Timeline for We're testing advertisements across the network
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 8, 2019 at 17:41 | comment | added | Clement Cherlin | @reirab The newspaper business, which indeed sustained itself for many decades, is imploding (has already imploded?) from loss of ad revenue. An absolute majority of ad revenue on the Internet goes to exactly two companies - Facebook and Google. Ad blocking is increasingly common, even on mobile. If you're not Facebook or Google, advertising is an unsustainable business model. | |
| Jul 7, 2019 at 15:31 | comment | added | zwol | @reirab File that under "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." All of those businesses, without exception, would have been well-advised to find better revenue streams from eight o'clock, Day One; all of them are already taking actions against their customers' best interests for the sake of keeping themselves funded, and this will only continue to get worse until they go bankrupt or turn into spam farms. The process happens faster online but is inevitable regardless of medium. | |
| Jul 7, 2019 at 0:19 | comment | added | reirab | @zwol It's amazing then how many businesses have sustained themselves for decades or even more than a century with an "unsustainable business model." We must have very different definitions of what constitutes "unsustainable." (Granted, I would totally agree that a site that relies on super-annoying ads like animated ones, clickbait crap ones, etc. are ultimately unsustainable, as you'll eventually lose your user base and/or they will ad block.) | |
| Jul 4, 2019 at 3:12 | comment | added | Draco18s no longer trusts SE | I think there's only one site I've ever whitelisted the advertisements for. And there's. One. Very. Good. Reason. Why. Those advertisements are from the site's own user base without exception (heck, I bought an ad once myself). Or was, until a more recently. Those ads are still there, but they added a single banner ad served by Google. What'd I do? I blocked the one ad. | |
| Jul 1, 2019 at 12:42 | comment | added | ave | @biziclop that's a very good point, actually. What if one could donate to good answers that helped them, and SE took a small cut (10% etc) from that? | |
| Jun 28, 2019 at 16:52 | comment | added | biziclop | @pavon: have you ever received reddit gold? I even got a platinum once. It's totally useless, but someone paid actual money for it. | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 21:47 | comment | added | pavon | Agree that there aren't many income options for a site like SE other than Ads. Most subscription/patron based models depend on their heavy users supporting the site. But with SE the heavy users are contributors, and it does not make sense to ask people that provide your content to pay for that privilege. And it is much harder to convince occasional users to pay to use a site | |
| Jun 26, 2019 at 14:28 | comment | added | zwol | @TTT Yes. It's really that simple. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 22:15 | comment | added | TTT | Using advertising as your primary revenue source is an unsustainable business model? So, basically all of the internet, television, and radio are under an unsustainable business model? | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 20:47 | comment | added | zwol | This is the answer I came here to post, and I wish I could boldface the last bullet point in particular and then laser-etch it on every available surface at SE headquarters. | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 19:56 | comment | added | unixandria | However, a lot of sites don't use non intrusive ads or use crap ad providers so I use uBlock with great pleasure on those sites | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 19:54 | comment | added | unixandria | I don't wholly agree. Vetted and non intrusive ads give sites like SE a way to not force everyone to pay to access. And as long as you stick with (somewhat I guess) reputable networks like AdSense, they vet their ads thoroughly so chance of malware is smaller (I personally usually use adblock btw) | |
| Jun 25, 2019 at 16:18 | comment | added | Jim Fell | Add to that list the fact that ads are a primary incursion source for malware, which is my primary reason for using an ad-blocker. | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 23:01 | comment | added | Sod Almighty | THIS ANSWER needs to be seared painfully into the eyeballs of EVERY business executive. I have a zero tolerance policy for spam, and site adverts are ALWAYS spam. If I go to the yellow pages to look for a plumber, the adverts on that site are perfectly reasonable; but if I'm reading an article, they are annoying spam. Period. If I could upvote this answer more than once, I would. | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 16:21 | comment | added | user170579 | @ConspicuousCompiler those tiny communities should be run on a donation-basis or just not run at all and let someone else figure out how to run that tiny community if SE can't figure out a better support model. | |
| Jun 24, 2019 at 13:25 | comment | added | Clement Cherlin | I don't expect each StackExchange site to be independently financially sustainable. I mean the company as a whole needs a sustainable business model. Their current one isn't working, and selling ads on a few more sites is, at best, a stopgap measure. | |
| Jun 21, 2019 at 18:12 | comment | added | Conspicuous Compiler | For some StackOverflow sites, I don't think they're ever going to have a sustainable income model aside from ads, since they have a tiny audience with a very specific interest. Most notably, the plethora of Area51 sites for various cryptocurrencies. There is a lot of value in having Area51 as a means of providing new SO sites, but it's presently all cost and no revenue. However, once some of those sites are established, better revenue models could be introduced. | |
| Jun 21, 2019 at 14:22 | comment | added | moltarze | To hit on your last point - expansion is costly, and it will be for any website. Considering the sheer number of websites that SE runs (between meta sites and main sites), it's entirely acceptable that they need more revenue to be able to sustain. | |
| Jun 21, 2019 at 13:54 | history | answered | Clement Cherlin | CC BY-SA 4.0 |