
I Pay for News; Why Do I Still See Intrusive Ads? (2017) - Futurebot
https://www.kirkville.com/i-pay-for-news-why-do-i-still-see-ads/
======
pixelmonkey
The answer may not be pleasing, but it's true: because "paid subscribers"
represent a valuable advertising demographic/segment. They are nearly certain
you are human traffic, and you have enough disposable income that you pay for
news.

~~~
izacus
You can pretty much make this argument for everything - Ferraris should be
plastered by LCDs with ads then. Business class airplanes filled with blinking
video ads. Entrances to highend butiques crowded with people pushing ad
leaflets into rich peoples hands....

Why is it acceptable on the web?

~~~
pixelmonkey
This does happen in other places. Do you ever notice that your in-flight
magazine has ads? You've already paid for the flight. Your in-theater movie
kicks off with trailers and previews -- you have already paid for the movie
ticket. And so on.

~~~
justboxing
> Do you ever notice that your in-flight magazine has ads?

Yes. And on a recent trip to India, it got even worse. SpiceJet (domestic
airlines) has ads on the back of the headrest of EVERY SEAT.

Physical paper printed Ads!

So you are staring at it for the entirety of your trip. I kid you not.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Wait until screens get cheap enough... you'll have 4k ads rolling on each
screen that are tailored from your name in your ticket.

~~~
andy_ppp
This happens in the back of cabs in a lot of places I seem to remember and
it’s incredibly difficult to switch off... we essentially are heading for some
super weird dystopian sci-fi film right now. It’s terrifying.

~~~
isostatic
The adverts are why I et uber in New York rather than taxis.

~~~
martinpw
I've been in an Uber that had a iPad rigged up to play ads to the passengers
in the back seat.

Good thing you get to rate at the end of the trip, which would (hopefully) put
a stop to that.

------
clubm8
This seems to be a re-occuring pattern: have ads on a free/cheap service,
introduce a paid service, place ads on the paid service, then hope if you hold
out long enough people will forget there was a time when your paid service was
ad free.

Prime example: Cable tv

[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-
inv...](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-
commercials.html)

~~~
pixelrevision
Newspapers and magazines have always included ads along with the subscription
price. Difference is more that online ads are way more trashy and distracting
and terrible for privacy so there’s more reason for pushback.

------
justinph
If you're a subscriber, you're the most valuable advertising target. You've
shown a willingness to pay for stuff on the internet. Furthermore, advertisers
are targeting people who read those publications regularly. Subscribers are
those people.

If you wanted an ad-free subscription, it would cost substantially more than
you currently pay to made up for the lost advertising revenue.

~~~
RealityVoid
Even if, let's say, you WERE to pay substantially more than what you currently
pay, the vendor might see fit to extract the maximum amount of value from you,
so serve you adds they will. The only way I think they would not serve you
adds is if they would lose more money (customers) if they were to serve adds.

But people have proven they are mostly OK with ads, they don't mind them
(since so many services online are fueled by them and people use them).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _But people have proven they are mostly OK with ads, they don 't mind them
> (since so many services online are fueled by them and people use them)._

Let's remember that people generally have zero choice in the matter.

~~~
Godel_unicode
That's absolutely not true. You could just not use the service. I think what
you mean is that you have no way to get the service without the ads, so you're
willing to put up with the ads to get the service. Which is the whole point.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I think what you mean is that you have no way to get the service without
> the ads, so you 're willing to put up with the ads to get the service. Which
> is the whole point._

Well, that's what I mean. You often can't get the service without ads, as
competitors show the same amount of ads.

Hell, these days you can't do anything, be it on-line or in meatspace, without
being exposed to a steady stream of ads. There is no choice for ad-free life,
unless you take the word "choice" so literally you accept moving to some
remote location and living off land as a viable option for regular people.

------
JasonFruit
There are ads in the paper newspaper I subscribe to as well. Real reporting
and quality writing don't come cheaply, and that hasn't changed just because
the delivery method did. Probably neither the author nor I would be willing to
pay for a subscription without ad subsidies.

~~~
gunnihinn
Out of curiosity, does anyone have a ballpark estimate for what a no-ad online
subscription would cost if we assume the parent is true?

~~~
Godel_unicode
According to the New York Times latest earnings call, subscriptions account
for 2/3 of their revenue. So ballpark roughly 50% more than the current
subscription price would be necessary to maintain revenue at the same
subscriber count sans other revenue streams.

~~~
bradleyjg
Don't think that's quite the right calculation.

Revenue = subscriber revenue + ad revenue from ads shown to subscribers + ad
revenue from ads shown to non-subscribers

The suggestions was to eliminate the middle piece and increase the
subscription price to make up for it in the first piece. That's still leaves
the last piece.

~~~
Godel_unicode
No. The times only allows readers to read 5 articles before signing up,
meaning they're effectively subscribers only.

