
Google launches Contributor, a crowdfunding tool for publishers - plantain
https://gigaom.com/2014/11/20/google-launches-contributor-a-crowdfunding-tool-for-publishers/
======
munificent
One way to look at this is that you're purchasing your own attention.

An ad supported site works like this:

1\. They spend effort producing some content. 2\. You want to give all of your
attention to that content. 3\. Advertisers also want your attention. 4\. To
support their efforts, the creator diverts a fraction of your attention away
from the content to the ad and the advertiser pays them for it.

With this system, you basically bid and buy back that fraction of the
attention diverted to advertising, and that money goes directly to the
creator.

One really interesting aspect of this is determining what your own attention
is "worth" on the open market. By building this on top of AdWords system, they
can calculate that automatically. If advertisers decide your attention is
worth more and want to keep those ads in front of your face, they have to pay
more, which again goes to the content creator.

I think it's brilliant.

~~~
eevilspock
Brilliant? Is it brilliant to simply revert to how the free market is supposed
to work, where consumers pay producers because they think the product is worth
it?

Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking they're getting something for
free, when in fact they're still paying, just _indirectly_ . And not just the
original straight-up price, but a host of additional costs[1]. Don't believe
me? Where do you think the advertisers get the money to buy ad space? Of
course it's baked into the products consumers buy from them. There is no free
lunch.

What does it say about your product if users aren't willing to pay for it?
What does it say about your business when you tell users its free but don't
tell them you've hidden your charges in the prices of the products that are
advertised? That it's actually costing them more?[1]

-

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237)

~~~
tobltobs
"Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking ...." Maybe those ad
supported sites just have to pay the server bills. And what does it say about
you if you want to use a product and not aren't willing to pay for it? Not
even indirectly via ads?

~~~
eevilspock
> _" Maybe those ad supported sites just have to pay the server bills."_

The place where I buy pizza has to pay for the ingredients, the rent,
salaries, etc. These costs and a reasonable profit add up to $18 for a pie,
which I pay, because their pizza is worth at least $18. What if their pizza
wasn't so good, and too few customers thought it was worth $18? Is it right
for them to hand out "free" pizza in a box covered with advertising inside and
out, and the advertised products get marked up $22 to cover the pizza cost as
well as the advertising overhead and collateral costs[1]? Let me be clear: the
customers are getting a pizza that costs $18 for "free", but $22 is added to
the cost of the other goods they buy. They don't realize this and the pizza
shop is taking advantage of this ignorance.

> _" And what does it say about you if you want to use a product and not
> aren't willing to pay for it? Not even indirectly via ads?"_

If you're referring to me, I'm totally willing to pay for it. If you mean
people in general, they fall into three categories:

1\. They are willing to pay for it. They wish there weren't ads, and switch to
ad-free, for-pay products when available.

2\. They are willing to pay for it, but are happy to take what _appears_ to be
free.

3\. They are not willing to pay for it, but are happy to take what _appears_
to be free.

Both #2 and #3 don't realize that instead of being free, it costs a lot more.
Or they are too lazy to find a for-pay product. Or they think they don't buy
advertised products and are happy to mooch off of others.

-

[1] If I don't buy those products, someone else must be, in which case they
are subsidizing my pizza. I'll bet the effects are regressive, in that people
with lower incomes end up subsidizing people with higher. In any case, on
average we all pay for the true cost of the "free" product plus the previously
mentioned overhead and collateral costs.

~~~
tobltobs
How should capitalism work without ads? How could a startup grow without ads?

~~~
eevilspock
Does Hacker News advertise? The pizza place I love doesn't advertise. Not even
Google or Facebook advertise, and look where they are. Ironically they are
guilty of hurting consumers, democracy and the free market as I've explained:
by relying on ads rather than getting their money from us honestly.

Good products get found the natural way: customers tell other customers. Why?
Because the product is good!

Most advertising is manipulation of perceptions of goodness. Or about using
dominant market position and revenue to maintain that dominance, drowning out
better rivals who can't afford a similar ad budget (Advertising people are
honest about this and call it a moat).

Need to explain your product or its benefits? Put up a website. If the claims
are true, customers will pass the link around. You only need to _pay_ to get
someone to insert your product in the grapevine if your product isn't good.

------
conradk
That's amazing. Google has taken over the web with ads. And now that everybody
hates ads, it's suggesting you remove those ads with another Google product.
It doesn't get any smarter than that.

(this is not sarcasm, I actually think this is amazing in terms of strategy)

