
Google Contributor - sharjeel
https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
======
mcone
This was launched about 3 months ago. Previous discussion is still available
on HN [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8637365)

------
egypturnash
A fraction of $3/mo? From a company that abandons projects left and right?
I'll stick to Patreon, thanks. I'm making about $800 on a productive month now
despite there being a pretty small audience for comics about a lesbian robot
with PKD problems. I set "no ads for anyone" as my goal for like $50/p, which
was still making far more than I ever did from ad impressions. Most people
only contribute a buck or so a page but the door is open for a few generous
folks to give me more.

~~~
foxylad
Horses for courses - for high volume sites this would be awesome. My immediate
thought was "Great - at last Wikipedia can get rid of the annual begging
bowl". It could also be a great solution to the news site paywall debate. I'd
love to seamlessly reward the sites I visit often, and if Google can automate
this, more power to their elbow.

Also, interesting that it is Google is doing this. It risks reducing their
advertising revenue if it takes off too well - I wonder what their cut of
revenue is like compared to their advertising business? This model pays them
(and the content producer) per impression rather than per click.

~~~
quadrangle
Wikipedia has no ads to make go away. Google Contributor is only for sites
that use Google ads in the first place.

Google wants the power to tell sites that they have to use Google ads before
they can get these Contributor donations. That's the whole point. So it will
only hurt honorable sites like Wikipedia that forgo ads.

~~~
Filligree
You can declare which ad networks you're willing to show ads from when you set
up google ads. It should be entirely possible to include only Contributor.

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dr4g0n
So this seems like an automatic version of flattr[1], except you get the perk
of no adverts in return.

What I wonder though is: what happens if I visit a site that I don't want to
support? Can I say no? Otherwise this just invites clickbait even more.

[1]: [https://flattr.com/howflattrworks](https://flattr.com/howflattrworks)

~~~
jszymborski
Or exactly like Gratipay (formerly gittip)
[https://gratipay.com/](https://gratipay.com/)

~~~
quadrangle
Except that Gratipay is an ethical community site, whereas Google Contributor
is _only_ about rewarding sites for annoying people with ads such that people
are willing to pay for them to go away. Google Contributor is about Google
pushing everyone to use their system only. So, it's actually not like Gratipay
at all, except for the idea of ongoing donations, which even Paypal had _long_
before Gratipay ever started.

------
dpweb
At the risk of being an unpopular opinion, advertising has been a huge boon in
the growth of the Internet.

I dislike the ad crazy "news" sites that bombard you and destroy the entire
user-experience, but I would equate a not-too-intrusive advertisement as being
not an obnoxious thing, and something that allows you to get something, not
totally for free, but at the cost of a second of your attention. I'm sure
popular ad-supported sites would be not so popular if suddenly put behind
paywalls. Much much less seen.

About donations, I would look to the experience of those disappointed folks
who hoped to recoup some costs waiting for donations. Also, I would equate
begging for donations and ads. I love wikipedia for instance but the donation
begging can be just as obnoxious as intrusive ads.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _At the risk of being an unpopular opinion, advertising has been a huge boon
> in the growth of the Internet._

I believe this is true - even if annoying, or unsustainable, we owe something
to the fact that people at least _believe_ they can make money this way.

There are however two problems with ads. You touched on one of them -
intrusiveness/user experience. But there is another one - many ads you see are
made to trick you into spending money on something you don't need and/or sell
you something suboptimal (E.g. that camera you just saw? It's probably not a
good fit for you, but it's definitely the one that the vendor can make most
money on selling) and/or just lie and try to scam you. The goals of
advertisers and users are not aligned, and until the former stop trying to
scam me, I will continue to block ads.

> _Also, I would equate begging for donations and ads. I love wikipedia for
> instance but the donation begging can be just as obnoxious as intrusive
> ads._

Can't disagree with that. In case of Wikipedia, their obnoxiousness actually
makes me want to _not_ donate on purpose, and I'd probably do that if it
wasn't as valuable for me as it is.

~~~
_delirium
> I believe this is true - even if annoying, or unsustainable, we owe
> something to the fact that people at least believe they can make money this
> way.

