
Stackoverflow, Advertising and the Ethics of a Free Lunch - panic
http://www.cforcoding.com/2009/10/stackoverflow-advertising-and-ethics-of.html
======
pingswept
I think I might be in the minority regarding adblockers. I have no sympathy
for someone who runs a web server that serves both interesting content and ads
(or indirectly requests ads from another server), but is disappointed when my
computer only downloads the interesting content. If you don't want my computer
to receive the data you send it, then stop responding to my HTTP requests.

I think the typical counter-argument is that somehow I have tacitly agreed to
look at ads because other people have historically looked at ads on the
internet. But go further back, and there were no ads on the internet. I was
there in 1994, and your ads weren't. It's your expectations or the behavior of
other people that have misled you, not some activity on my part.

It's true that site developers are counting on the ads for revenue-- I
understand that. But I'm just not willing to pay. If the site's free, fine. If
I have to look at ads, sorry, no deal. Stop responding to my HTTP requests,
and I'll be fine.

Edit: I guess I do feel a little sympathy for someone who hopes to make a
living off an ad-supported site, but only because I generally like people and
hope their businesses succeed. I just don't find the "tacit agreement"
argument compelling. (I'd be open to other, more compelling arguments.)

Does anyone know of an adblocker that negotiates with servers? Like "TCP SYN
but only if no ads", "TCP SYN ACK No, you must take the ads", "TCP FIN"?

~~~
ellyagg
You are not in the minority, and I find it breathtakingly hard to believe that
you think you are in the minority. Virtually everyone in the circles I run in
(reddit, hackernews, etc.) believe the same as you. If you want a true
minority opinion, read on.

From a practical standpoint, I don't care. Leeching can't be stopped and any
web business obviously has to understand that. Clearly, businesses are able to
be built despite leechers.

What I find incredible is that ads are really that much of a nuisance for
people. I've never had the slightest difficulty completely tuning out any
manner of ad. I sometimes get the feeling that folks who go out of their way
to ad block are actually a little bit offended by banner ads in general. And
that makes me think they're a little bit creepy. In real life, no one would
repeatedly take favors from someone and not feel a certain obligation.

What I find even more incredible is the pure, uniform rationalization that
comes from communities that otherwise pride themselves on their logic. Would
you take a cookie from one of those cardboard vendors some office buildings
have and not pay? "If they didn't want me to eat their cookies, they should
have stopped me from taking one."

It's just that the "crime" is so trifling and anonymous. No single raindrop
blames itself for the flood.

Like I said, I don't care about ad blocking per se. It's the collective and
willful rationalization that irritates me.

(Incidentally, your edits imply that you would be willing to automaticaly be
blocked from sites that serve ads. That's nice, and makes you consistent, but
the vast, vast majority of ad blockers would not be willing to live with an
Internet hamstrung to that extent.)

~~~
pingswept
Most people that I've talked to about this (maybe 10 people?) think that it's
bad to block ads on the grounds that we browsers collectively owe the content
providers a means of revenue. Maybe I didn't talk to a representative sample--
I'm not sure. I generally don't hang out with many people who read HN or
Reddit. But I think something like "I think granola contains meat," is a
better example of something "breathtakingly hard to believe" than that I think
I'm in the minority. [1]

Your example with the cardboard vendors is an interesting one. I'm not
familiar with those things-- are they like an honor-system cookie jar or
something? It's an interesting comparison, because I wouldn't steal from an
honor-system cookie jar. Also, I think the raindrop/flood analogy is pretty
good, except I totally accept that I'm part of the flood. I just don't care at
all if the content providers want me to look at ads. They didn't build the
internet, they didn't buy me a computer, and they didn't pay for my
connection. They're trying to leverage a public good, like putting a billboard
next to a highway, and I don't owe them my attention.

Thinking about it a bit, maybe it's because I do actually remember the
internet before ads. It was kind of nice. If I hadn't experienced that, maybe
ads would seem more palatable.

[1] I did actually know a kid who thought granola was made of meat. He was 12.

~~~
rimantas
uhm, if we browsers do owe something and then all ads business shifts from
pay-per-view to pay-per-click model does that mean that we will be obliged to
_click_ the ads? I do not use ad-blocker (to be fair I do use clicktoflash
plugin but the main reason is subpar flash performance on OS X) but I don't
click on ads either.

------
netsp
All sorts of things about this are off:

 _Market segmentation is the time-honoured technique of asking people how much
money they have when they want to buy something rather than telling them what
it costs, meaning what it costs is a function of how much money they have._

What you call segmentation is actually called parallel pricing. In most
digital goods and services (high capital cost, low marginal cost), these can
get jumbled up.

Parallel pricing pisses people off. Segmentation doesn't.

If you are not sure exactly which one you are dealing with try to figure out
the goal. The goal of parallel pricing is to maximise revenue/profit from a
fixed number of sales by charging closer to the maximum people are willing to
pay without losing those not willing to pay that much. The goal of
segmentation is usually to sell more by giving people options that are worth
more to them, or at least are better price/value-wise. Segmentation doesn't
require not giving high value customers access to low value goods.

People doing A will usually call it B.

 _If the Internet has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that: 1\.
Advertising pays for otherwise free services; 2\. People don’t like
advertising; and 3\. Advertising works._

Actually, I would argue that we knew that before the internet, now we're not
so sure.

