| Keep in mind that most ad funded sites on the internet have excess unique/impression inventory, even 40% excess at times. So there are three numbers to consider here: 1) Increased subscription revenue 2) Sold inventory they've lost 3) Effect on pricing of remaining inventory Oddly enough, a site like the NYT might be able to make more money off ads with less impressions (#3 up there). There are two reasons for this, the first is their brand value. People want their ads on NYT, scarcer supply means they'll have to pay more to do that, and some of them will. The second is a change in demographics. I would guess that the lost traffic is disproportionately less valuable demographics. I, for instance, am not a great demographic for advertisers. My dad is, though, and NYT is still getting his impressions. As an example of what this might mean, imagine that anyone who made less than, say, $150k/year stopped visiting Reddit. They'd lose a huge amount of traffic, but the value of the remaining traffic would make their sellable demographics outstanding. |