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YouTube seems to be on a masochistic, self-destructive path by increasing the number and length of ads. I used to just let a 15 second ad play rather than go to the trouble of skipping it mid-way through. Now I skip ads whenever possible.
That may account for the reason, some of the content creators have complained that ad revenue is down. Too many ads, leading to too many people clicking out of them.
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Remember Clear Channel Communications? As they bought up radio stations, they increased the number of ads, saying they were in the advertising business, not the music business. This business plan did not go well for them. Ad revenues and listener numbers both plummeted.
Both the Internet and Broadcast radio are at a turning point, where something will have to give. The current arms race between the advertisers and the ad-blocker and ad-ignorers is a bit ridiculous.
It might end up with more sites going to a subscription basis, but that makes visiting them into a less casual process. If something leads you to a website that you don't expect to look at more than once, you don't want to be hassled with having to sign up for giving them money.
I wonder if there's an opening for a service that's external to any website you want to visit, but which functions as an overall subscription service. Where you agree to pay some amount of money for every site you visit on the list, and they collect just once per month or something, and distribute the cash to the site owners. Maybe they'd charge per visit, or per minute spent on the sites, or the amount of data exchanged.
It might end up with more sites going to a subscription basis, but that makes visiting them into a less casual process. If something leads you to a website that you don't expect to look at more than once, you don't want to be hassled with having to sign up for giving them money.
I wonder if there's an opening for a service that's external to any website you want to visit, but which functions as an overall subscription service. Where you agree to pay some amount of money for every site you visit on the list, and they collect just once per month or something, and distribute the cash to the site owners. Maybe they'd charge per visit, or per minute spent on the sites, or the amount of data exchanged.
There is a huge opening for such a service, but it would require the cooperation of the content creators.
I can think, off hand, of four different economic models that could replace the current ad driven model.
This is probably the least favorite among content creators.
The second would be one I have brought up, in forums dedicated to the Brave Browser. The browser has a built in system for "tokens" to be downloaded to a site. If there was a system to insure the tokens were worth a certain amount (10million per Bitcoin?) (about 0.4 cents currently) and the "wallet"? could be loaded the same way we purchase other things on the Net (like, at Amazon), then each article or video could have a mandatory minimum, and a recommended price to read. Maybe a third price to download.
The third system is basically what you mentioned, and would turn that second system upside down. You subscribe to a service, where you could read the articles, and it pays the individual news or entertainment outlets.
The difference between the second and third ideas is that the Browser handles the transactions in the second, and a third party handles the transaction in the third system. Again, I think this is what "Amontillado" (shift to third person is deliberate) mentioned.
Just to be clear, it is my position that a certain amount of advertising is a good thing. Else, how would we find out about certain products and services that we aren't already familiar with.
The problem is the limitless advertising and click bait that saturates what would otherwise be an enjoyable experience.
Any alternative needs to have set rules for what is allowed, and how much is allowed.
@TRex2: I like the browser deciding on giving x amounts of coinage to each site. Ppl paying for content will be much more choosy on what to click on and thus rewarding better content providers theoretically.
Problems:
1) When it comes to technology, you will always get somebody hacking into the process and making a workaround to paying.
2) The internet's main attraction is that it's FREE content. Open to anybody who has internet access. It will be difficult to change that ingrained POV.
3) There is no 3rd point, but I always feel like everything comes in threes
@TRex2: I like the browser deciding on giving x amounts of coinage to each site. Ppl paying for content will be much more choosy on what to click on and thus rewarding better content providers theoretically.
Problems:
1) When it comes to technology, you will always get somebody hacking into the process and making a workaround to paying.
2) The internet's main attraction is that it's FREE content. Open to anybody who has internet access. It will be difficult to change that ingrained POV.
3) There is no 3rd point, but I always feel like everything comes in threes
I agree with you.
Engineering a somewhat unhackable system would be a challenge.
I also think there should be a certain amount of content on the Net for free, and everything I have written, up till now is under Creative Commons License. The site carrying it could have limited advertising, as I mentioned above, be there is (eventually) going to have to be some "rules" to limit the intrusiveness and click bait.
(And I say all of this, recalling that we used to say WWW stood for Wild Wild West.)
