way I look at it is simple.

The amount of money the content provider wants to make is price you pay + amount ads pay.

If you don’t like the content, don’t view it.

I removed AdBlock a few months ago because I’ve been talking the talk for a long time but I wanted to walk to the walk...

I take 5 seconds before watching a YouTube video, maybe 10 seconds for something unskippable, then watch 30 minutes to an hour of videos. Compare that to 30 minute tv slots with 22 minutes of content.

And it’s not been a big deal. At least to me.

What do a I care that Google is tracking my preferences? What would I have to pay for a product with the kind of investment Google Search, GMail and Youtube have alone? I’m not willing to pay that.

---

But that’s me. If you have a problem with it, don’t visit the sites.

If you visit and disable Js and hide half the elements, you’re still consuming media from a content provider you don’t support.

You still incrementing the number of page views. You’re still clicking on that link and showing search engines that they’re relevant.

You’re supporting the content provider yet you apparently are not ok with how they fund their content?

> What do a I care that Google is tracking my preferences? What would I have to pay for a product with the kind of investment Google Search, GMail and Youtube have alone?

Some of us care about tracking and are unwilling to pay what we consider a massive price, far above the monetary value of those services. Yet, we are unable to opt for the paid, no-tracking alternative, and indeed, we are being forced to pay the onerous data price even by companies we have no contractual dealings with and that provide us no services whatsoever.

> But that’s me. If you have a problem with it, don’t visit the sites.

> You still incrementing the number of page views. You’re still clicking on that link and showing search engines that they’re relevant.

> You’re supporting the content provider yet you apparently are not ok with how they fund their content?

I mean look at how you're talking about these companies, if you view them as such villainous entities don't even bother with them right?

> we are being forced to pay the onerous data price even by companies we have no contractual dealings with and that provide us no services whatsoever.

Google can't magic its trackers into a site. Facebook login doesn't integrate itself into your HTML the moment you upload it to the WWW.

Don't use sites that use them then.

The problem with your argument is that you unify the creator of the content and the entity placing the ad.

Supporting people via Patreon or PayPal? Donating to software? Participating in open source you use? Watching an ad embedded, vetted and filmed by the video creator (popular example: end of CinemaSins)? Buy silly merch which is actually thoughtfull? Sure thing! I always did that und will always do that!

Getting a screaming Shooter Ad from EA in the middle of my "Better sleep meditation"? Giving Sony money because I want to listen to Bethooven and they copyright-trolled that? Playing endless cat and mouse with the dark patterns added every other week to let me click on ads? Explaining my little sister what a dildo is because YouTube is busy demonitizing everyone but inappropriate scam ads? FUCK NO.

>The problem with your argument is that you unify the creator of the content and the entity placing the ad.

Please point out where I did that? I don't like having words put in my mouth.

>Getting a screaming Shooter Ad from EA in the middle of my "Better sleep meditation"?

Your "better sleep meditation" gets to choose it's platform. Ask them why they're on a platform with screaming shooter ads. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's because they want money that screaming shooter ads pay.

>Giving Sony money because I want to listen to Bethooven and they copyright-trolled that?

Are you referring to the unwarranted automated copyright strike that was sent by Sony then reversed?(admittedly after longer than it should have taken, but still)

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/sorry-sony-music...

Or are you talking about recordings that Sony actually has the rights for and fully has the right to make you pay for?

> Playing endless cat and mouse with the dark patterns added every other week to let me click on ads?

Playing endless cat and mouse games with the dark patterns that let you fund the services you're using? I mean it sounds like you're using some seriously abusive service, maybe stop using it?

>Explaining my little sister what a dildo is because YouTube is busy demonitizing everyone but inappropriate scam ads? FUCK NO.

I don't see how YouTube is "demonitizing everyone but inappropriate scam ads"

Actually I can barely even parse that, you mean when the entire video is a scam ad it's less likely to be demonitized, because I find that pretty hard to believe, or you mean scam ads are demonitized? ads don't get demonitized, they just get removed, and if you keep doing that Google will just block you from making ads.

But I digress, if you let a child on the internet without adult supervision, they will find adult things. That's just the nature of the beast, ads or not. It's unforunate that happened to you and your little sister, but if you let a child on the internet there will eventually be uncomfortable things found.

What you should be doing for someone not old enough to know what something like that is is curating content and letting them consume it on a platform you're confident doesn't have anything inappropriate.

And this is anecdotal but... I don't think I've ever seen an explicit ad on YouTube, let alone YouTube Kids. Next time you see an ad that you find explicit, you can click on the information bubble and find out why it was shown, the number one reason listed is usually recent searches.

Here's where you unify the content creator and the advertiser:

> You’re supporting the content provider yet you apparently are not ok with how they fund their content?

You're saying that if you hate the sin (intrusive ads), you're not allowed to love the sinner (content).

That's bogus.

If a company wants to make itself relevant by providing content and then exploiting its visitors with ads, fine. Users have the option of exploiting the content and rejecting the ads.

YouTube is successful because people choose to generate and consume content there. There has to be some room for discussion among users about what form that consumption takes. I reject your suggestion that users have to either accept everything about the platform or go somewhere else.

On a different note, it's probably beneficial to YouTube to hear the conversation about what users block and what they dislike. Otherwise someone else will build a better mousetrap and YouTube will lose its dominance of the video sphere. This is the way business works, otherwise we'd all be connecting to Myspace via AOL and looking for the nearest Toys R Us on Mapquest.

>You're saying that if you hate the sin (intrusive ads), you're not allowed to love the sinner (content).

No. I’m not.

What’s bogus is you spent this many paragraphs attacking a strawman consisting one sentence instead even one actual point I made, but I digress.

