Thanks for the link to your earlier post, it makes your position a little more clear.
I think we make different predictions, probably because (A) we are biased and (B) ads and the internet are so entangled by now that it is hard to make a predication like that. Any prediction will need to take into account a multitude of factors.
The line on aliens paying your salary was added because I wanted to preempt the response ‘well if ads are no longer the payment model I’d need to find another job’. But you’re right to ask that question you did, it is still a weird hypothetical. What I meant to do with it is have all the external costs covered, i.e. hosting fees. What if ads only ‘had’ to cover the costs of hiring those journalists? Ads could be constrained to a more commercial domain, and websites such as lesswrong.com wouldn’t have to exist by grace of donations only. I think one thing I do not like about ads is how any webpage that gets big enough will add ads out of necessity just to cover their sudden spike in costs. Take that factor away and perhaps ads can be added as a precision tool rather than a blunt instrument: allow them only where they make sense / add value (if you believe in that) ?
Perhaps true in lesswrong’s case (is it still under active development then?). You’ll have to suffer me moving the goalposts again, because what I was getting at was websites that serve fairly static content. If lesswrong is actively developed and has taken a lot of effort to build, then take a random wordpress page instead.
No the aliens don’t pay for developer time, for the same reason they don’t pay the journalists.
I think one thing I do not like about ads is how any webpage that gets big enough will add ads out of necessity just to cover their sudden spike in costs.
Why do you believe that to be true? For what websites do you believe it to be true? I would expect that any content website that’s big enough that hosting fees are the primary issue for raising money can fund hosting fees via Patreon.
Because I used to work for/with companies whose business model was mostly free access covered by ads. Costs of keeping those sites running were substantial and proportional to amount of visitors.
Thanks for the link to your earlier post, it makes your position a little more clear. I think we make different predictions, probably because (A) we are biased and (B) ads and the internet are so entangled by now that it is hard to make a predication like that. Any prediction will need to take into account a multitude of factors.
The line on aliens paying your salary was added because I wanted to preempt the response ‘well if ads are no longer the payment model I’d need to find another job’. But you’re right to ask that question you did, it is still a weird hypothetical. What I meant to do with it is have all the external costs covered, i.e. hosting fees. What if ads only ‘had’ to cover the costs of hiring those journalists? Ads could be constrained to a more commercial domain, and websites such as lesswrong.com wouldn’t have to exist by grace of donations only. I think one thing I do not like about ads is how any webpage that gets big enough will add ads out of necessity just to cover their sudden spike in costs. Take that factor away and perhaps ads can be added as a precision tool rather than a blunt instrument: allow them only where they make sense / add value (if you believe in that) ?
The primary cost of websites like lesswrong is not hosting fees, but developer time. By a huge margin. Are the aliens paying for that too?
Perhaps true in lesswrong’s case (is it still under active development then?). You’ll have to suffer me moving the goalposts again, because what I was getting at was websites that serve fairly static content. If lesswrong is actively developed and has taken a lot of effort to build, then take a random wordpress page instead.
No the aliens don’t pay for developer time, for the same reason they don’t pay the journalists.
Why do you believe that to be true? For what websites do you believe it to be true? I would expect that any content website that’s big enough that hosting fees are the primary issue for raising money can fund hosting fees via Patreon.
Because I used to work for/with companies whose business model was mostly free access covered by ads. Costs of keeping those sites running were substantial and proportional to amount of visitors.