>'Why then, doesn't the government bring advertising to a halt? At least they could start with targeted advertising as seen on the internet.'
Interesting idea. I just read that over £20bn is spent a year on advertising in the UK. The problem is that things which are socially valuable - especially journalism, but also a lot of entertainment - are chronically dependent on advertising revenues.
Netflix is an interesting example of a new model of entertainment that generates revenues through subscriptions instead of advertisements. Lots of newspapers have also shifted to a subscription-based model, though only The Guardian has done so without placing their website behind a paywall. Another alternative is public service broadcasting, like the BBC.
I guess they mean purely via subscriptions. But of course Netflix also uses product placement and probably sells all your viewing and behavioural habits as well.
I'd be surprised to hear they were selling viewing data though. A few years ago, they were making a lot of noise about how that data gave them a unique way to make decisions on what content to produce that other studios lacked. Seems like the kind of thing you'd hold close if that were the case.
When you search, it's also clear they have shadow profiles for content they don't have (e.g. before they had Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they'd autocomplete to "Things like Monty Python and the Holy Grail" pretty early in the autocomplete results). I wonder how heavily that search data is weighted in deciding how much to offer to license existing content.
>The problem is that things which are socially valuable - especially journalism, but also a lot of entertainment - are chronically dependent on advertising revenues.
I think calling journalism "socially valuable" is debatable.
Interesting idea. I just read that over £20bn is spent a year on advertising in the UK. The problem is that things which are socially valuable - especially journalism, but also a lot of entertainment - are chronically dependent on advertising revenues.
Netflix is an interesting example of a new model of entertainment that generates revenues through subscriptions instead of advertisements. Lots of newspapers have also shifted to a subscription-based model, though only The Guardian has done so without placing their website behind a paywall. Another alternative is public service broadcasting, like the BBC.