The mission of making knowledge available to those less fortunate than oneself (especially in this inflated first-world lifestyle) should supercede the need for financial gain.
But once the actual moneyed assholes come in and take over, everything gets expensive and unaffordable and now you absolutely need a business model just to build something. Perhaps ad blockers and piracy are the much-needed counterbalancing force keeping the monster at bay.
The problem is that the old way is dead. And its own popularity killed it. Just for example; There is no way a video hosting site the size and scope of YouTube could have possibly existed when the Internet was a hobby.
What do we do with that?
So many sites just cramming ads into every single square inch of their sites ruins it for almost everyone else. I get a visceral reaction to banner ads now.
I totally understand the economics of it, and the fact that you can't bootstrap something like Youtube by charging for it, but that's just how it is. It's a shame that the responsible sites are getting painted with the same brush, but so much of the internet has gotten so insanely greedy with ads that there's just no other choice.
B. Because I get that the cost to deliver me a 30 minute video is fairly expensive even for Google. Most text websites, the cost in bandwidth to deliver the ads is orders of magnitude more than the site itself. I host text based websites and they cost literally a dollar a month. The overhead of my single visit to a text/image site is a tiny fraction of the cost of me watching even a 5 minute YT video.
If you build a blog or generally text-first site in a sensible way, the cost of a single visitor is ~free. Making me see and load 4-5 ads at any time is just abusive. As was said elsewhere, if you think your content is good enough to cost money, then try charging for it, but there really just aren't that many people talented enough to successfully demand living income for writing or recipes or other mundane stuff people put on the internet.
We could wish for a world where it's easier to frictionlessly give someone a penny or such for reading their site and let that add up for those who get the views, but that's just not a thing right now.
The ability to have a total stranger see your work even once is the outlier that the modern era as brought. People have jumped from that to "and thus I deserve to live off of this" and that just doesn't follow. Even making a pittance is unlikely and that's still better than any of us was likely to get even 20 years ago.
Every single YouTube creator I watch with any degree of regularity has a Patreon, merch shop, or some other way for those who appreciate their stuff to directly contribute to its production and continued existence. Many say that they rely on those sources of income a lot more than ad revenue, especially those in non-advertiser-friendly niches who have to worry about demonetization. In a no-YouTube world, even assuming p2p video streaming never works out, those folks would be able to pay for hosting with those non-ad income streams, because YouTube's scale is deceptive. Most of the ones I watch don't even have all that many views relative to the big boys - five to six digit, usually - so their viewer:contributor ratio is a lot higher than that of a successful clickbait slop video with ~zero genuine dedicated supporters but a lot of incidental ad views. This dynamic implies that creators with dedicated followings would have a decent shot at supporting themselves even if they had to pay for bandwidth, because their bandwidth spend to revenue ratio is a lot better than average.
The thing about YouTube is that slop outweighs quality content by such a massive margin that if you do napkin math around the raw cost of hosting n hours of streaming video, you end up with a way higher number than you'd have if you stripped out the bulk of the material that wouldn't be economically feasible in a non-ad-supported environment.
A corollary is that without competition from low-quality ad-supported material that couldn't hack it in a donation-centric environment, the good stuff stands out that much more. It's kinda like how you can't really post a recipe without it drowning in an ocean of algorithmically generated fake-ass life stories about grandma's cookies with seven ads before you hit the first ingredient. Without those, organic content, even paid/donation-supported organic content, has a much better shot at encountering the kind of eyeball that'll shell out for the good stuff.
I think the existence of spaces like Bandcamp (for now, anyway, fingers crossed re acquisition) demonstrates that donation-supported streaming can be economically viable. I've spent far more on Bandcamp albums I could have just kept streaming indefinitely for free than I ever did on CDs, because I know that the bulk of that money is actually going to the people who made the stuff I liked, rather than getting siphoned off into corporate middlemen a la legacy record businesses / Spotify and its ilk. Direct-to-artist support in places like Bandcamp has enabled a flowering of high-quality, niche content. People may complain about a simplistic top 40 or whatever, but I'm running into more music right up my alley than ever before, and that's largely due to the newfound ability to cut out the middleman and go right to the creator. YouTube is like the old record industry; it benefits the lowest-common-denominator painfully-focus-grouped artist far more than it does the auteur.
Don't want to spend an arm and a leg for bandwidth? Don't include megabutts of JS, CSS, images, etc. Optimize and respect your users/guests.
Youtube would cost any normal company untold millions per month just in bandwidth costs alone, and there's actually so much more to it. I would bet money that even Discord's bandwidth bills are at least 1 million USD per month if not more.
I can't speak for GP, but don't care how a site is funded, unless it's my site.
If a particular site goes away, it's no skin off my nose.
Let's use Facebook as an example.
You can't not get tracked by Facebook if you have a Facebook account. If you use it, they track you and monetize you somehow. All of your interactions with the site, and all your interactions with other users.
Blocking as much of Facebook's ads and tracking as you can while keeping the site working means you are monetized somewhat less. You're still not freeloading.
This is similar with other companies - you have to use the product, and they monetize your use of the product. Whether or not you see the ads in Gmail - they are still aggregating all of your data and monetizing it.