I think it's a mixed bag on that front: we owe some good sites, but also a big
part of web spam, to the fact that people believe they can make money through
"internet content creation". Beyond the outright spam (content farms,
linkspam, etc.) there's also a lot of really low-quality content put online
primarily motivated by a hope of pulling in ad revenue.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes please. I say, good riddance.

------
zipfle
It seems kind of convenient that the replacement for ads on the web is just a
different thing that requires google to track everyone all the time.

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quadrangle
This is actually about pushing Google ads! The idea is clearly that sites are
_required_ to have Google ads normally in order to participate in Contributor!

So, this is the opposite of people paying to reduce ads. This is actually a
scheme to promote more ads.

People who want to donate to creative work should donate to projects that
treat us well by forgoing ads and privacy-invading tracking. Google
Contributor is a donation system _exclusively_ for projects that engage in
these anti-features. It's a ransom / pay-to-stop-being-annoyed, which means it
is __rewarding __sites for annoying you in the first place.

------
bcolb
Personally I prefer the Bitcoin version of this, autotip. It is a Chrome
browser extension that automatically tips sites Bitcoin when you visit it.

That way I essentially am just tipping sites that I want to visit as I visit
them. You can also blacklist sites, set tip amounts, etc.

[https://priestc.github.io/Autotip/](https://priestc.github.io/Autotip/)

On the development side implementation was very easy. All it takes is a meta
tag with a bitcoin address and you're good to go. I built it into a social
blogging site I've been working on, so that when you visit an article the
bitcoin address used for tipping is the author's. Here's a post I wrote
explaining it:

[https://www.backed.io/posts/post/40](https://www.backed.io/posts/post/40)

~~~
eropple
It's great that that works for you, but this works for normal people. Kind of
a big difference.

------
boozelclark
I would love to see something like this for the actual software that runs the
web. Things like OpenSSL, PGP, FessBSD and the other critical software that
makes it all possible but almost all users will never visit there webpages.
There would need to be some other way to allocate the funds, maybe by checking
some form of header metadata to see what software websites are built on.

~~~
aragot
Is 1-3$ enough? If we had to invoice "the internet" and OSS to users instead
of financing it with ads, wouldn't it require something starting above 1.
$40/month for the charity websites and 2. $600 per machine (the equivalent of
the cost of Windows) for OSS software?

~~~
boozelclark
Its better than nothing as a supplement to the funding some OSS software
already gets. It would be nice for the internet community to be able to fund
the internet infrastructure without having to have any idea about all the
projects that make it possible. I'm not saying it will work as a sole source
of funding but may of these projects are desperately underfunded and could do
with some revenue. I think may users would be happy to donate to the projects
that make the internet possible.

------
sigmar
"As a reminder of your support, you’ll see a thank you message - often
accompanied by a pixel pattern - where you might normally see an ad."

Why not remove the frame entirely for participants? Since each website has to
opt-in to this, I can't see why they wouldn't be able to remove ads
"transparently" (ie without the user ever knowing they were there)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Don't underestimate the psychological value of reminding people that they've
done something they want to feel good about. As long as it doesn't add to page
load time, a reminder saying "thanks for donating to support this page via
Google Contributor" in place of an ad helps keep this program in people's
minds, keep them willing to pay, and help them think about it at some time
other than when they see the cost charged.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed. It's a little thing, but even a small icon at the top of the page that
tells me "I'm supporting this site with cash, I'm awesome", would be a small
self-esteem boost; a reminder that I do reward the author whose content I
benefit from, and a nice feeling that he's getting my money directly. Just
keep it unobtrusive.

Come to think of it, where I'd really like to have it is the browser - say
right there in the address bar, next to the RSS button (please, _please_ bring
it back!). This way it will be unobtrusive, in a consistent place, and won't
interfere with the page layout. Win-win for everyone.

------
nemo1618
Finally someone took the initiative. I guess I'm glad that it's a company as
big as Google.

There are already lots of sites that run on donations; what's missing is a
standard model for doing so. Maybe with Google's backing we can make a
stronger push towards making donation-based revenue the norm.

