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by tomkinstinch
3962 days ago
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It's definitely a concern, especially since I run a side project for STEM education that has ads[1]. My site doesn't break even at all from ads, but they help offset the running cost (revenue is in the single-digit dollars-per-month range). Ad revenue has fallen greatly though for sites displaying ads, I believe owing to the fact that online ads have been found to be much less effective at driving sales than they were once thought to be (though they may still buy mindshare). Current ads are more flashy, more annoying, and are a greater source of frustration. On desktops that's one thing, were the cost of viewing the ad is largely paid with your attention. On mobile though, they take up even more attention but they also use expensive mobile data and drain precious energy from the battery. I'm not sure of how things will look in the future, but it will probably be a more heterogeneous mix of funding sources. We'll see more subscription-based sites, we'll see more sites run as cashflow-negative hobby projects, and we'll still see ads. We will also certainly see another category: sites the sell your info for money. We'll see sites that combine all of these. I suspect we'll also see more content distributed solely in app form, with in-app purchases buying more content. Since operational costs have fallen and continue to fall, the world won't look so different for a while. I think the best model for consumers is one where ads are the default, and a cheap subscription can be paid to remove them. Microtransactions are an alluring solution, but no one has really made them work yet. There is also a growing trend of sponsoring content before it is created, via sites like Patreon. 1. https://www.takeitapart.com/ |
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