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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

I assumed this would be the case and removed ads from my web game about a year ago. But didn't see a difference with traffic or retention (granted, I didn't A/B test it! I removed them 100%). Which was disappointing. The only difference I noticed is that I lost that revenue (5 figures).

But probably depends on volume and/or type of ads?

[EDIT] Clarified re: traffic

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'Revenue'!='users'. EDIT: and 10% is, while important, a pretty subtle difference compared to the enormous variability of traffic. Traffic is a time-series which drifts and has many potentially large jumps. If you removed ads only once, how would you ever notice? The effect is very noticeable if you look at samples with _n_ in the millions, or if you remove/add scores of times and model it statistically, though.

A very good point -- if you don't have other sources of revenue aside from ads, and can't run the site/game/whatever without that, 10% of your users gone might be a perfectly reasonable trade off for the ad revenue that keeps the site running.

I think you mention later in the Twitter thread that Patreon has given you much more recurring revenue than ads? I wish operators would spend the time to look at the effectiveness of ad alternatives as you've done.

Isn't this the inverse experiment? The theory that removing ads will increase your user base?

I mean, he's not making a prediction on revenue. Gwern is making a statement about traffic. Did your traffic increase ~10%?

From the Pandora paper, (which showed that as more ads were played during pandora sessions, subscriptions were boosted but free users left) it sounds like there's an "optimal advertisement" rate for revenue. Enough to not push away users, but not too much to deter users altogether.

> Did your traffic increase ~10%?

It followed the same pattern as I've seen for years.

> Enough to not push away users, but not too much to deter users altogether.

That could be. I might've had a goldilocks amount.

Instituting advertising is guaranteed to reach your existing user base right away; those who hate ads will see them right away and quit right away.

Removing advertising doesn't have the same kind of immediate effect because the "audience" for it is people who haven't even heard of your app yet, and have no idea whether you're ad-free or not. (Here I'm discounting the possibility that there's a bunch of people waiting, hoping you eliminate ads so they can finally join.)

So the effects of removing ads probably have a much longer lag-time, governed to a significant degree by the usual mechanisms and rates of user acquisition.

Edit: you can also argue that the pre-existing users of an ad-free app have to some degree self-selected based on a hatred of ads, and that in a more general sample, the proportion for whom ads are a deal-breaker might be lower than 1 in 10.

Well said. Plus, there are us diehards who simply gave up on all mobile gaming entirely, because the vast majority have ads. That makes it hard enough to find acceptable games that it's just not worth looking for games.

>web game

Possible the 10% were using adblockers, and so didn't notice the change.

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