~~~
quadrangle
Whenever you think "nobody is doing this", you should start by assuming you're
wrong. You really think that in this giant global world, nobody has thought to
build a standard way to support sites with donations? There's already a
handful of sites with decent history already. Just because you haven't heard
of them doesn't mean nobody was already doing this.

------
wbhart
I would only use this if the first time I appeared on a website it asked me
whether I wanted to add it to the list of sites I wanted to explicitly
support.

That may seem intrusive, but otherwise this is going to (further) encourage
content farms ripping off Wikipedia or just posting random material and
optimising the hell out of its rankings (yes I know Google actively tries to
stop this, but it just doesn't work well enough).

It's really important to distinguish money coming directly out of my pocket at
someone else's whim, and advertising, where I need not purchase anything if
I'm not interested.

~~~
benburwell
Maybe not the first time (before you've seen any of the content), but
generally, I like this idea.

------
IgorPartola
This severely breaks down when you find a site you disagree with. Say you go
on some anti-vaccines blog just to find after reading through a bunch of
articles that they are a part of this program. Can you take your money back?
Or what about a political campaign site for your rival? Or the Westboro
Baptist clan?

~~~
csense
The same problem exists with ads, though. By browsing a site with ads, you're
supporting them.

~~~
TillE
Only in a very, _very_ small and indirect way. And you can solve that problem
by installing and ad blocker and whitelisting sites.

~~~
geofft
It's still very small if it's one pageview in your entire month, and it's that
fraction of a couple of dollars. I'd be surprised if this gets anyone
significantly higher revenue than ads; that doesn't seem to be the goal.

I suppose that if you're running an appropriately-designed ad blocker (i.e.,
one that prevents Google's third-party ad cookies from reaching the site),
then Google won't be able to route your contribution to the site, anyway.

------
delsalk
While a good step, personally my reasons for blocking ads rests more from a
tracking standpoint than visually.

Google being a middleman makes it logistically easy but removes the main
reason why I would pay some amount directly to sites themselves.

~~~
foxylad
Unless I'm very much mistaken, blocking ads isn't going to make a whit of
difference to tracking. Unless you aggressively block cookies and javascript
as well, you're up large on the radar.

~~~
delsalk
Not by itself no, but you can't block tracking beacons and then leave gaping
holes in the form of AdSense, so if your motive is tracking then you're not
going to see most ads regardless.

------
dikaiosune
Ideally, something like this could still contribute to the sites visited while
the user has an adblocker enabled or JavaScript disabled. I would be quite
happy to chip in to help sites display fewer ads, but it would be tedious to
whitelist all of the participants just so they can get their contribution from
my visit. In principle I am very interested in consciously supporting those
who create the content I get completely for free (since I don't even view the
ads), but for it to work for me it would need to be very low-hassle.

~~~
fairblocker
We just launched almost exactly what you describe. It is called FairBlocker.
An ad blocker with a monthly subscription fee (of your choice), which we then
split up among the sites where ads are blocked.

We're looking for feedback from people who get the problem - what do you
think? Feel free to email me directly if you want: zack@fairblocker.com

------
jimktrains2
> Need an invitation? Join the waitlist

I feel like this is one of the things that caused Wave to die -- it was only
something useful if many people are using it, and they didn't let many people
use it.

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d_j_b
Google's model rests on the assumption that all the ads on the site will be
Google ads, and as such this scheme comes with a fairly heavy incentive for
content providers to carry Google ads only.

Declaration of interest: we're trying to do something in the same space with
content-that-should-be-or-is-paywalled with Financial Times articles on The
Browser ([http://thebrowser.com](http://thebrowser.com))

~~~
koala_man
If the model is that you bid on your own ad views at market value, why would
it incentivize content providers to carry Google ads only?

~~~
daxelrod
People will likely complain that they paid for Contributor but still see ads
on your participating site.

------
taurath
Its really important to be talking about this - the fact that current revenue
streams are almost all based around advertising in media creates a bit of a
race to the bottom - the more clicks you get the more money you make, so the
only intrinsic motivation is to get more clicks (especially if you're a public
company). Everything else is secondary even if its not marketed as such.

If the primary goal of a site or project is to make money, then clearly
advertising is the way to go. If the goal is something else, like providing a
community service, then there are reasonable models. I could see bundled
microsubscriptions being pretty popular - you set it once and forget it, they
get funding to keep doing what they're doing and everyone is happy. Patreon
for artists is a good example of this.

I hope the internet starts going in the opposite direction that MMO's have
been going, switching towards subscriptions for higher quality content from
fremium user maximizers. I'm certainly willing to pay for that - I'm much more
likely to trust an organization that doesn't take advertising/"user as the
product" money than one that does.

