As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage.
We've had the means/tech to support publishers directly for years (I don't mean crypto). It's in the interest of companies like Google to keep users (and publishers, and brands) in the dark. And one of the issues here is that they have so much impact on the discourse. There are only few places, where I saw more people using ad blockers than the adtech businesses I worked with or at.
> Nobody wants to pay for a browser
True, but I don't think people would have an issue with paying for browsers if they understood the value of it. At this stage, I think the only solution would involve:
1) education 2) regulation/better legislation
I know what you're saying, I agree, as I worked (in the past) on advertising platforms as well, but both of those statements can be true at the same time.
The open web was built on advertising, but the perverse incentives in advertising are also poisoning the open web.
I don't think we've ever had a good solution. People like free stuff, and also, micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees. What we're seeing, the alternative, are subscription-based services behind closed hardens, and mobile apps whose ads can no longer be blocked, so here we are.
I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going. For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation.
We can change this via legislation. The “financialization” of everything feels related to the adtech conundrum.
Bringing banks to heel for the good of society is long overdue IMO.
Look up papers on UPI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface - it is heavily used for micro-transactions in India.
It's a major friction point.
How do you set up the payment relationship the first time? Maybe you can get it down to one click, at best, with stored credentials.
When you consume content, you still have to track expenditures, whether it's a prepaid credit balance draining or an invoice building up. Every pageview becomes a "is this worth 8 cents?" discussion.
A broad cooperative flat-rate programme-- Patreon on steroids-- seems the best way to manage that. The consumer signs up for the entire universe at $20 per month, and then doesn't have to think about what happens if he visits a new site, or opens 500 articles this month and 5 next month. It's all sorted out with analytics at the content-provider level.
Cryptocurrencies like Litecoin have low transaction fees (currently less than a cent). Apple somehow manages to sell apps that cost just several bucks.
Also, in Russia, a Fast Payment System allows transfers up to $1000/months without commission, however these terms are available only to personal transfers and not for business. But it shows that low-cost transfers are possible even in traditional banking system.
Apple (literally the single wealthiest company on the planet) "somehow" manages to sell inexpensive licenses to primarily ad- and surveillance-financed agents that infest end-user hardware through a marketplace that probably acts as a loss-leader for them to sell said hardware to begin with.
And "transfers of up to $1k/mo without commission"? (Why is that quoted in USD instead of Rubles?) Venmo, Zelle, Paypal, and countless other services in the US allow you to transfer $1k/mo and more without fees to other people using the same system and with a lot of friction to get money back out of said system. And the fees are still "only free to friends/family" specifically because you only need chargeback protection when paying to a business.
I actually worked on several projects like this and we found a few ways of making this work. A simple example would be having a wallet you can top up, so you can pay per article. The fee was _roughly_ 2x the CPM for a post, and the cost for an average user ca. $5 per month IIRC. There's a bunch of companies doing this stuff, but their usual issue was scale/publisher relationships. After a few years of trying and 3 companies later I ended up in a situation where this wasn't a problem. Apologies for being vague here.
> I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going
True, but the web Google wants to "keep going" is _very_ unlikely the same as the one that's good for users. Chrome or Android serve as storefronts, hence consent assumed by default (think Manifest V3, FLOC, etc...).
Example: think of the deal they signed with Conde Nast (and earlier Reddit). Nowadays, Google has exclusive access to search results from Reddit.
> For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation.
I witnessed it in 2010s when working with publishers (EU, UK, and some US-based). It wasn't much different than what happened during the "cookiegeddon" around '17 '18 (IIRC): moving to new platforms, pushing towards subscriptions, bundles, or focussing on premium/high quality content.
The publishers I spoke with (again, as a vendor working in publishing and then, later, in adtech) generally would be more than happy to drop the ads if we had any other way to let people pay for stuff without using dark patterns (e.g. subscriptions people tend to forget about).
The only people who created pushback were not even their advertising partners, it was _their own sales people_, responsible for pushing their inventory via direct sales. It makes perfect sense, from a people/internal politics point of view. I'd be happy to elaborate on that, but it's getting a bit late!
People like free stuff, but they're also happy to pay for stuff if they understand its value. Imagine walking into a coffee shop and asking for a free americano promising that you'll stare at their ads on your phone for 5 minutes. (This idea only makes sense if you're running an adtech / marketing startup.)
Then, we have more interesting examples like The Guardian, where many of the people supporting them did so because they wanted _other_ people to have access to it.
So yeah, I agree that people like free stuff, and that the current situation is messy to say the least, but I think we need to take a step back and reconsider the things/ideas we take for granted.
