Re: Ads
@Voland's_right_hand
1. Yes, indeed that is per page. However, if it is so trivial an amount that it doesn't matter if we deprive the publisher of it then perhaps it is also such a trivial amount that we wouldn't really mind paying it - or - if it is not a trivial amount, and so we would mind paying it, then perhaps it is then not right for us to deprive the publisher of it. I guess this is actually (the order of) how much the internet would cost if we didn't fund it with ads. How low would it have to be per page before you think it *would* be reasonable? 0.01p, 0.001p?
2. Impractical pipe dream I agree. Perhaps, rather than the sites doing it themselves, what we need is some sort of infrastructure in place that tracks all the sites we visit and tots up all the page views on all those sites, along with all those sites having some means of receiving payment from a centralised entity based on the number of page views they get, and also perhaps something built into the browser that is ad aware and knows who we are, and some sort of 'account' that most of us would have with that central entity and... oh wait... Big Internet (e.g. Google) have all this already, but the whole advert based way of doing things is so hugely profitable for Big Internet because they can keep most of what they get from the advertisers and give scraps to the publishers/creators (hence Big Internet making billions every year). Google, say, could pivot to being non evil and use their existing infrastructure to provide a service like this where we pay content providers directly (with Google taking a modest cut) but they would of course then be *vastly* less profitable. I'd agree with you that it's hopeless were it not for the rise of ad-blockers. Ad blocking seems to me to be the first time a realistic incentive for something like this to happen has come along (that perhaps Big Internet can't thwart), and it is creating a degree of nervousness among publishers who might be inclined to grasp at anything offering a way out (both of ad-block and their perilous Big Internet dependence). The fundamental problem for the ad slingers is that there is no such thing as an 'acceptable' ad; an ad is either so 'acceptable' that you can comfortably *completely* ignore it (in which case it is *useless* as an ad, and in the long term advertisers simply will not pay for such ads), or it is sufficiently impeding to your enjoyment of the content that it will actually attract your attention to some degree, if only briefly, in which case 99.99% of the time it will be at best mildly irritating rather than helpful or informative. All other things being equal, pages without ads are better than pages with ads, no matter how 'acceptable' those ads are. The question is, is there any price level at which people will pay not to have ads? If you'd told me even five years ago how many people are now paying a $10/£10 sub per month for music I'd never have believed you (not that I'm proposing a sub model here).
Rant ends.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