~~~
fairblocker
I just launched a similar concept to bundled microsubscriptions, which I
mentioned elsewhere in this thread, called FairBlocker. Its an ad blocker with
a monthly subscription that we split up among sites and pay out to the
publisher (aggregating microsubscriptions from all our users). Another way to
go after a similar goal.

~~~
greedoshotlast
Keep up the good work, FairBlocker is giving content creators a fair cut and
users everywhere an ad-free experience.

------
greedoshotlast
Should Google be collecting this revenue for the content providers? Or could
the individual content providers not collect this revenue themselves without
having Google take a cut.

How hard is it for a site to setup a simple paywall linked to a low-cost
payment processor?

Why work with the record label when you could be producing your own work and
keep 100% of the profit?

~~~
declan
>How hard is it for a site to setup a simple paywall linked to a low-cost
payment processor?

Well, it depends on what the cut is -- I don't know and the linked page
doesn't say. But news organizations that are good at reporting may not have
much expertise in technology tasks like this. (By way of background, I've
worked for a bunch of them before founding
[http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/) )

Also I don't believe Google Contributor is intended to be an implementation of
a paywall. It's a way to _avoid_ having to implement paywalls, and the
problems those can cause for news organizations.

~~~
koala_man
I don't think Contributor is intended to directly benefit sites at all.

If you use Contributor, the site receives $0.00136* and a blank ad is shown,
paid for by you.

If you don't use Contributor, the sites receives $0.00136 and an Initech ad is
shown, paid for by Initech.

It will make no direct difference in revenue for the site, but hopefully they
can get indirect benefits from people being less inclined to use ad blockers.

* $2 CPM at 68% revenue share

~~~
greedoshotlast
How much of that revenue did Google take? Is it a 80/20 revenue split or what?

My point is the middle-man must be paid but if there is no middle-man you keep
100% of the profit.

~~~
koala_man
At 68% revenue share it's a 68/32 split.

------
nicolaskruchten
I posted something similar a few months ago:
[http://nicolas.kruchten.com/content/2014/02/modest-
proposal-...](http://nicolas.kruchten.com/content/2014/02/modest-proposal-for-
ethical-ad-blocking/)

~~~
Filligree
So you did. Where'd you get the idea for the mondrian ad-replacement image?
It's a bit too in-your-face for me, but the style is interesting.

~~~
nicolaskruchten
A few years ago we needed a stand-in for some creative and I was looking for
something visually simple that would compress well as a GIF. Mondrian seemed
appropriate :)

------
ekianjo
> Support the people who make the web.

Oh, you mean the ones who are already big enough to generate large amounts of
revenues (based on their advertized partners) ? My first thought was that this
would be a good way to support smaller websites instead.

------
leppr

       A pixel pattern appears where you would normally see an add   
    

How about giving contributors the same benefits people using ad blockers
already enjoy, set the whole thing to display:none and use the space for
something useful?

------
lvs
The pricing denomination is set both too high and too low at the same time,
depending on whom we're talking about. The whole idea of micropayments to
support, for instance, content creators was to generally envision a
transactional denomination far below $1 -- hence the word "micro." Since even
this really never got off the ground in any significant way, isn't it a
stretch to imagine that $1/month is a low enough psychological barrier-to-
entry for most average consumers. Similarly, for those true supporter zealots,
is limiting the top end to $3/month logical? Why should it be limited at all?

~~~
lettergram
My guess (haven't researched yet) is that Google is taking a percentage, and
Google needs that percentage needs to be high enough to make it worth while.

~~~
ori_b
Basically, if this is the project I think it is, all they're doing is letting
you act as your own advertiser, with the ad that you're running being an empty
pixel pattern.

