

Why ad-free and Web 2.0 don't mix - fromedome
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/why_ad_free_and_web_2_0_don_t_mix

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walterk
Bjorn Tipling's comment (6th one down) is spot on. You can't assume that
someone who doesn't pay to remove ads is too poor to afford anything
advertised. They may simply not care enough to pay the asking price to remove
them.

It's called a demand curve. Did this person who dares to give business advice
even bother to take Intro to Economics?

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dpapathanasiou
One point this article misses entirely: the paid side of the freemium model is
about including extra features useful enough to power/pro users that they'd be
willing to pay for them.

Lack of ads is just a bonus.

~~~
notauser
In a freemium model there don't have to be any ads at all!

Your basic service can be totally free, provided you can justify it as
marketing expenditure with the conversion rate to paid services.

The biggest problem I can see with running ads on the free tier of on a two
tier service is that the people most interested in buying advertising will be
your direct competitors. It might not be too smart to give them easy access to
your user base.

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astine
People with money can already opt out of ads. Tivo is the quintessential
example of this. Even before Tivo, pay-per-view was popular amongst those who
had money.

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iamdave
>"But, this revenue model seems silly to me. Advertisers pay a premium in
order to reach people in their specific demographic with disposable income.
This idea of people paying to remove ads ensures that the audience for your
ads are actually CHEAPER than the average internet audience."

If you want to analyze it like that, it's far more accurate to say allowing
users to remove ads by paying for the option negates the necessity for
advertisers to be on your site in the first place. Invariably, it's more money
for the middleman (in this case: the site offering a service), but if
advertisers pay for ads, and users pay to remove those ads it's a figurative
stalemate for the entire purpose of having a revenue service.

Financially, it's win-win for the service provider, and that doesn't sit well
with me.

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billroberts
I agree with the main point of this article. It always feels wrong to me when
you see an app that offers an upgrade to get rid of ads. It seems to say we're
gonna piss you off with minor irritations to make you upgrade, or at least
that we know you don't want these but it pays the rent. Neither of those are
offering users what they want.

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brlewis
Those who choose not to pay away ads might not be cheap; they might be too
busy to deal with paying. If you're advertising a time-saving product or
service you'll score.

I recently got rid of google ads on OurDoings:

<http://ourdoings.com/2008-04-24>

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dangoldin
Already posted the source: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=188617>

