> I accept that ads are currently necessary to fund companies
I don't. Facebook (and Google and Twitter) have inflicted the ad-supported business model on themselves. If they were really concerned about their users, they would figure out how to allow their users to pay directly for their services, without seeing any ads or having any personal information collected. Call it the "premium option" or something, like so many app developers do. These companies are perfectly capable of doing that; they're just too lazy to try.
Google has YouTube Red (maybe it's called "Premium" now?) which is offered as an ad-free version, with some other benefits such as offline viewing, and I do pay for it. So that supports your thesis.
Same here. It's worth it. It means everything my family and I watch is ad free. YouTube, Netflix, HBO... Well, aside from HBO's preroll ads for themselves. Annoying.
It doesn't seem to include Google in their list of sites? The whole concept sounds interesting but it needs a way better selection of sites, I don't think I've visited any of the few on that list [0].
Also, I'd need tracking disabled as well as the ads.
I love this idea, but the only participating websites they list are Popular Mechanics and National Post, making this effectively vaporware for the time being. Launching this service without a significant set of participating sites is ridiculous, and seems to be asking for the service to fail.
I have Adblock Origin and don't see any ads on YouTube. I wanted to pay for Youtube Premium but 12/month is a bit excessive for offline viewing (which is the only part of YT I use) (and even if I wanted to see their premium content, it's way more expensive than Netflix).
If my local newspaper gave me any information worth the price, I would gladly pay for it.
> Ads are 100% a real part of the economy and are necessary to sustain certain kinds of business models.
I know a lot of companies believe this, since ads are ubiquitous. I just don't agree with them. IMO, if you are depending on ad revenue to fund your business, you either aren't providing anything worth paying for, or, as I said about Google and Facebook and some others, you're too lazy to try and actually make your users your customers, as they should be.
"if you are depending on ad revenue to fund your business, you either aren't providing anything worth paying for, "
This is quite plainly false.
It's a little flippant to suggest that all these industries that currently depend on ads are just 'stupid' and they're 'doing it wrong'.
There are hard dynamics at play here, and when one is confronted with them directly (usually by being in such a business), then one develops an intimate understanding of them.
There have been countless experiments with various things like micropayments etc. but the dynamic still tilts towards an actual user preference for 'free with ads and less privacy' as opposed to 'paid'.
> an actual user preference for 'free with ads and less privacy'
Users don't have a preference for less privacy; that's not the choice they're presented with. They're presented with no choice at all: just "free". The "less privacy" part is never explained to them up front or given to them as an explicit choice; it comes out later when the companies get caught.
Facebook had $15 Billion in US ad revenue (2018) and 214 Million US users. So ~$70/yr/person. I would gladly pay that for an ad free experience given the option.
Most likely Facebook is making more than $70/year/person from users who are willing to pay $70/month for ads-free experience.
The reason for that is that usually only people with higher than average income are willing to pay for their ads-free accounts.
People with higher than average income - are more appealing target for advertisers. So, most likely, Facebook is making more ad revenue than average from wealthier users.
Advertising allows to "implicitly charge" wealthier users more than poorer users.
> Most likely Facebook is making more than $70/year/person from users who are willing to pay $70/month for ads-free experience.
I think you mean "willing to pay $70/year". Fine, set the price at whatever the break-even point is (how much FB thinks they can make from ads for the type of person they expect to be willing to pay for the free version). At least then we'd be able to make a choice. Right now, we have none.
> set the price at whatever the break-even point is
1) That paid option would remove the wealthiest part of the potential ad audience. The higher the break-even point is - the wealthier slice of audience it will remove.
2) Such premium option may, actually, work. For example, Youtube has $11.99 per month Premium subscription option.
Did you sign up for that?
3) I am not sure if Facebook will implement that premium option, because managing ads-free premium option would add complexity to their codebase.
> Facebook (and Google and Twitter) have inflicted the ad-supported business model on themselves.
No they did not, market did. Google is maybe a bit aside because it was first of its kind, but both twitter and facebook needed to have a large user base before even being remotely useful. In the presence of already entrenched free alternatives, getting to a critical mass of users with a paid service is impossible.
If there is a way to get your service out for free somebody will do it and then the race to the bottom begins. There are comparably very few people that are willing to pay for any virtual service compared to those that are okay with ads. So much so that if you try to make a paid service you will either have to be extremely differentiated (Netflix) or pander to some niche and charge quite big prices.
Stuff like Youtube Red can only exist because they already have all the creators and all the viewers, but Youtube would not exist or survive, were it the only option.
I don't. Facebook (and Google and Twitter) have inflicted the ad-supported business model on themselves. If they were really concerned about their users, they would figure out how to allow their users to pay directly for their services, without seeing any ads or having any personal information collected. Call it the "premium option" or something, like so many app developers do. These companies are perfectly capable of doing that; they're just too lazy to try.