~~~
username223
Good call. Basically, they can turn users with a PREF cookie into additional
bidders for ad auctions on their network (and others, maybe?). $1-3 isn't
much, but if you pool a large number of users' money, you can both drive
auction prices to increase your revenue, and drive users to contribute more
when their "contribution" stops removing ads.

One can never be too cynical.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wouldn't they be basically holding your sanity to ransom at this point, asking
for an ever increasing amount of money?

~~~
username223
Protection rackets aren't exactly a new way to make money. People don't like
ads, and Google serves many of the ads, so they can shake people down, and use
the extra money to make their competitors' lives harder. Meanwhile, their
tracking business is unaffected.

------
greedoshotlast
I think I'll setup some "pixel patterns where you would normally see an ad" on
my own site and maybe people will start donating bitcoins to my site.

I'll get back to ya'll with the results of the experiment.

~~~
mpnordland
I see what you did there :P

------
jacques_chester
It so happens I've been trying to launch in the same area myself. And I'm not
the first to think of it -- Contenture, Kachingle, Readability and I forget
the others.

Naturally I think I have additional secret sauce, and a patent + patent
pending covering a cryptographically-secured scheme for tracking visits.

But I won't lie, competing with a company with 10,000 engineers and $60
billion in revenue seems unfair. So I'm going to give them a head-start on
this one.

Persons interested in learning more, or in throwing umptillions of dollars at
me to make it happen, can find my contact details in my profile.

------
Animats
Interesting. The cost of providing web services keeps decreasing, but this
isn't being passed along to the consumer in the form of fewer ads. With the
"contributor" model, pay sites will, over time, be able to undercut ad-
supported sites on price.

That's probably not what Google has in mind, though. This presumably requires
that the user have a Google account and be logged into Google to get ad
blocking. So Google gets to snoop on the user and sell the information they
collect.

------
hackuser
Google is solving the wrong problem, IMO. I don't mind seeing ads; I care that
my actions are tracked and my privacy/confidentiality is violated. I think
most people who object to the advertising-based Internet do it for the same
reason -- ads are annoying, but privacy is a serious problem.

I looked for a privacy policy or something that addresses what is tracked, but
all I see are links to Google's universal privacy policy.

------
primitivesuave
This could be huge if applied to YouTube content, as I'm sure there are many
parents of iPad children who don't want their kids seeing ads.

~~~
comex
I would love it to be applied to YouTube content for myself, although I doubt
it will be. The prevalence and duration of ads on YouTube has steadily
increased over the years, up to the point where, just a few days ago, I
finally got fed up and installed an ad blocker for that site only. I don't
usually use ad blockers because I want to support content creators, and few of
the sites I visit have intrusive ads anyway; but it got to a point where
enough was enough. However, I would be happy to support video creators with my
wallet, and they would probably make more money that way, since I never click
ads (so they get CPM revenue only).

When I think about watching TV when I was younger, the details of the shows
themselves have faded, but the small but constant miseries of ad breaks are
relatively vivid. Sure, the show was good enough to leave an overall positive
impression, or else I wouldn't be watching it - although I am sure this is
part of the reason I watched relatively little TV - but pleasure and annoyance
don't just cancel out; they remain in the mind as parallel memories, each with
its own effect. Today, I only watch TV on paid video services that lack ads,
and it continues to surprise me just how enjoyable a 'clean high' without
interruptions is. Instead of my interest level rollercoastering up as the show
plays, sharply down as the ads start playing - ending just before it's gotten
low enough for me to abandon ship - it just goes up at the beginning and stays
there until the end of the episode.

YouTube videos are different from TV shows, of course - they're typically much
shorter, and each viewed as only one element out of many in a session of
Internet sensory overload, where no one piece of content lasts long enough to
engender the level of concentration characteristic of most other types of
activities. When there's constant context switching, an additional switch for
an ad isn't nearly as bad. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with it, especially
when there's an different possible compensation structure that in theory
better rewards both me and the creator.