Just to be clear, it is my position that a certain amount of advertising is a good thing. Else, how would we find out about certain products and services that we aren't already familiar with.
The problem is the limitless advertising and click bait that saturates what would otherwise be an enjoyable experience.
Any alternative needs to have set rules for what is allowed, and how much is allowed.
By searching for information on a product or service maybe? I haven't really watched or paid any attention to advertising since the 1970s. Yet somehow I still manage to find out about new products and services. Advertising is not necessary to find out about new stuff. Advertising is nothing but brainwashing. Once you are free from it, you never want to go back.
@TRex2: I like the browser deciding on giving x amounts of coinage to each site. Ppl paying for content will be much more choosy on what to click on and thus rewarding better content providers theoretically.
Problems:
1) When it comes to technology, you will always get somebody hacking into the process and making a workaround to paying. 2) The internet's main attraction is that it's FREE content. Open to anybody who has internet access. It will be difficult to change that ingrained POV.
3) There is no 3rd point, but I always feel like everything comes in threes
I think the future of the internet is pay access, or at least some combination of advertising and pay per use. Remember in the 1980s when satellite TV was free? Then they started scrambling the signals and charging a subscription fee. Satellite dish owners were up in arms and vowed never to pay the fees. One of them even hacked HBO's satellite transmission in protest. But by the 1990s DirecTV took over and proved that people would pay for it. Just because something is free, doesn't mean it will always be free.
There are people reading this thread (either lurkers or members) who will readily roll their eyes at such an assertion. The B word does bring a lot of baggage into the statement, but it's not an incorrect assessment.
Allow me to quote somebody who has been through the industry.
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Advertising exists only to purvey what people don't need. Whatever people do need they will find without advertising if it is available. This is so obvious and simple that it continues to stagger my mind that the ad industry has succeeded in muddying the point. No single issue gets advertisers screaming louder than this one. They speak about how they are only fulfilling the needs of people by providing an information service about where and how people can achieve satisfaction for their needs. Advertising is only public service, they insist. Speaking privately, however, and to corporate clients, advertisers sell their services on the basis of how well they are able to create needs where there were none before. I have never met an advertising person who sincerely believes that there is a need connected to, say, 99 percent of the commodities which fill the airwaves and the print media. Nor can I recall a single street demonstration demanding one single product in all of American history. If there were such a demonstration for, let's say, nonreturnable bottles, which were launched through tens of millions of dollars of ads, or chemically processed foods, similarly dependent upon ads, there would surely have been no need to advertise these products. The only need that is expressed by advertising is the need of advertisers to accelerate the process of conversion of raw materials with no intrinsic value into commodities that people will buy.
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If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and who are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behavior in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.
Emphasis mine. Accusations of being a paranoid conspiracy nut schizophrenic anti-this anti-that freak roll right off my back. I've heard it all, trust me . Yes, I go to great lengths to exclude advertisers from my life, among other things. I have sound rationale for this. If you, generalized readers and lurkers, had experienced the same things or encountered the same information I have, you probably would too.
There are people reading this thread (either lurkers or members) who will readily roll their eyes at such an assertion. The B word does bring a lot of baggage into the statement, but it's not an incorrect assessment.
Allow me to quote somebody who has been through the industry.
Emphasis mine. Accusations of being a paranoid conspiracy nut schizophrenic anti-this anti-that freak roll right off my back. I've heard it all, trust me . Yes, I go to great lengths to exclude advertisers from my life, among other things. I have sound rationale for this. If you, generalized readers and lurkers, had experienced the same things or encountered the same information I have, you probably would too.
Hence the great careers of "influencers".
Being paid to flout so and so's makeup on YT or whatever social media platform.
Nowadays with the young'uns completely connected 24/7 and addicted to watching snippets / vids online... it's a natural target for big corp to "sway over" the new affluent market of young purchasers / end users.
Post WWII, we have had a culture of mass consumerism. No longer worried about the basics of life, we concern ourselves with our shallower needs.
From the day that we are born we are assaulted with images / messages to say that we need stuff. Without it you will be sad.
So yeah it is brainwashing.
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. Yes, I go to great lengths to exclude advertisers from my life, among other things. I have sound rationale for this. If you, generalized readers and lurkers, had experienced the same things or encountered the same information I have, you probably would too. 