The content and the content creator are not the same.

The content doesn’t “sin” and I’m sure you knew how ridiculous that sounds the moment you typed that. (But of course you also couldn’t say content creator because... that’s clearly not what I said.)

The content creator puts their content on a platform belonging to a content provider.

The content creator and provider both want to make money. My comment is referring to how the provider makes money (which, wouldn’t you know... pays to deliver the content!).

You can support someone on Patreon that then in turn uploads to YouTube (it’s not even uncommon). You’re then funding to two separate entities separately.

---

But you know what? Now that a I think about it I’d even go as far as to blame the content creator a bit more since they chose the platform.

I mean take your “better meditation” example. Is there a reason it’s intentionally uploaded to the platform with mid-video ads? Then monetized it and enabled ads?

You know ads are enabled because the uploaded chooses to monetize be video right? They chose to subject you to those ads because they want money.

They didn’t choose the ad, but they know video ads are allowed to interrupt their content, it’s no secret.

So I won’t even say they’re faultless.

---

>it's probably beneficial to YouTube to hear the conversation about what users block and what they dislike

Yeah... they already have ways to do that.

You can dislike ads, you can click the info button and let them know when a topic is no longer relevant to you.

From time to time you get ads that are just asking if you actually cared about an ad topic “Which if these have you seen an ad for recently?”

You can go into your Google profile and select interests in a much clear way than their guessing.

I do these things and now instead of a constant reminder of the car I bought months ago I get interesting movies I wouldn’t have heard about otherwise, or useful products.

---

So in summation...

>You're saying that if you hate the sin (intrusive ads), you're not allowed to love the sinner (content).

No.

>You're saying that if you hate the sin (intrusive ads), you're not allowed to support the sinner (content provider) by consuming content on their platform.

Yes. I mean, you’re allowed to do whatever you want, but the alternative is simple hypocrisy if you try and paint it as something noble meant to change how they do business.

The funny thing is I don’t think Adblock in itself is hypocritical. It’s just when you add in the virtue signaling and “we’re just trying to make YouTube a better mousetrap!” that my eyes start to roll back into my head and the irony hits a little too hard...

Surfing the internet without an adblocker is like having one-night stands without condoms. You never know what you might get infected with, and it's a stupid risk.

> There is a great deal of magical thinking surrounding the idea that if you pay companies they wont exploit your data and sell you to advertisers.

AKA, the Apple Myth. Just because you overpay for apple products, people think they are immune from data collection. Apple probably collects more data on a per capita basis than google or facebook.

> Apple probably collects more data on a per capita basis than google or facebook.

Sources? That which is asserted without evidence is also dismissed without evidence.

I'm not aware of apple working with credit card companies to track if after an ad was show that someone bought their product. I do know Google has however, and Facebook, well, hard to argue they collect less data than Apple with a straight face.

Please provide some substance to this argument if you could.

Apple collects less data about you than practically any other company you interact with. They view personal data as a liability, not an asset, and only collect the data necessary to actually provide the revelant service (and they silo it internally so different services within the company don’t share data, and they anonymize it as much as possible, and they apply differential privacy, etc)

There are publications that work this way, you don't see ads if you pay. I don't think there is any "magical thinking" in it. It's a common enough selling point for subscriptions that people expect it.

Not only video ads. They also show regular ads to paid subscribers. If you have an ad blocker they detect it and show a request to disable it! I was pissed off because I am paid subscriber (for many years). So, I emailed them about that and they responded that their business model is based on both ad and subscription revenue.

This is why I cancelled my subscription. After a 20-minutes retention chat with a person/bot.

Some players adhere to the prefers-reduced-motion a11y setting and won't autoplay with that.

https://webkit.org/blog/7551/responsive-design-for-motion/

Depends on the implementation of the ads and the network they're coming from. This presently only works in Safari and Firefox nightlies.

Disabling JavaScript on the NYT website completely bypasses the paywall and has few ill effects except preventing images to load (which is an acceptable trade-off).

Thanks for the heads up! I was literally just thinking I miss the sunday times and was going to get the sunday paper delivered and use the online subscription throughout the week.

It is sad to me that advertising has turned every browser technology available into something annoying. This has been going long since the introduction of the blink tag.

And nyt print edition still contains advertising...

This is why I aggressively block ads in my household. There are basically no good actors in the ad space, and I’d prefer they all go away.

Not sure what you expect? This is the internet

I think it’s reasonable, and normal to expect a reduced add experience or no ads when you’re a paid subscriber.

Just install an ad blocker and be merry. If this particular nastiness isn’t caught by one of the major ad blockers, simply plug the device into Charles Proxy and capture the ad requests being made, and submit an enhancement to the ad block list.

Ezpz.

Public indignation accomplishes nothing. Direct action leads to results.

I find videos still autoplay on iOS even though I have an adblocker and iOS supposedly blocks auto-play videos.

That’s great if you’re on the web, but as far as I know there’s no way to block on ads on a native iOS app.

You really don't need an app to read a newspaper.

I use the app "safari" to block ads on the app "nytimes.com" and it works perfectly.

Pi-hole should. It blocks the ad servers at the DNS level.

Network Level ad blocking.

PiHole or some other solution to block things at the network level. PiHole is basic DNS, some firewalls will give you ability to actually block the traffic using IP Lists.

The ads often crash the app on my tablet and occasionally my phone too. I've taken to refreshing the content and then switching to airplane mode to cut off network connectivity. You don't get images but you can read all the text as articles are downloaded to your device.

You're just getting downvoted because of your phrasing. You sound like this isn't a problem because people can use adBlock. I think most people who downvote actually agree that his is an efficient counter measure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com