~~~
bradleyjg
As I understand it there are a whole lot of leaks in that paywall. In fact,
doesn't HN have a built in workaround?

~~~
Godel_unicode
This argument is getting really tired, it's true of literally every service
online. Yes there are loopholes, no they don't matter. The barrier is just
high enough that a great many people just pay up.

------
gmjoe
Some numbers for perspective [1]:

Digital-only subscription revenue in 2017: $340 million

Digital advertising revenue in 2017: $238 million

Obviously some digital advertising is shown to print subscribers logging in
too... but if we ignore that for simplicity, without ads your NYT digital
subscription would be 70% more expensive.

At $195/yr. for digital-only, it's already my most expensive subscription by a
significant amount. If it were 70% more, or $331.50/yr, I imagine
subscriptions would drop by a lot -- that's a _lot_ of money for news.

So... that's presumably why there are still ads. Gotta pay the reporters
somehow.

On the other hand, the New Yorker bugging you to subscribe is just lazy
programming, and I hate it too.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-
times-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-
company-earnings.html)

~~~
bootlooped
Here are some more recent numbers [1]:

Quarter 1 2018:

$414m total revenue

$260m subscription revenue (62% of total)

$154m non-subscription revenue (38% of total)

$46.7m digital advertising revenue (37% of total advertising revenue)

$126.2m total advertising revenue

If you cut digital advertising completely, not just for subscribers, you could
make it up by increasing subscription price by around 10%, assuming 100% of
subscribers would bear the new price.

The interesting statistic that we don't have is how much digital advertising
revenue comes from paid vs unpaid readers.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/business/media/new-
york-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/business/media/new-york-times-
earnings.html)

~~~
gmjoe
Not sure I follow. If you're using 46.7/260 that's an 18% increase (not 10%),
but that's _all_ subscribers (including print), not just digital.

So a yearly print subscription would go from $422.50 to $500 here in New York.

I'm not sure print subscribers would want to subsidize digital readers like
that, especially when their own print edition is already chock-full of ads.

~~~
bootlooped
Now that I look back at it, I have no idea how I came up with that percentage.

------
debatem1
You know the old saw about "if you don't pay for the product, you are the
product"? It's not "if and only if".

------
aphextron
They ruined any trust between advertisers and consumers through deceptive, bad
faith tactics, and reduced the entire equation to pure game theory. If an
advertiser can figure out how to get their ad copy past my sophisticated
filtering attempts and get into my mind in a memorable way, then more power to
them. Otherwise they don't have any "right" to exist and make money off
stealing my time and resources, both mental and compute.

------
honkycat
I subbed to the nytimes for a single month before I realized they did not
disable ads for paid subscribers. So dumb and toxic.

Edit: typo

------
JeanMarcS
It’s the problem with news websites/magazines/paper. They live because there
are ads in it.

And so would they criticize companies that put a lot of cash on them ?
Perhaps. May be not.

In France, we have a news website [0] which is totally independent, and only
accessible for paying subscribers. It took them a few years and now they are
earning money.

You might or might not agree with their editorial line, but the fact is that
they can investigate any company without hesitation.

It’s hard, but I think it’s the only way to have an independent information.

[0] [https://www.mediapart.fr](https://www.mediapart.fr)

------
projektir
So much for "if you're not paying you're the product". Seems like if you're
paying, you're still the product.

------
panarky
When I was young my family paid for cable TV when the rest of the neighborhood
still had antennas on their roofs because pay TV didn't have commercials.

Now I pay for cable TV _and_ it's jammed full of commercials.

The idea that free online services aren't really free because we pay with our
attention and with our data is only half true.

Paid online services also take our data and increasingly interrupt us with
advertisements, just like cable TV.

~~~
Tempest1981
And we have TV shows with built-in ads (esp sports), and channels running
promos in the bottom right corner.

I guess were not saturated quite yet...

------
sixdimensional
I want to know, how much does it truly cost for the same content without ads.
What would the actual pricetag be, if we built in the overhead added by
advertising and marketing into the fee for the product or service itself?

~~~
isostatic
Peanuts. I don't subscribe to sky tv in the uk for £30 a month because they
also get £5 a month extra from 30% of the time showing ads.

The same subscription with out adverts would be £35 a month, basically the
same price.

------
matheusmoreira
> Why do I still see ads?

Because you haven't installed an ad blocker yet. Get uBlock Origin, enable all
the filters and don't look back.

------
sorokod
Because not showing you ads would be "leaving money on the table" and that
just won't do.

If not showing ads wasn't part of the deal, ads will be shown. If not
harvesting your personal data wasn't part of the deal, personal data will be
harvested.

That you paid money is irrelevant.

------
twblalock
The restriction on the number of articles is how the news publishers
incentivize subscriptions -- subscribing unlocks more articles per
week/month/whatever. They are going to advertise either way.

Paper newspapers always had ads too. Subscribers didn't get a different
version of the paper without the ads. Ads have been a deeply ingrained part of
the news business for over 100 years and they aren't going to stop now.

