I heard an interview with Tim Wu today on Fresh Air in which he talked about his new book Attention Merchants. He suggested at one point that one solution to the hideous amount of ads (and more) that pollutes the web is for consumers to be willing to pay for more content. I disagree that this will be a lasting solution -- although in a theoretical sense it is possible for it to work.
The trouble is that earning advertising revenue is enticing for content providers and it is a very slippery slope. Sure, there are examples of content that you pay for and you do not have to watch ads. Netflix is one. Wikipedia, Consumerist.com. And the internet is full of examples of content that is free and solely supported by ad revenue. But there are plenty of examples of content that people pay for and still have to suffer through ads. Some obvious examples include "legacy" media like newspapers and magazines, or cable TV, even streaming services like hulu. But it goes beyond that. Movie theaters show ads. I've been to BP and Valero gas stations that have TV screens running ads. Taxis have screens with ads. T-Mobile sold me a phone once that popped up a full screen ad during a call. Even my bank's ATM forces me to click through an ad before I can complete my transaction.
As much as possible, I as a consumer try to avoid paying for something and still having to watch ads. I do not have cable TV primarily for this reason. I will not subscribe to Hulu, even though I'm a happy subscriber to Netflix and Amazon Prime. I don't visit the gas stations that have TVs. I go to the movies far less often than I used to. I even get grumpy when sales clerks try to upsell me at the cash register. I returned that T-Mobile phone the very next day and bought an unlocked phone directly from Motorola.
These hybrid models succeed, though, because too many people are not bothered enough by the ads to vote with their wallets. The "return on annoyance" for the content/service providers is far too high for them to forgo this basically free revenue stream. For just a tiny increase in annoyance, they can bring in more revenue even while still charging the same price for the content they provide. Movie theaters did not lower their prices when they started showing ads, though they probably claim "keeping prices down" is why they do it.
Even NPR, which was in the 90's literally commercial free, now has ads. They sugar coat it by calling them "underwriters", and they impose severe restrictions on the content of the ads, but they are still ads. I actually had the opportunity to speak to Ira Glass about this issue, and the one-liner of his that still sticks with me from that conversation is, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Basically, his point was that these ads are a small annoyance but earn NPR a lot of money. Thus, he argued, if you like NPR, you shouldn't object.
We're on a trajectory towards a time when anything that gets your attention for any reason is a vehicle for advertising. I'm surprised airlines aren't doing it more. They have the screens already. Public transit already has billboards. Why not screens? More and more cars have video capable screens. The internet of things (IoT) is putting (or trying to put) networked devices in every home. Screens will follow.
So, my argument is that just being willing to pay for content is not going to be enough to eliminate ads. It *may* succeed in bringing the ad load back to a less insane level, but as long as the return-on-annoyance remains high, we'll be stuck with ads. In other words, we're stuck with ads for as long as we put up with ads.
Ira Glass convinced me to try something along these lines with NPR. I bought my own underwriting time slot. The idea was to both support NPR with money but also eliminate one ad from their lineup. I even created a (very short lived) website called 20secondsAtATime.com which I tried to use to convince my friends and acquaintances to do the same. If there were enough people like me who liked NPR but wanted it literally commercial-free, then we could buy up all the ad slots without affecting NPR's bottom line. There weren't enough people like me.
I know of one example of a hybrid approach. A blog called TechDirt is ad-supported, but they let each user choose to opt-out of seeing ads if they want to, no strings attached. Well, one string: the site simply appeals to viewers (calmly and rationally) to support them and gives viewers 3 options: 1) leave ads on; 2) become a subscriber, i.e. pay for the content directly; 3) purchase products from them (e.g. t-shirts, gadgets, software bundles, educational courses). But they still let you turn off ads even if you don't provide support in one of the other two ways.
I hope the future is Netflix or at least TechDirt. I fear the future is gas stations with screens and invasion of the IoT.
The trouble is that earning advertising revenue is enticing for content providers and it is a very slippery slope. Sure, there are examples of content that you pay for and you do not have to watch ads. Netflix is one. Wikipedia, Consumerist.com. And the internet is full of examples of content that is free and solely supported by ad revenue. But there are plenty of examples of content that people pay for and still have to suffer through ads. Some obvious examples include "legacy" media like newspapers and magazines, or cable TV, even streaming services like hulu. But it goes beyond that. Movie theaters show ads. I've been to BP and Valero gas stations that have TV screens running ads. Taxis have screens with ads. T-Mobile sold me a phone once that popped up a full screen ad during a call. Even my bank's ATM forces me to click through an ad before I can complete my transaction.
As much as possible, I as a consumer try to avoid paying for something and still having to watch ads. I do not have cable TV primarily for this reason. I will not subscribe to Hulu, even though I'm a happy subscriber to Netflix and Amazon Prime. I don't visit the gas stations that have TVs. I go to the movies far less often than I used to. I even get grumpy when sales clerks try to upsell me at the cash register. I returned that T-Mobile phone the very next day and bought an unlocked phone directly from Motorola.
These hybrid models succeed, though, because too many people are not bothered enough by the ads to vote with their wallets. The "return on annoyance" for the content/service providers is far too high for them to forgo this basically free revenue stream. For just a tiny increase in annoyance, they can bring in more revenue even while still charging the same price for the content they provide. Movie theaters did not lower their prices when they started showing ads, though they probably claim "keeping prices down" is why they do it.
Even NPR, which was in the 90's literally commercial free, now has ads. They sugar coat it by calling them "underwriters", and they impose severe restrictions on the content of the ads, but they are still ads. I actually had the opportunity to speak to Ira Glass about this issue, and the one-liner of his that still sticks with me from that conversation is, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Basically, his point was that these ads are a small annoyance but earn NPR a lot of money. Thus, he argued, if you like NPR, you shouldn't object.
We're on a trajectory towards a time when anything that gets your attention for any reason is a vehicle for advertising. I'm surprised airlines aren't doing it more. They have the screens already. Public transit already has billboards. Why not screens? More and more cars have video capable screens. The internet of things (IoT) is putting (or trying to put) networked devices in every home. Screens will follow.
So, my argument is that just being willing to pay for content is not going to be enough to eliminate ads. It *may* succeed in bringing the ad load back to a less insane level, but as long as the return-on-annoyance remains high, we'll be stuck with ads. In other words, we're stuck with ads for as long as we put up with ads.
Ira Glass convinced me to try something along these lines with NPR. I bought my own underwriting time slot. The idea was to both support NPR with money but also eliminate one ad from their lineup. I even created a (very short lived) website called 20secondsAtATime.com which I tried to use to convince my friends and acquaintances to do the same. If there were enough people like me who liked NPR but wanted it literally commercial-free, then we could buy up all the ad slots without affecting NPR's bottom line. There weren't enough people like me.
I know of one example of a hybrid approach. A blog called TechDirt is ad-supported, but they let each user choose to opt-out of seeing ads if they want to, no strings attached. Well, one string: the site simply appeals to viewers (calmly and rationally) to support them and gives viewers 3 options: 1) leave ads on; 2) become a subscriber, i.e. pay for the content directly; 3) purchase products from them (e.g. t-shirts, gadgets, software bundles, educational courses). But they still let you turn off ads even if you don't provide support in one of the other two ways.
I hope the future is Netflix or at least TechDirt. I fear the future is gas stations with screens and invasion of the IoT.
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