~~~
peloton
Yeah, not only that but it's not easy for an org as big as Google to
experiment with stuff like this when they have a huge advertising operation
that's trying to sell more ads, not less. Moves like this have to be top down
driven by a strong leader.

~~~
sidoxic
Doesn't matter money wise. Google will make its buck anyway. They confess that
only part will go to the content owner. So business/strategy perspective, not
much different for regular google ops. Transaction by user, rather than
advertiser, is the only difference.

------
minimaxir
> _Google said the new feature is launching with 10 publishing partners,
> including Mashable, Imgur, WikiHow and Science Daily._

Er, aren't most of the listed parters known for reposting unoriginal content
from other parts of the web?

I'm a fan of Patreon because it helps facilitate good original content which
the internet needs. This doesn't.

~~~
Filligree
They mention adsense, and this is an early version. I bet it'll be rolled out
more broadly over time.

------
Throwaway12928
They're starting incredibly small with 10 publishers. Users have a bigger
incentive to signup when ads will be removed from a large number of sites they
visit. For example, if I just use Imgur, why don't I just upgrade to Imgur Pro
for the same price, get the ads removed, and the extra Imgur perks? Now, if
Google ads would be removed from a dozen of the most popular sites I visit,
then yes, I'd consider it. I'm hoping this doesn't fail due to lack of
publishers. Google has a tendency to lock everyone out for too long, so I'm
worried it'll be another invite only flop.

------
bsimpson
Sounds a lot like Flattr, but with Google scale, it might actually get used.

------
netcraft
so if I am reading this right this is a potential competitor to patreon?

Interesting concept. Let me pay some money that gets split between the sites I
actually visit and get out of seeing ads - I wonder how many users of adblock
today would use this instead. I guess the problem is that google isn't the
only ad network.

~~~
Filligree
Running on the adsense network, though...

I bet this'll be a powerful incentive for publishers who don't want to annoy
their users to switch to adsense.

------
rgovind
Fun thought experiment. Take all ad-supported services you are using now. If
you were asked to pay for them, how much would you pay?

For me, it comes to $100+ per month but that seems like a steep price to pay.

~~~
Filligree
:O

How do you compute that number?

~~~
rgovind
I use Skype, gmail, google search, youtube, Skype == $10/m Gmail = $5/m Search
= $20/m (Information is valuable) Youtube = $20/m (Equivalent to cinema)

Rest is made of long tail. These are what I would be willing to pay for these
services

~~~
Filligree
I'm pretty sure those numbers are too high, if you use the CPM of ads on those
services as your source of truth.

EDIT: And I just realized that means you'd be willing to pay.

~~~
rgovind
For Skype, I compared with my phone service. Youtube...with my movie
going...etc

------
Flimm
How does this work for me as a user? If I pay Google contributor $1 a month,
do I see any ads at all in participating sites? Or do I only get a limited
number of impressions ad-free, to encourage me to increase my spending?

How does this work for publishers? Do they get paid a fixed amount per
impression? Is it proportional to the time spent on the website? Does the
website benefit from having higher spenders visit their website?

------
ealize
Just this morning, I was just listening to NPR's Planet Money: What's A Penny
Worth? and wondering about this problem.
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-539-whats-
a-penny-worth)

------
ilamont
It is encouraging to see Google working on a new product to help publishers
generate revenue, but it looks like it only disables Google advertising. Most
publishers use multiple ad platforms. Unless those are disabled too, users may
question the value of donating money if it's not creating a true ad-free
experience.

------
tonydiv
Seems to me like the people that would consider using this generally use
Adblock...

I really can't even use the Internet without Adblock. I install it on every
computer I use.

I don't think this will succeed. I am not willing to pay when I have other
options available.

