girl online

I'm sorry but I just cannot imagine a way to make ad-supported media work. It can't and shouldn't work. Advertisers want to spend money to misinform the public; you can't then take this money to fund news, an operation that's ostensibly supposed to inform the public.

Bruno Dias @bruno11/10/2023, 7:09 PM

It's just a fundamentally insane business model. If you believe in news for news' sake, then ad-supported news is... trying to do enough good to outpace the harm being done by the funding mechanism for the news.

Bruno Dias @bruno11/10/2023, 7:13 PM

In the internet era, most ad-supported outlets that were doing interesting work were managing this kind of by scamming advertisers? Like the economics of it never made sense on the web, at all, but advertisers were unsophisticated so they kept putting money towards these outlets.

As advertisers became marginally more sophisticated, there's a drive to guarantee that ad dollars were translating to the deliberate harm that advertisers want to inflict. That drive is always going to choke out outlets doing interesting work, because advertisers would prefer a world where people are just groping through a maze of chumboxes.

Bruno Dias @bruno11/10/2023, 7:17 PM

And honestly that 404 piece is just... tragic, to me. It's people who obviously did a lot of very in-depth reporting work, they obviously thought very hard about this and chased down a lot of leads. But they then have to wrap that in nonsense arguments.

There is a huge opportunity for brands to buy ads on websites that have a dedicated readership and cover important issues people care about in an uncompromising way.

There isn't though. Advertising is a purely harmful activity that can only ever conflict with the mission of a serious news website. This is like saying there's a huge opportunity for brands to dump toxic waste into water tables that have a dedicated drinkership and provide important hydration.

And of course, the reason they do that is that 404 is ad-supported media. You have to believe in the nonsense if you're a producer of nonsense.

The only thing the ad industry should do is die, and the only attitude anyone should have towards them is that they should die. Ads were at one point a money faucet that some people latched on to in order to produce news, mostly for the love of the game. This money faucet was not a permanent thing, and the incentives of everyone involved are fundamentally contradictory, and it's not something that can be relied upon to produce news.

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in reply to @bruno's post:

Starra @Starra11/14/2023, 3:19 AM

About the only way it could theoretically be done is more or less a print-newspaper-style "classifieds" section, and that's more akin to a marketplace than anything

in reply to @bruno's post:

JP @vectorpoem11/10/2023, 7:22 PM

this is absolutely where i'm at. it's us (democratic society, journalism, sharing of any information that isn't completely anodyne and unchallenging to power) or them (the entire ad industry).

Gravity Pike @gravity-pike11/10/2023, 9:07 PM

I don't disagree with you; I think ads are, at best, a way of making people unhappy in order to get them to part with their money. But, we've experimentally verified that people are unwilling to pay what it costs to produce news, and I just don't know what do when it seems that we, as a species, would prefer cheap, sweet, lead-tainted wine. The only way to make people want to be good seems to be to use the same tactics as the people who re trying to make people want a Ford F150, except, at the end of the day, selling trucks that kill children is a sustainable business model.

JP @vectorpoem11/10/2023, 10:05 PM

"we can't have something better because the market [claims it] can't support it" is an argument against the domain being a market, not against the better thing.

Bruno Dias @bruno11/10/2023, 10:10 PM

Also imo “oh nobody will pay for it” is a thought terminating cliche at this point, one that I don’t think is even true. I think there’s clear evidence that a subscription model is successful enough at least some of the time in some contexts.

JP @vectorpoem11/10/2023, 11:09 PM

right, i think that's because the thought process around "X people will pay for it, how do we scope the business to be long term sustainable based on that" is just kryptonite to MBAs with Growth Brain.

Leslie @leslie-brain-zone11/10/2023, 11:54 PM

If the paradigm of "news outlets must either be profitable or perish" isn't working, the right thing to do is to remove the profit mandate. Govt grants or funding for journalists. Universal basic income so people don't have to worry about being homeless if their journalism isn't profitable enough. Universal healthcare/insurance for similar reasons. etc. It's possible to decouple guarantee of basic human rights from individual ability to and willingness to enter a profitable career field. If people were truly free, and not constantly threatened with homelessness/hunger/sickness if they miss a paycheck, then we could prioritize literally anything other than maximizing economic productivity. Including "unprofitable" endeavors like ad-free journalism.

Weasel Hills Golf & C.C. (hole 19)@wildweasel11/10/2023, 9:21 PM

the only time i want to be told about Products To Buy is when I am actively in the store shopping for said Products. beyond that, that information should stay in its damned lane, i want to watch videos with cats in them, not shop for auto insurance.

Mr. Encyclopedia @mrencyclopedia11/10/2023, 11:17 PM

Thinking about those old 50s talk shows where they'd be having a discussion and then the presenter would immediately roll into talking about how smooth and refreshing their sponsor's cigarettes are.

@secrets11/11/2023, 3:09 AM

What gets me is basically everyone involved is aware of this perversity - talk to any ad/marketing person where their boss isn't listening and they'll tell you much the same and also that the ads do not even sell stuff, it's all cost nobody benefits; at best maybe you're buying a stake where whoever you bought ads from will feel financially compelled to kill stories harmful to the company. A thousand pollution factories whose only product is poison dumped straight into the noosphere, nobody can come up with a reason this is good or necessary but the pollution factories are always hiring so we're putting up a thousand more next year.