>Ad-blocking as high as 26% in some countries (Germany) and rising.
So they will get more aggressive (we already can barely distinguish an ad from a post on most websites) and more annoying and more manipulative. And they'll keep crossing lines that will cause shit storms and ad-blockers will get more aggressive and more clever and more political.
Personally, I have big hopes for new models emerging where you pay a fixed, reasonable flat-rate sum once a month ($10 or $15) to access "premium" content across multiple sites. The reality is, from most higher quality sources, I read maybe 0 to 3 articles a month but there's dozens of them. I won't pay $10 to each of them, monthly, but I'd pay $10 to access them all. The question is just how to split the money. Most views? That would almost cause the same clickbait problem we have now. Some quality measurement (likes, upvotes, etc)? Would lead to pandering. If some company could come up with a smart way to solve this and convince a few sites to jump on board with premium content, I'd be in. It's a hard problem. Kinda like search engines...
This is a really tough problem, particularly because advertising revenue has become a metonym/euphemism for online surveillance and tracking. IMO, the only way to fix this is very clear legislation about tracking, data-aggregation, "targeted ads" and privacy rights concerning internet activity and information. Otherwise the internet will continue to evolve down the most profitable path, which is the one we're on. The personal data being accrued on individuals is not only easier to achieve than convincing the average internet user to pay for a service, but it's also something that will only gain more value as the aggregating entities learn trickier and trickier ways to use the data they're taking.
I did product demonstration and sales for a couple years, travelling around to different venues and stores to sell a great product. As a result, I now have a nightmare scenario in my head based on the fact that if, while in the sales cycle (feature -> benefit -> emotional benefit), someone like me had a device giving "suggested" points to tailor my pitch based on the personal device of the person(s) being pitched (like for health: "cancer", "weight", "diabetes"; similar products purchased, hobbies, or really anything that allows a higher chance of emotional connection like insecurities, pride points, value system, all things that can be gleaned via content consumption and posting on the internet), my sales and closing percentage would be through the roof.
I might be suffering from something similar to Slothrop's anti-paranoia[1], but to me it seems like this sort of vision is where the current "advertising"-based model of the internet is heading and why a saner subscription model will not dominate without clear legislation.
The problem is - even on sites where you pay to see content (nyt, wsj, etc), they still show you ads, to a paying logged in subscriber, which is completely ridiculous.
Is it ridiculous though? People buy newspapers (nyt, wsj, etc) and they always had ads in them since time immemorial. The same goes for magazines and cable/satellite TV.
I don't remember ever seeing ads mixed in with the main content. I think it was general practice to section them off somewhere else or put them in the classifieds.
Looking at the output from the browser's console log on this page has me feeling like advertisers and analytics are a pretty gropey bunch. No means no, stop trying to touch my local storage!
Isn't this basically what we have now with the cable TV industry? There, many complain because they're paying for content (channels) that they never watch and don't want.
I think that's a bad analogy, because cable companies actually pay per-subscriber fees to channel providers. I think a better analogy is Spotify premium, where songs are paid based on listening rates (even though I think how Spotify divvies up the money is still pretty unfair to less popular musicians).
So they will get more aggressive (we already can barely distinguish an ad from a post on most websites) and more annoying and more manipulative. And they'll keep crossing lines that will cause shit storms and ad-blockers will get more aggressive and more clever and more political.
Personally, I have big hopes for new models emerging where you pay a fixed, reasonable flat-rate sum once a month ($10 or $15) to access "premium" content across multiple sites. The reality is, from most higher quality sources, I read maybe 0 to 3 articles a month but there's dozens of them. I won't pay $10 to each of them, monthly, but I'd pay $10 to access them all. The question is just how to split the money. Most views? That would almost cause the same clickbait problem we have now. Some quality measurement (likes, upvotes, etc)? Would lead to pandering. If some company could come up with a smart way to solve this and convince a few sites to jump on board with premium content, I'd be in. It's a hard problem. Kinda like search engines...