[ccity88]

Its quite sad that ad-blocking is framed as killing this business. Surely it's more akin to a subsidised business failing to move to a more sustainable model? Don't get me wrong I love free no nonsense business models, but as Google and Facebook have shown us, ads are only part of the equation. If we didn't collectively lose trust with the ad industry, and ads weren't so intrusive, I for one (and many others I've spoken to) wouldn't be blocking ads. I go out of my way to disable ad-block on friendly websites and blogs that need the ad revenue; sites that have a responsible and ethical policy surrounding their ad usage. Zippyshare seemed like one of those sites. Unfortunately the rest of the industry had to ruin it for them. Even more sad, this will become the norm and sites will have to move to a paid subscription type model to keep their services alive.

[qzx_pierri]

I welcome a paid model for all sites, honestly. That way, sites aren't slaves to the ideological driven policies of the advertisers. Post something the advertiser doesn't like? Ads get pulled and the site loses money. When you pay for the service, the site owner can raise their middle finger if anyone outside of the site staff doesn't like content on their site.

Sites like YouTube are a perfect example of this. Constant censorship and other nonsense because many of their advertisers are American, and thus 'prude as fuck' (lack of a better term). So content on YouTube has slowly been becoming more and more squeaky clean (advertiser friendly).

In a few years, YouTube's content policy will be 1:1 with broadcast television. Fuck reliance on advertisers. Eventually, any monetized content online will need to be squeaky clean and society will move onto another model, which is hopefully a paid model.

P.S. The idea that content will only be paid for by the golden 18-24 demographic with disposable income (while excluding others) is a myth. If kids can beg their parents for Fortnite skins every month and get Epic Games up to 5 billion in revenue per year[1], then $4 per month to stream content for a streaming site in the future is very possible

1: https://www.charlieintel.com/how-much-money-has-fortnite-mad...

[jodrellblank]

Then they are slaves to the customers. Post something the customer doesn't like? Customer leaves and the site loses money. Incentive is for the content to become family friendly low detail low effort lowest-common-denominator because that appeals to largest range of potential customers.

> "Sites like YouTube are a perfect example of this. Constant censorship and other nonsense because many of their advertisers are American, and thus 'prude as fuck' (lack of a better term). So content on YouTube has slowly been becoming more and more squeaky clean (advertiser friendly)."

You think YouTube could skip the advertisers, sell directly to soccer moms, and then have porn adverts and swearing and raise their middle finger, and that would work?