I like pretty much everyone else dislikes advertising, but it is a genuine source for a company to generate revenue.
I really don't know any other real alternatives other than making the user pay, which would in turn make the internet just basically one big subscription model. The majority of the "free" services which many people enjoy now, like YouTube, Facebook, etc probably could not exist as they do.
What is needed is some clear boundaries (legislation), and education. I believe without advertising that the internet would not have been what it is today, and I don't think it would have exponentially better.
Amazon's model wins (this customer). Prime is something that I'm 100% willing to pay for (between shipping, music, video -- again, for this customer). That it comes with WP digital access is a nice add-on. If there were a $10/mo hike in price for lots of other digital access products, I would go without. If the price hike were mandatory to keep prime, I'd keep prime.
Again, for this customer...
I'm moving soon and seriously considering not signing up for internet at my new address (new job, I'll be at work a ton, and the common area has free wifi I could use for the occasional email or weekend netflix download). But I won't cancel my prime subscription. That's what made me realize how sticky amazon is: I will pay 3 figures for access, even without instant access to the network that lets me get to them!
Advertising isn't that profitable per-user basis anyway, you need a huge amount to break-even. I doubt the average user generates more than a few euros worth of advertising per month. Not to mention the indirect cost of advertising paid by the consumer as well.
A subscription model at a few Euros a month might attract only those users with high spending power, and whose ads (presumably) generate much more than a few Euros a month.
Do you think the users are not already paying for it? If you click on an ad and buy the product, you’re paying for that impression as well as 100s of others that resulted in a small annoyance instead of a conversion.
> If you click on an ad and buy the product, you’re paying for that impression as well as 100s of others that resulted in a small annoyance instead of a conversion.
Free shipping isn't really free, the cost of a product can include multiple different factors.
As far as the annoyance point, I guess that is somewhat balanced out by the importance of the site.
But that isn't the point I was making, the point I am making is that advertising is genuine way for companies to make money from offering services. There isn't really any other valid alternatives to this over than user pays or giving it away.
Do we know how much Youtube, Facebook, etc. make in ad revenue per user? It can't be much. If micro-payments are an option, the ability to pay $0.75 a month for an ad-free social network would be fantastic.
I think the problem behind this is that ad revenue is not the same as a subscription revenue. You cannot assume that if a user was worth $3 a month in ad revenue that that would translate to a $3 a month subscription.
For example, I would have no doubt the the customer acquisition cost for an "free" application with advertising is a lot lower than trying to sell that same user a membership.
When it comes to social networks I would suggest that the stickiness is because your friends/family etc are on the same network. It's not if you are willing to pay, it is only really worth it, if your friends are willing to pay.
If you are talking more about a paid and free version, then there are already services out there like YouTube Red (available in some areas for $9.99+ USD). There are always options out there.
For the US, the entire digital ad market is $83B/yr, which works out to $257 per person per year, or $717 per household. Keep in mind that about half of the country's population is "frequent internet users", so that number is almost certainly an underestimate for anyone who browses HN.
For comparison, this number just recently passed TV advertising, which is about $70B/yr ($217/person, $605/household).
Yeah, also let’s not forget that the whole idea of ads is to sell people crap they don’t need. Industries are built to turn the environment into disposable products that people would not miss at all if they wouldn’t know about them. There’s obviously the question what would people do if they would not work for companies that produce waste and their actual needs have been met but I don’t think the current way is the correct answer, and there’s a huge part of the world who’s needs (food, shelter, clothing, self-actualization) are not being met.
You were probably downvoted for taking the position that you are the judge of what other people need, but besides that error, I think you bring up an interesting point.
It is an uncomfortable truth that we have yet to really contemplate as a society.
Consumerism ISN'T sustainable, and society will grow to a point where we are going to see seemingly fundamental systems start to crumble beneath the sheer weight of consumption.
We have to be willing to ask "should we?" in addition to "can we?"
> Yeah, also let’s not forget that the whole idea of ads is to sell people crap they don’t need.
That doesn't have to be true. Done right, ads can be about making more people aware of a product, to reach people who genuinely benefit from it but would not otherwise have heard about it. That's the advertising future I'd like to see, even if it's not how things are right now.
If that were true all ads would simply be a bullet point list of features - branding would not exist, there would be no pretty models in the ad, etc etc etc
The argument that ads are about informing consumer just doesn’t stand up to reality. The whole concept is flawed.
> but it is a genuine source for a company to generate revenue.
That's a common cultural belief that I do not subscribe to, seems to come with our currently trendy variants of capitalism/liberalism. I personally belief it is more akin to a crime that is currently not punished.
> probably could not exist as they do.
More industries have been outlawed in history.
> I believe without advertising that the internet would not have been what it is today,
I can take that as fact. But I do not think that "without ads" (on the internet or not) is "economically worse". I think without ads we would produce better quality; it's complete guessing, but that's just my expectation.