Adblockers can be seen as a system of checks and balances and incentivize certain types of monetization over others.
Don't get me wrong - I'm sympathetic to your argument. Google and Facebook can't run a service without being able to make a profit on it. I believe users should have measures of control over how they are monetized, and there should be clarity about how they are being monetized. Example: Google Maps keeps prompting me to turn on my location history. If I do, the TOS says they get to sell that to a bunch of people. That prompt to turn it on should be clear about this compromise. My wife doesn't mind; I do, but I had to read the TOS to understand the compromise is there in the first place.
As an aside, I find it really interesting how content creators are being sponsored by companies in much the same way early radio shows had sponsored ads. Everything old is new again, and I find this un-blockable type of advertising to be totally fair, fine and normal.
Actually, Facebook will track you even if you don't have a Facebook account[0].
In fact, Facebook and others[1] track you whether or not you use their "services" or not.
[0] https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-pr...
[1] Google (but we knew that, didn't we?) and data brokers[2] (but we knew that too, didn't we?)
[2] https://privacyrights.org/resources/registered-data-brokers-...
I was being precise.
Can you? As of 2021, there were more than 500 registered data brokers in the US alone.
And those brokers don't just use your Facebook profile (shadow or otherwise). Rather they source data from thousands of retailers, insurance companies, credit "rating" agencies, banks, etc., etc., etc.
How exactly do you (because I certainly don't know how to do so) keep hundreds of discrete businesses from collecting data on you? Do you squat in a lean-to on private land not owned by you? Do you have a phone purchased by you (even with cash, most retailers have surveillance cameras)? Do you own a car? Is it registered? Do you not live in New Hampshire (the only state which doesn't require auto insurance)? Do you have a credit card in your name? Do you have any professional certifications? Are you married? Divorced? Pay taxes?
If you really think you can block the level of tracking that goes on, you're either delusional or have a multi-billion dollar set of skills/ideas. Which might it be, do you think?
Fair enough.
And while it's not a bad thing, it's just a small part of the problem, as I was reminded a few minutes ago when I received an email about this class-action lawsuit[0].
To be clear, I'm not trying to bust your chops or be dismissive of your point of view. Rather, I'm just (through serendipitous receipt of notification of the lawsuit discussed in the linked article) providing an example that Meta's evil ways are just the tip of the iceberg.
There is an unwritten social contract here.
Paywalls make very clear what a companies true value is and that terrifies every shareholder and C-suite.
There isn't, no matter how many times you say there is.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I don't feel that is an accurate take. Websites tried charging money for access and the internet citizenry responded pretty clearly that the overwhelming majority of websites were not worthy of payment for access.
So websites tried a run-around - advertising. And the use of ad-blockers exist because internet users are again voting that they would rather the website(s) disappear than be forced to watch a level of obtrusive advertising they found unacceptable enough that they turned to adblockers. And I would suggest to you that if website owners were to find a way to defeat adblockers, the majority of them would lose their traffic.
Clearly not, or they would just stop using those sites. Instead they want the content at zero cost.
There's an entitlement now to "Well, I put it online so you must pay me" and frankly, not everyone deserves it. Or at least not everyone deserves it as much as they think they deserve it. Does this mean many astute and skilled people I like don't get paid what they deserve? Absolutely, but that was already the case for centuries before. They just didn't used to have the option to go "it's freeeee" and then have half of the world spy on me in exchange for it, and maybe that's not a good thing.
I never agreed to this contract the same way I never agreed to watch ads on my television or listen to them on the radio. I reserve the right to change stations temporarily, mute sound, and block ads.
I hereby invoke a social contract that states that everyone who reads this comment must reply with their demographic data so I can sell it. Be polite and conform, please. My time is valuable and these comments don't write themselves.
I've been debating with my neighbor the last few years about whether artists are still artists if they're charging for their "content". It's a bit of a facetious argument, but directionally if you have something you want people to hear, isn't the audience doing the favor by listening? Similar points have been made about Twitter (and social media generally) that folks have the right to say what they want, but not necessarily to be heard. A person can tweet, but not only can others block them (or just ignore and scroll by), the platforms/algorithms can not prioritize them in feeds. Folks aren't owed an audience. It's possible content is for the author. When it isn't, when authors wouldn't have put it up if it weren't for ad income, I feel less worried about what we're losing. That said, if I had to pay for everything, I would certainly read/watch less stuff I like too.
That's as may be. I won't use your (that's the generic, "you" here) site if you insist (by blocking me from accessing the site with an ad blocker enabled) on making me watch ads.
But I won't complain about it either. It is, after all, your site and not mine. As such, you can do as you like with it -- and good on you for making your own decisions about your own property!
That said, my browser belongs to me, and I will make my own decisions about what displays in my browser and/or runs on my hardware.
tl;dr: I control my stuff and you control your stuff. If we can come to an agreement, that's great! If not, that's fine too!
Edit: Clarified prose.
There is an unwritten social contract here. Websites are willing to host and organise a vast number of content because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then services won't host the content, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy the services they use in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target).
If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if a service's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use that service - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make their own service work or investigate the long list of alternative platforms.