[hcon]

Obviously nobody does that.

My favorite example is when you see a popular github repository with a donate button (Flattr, Bitcoin address, etc) only to realize they've made a whole $14 in the past year. Wow, thanks world!

It turns out that ads worked because the user didn't actually have to do anything. They didn't have to get their credit card out of their wallet, something they rarely do on the internet.

And when they do, it's to give money to a large corporation like Netflix or because Jimmy Wales managed to beg for donations in a more invasive annoying way than a banner ad ever was. (You know, I never once had to see the face of the founder of AdultFriendFinder in one of their ads.)

I hope we find a next-coming middleground that changes the culture of what people are willing to pay for and how they do it. But the fact that giving your credit/debit card number to someone gives them (and anyone else) unlimited charge license on your account is not helping.

[SixSigma]

You say "nobody" but I know that's not true because I am "somebody" who donates.

Ad blockers mean one isn't prepared to pay for your product. Personally when I am prevented from viewing content because my Privoxy has been detected I tend to just go elsewhere. I find ads a significant burden on my concentration and well being.

Yet in print media I don't mind. Often I read trade mags specifically for the ads, they are great market research.

[hcon]

I mean "nobody" in the sense that it doesn't scale and people like you, god bless, do not replace ads for the vast majority of websites.

At least not until some sort of shift happens in how we pay for content which I think is imminent.

> Ad blockers mean one isn't prepared to pay for your product.

Perhaps rather: "Your product is not worth taking out a credit card and paying for" which applies to most websites. There are massive barriers to explicitly paying for things, even just psychological.

In an abstract sense, ads are like vignette windshield stickers that let you cruise past tollway checkpoints when the alternative is to have to stop at a tollboth even if it's just to pay 10 cents.

People have tried to create services that replace ads in that abstraction, but so far nothing has stuck. I think the post-ad solution needs to be just as mindless as ads if it's going to replace them.

[chris_wot]

Yeah, ads work because users don't do anything. That includes actually clicking on the ads themselves.

[hcon]

Ever use Adwords or Adsense? People click on ads.

Fewer and fewer, but they still do and with enough volume to prop up entire businesses, small and multinational.