~~~
barrkel
Segmentation certainly pisses people off who just need that one feature that's
only available in the higher version. Think of Stack Overflow and Windows
Server's memory limits; memory is dirt cheap, but Windows won't let you use it
all until you pony up the extra money to buy a whole bunch of other features
you don't need.

~~~
netsp
That is parallel pricing or price differentiation.

------
shin_lao
1/I don't even understand why people complain about ad blocking. It's part of
the equation. Some people don't read the ads, some block it. It's nowhere near
stealing.

It's like offering a "pay as you like" service and complain that people don't
pay or not enough. Well, if you have a precise idea of how much you should
charge then change the price tag my friend. Stop the hypocrisy.

2/A service will be more successful if it's "free". If you cannot manage to
charge money for your service, it means the perceived value is not that much
and you don't have a working business model.

Stop complaining. Rethink your business model. Adapt.

3/A site with advertisement is not free. In exchange of reading content I deem
useful, I will read content that might lead to a business transaction in the
future.

4/I might be willing to pay a small yearly fee for an ad-free service like
Stackoverflow. The deal could be "if you pay a certain amount of money, you
don't get ads".

5/AFAIK the content of Stackoverflow is written by people who don't get paid.
It's a community web site. People feel that they own a part of the content and
therefore shouldn't suffer advertisement (which is why, I guess, you get less
aggressive advertisement as your reputation go up, unless I'm mistaken I have
more than 3,000 reputation and don't see any advertisement).

6/People mentally block ads on web sites. There was a link about this on HN a
while ago, can't find it though.

~~~
stcredzero
_3/A site with advertisement is not free._

Why is the mental friction of a micropayment so much worse than having to
ignore (or block) ads? It's all in our heads. I think people fear micro-
payments because it's something they don't know and because there is no cap. A
rectangle on their web pages with obnoxious stuff they didn't want -- this
they understand, so they live with it or block it.

Unfortunately, this results in the ad market being able to deliver the sub-
population of users too lazy or not savvy enough to block ads, and this is
_not_ the most lucrative subset!

Micropayments as Ads are very indirect and fraught with problems and
ambiguities. I wish irrational emotional factors weren't blocking a well
needed _Refactoring_!

~~~
shin_lao
Because micropayment requires me to do at least 10 actions with the hidden
thought "is this secure?" whereas blocking ads is more around like three
actions.

More important, when I pull out my credit card, this is exactly the same
action than when I buy for 300 € worth of stuff on a web site.

------
Tichy
The only reason I see why people would complain about adblockers is rather
destructive: because I have to suffer (seeing ads), everybody else should have
to suffer, too. Other than that, I really don't understand - does the
advertiser get his value if I see the ad even though I hate it?

Seems to me rather the opposite: since I hate ads enough to bother installing
an ad blocker, seeing an ad might actually induce _negative_ feelings towards
that company in me (perhaps psychology can prove me wrong, but my feeling is
that ads can affect me in a negative way). Also, since I sure as hell will
_never_ click on those ads, showing them to me anyway will bring the
clickthrough rate of the site down. So it might also be a net loss for the
site owner, who has to sell the ads for less.

Looking at an ad is _not_ the same as paying for something. It is not a
productive action. By giving somebody money, something productive has taken
place (I produced something to earn that money, receiver can pay somebody else
to produce something). Looking at an ad on the other hand is purely
destructive - my time was simply wasted, I did not produce anything in the
time I wasted with the ad.

~~~
stcredzero
_Looking at an ad is not the same as paying for something. It is not a
productive action._

The market doesn't perfectly distinguish this. If someone if willing to pay
for your looking at an ad, then it _is_ productive according to the market.
Hence, someone is paid. Does this reflect reality? Nothing is perfect, even
markets.

~~~
Tichy
I'd argue that a lot of information asymmetric enters into that. If the market
knew that the ad makes me hate the company, they would not pay for it.

~~~
stcredzero
There's always some asymmetric information. If there weren't markets wouldn't
exist.