------
diminish
As said: "The fact that you pay for subscription, doesn't mean you aren't the
product for publishers to advertisers"

------
j4kp07
I had to close two pop ups to read this article. So there's that.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Advertising really is a cancer on society.

~~~
timbit42
...or is it capitalism?

------
nikanj
In a nutshell: Because they make more money that way.

------
platz
What rights does paying for something ever give you?

~~~
TeMPOraL
None. But the common view is that people have to view ads in lieu of paying.
Turns out that even if you pay, you'll still be exploited.

------
reilly3000
If newspapers could have a woeking business model without advertising I'm sure
many would. The theory on the web is that if you take away ads for paid
subscribers you'll not be able to ever add them back. Personally a cheaper
subscription with an ad-lite, or tracking-free(GDPR opt out style) experience
and a full price subscription for no ads seems like a fair deal. Thoughts?
Disclosure: I work at a comscore 50 publisher. We are currently ad only and
designing a subscription product so feedback is very welcome and timely.

------
ChristianGeek
Hulu, to me, has the perfect model: limited content for free, full content
with ads for a subscription fee, full content with no ads for a (slightly)
higher subscription fee.

~~~
jccalhoun
I thought Hulu quit free streams a few years ago?

------
segmondy
You’re paying for content not ad free. Maybe they will make us pay twice. Once
for the service, then next level to remove ad.

------
SilasX
To everyone making the obvious point: yes, obviously, there is potentially
money to be made from this richer demographic. But that doesn't explain why
they have to make the ads so intrusive or site-breaking.

Remember, something stops Ferrari from blanketing the dash with ads. Why
doesn't that same dynamic apply here?

------
Nasrudith
This type of thing is the thumbprint of management by sociopathy. "Why does
nobody subscribe to us and leave us so ad dependent!" They cry. Just like
complaints about lack of employee loyalty after they do stuff like layoffs to
inflate quarterly earnings and look at pension funds as piggy banks and refuse
to give raises. Then complain about people leaving for career advancement when
they won't even give Cost of Living raises. The same pattern regardless - do
something for short term gain that creates a long term problem and try to pass
the buck. And it wasn't their fault because they were entitled to the short
term gains. They are incapable of understanding why trying to get paid twice
for the same thing is a bad thing or why you should never trust anyone who
attempts that. To them trust is something they are entitled by position to
regardless of how they mistreat people.

In my opinion the best thing to do with them in response is banish them. Don't
invest in them or patronize them as much as possible as they are clearly out
to screw you over. If you are in management of a position to do so oust them
as soon as possible. Sadly they are a goddamn plague and hard to oust.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We have a systemic problem though. This kind of sociopathy is pretty much
legitimized, and being specialized in it is treated as respectable occupation.

------
emerged
Because you are still paying for news even though you are seeing intrusive
ads.

------
njloof
(2017)

~~~
dang
Added. Thanks!

------
moomin
Because free markets don’t always produce ideal outcomes for consumers.

------
ashelmire
> Of course, you only get a limited number of free articles per month if you
> don’t subscribe.

Wait until the author learns about clearing cookies.

~~~
timbit42
...or even better: Cookie AutoDelete

------
PaulWaldman
What if your paid subscription is only covering a portion of the service and
the full price is subsidized by the ads?

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's still sad that those companies can't offer the most basic, ethical option
- providing value in exchange for money. No, the choice is only between
getting crap shoved at you for free, and getting the same amount of crap for
money.

------
LifeLiverTransp
Imagine a pair of augmented reality glasses, capable to filter all ads shown
to you. A layer to end all layers.

------
pm90
I pay for nyt. They still played annoying video ads. So I removed their app; I
access it via Firefox.

------
vuln
Shareholder's demand insane growth every quarter. Can't leave money on the
table.

------
jmuguy
I pay for Ars Technica, definitely wouldn’t if paying didn’t disable the ads.

~~~
sintaxi
The articles are ads.

Eg.
[https://twitter.com/arstechnica/status/1051475468199833600](https://twitter.com/arstechnica/status/1051475468199833600)

~~~
Sgt_Apone
That's a car review, not an advertisement. If you actually read it, they don't
even like it much.

>Meh. All-in-all, the Lexus NX 300h is an uninspiring car. If you like hybrids
and want to drive one with a luxury badge, the NX 300h is worth looking at. I
would have liked the option to suck the battery dry before the internal
combustion engine kicks in (à la the plug-in Chrysler Pacifica hybrid).
Instead, EV Mode in the NX 300h is limited to low speeds.

------
djrogers
The very publication you’re subscribing to also shows ads to it’s print
subscribers. I don’t think ther was ever an implicit promise that
subscriptions remove ads, I’m not even sure why you’d expect that from a
publication that’s been doing it that way for decades...

------
eip
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing…kill yourself. It’s
just a little thought; I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they’ll
take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can." \--Bill Hicks

------
fiatjaf
Why do you still pay for that stupidity?

~~~
dang
We've asked you repeatedly to stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker
News. If you can't or won't stop, we're going to have to ban your account, so
please fix this.

