[llamaLord]

Can't remember exactly where I saw it, but last number I saw said that Google makes ~$12 a year per user. Which begs the question... why have they not atleast tried a "Google Premium".

Fuck it, I'd pay $15 a year to have a Google search that puts as much effort into finding me the shit I actually want as Google does today in serving me BS ads I never pay attention to.

[kalleboo]

> Which begs the question... why have they not atleast tried a "Google Premium"

They announced "Google Contributor" at one point but it never went anywhere

[praptak]

First thought is that it's the most profitable users who would choose adless.

The ads industry would not like their reach to be limited to those not paying for premium search.

[hakfoo]

I always wanted to see just a "price transparency" aspect.

Tell me exactly how much the advertiser paid for his placement, and that's a hugely important signal here.

If I'm searching for weird hobby parts, even though it's a high purchase intent query, they're probably paying pennies per click.

But if you start searching, say, financial stuff and the ad placement figures start showing multiple dollars per click, it's a warning "these people are willing to spend THIS MUCH MONEY to present a message to you, this probably means there's something sketchy involved."

I know, for example, anything pertaining to insurance and financial products is highly likely to turn into a farm of cross-selling and personal-information harvesting, because the cost per acquisition is so high and the tendency for everyone to sell the information to everyone else is so great.

[HelenePhisher]

I'd argue most people do not even realize they click on ads. My mother! The ad call-outs got so inconspicuous that they're almost indistinguishable from ordinary search results. And if you don't realize that and just click on the top results, you're amongst the top profitable users.