------
stcredzero
What if society realigned the meaning of "free?" Some big box store might
announce that something is "free at any one of our stores." "Free" can be a
big draw. A lot of people will go to get the "free" item. However, to get this
"free" item, they have travel to get it. In the US this probably means burning
some petroleum in their car, but when gasoline is cheap enough, most people in
the US don't think too much about having to get in the car. In times like
that, being able to drive somewhere and pick something up without paying is
effectively "free." For most people, "Free Software" works somewhat like this.
It's "free" and they really don't think of what they pay for network access.

Micro-payments could work like this. If user expectations could be aligned
that way, "free" could mean only for the cost of the download. (If you dig
enough, for most people "free" just means: please don't make me pay more than
$35 a month for doing everything I do on the Internet.)

In other words, it's all in our minds. It's all just how we think of it.
Markets are a great way to regulate something ubiquitous. We'd probably
benefit from market forces being brought to bear on the Internet in a more
direct way.

For one thing, it would make the ad-blocking debate moot. Ads are just a very
indirect form of micropayment.

------
nobody_nowhere
A couple of points from someone who works in the online ad business:

1\. People who block/remove ads are a tiny, tiny minority (right now)

2\. If you're that opposed to ads, I'd just as soon not show you one. It costs
money to show it -- something like $0.00003-9/impression. That adds up.

3\. A site which doesn't perform at all -- e.g., no one clicks, all ads are
blocked, etc -- will eventually cease to make money from ads and will be
forced to seek another revenue model.

------
bootload
_"... So how does a 'free' service pay for itself? ..."_

Missed the obvious of replicating the service for _foo_ (verticals) & charge
for the codebase: cf <http://moms4mom.com/about>

~~~
mistermann
I think this is the most important but totally unmentioned fact....I think SO
is going to make its money from reselling the underlying engine. Its really
quite a strange anomaly...the whole Q&A thing is not new by any means, but I
must say Jeff has made the user experience so nice that I think its possible
that some sites that couldn't have existed before might now be able to pull it
off (its hard to build a big enough network to make a community self
sustaining....good software makes it that much easier).

Yes, they have a _lot_ of work to do to make it truly vertical, and not
disrupt anyone in the process, but I think thats where their real $ is going
to come from.

I've sent stackexhange several emails, trying to get into the beta program
early, even trying to pay an extra fee for premiere service...I am more than
willing to pay the ~$1000 per month fee so I can get up and running now....but
no dice it seems.

Anyways, back to the article.....really, anyone that is technical (geeky)
enough that can and would block ads using a script....those people wouldn't be
the types to buy software from the advertisers on SO anyways (and I'm sure the
advertisers know this),,,so really, I think its just a bunch of hullaboo about
nothing consequential.

~~~
bootload
_"... I've sent stackexhange several emails, trying to get into the beta
program early ..."_

You had to get in pretty early to get the _beta_ badge ~
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2781240756/in/set-7215...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2781240756/in/set-72157614753445371/)

 _"... I am more than willing to pay the ~$1000 per month fee so I can get up
and running now....but no dice it seems. ..."_

Having said that why not build an alternative?

~~~
DrJokepu
I supppose because it would cost more time and money to build an alternative
of the same quality from scratch?

Seriously though, three people was working on that site almost full time for
more than a year now. That's about 600-650 workdays. A decent junior developer
(the cheapest programmer who could possibly do it) earns at least $200 a day.
That's $120000 worth of wages. Which means, you will have to use this software
for more than 10 years to justify writing an alternative, and we haven't even
considered any additional future development.

~~~
cschwarm
Then, don't start from scratch:

<http://code.google.com/p/soclone/>

<http://github.com/cnprog/CNPROG/tree>

------
hxa7241
Advertisers are paying on the _expectation_ of return. And that expectation is
based entirely on contingency. They have no claim at all on the public's co-
operation. Have they paid the public to watch the ads? No. They merely expect
that they will.

But of course those contingencies can change, such as with use of ad-blockers.
Anyone who uses ad-blockers is perfectly free to do so. And the advertisers
have no 'right' whatsoever to complain.

For a commercial organisation to feel affronted that its customers don't do
what it wants is, at the very least, complacency.

If a community wants to agree to fund something, let it do so clearly.

------
marcusbooster
I don't mind ads in general, but in Stackoverflow's particular case I find
them ugly, jarring, and out of place.

It does not make for a very pleasant browsing experience in my opinion.

------
JulianMorrison
If you are trying to suggest where I can get a product I want, then I want to
see it. If you are trying to infect me with mind-viruses or slap my face with
offensive content or waste my time, then I'll block you. If I can't tell when
I'll get the good or the bad, I'll block you.

Consider it a Darwinian selection pressure.

