Websites May Have To Generate Revenue Differently....Very Soon

a reply to: rockpaperhammock

I work in the Internet marketing business, and I have to say that while I understand the motivation (there are a lot of sites out there doing it very badly) there are also a lot of people out there who have the mentality that the Internet is some kind of all-giving charitable endeavor and there should be no money involved in the delivery of content.

In an ideal world, we would not have sites abusing their visitors with endless ads and pop-ups, but we do not live in an ideal world. Instead, people make the decision themselves on whether that site is worth returning to when they know that it's likely to crash their browser with ads, or shove inappropriate ads in their face.

If you really want to remove the opportunity for those sites to make money, they will disappear.

That site you visit and love so much, but hate the ads, will vanish if it cannot support itself financially. That's just the reality of business. People operating these sites don't have bottomless pockets to support thousands of visitors who will never offer them any financial benefit.

It's like owning a bar, but no one in it is ever buying a drink. You need to keep the lights on, have the jukebox playing, pay the staff, but if you just have a bar full of people enjoying it all while never buying a drink, taking the seats of people who would buy a drink, you will go out of business.

What's the solution? You either close, you change your business (not easily done), or evict those not buying to make room for those who are.

I personally like the idea of sites using opt-in methods, allowing a surfer using and ad blocker to choose whether they want to see the site. If they don't want to see the ads, they can be sent back to Google.

Ultimately sites will start implementing new ways to prevent those blocking their ads from seeing their content, it's inevitable.

I wish information for target demographic ads were collected in a more open and ethical way, but I honestly don't mind target demographic ads them self. I often see ads for products I actually enjoy and support. That's a good thing. It's the intrusive and abusive ads and companies that must be destroyed. There's far too much scammers and trash on the internet.