> But that was very exhaustive and couldn't obviously go on like that forever. Then we switched to weekly meetings, reviews were mostly done by their team lead.
That's where you went wrong first. You let go of the responsibility and handed it over to people who did not necessary have your best interests in mind. Quality, schedule, outcomes etc need to be managed, and managed so problems can be picked up early.
Secondly "It turned out that from those 8-9 developers we hired, at the end of the project only 3 of them were actually committing code. Although I never got an explanation ...", point to another management issue.
I am sitting in a country with a reputation for being an outsourcing hub, I am from the western world and I can tell you that there are many talented developers. The problems are the same as I have had with managing western teams, personal issues, skill levels etc though some of higher or lower impact. But the basic fact remains, the further you distance yourself from responsibility the greater the risk of failure.
> I use the WordPress version. Why isn’t my login working for the web app?
> If you already have the WordPress plugin, you’ll need to register again. This new web app version is different than the WordPress plugin version. We’ll continue to support both, but since they’re two separate products you can register for each.
Both software and algorithms are an emergent property of the rules of the systems we create. They are essentially akin to prime numbers, in a direct and provable sense.
(1) All computable programs can be expressed as a Universal Turing machine.
(2) There are countably many Universal Turing machines
(3) In an abstract sense, we can thus assign a unique identifier to each possible computer program. I can tell you "run program 383439343" and that will tell you everything you need to run that function.
Most of these programs are of course not correct in the sense that they produce a useful output, or even necessarily terminate. But then, most numbers aren't useful either, it's only because of the emergent properties of our mathematical rules that something like a "prime number" even has a conceptual meaning, and it's only because of our contextual needs that, say, sorting an array would be a useful output.
Distinguishing between algorithms and software is a distinction without a difference. If the two implementations produce a different output, then by definition they must be following a different algorithm. And if they are the same algorithm, then they can be reduced to the same Universal Turing machine.
First, Shor's algorithm (as an example) cannot be expressed as a Universal Turing Machine. You are thinking much too small, software implementations on Turing Machines are possible for a strict subset of possible algorithms.
Second, even for algorithms which can be expressed as Turing Machines, you are giving the computer science equivalent of saying that a house and it's architecture drawing are the same. One is a thing which exists, one is a description of the thing. You cannot run an unimplemented algorithm without first doing the work of implementing it.
That is not opt-in, that is a forced choice between two evils.
I do not wish to be forced into an opt-out situation. It is opt-in or nothing.
I will continue to block ads, miners and other malicious scripting. They can offer whichever ad or miner they want, and I will simply refuse and block all of them from appearing on my device in my browser to consume my battery power and my bandwidth.
They are more than welcome to put up a paywall, either single payments or a subscription service, and I will pay for their content if it is appealing to me. They are also welcome to (attempt to) block me for using JS/ad blocking. It will either be completely ineffectual and easily circumvented, or it will make me go to other sites, that don't treat their customers as cash cows.
I have absolutely no obligation to unknowingly fund other people's internet profiteering moonshots. If they want money, they can ask for it honestly and directly. I support several content creators on Patreon, and I regularly donate to various open source projects and the like.
I don't mind paying for stuff, but I do mind when it doesn't happen openly and transparently.
I live in a country were just under a 1/4 of the population lives in poverty, on mass most people don't even come close to earning 32K USD a year. The average is around 1/7th of that at approximately 7K USD.
So, is it fair to compare someone in the US living of 32K a year and someone earning 32K a year where the laborers are being paid $2 a day, well the answer to that is yes. After all you would be talking about edge case, as there isn't a lot of people living in those circumstances in developing countries, while the mass in the US is living under those circumstances.
If you want to talk about the "standard" of living, then the cost of the same standard in developing countries is often the same as developed countries, Petrol, cars, healthcare (though this may differ in some areas), quality food, are comparative in cost, as many of these products are provided from the same or similar sources as where US consumers get their products.
1) To embarrass and humiliate Aziz
2) To suggest that men even those who are standing up for #metoo are culpable.
3) To suggest even further that in the man vs woman debate, men are more responsible due to the fact that woman do not have choices when dealing with aggressive men.
My reading of these events is that it is fairly polarizing for many, some suggesting (on twitter) that men should learn to read "signals" and this is common issue. While others suggesting that her own actions like the oral sex are the signals.
But overall in my mind this was feminist revenge porn, which has been triggered by the growing influence of the #metoo movement. It was definitely not representative of the movement, help to the movement, or anything other than just a vexatious attempt to get some revenge.
Similar setup, MacPass (a new implementation of keepass for the mac), ChromePass for autologins, and KeePass2Android on my phone. Works well, not perfect but enough for what I want.
>Jews in US Congress Urge Israel to Accept UN “Deal” to Deport African Invaders to White Countries
I don't think this would qualify as a creditable new source for IT information.