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Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by viraptor on Sunday November 12, 2017 @06:46PM (#15683203)
Something's not right with that equation. You're implying that on average, each household is spending over $1000 per month on things they get via the online advertising that they would otherwise not get at all.

And that's just not realistic. One-off purchases, maybe. Sustained 1k/hh/mth avg - I'd love to see a proof of that.

Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by dredmorbius on Sunday November 12, 2017 @09:02PM (#15683719)
Total advertising spend worldwide is $600 billion. Online is about 1/6 of that, call it $100 billion.

To a rough approximation, that's footed by the 1 billion wealthy inhabitants of the EU, US, Japan, Canada, Australian, and New Zealand. (I said rough, roll with me.)

That means that the per person costs of advertising are pretty much $100 annually online and $600 annually for all content (mostly TV). Keep in mind, those are real expenses expressed through household purchases.

(This means, by the way, that online content isn't free, you are paying for it, only, you're doing so indirectly, through advertisers.)

By contrast, total direct expenditures on print media run about $125/person in the US. (Audio/video may add to that.)

If you look at what is advertised, an awful lot is very high-ticket items. The FIRE industries (finance, insurance, real estate) were the largest chunk of spend as of a couple-three years ago. Electronics is another large segment.

The notion of some sort of universal content payments scheme, preferably indexed to wealth and income, has a great deal of economic justification. I've been exploring that for the past few years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=universal+cont...

Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by Zpalmtree on Sunday November 12, 2017 @10:45PM (#15684137)
So, if I block advertising, I'm indirectly wasting the money these companies spend on me, and are paying more for products without any benefit? That's a funny thought.
Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by dredmorbius on Monday November 13, 2017 @01:39AM (#15684720)
You're also avoiding the inherent manipulation of advertising itself.

But yes, the dynamics are a tad bent.

Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by viraptor on Tuesday November 14, 2017 @07:17AM (#15694393)
I find it very disappointing and would like to see the ad industry die in a fire :-(
Re:A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic by dangrossman on Sunday November 12, 2017 @07:01PM (#15683263)
Households do spend >$1000 per month on consumer goods/services (food, clothes, personal care items, etc). Those companies do spend >10% on marketing. I'm not sure what portion of it is spent online, which is what you'd need the subscription to replace.

There's no implication that every dollar they spend on marketing directly translates into $10 of new spending "that they would otherwise not get at all".

Much of it is brand spending. Procter & Gamble is the world's largest advertiser, and the goal of their ads is to make sure you keep picking up Tide every time you're in the detergent aisle. Coca-Cola's ads aren't trying to get you to buy $10 more of soda than last week, just to keep soda on your shopping list every week. Those ad dollars would need to be replaced by the subscription if you're going to remove the ads but keep compensation for the websites the same.