~~~
magicalist
Somebody posted something similar to this a few weeks ago, and I responded
there too that I feel like I'm on a different Youtube than the ones described
in these posts. Like 90% of ads I see on there are skippable now, which didn't
exist at all a few years ago.

I'm really curious if we just browse completely different subsets of videos or
something. What videos are you watching that have so many unskippable ads?

------
libraryatnight
This might explain why imgur suddenly decided to make all accounts equal and
refund my subscription fee.

As others have expressed, Google's tendency to abandon things means I don't
take this very seriously and would rather see sites that want to use this
model go with another company that's committed to the idea as a business.

~~~
jfoster
It's not necessarily Google's fault that they will not treat this seriously
enough. They've simply been too successful when it comes to advertising. I do
think they should leave this sort of thing to other companies if they feel any
sense of social responsibility, though.

------
josh2600
I have a friend who works at Patreon.com; it's a different take on this.

It's basically a way to have a direct financial relationship between artists
and patrons. I am curious as to how this model might work over time. It could
be a good way to deal with the inability of musicians, for example, to sell
records.

------
kriro
I really like this idea. I have doubts that it'll work but it shows that
Google is trying to stay ahead of the curve. I do have privacy concerns but at
the same time the thought of some flat fee that is distributed by how often I
visit sites seems pretty great.

There's some obvious issues. One seems like a problem for a startup to solve
(exit plan: be bought by Google): Figure out how much a site is actually used
in a meaningful and quantifiable way beyound time on site/counting visits

The other is more philosophical for lack of a better term. It's a little
strange that Google is essentially responsible for the adds on the sites it
now removes with this new sheme. "Modern" thinking would make me belive that
sites that participate should probably go for no adds by default. There'll be
"freeloaders" but it's essentially film streaming, non-DRM books and the likes
all over.

Edit: I hope there'll be a way to blacklist sites as well or maybe more fine
grained controls.

------
_nedR
I am more opposed to tracking than ads. Unless they devise a system that
doesn't require a cookie or tracking id that persists across sessions and
websites, I would like to excuse myself from this (still laudable) endeavour.

------
Alexandervn
It's still kinda waste to show paying visitors an empty ad.

It would probably be easy to distinguish between the paying visitors and the
regular ones. So you can also show paying visitors more content?

What would the Googlebot do with that?

------
noahl
I like the idea of giving users a painless way to donate to the sites they
use. And giving thank-yous in place of advertising is a good way to reduce the
incentive to freeload.

I do worry that $1-3 a month is much lower than the value I get from the sites
I visit, and consequently not enough to support low-traffic sites that should
be supported. They also didn't mention how they distribute your money -
equally to all the sites you visit? Proportionally to the number of visits? On
a related note, can participating sites choose to eliminate ads only if a user
will contribute enough money to them, or must they eliminate ads for every
contributor in order to participate at all?

But the real question is, will google.com itself accept Contributor money? And
will it eliminate ads for contributors?

~~~
pfhayes
I assume that you will pay the same way an advertiser would pay - by bidding
for the space. If your bid exceeds the bids of anyone else trying to advertise
there, nothing will be shown. Otherwise you'll be shown an ad as normal.

------
plantain
I have been using Contributor for a while and I am extremely excited about it.

No more can you claim to be the product, you're the customer, bidding against
the ad networks to show your own ads to yourself.

Just brilliant.

~~~
quadrangle
Actually, you're rewarding the sites for using Google Ads in the first place,
thereby encouraging the pushing of more ads on everyone else. You may not be
the product, but you're a tool not a customer.

------
wyc
I think I would pay most to not be tracked or to avoid video ads.

------
kbart
Interesting idea, but I'd like to see it implemented by a more trustworthy and
privacy respecting company than Google. Now it seems just like another way to
track users.

------
Nican
I wanted to do a similar thing for game servers a long time ago. People spends
thousands every month to keep a game server alive, but rarely gains any
benefits back.

------
r3bl
So, like Flattr but instead of choosing what pages you want to contribute to
you contribute to every web page that is a part of this project?

No thank you, I'll stick to Flattr.

