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by brosirmandude 2223 days ago
A lot of people saying that this decision is because of adblockers, third party scripts, and future laws but...what if they just don't need third party ads anymore?

They've likely been collecting reader data for awhile and are probably at the point where they can spin up their own internal ad service.

Good example piece: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/01/upshot/are-yo...
1 comments
mikemotherwell 2223 days ago
For a site like the NY Times, pricing the ad space based on a user's historical data is a mug's game. NY Times has a reputation and value beyond the value of a user's browser history. Why would they want to compete with small nothing sites, giving a large percentage to adtech companies, when they can sell the premium service of being associated with the NY Times?

"We are the NY Times. If you want to advertise on our site you have to pay a premium."

"But we want to target ..."

"We are the NY Times. We have half a billion ARR. Take it or leave it."

That used to be how ads worked, and I think it is a better model - for both sides in many cases.

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jacobush 2223 days ago
It also brings back the honest signal - if you’ve seen the ad on the NY Times, it must be a big deal. (Like it used to be.)
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dntbnmpls 2223 days ago
> NY Times has a reputation and value beyond the value of a user's browser history.

It really doesn't. That's why they have to bully google/facebook/etc into giving them favorable/privileged treatment.

> That used to be how ads worked, and I think it is a better model - for both sides in many cases.

An ad model that favors something like the NY Times can't be the better model.

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mikemotherwell 2222 days ago
>An ad model that favors something like the NY Times can't be the better model.

It absolutely can, let me count the ways:

1. You are never, ever on a bad site - no matter how good Google et al are, bad things happen. If avoiding that matters, NY Times is a smart move.

2. You don't pay for the AdTech - everyone know who the NY Times readers are - is spending 40%-60% to overcome the problems of mass advertising better than splitting the difference with NY Times?

3. AdFraud - NY Times can charge rates and using methods that are more fraud resistant (e.g. get rid of CPM).

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