~~~
dalek_cannes
In other words, you want free content. But content costs time and money to
produce. And content is inevitably colored by the source of the money. When
the source is advertising, the content you receive is optimized for
advertising. Of course, this is not a problem if you're happy with the content
you're getting now.

------
jacques_chester
Well this is annoying; I've been trying to start what is, now, a competitor.

------
Nogwater
Is there anything like this to remove pre-rolls and mid-rolls on YouTube?

~~~
ismavis
Yes, only for music videos though. Youtube Music Key.

------
rgovind
So, we will see startups spring up that will compare whether it is profitable
for you to use ads or solicit contributions from users.

Also, this ties in with Google's efforts in payment space.

------
kissickas
Here's the link, because that website is gross:

[https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

------
balladeer
Shall Google be still tracking me?

Because they had said they track me to show me those ads and now that I've
paid them to remove those ads, I hope they can stop tracking me, shall they?

------
sp332
It looks like they keep an ad-shaped piece of the page to avoid breaking the
layout of the page. Does the number of ad spots change the amount they get per
page view?

------
schmrz
Not sure if I'm reading this right, but is the amount limited to 3$? If it is,
that's a pretty low limit. I wonder what's the reasoning behind that.

~~~
opinali
One reason is that it's still beta. But it's not too low, a $3 budget will buy
some 1000 impressions at average CPM rates for display ads.

------
chris_va
Some math:

\--

$3/month/user

10 sites the user visits daily (for argument's sake)

3 pages visited per site (for argument's sake)

30 days per month

=>

Each site: $3 * 1/10 * 1/30 => $0.01/day/user

Each page: $0.01/day/user over 3 sites/user/day => ~$3.33 CPM.

\--

Publishers right now average higher (~$5, up to $15) CPM, so this sounds like
something that will lose them money for a non-biased set of users. Of course,
maybe this selects for folks who otherwise wouldn't click on ads... I guess we
will find out. It could also just select for publishers that are not able to
monetize their content effectively.

~~~
Throwaway12928
$5 - $15 CPM is way above average.

~~~
chris_va
I got my numbers from the news publishers directly. They do a better job of
selling to ad networks than a typical website.

~~~
cheald
Direct sales CPMs are substantially higher than remnant inventory CPMs; Google
is "competing" with the latter here.

------
mikebay
Google, don't be evil as you seems to be!

------
cylinder
This is one of the strangest things I've seen from google.

~~~
oceanplexian
You mean other than Google Glass - right?

------
primitivesuave
I think any site that wants to have an ad-free version that subscribers pay
should do so without Google's involvement. I cannot imagine anyone voluntarily
giving money to Google for something like ad filtering when ad blocking
extensions to Google's own browser accomplish this for free. What I _do_ see
as realistic is someone loving The Onion or WikiHow so much that they pay for
additional features that enhance your ability to use that site or enjoy your
experience on it. For example, Urban Dictionary offers an option to print any
definition onto a t-shirt or mug (although I don't know how successful this
model has been for them, especially considering how vulgar most popular UD
definitions are).

Right now content creators are implementing freemium in an unattractive way -
I completely stopped reading wsj.com after recent changes to their paywall,
and I will immediately close a news article that throws a video in my face.
But if the motley banners of Adwords are merely converted into "thank you"
messages after I pay a couple bucks every month, the website hasn't suddenly
become attractive to me, just less unattractive.

~~~
opinali
One problem with paying individual websites is that you don't really want to
create an account, providing your credit card information, to dozens of sites
do you? What you suggest works well for heavily used websites (e.g. my daily
feed of Ars Technica) but completely fails for stuff you visit every one in a
while (e.g. my every-couple-months visits to The Onion). The existing ads
infrastructure is almost perfectly suited to solve this problem.

And when you compare this to ad blocking, hopefully you realize that ad
blocking is not the most ethical thing to do; you are effectively stealing
content. Most ad-supported websites clearly forbid this with TOS wording like:
"The copying, reproduction, ..., or other use or change by you, directly or
indirectly, of any such Website Content, including but not limited to the
removal or alteration of advertising, is strictly prohibited" (Ars). Not all
websites are good players either, but if the advertising practices of specific
sites are bad then your only ethical choice is to not visit them at all.