~~~
yincrash
I interpreted as you contribute to the websites that are part of the project
that you visit (by splitting the your monthly contribution to the various
sites you visit that month). However, it's definitely vague enough on the
landing page where either interpretation could be true.

------
jonnat
I'm truly trying and failing not to see this as an opportunity to pay $3/mo to
give Google the right to track and record all my web visits.

I'm fully aware that with the ad-based model, multiple companies are tracking
my page views as well, including largely Google's DoubleClick, but there are
two important distinctions. Paradoxically I feel safer being tracked by an
entire ecosystem rather than a single company. And my lack of explicit consent
while simply visiting sites limits what they can do with my data - something
tells me that this consent will be in the ToS of this product.

~~~
vo8nur
There's a reason mozilla switched to yahoo - Google refused to honor do not
track and live up to mozilla's privacy standards. This fits into their
tracking strategy and they'll also likely get a big cut being the middle-man.

I've lost a lot of respect for google in general, going from innovator to me-
too copy-cat in everything from social media (G+) to cloud computing (GCE).

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pjmurray
Google's version of freemium?

I'd love to know the numbers behind this. Anyone have an idea of what Google's
Adword visitor LTV is for these sites?

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karmacondon
Honest question: Do online ads have any redeeming value?

No one seems to have anything nice to say about them. Ever. I can only recall
two or maybe three times when I've clicked on an ad, and even then I can't
remember what they were for. The only ads that have any real utility for me
are television commercials that are particularly funny/quotable or remind me
that a tv show is coming back on the air.

Can anyone report a single positive experience with online advertising?

~~~
visakanv
The best use case for ads, I think, are in retargeting– meaning you only hit
people who've already visited your site before, and you hit them maybe with an
offer they might be interested in. But you have to be sensitive to the
context, etc. I don't envy ad folks.

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rdegges
This looks interesting. Not sure who would be putting money into this, to be
honest, but it seems like a fair idea since there are so many companies out
there asking for donations to keep running.

I can imagine someone like Wikipedia making a small fortune off of this if it
takes off.

~~~
quadrangle
How will Wikipedia make anything off this? You have to show Google ads by
default in order to participate. This is more about _punishing_ sites for not
using Google Ads than about funding creative work.

Google would like everyone's donations to be exclusively given to sites that
use Google ads and not to sites that forgo advertising like Wikipedia.

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zacharycohn
Enable this for YouTube and I would pay $25 a month starting RIGHT NOW.

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bufordsharkley
I get some warm-and-fuzzy feelings when I first see this (and signed up for
the waitlist), but it also makes me a bit uncomfortable with what this
implies.

Has anybody else here seen Black Mirror, "Fifteen Million Merits"?

~~~
bufordsharkley
The status quo is living with harrassment, in the form of advertising.

Signing up for this system is implicitly endorsing that the harrassment is
justified. It feels something like being extorted. (Or, perhaps, negotiating
with terrorists)

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eforio
Good to see. Basically, its like paying not to see ads.

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bsbechtel
On the surface this sounds great, but I also get the feeling this is solving a
problem that doesn't exist. The billions of website that exist on the web
should be proof of that.

~~~
nindalf
Its a problem that doesn't exist, but will in a few years from now. Those
billions of sites depend upon advertising revenue. As ad-blockers have become
more popular, the rates that advertisers are willing to pay has fallen.
Eventually we could see a majority of users block ads and sites would have to
shut down for lack of revenue. This initiative can preempt that.

Also remember the overused line "if you're not paying, you are the product".
This could lead to a web that doesn't depend on violating the privacy of its
users to make a dime.

~~~
bsbechtel
Fair points, although the fact that Google is offering this product makes your
point about violating the privacy of users a bit moot (in this particular
instance...not the solution in general).

~~~
gurkendoktor
You could still browse the web with Ghostify (or µblock…), and only load the
Contributor tracking code when you want to support an article. That would both
minimise Google's tracking and prevent you from accidentally contributing to
crappy link-bait content. Basically a copy of flattr on Google's
infrastructure.

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suyash
No thanks, AdBlocker works for me Google. Asking money for reading blogs,
articles etc has not worked so far for most content heavy sites.

