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by joshuamorton 2577 days ago
> C'mon, not offering any choice in how you pay for the service is inherently anti-consumer behavior.

This might be the best take I've heard yet. What constitutes choice in method of payment. Since it appears you consider "forcing users to pay with data" to be anti-consumer, is "forcing users to pay with dollars" equally anti-consumer? Does that make, like, restaurants that don't let you pay with personal info anti-consumer? What about companies that take data and don't offer anything in return (Equifax et. al, ISPs, etc.)
1 comments
SomeOldThrow 2577 days ago
I'm not against paying with currency, except insofar as this inherently benefits a subset of humanity. But the issue is not that ads are inherently bad, it's that the interaction is inherently dishonest. A more honest way would allow you, the end-user, to bid for the same ad spots to allow a proper valuation of the ad to the perspective of the consumer. My impression is that Google goes to large efforts to obscure the 'value' of a web page from consumers. If there were proper exchanges between ads and money this might make sense, though I can only imagine the number of ads you might watch to pay for a meal would drive anyone insane.

Plus, ads try to target users with money, so presumably their value is proportional to your value. That's probably also a key reason why you don't see this anywhere: it's a blatantly classist practice.

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joshuamorton 2577 days ago
My recollection is that google has tried variants on what you suggest (contributor). Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.
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SomeOldThrow 2577 days ago
> https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

If this is a serious effort it's incredibly disappointing.

> Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.

Not wanting to pay enough for what? To even justify giving us a choice? Inexcusable.

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joshuamorton 2577 days ago
> If this is a serious effort it's incredibly disappointing.

This was the second attempt, after a previous one (in 2015?) also failed.

> Not wanting to pay enough for what? To even justify giving us a choice? Inexcusable.

To justify providing a service. Unfortunately Google isn't a charity. To clarify, my recollection is that contributor leads to less revenue because consumers are unwilling to pay as much as advertisements provide for the same site. That means that either

1. You as a consumer have to pay more than you're willing (and maybe you're willing to pay more, but not enough people are)

2. Google subsidizes contributor users

3. Publishers take less money.

It appears you're suggesting that its inexcusable that a corporation doesn't want to subsidize your preferences.

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