~~~
dikaiosune
I think there's something to be said for an ad-free content "subscription" to
the whole internet. I block all ads right now but I would still get the warm
and fuzzies if I knew that I was free of ads _and_ I was still paying a little
bit to the people who create content online.

~~~
fairblocker
So... the product I just launched is identical to what you described. An ad
blocker with bundled contributions, check it out if you want: fairblocker.com

~~~
lkbm
Interesting. So the difference between Fairblocker and Google Contributor is
that Google allows sites to opt-in to blocking with payment, whereas
Fairblocker blocks regardless and allows them to opt-in to getting paid.

Pragmatically, it may make sense as an individual website operator to buy into
Fairblocker, since adblocking is going to happen anyway, but I can definitely
see not wanting to legitimize this system ("I'm blocking your ads whether you
like it or not--want some money in compensation?"), whereas GC doesn't have
that issue. (But it also doesn't block non-participating ads, so as a user,
I'd want an additional adblocker, so may as well just use Fairblocker.)

I dunno how I feel about "we hold your money in escrow until you claim it",
since you will literally owe this money to millions of websites and very few
will ever claim it, but it's better than "we distribute the money just amongst
those that have signed up".

I hope Fairblocker gets big among those who aren't satisfied with blocking ads
just on GC participants websites. Definitely seems like a really good idea,
and it needs to reach a good scale to be worth the time for website owners to
sign up. I may give it a try (as a user).

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sanxiyn
Is this something like Reddit Gold?

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praveer13
How does this compare to flattr?

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cuchoi
How much is Google's cut?

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sidcool
HN's first kneejerk reaction is cynicism. I like to see us proven wrong.

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JungleGymSam
Nah. Google will abandon this just like nearly everything they make.

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cpks
I would gladly pay big $$$ to not be brainwashed by ads.

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gcb0
judging by what Google search results think is a legit site, fake phone
directories would be the next bubble.

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gcb0
does that means advertisers are leaving adsense/adwords en masse?

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XiZhao
Must Google do everything?

~~~
tree_of_item
This is a great thing for Google to do, I'm not sure what you're trying to
say.

~~~
d2xdy2
I take it as saying something like "why does it have to be Google that does
this; someone should have done this a long time ago", maybe.

Google starts a lot of cool projects, it'd be neat to see other companies
taking the same initiative in certain areas (I'm sure there are, I just am not
well versed in that area).

~~~
lambda
I don't know of any other companies who control as many display ads on the
web, which can be replaced by a "thank you for donating."

There already are other similar services, like Flattr, but it becomes hard to
ensure that you get a steady revenue stream by serving ads to some people and
getting donations from others, and being able to turn off the ads for those
people who donate.

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eforio
Good to see

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erjiu
This is very subtle attempt to increase publishers from google ( supply side
). I work in ad-tech and inventory quality is something considered prime
importance. So what google is trying to do is get publishers sign-up. Those
who contribute will not see any ads and those who don't will still see ads.

Now if we get very large number of people contributing and site visit
increases then both sites and google could loose revenue as they would have
been better off with ads.

Its interesting experiment by google to see what alternative model to ad can
be built while simultaneously increasing publisher supply. Good move. They are
trying set feet on both stones.

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shit_parade
I've noticed more blogs using Patreon, interesting to see google joining the
scene, always wonder how much VISA et al takes out when you are contributing
1/month or similar.

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KB1JWQ
I look forward to Google shutting this project down in 1-5 years.

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kolev
Finally! What took them so long? And why didn't they acquire an existing
vendor (for cheap)?

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bennettfeely
Seems now we will see _additional_ ads on every page "Donate to us with Google
Contributor!"

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logn
This is great and much needed. However as it's from Google I will never use
it. Sorry, Google has about the same reputation as Microsoft circa 2000 at
this point.

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rdl
This feels like something Google will abandon in 3 years tops, probably more
like 1-2 years. I wonder how projects like this work within Google -- is it a
reward given to someone who has an idea and has done something great in the
past, or is this a curse if you're an engineer and get assigned to what seems
like an obviously stillborn thing?

