# Ars Technica's lesson about content **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 2, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745 "2010-04-02T16:22:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/21 "2010-04-02T20:44:44Z")
One last thought: ascenray, if I follow a link to your website, I won’t know until I get there and am viewing your content that you expect a price to be paid for my doing so. If you’re serious about wanting payment, you need to explain that upfront, before your content is viewed, so the viewer has a chance to accept or decline. Coming in afterwards, saying, “you looked at it! now you have to pay!” is never going to work. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/22 "2010-04-02T20:45:23Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Then a good whopping chunk of the internet is a fantastical aberration. If professionals cannot compete on an evened playing field with amateurs, then the profession itself is overrated. > [Professional photographers arer getting hammered by amateurs right now.](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html) That does not mean either that qaulity is declining or that we must find a way subsidize the careers of professional photographers. This is still irrelevent to this discussion though, except perhaps as an argument that you can (and should?) avoid moral conflict by eschewing professional sites that have ads, in favor of amateur sites that don’t. Which isn’t _quite_ a statement of whether or not if you _do_ sample professional work, should you let the ads through or not. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/23 "2010-04-02T20:54:58Z")
They’ve completely missed the point. They’re assuming that everyone is on a high-speed internet link and has unlimited bandwidth. Many people aren’t or don’t. Downloading an advert can cost. Their contact screen seems to just discard the text, so here’s the comment I sent them: > [@](#): > > I’m writing as an occasional reader of Ars. > > I believe you’re completely missing the point. In multiple ways. Yes, bandwidth costs you, but it also costs the reader, both in money and time. Not everyone is on broadband, and fewer are on high speed unlimited bandwidth broadband. Anything more than an animated GIF - let alone Flash or video - is going to make many people’s browsing experience painful. And just say no to sound. And even an animated GIF is going to seriously annoy those on dial-up. > > Try loading your front page on a 28K dial-up. Or even, like my father, on a 14.4K dial-up. It’s simply not going to happen. > > Yes, advertisers aren’t paying you, but equally, they’re not paying the reader for the cost of the download. Why should a reader pay for that? And why should they wait? > > Then there’s the impact. I’m an occasional visitor. As it happens, I don’t use an ad-blocker. I don’t want to wade through pages and pages, each with only a few lines of text and surrounded by ads. There’s a fine balance and you need to judge it well. > > Don’t blame the readers; blame yourselves. Make the adverts you use low bandwidth and low-impact. You might consider going the BBC News route and having high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth channels. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/24 "2010-04-02T21:54:33Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > They’ve completely missed the point. They’re assuming that everyone is on a high-speed internet link and has unlimited bandwidth. Many people aren’t or don’t. Downloading an advert can cost. Sounds like the price you choose to pay to enter their site. Sure, you’d like it if they lowered that ‘cost’ - but that doesn’t answer whether you have the right to circumvent it. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/25 "2010-04-02T22:35:19Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > One last thought: ascenray, if I follow a link to your website, I won’t know until I get there and am viewing your content that you expect a price to be paid for my doing so. This is exactly what I had in mind when I said “_Make explicit how agreement on the “terms” of the “deal” is negotiated._” > [@Merneith](#): > > If you don’t want the public to view your content, then don’t make your content viewable by the public. This is the bizarre disconnect I find in people who argue for the supremacy of “content creators” with respect to intellectual property. To profit in any way _requires_ an audience, which in turn requires making the content available. There’s an obvious tradeoff between potential viewership and control of content. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/26 "2010-04-02T22:53:39Z")
Right. It’s a little like the folks who say libraries are stealing while ignoring the fact that libraries are the single best way to get their work in front of potential new buyers. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/27 "2010-04-02T23:11:07Z")
When I watch commercial TV, I don’t feel obliged to watch the ads - and I don’t feel I’m cheating the broadcaster by getting up and leaving the room to make a cup of tea. Maybe there’s some reason why that’s not an apt analogy, but I can’t think of one. As a consumer of web content, I understand that ad revenue supports the people that make the content I enjoy, but I don’t think this translates to an obligation on my part to see the ads. In actual point of fact, there’s no guarantee that the particular ads served to me are money-making ones for the webmaster, so there’s no absolute proportional relationship between the amount of content I consume and the amount of ad revenue the content provider receives, even if I turn off AdBlock. For this reason, I don’t think that allowing the ads can really be described as paying for the content. I don’t mind if the producers of content choose to shut me out if I block ads, if they really want to play it that way - If I like the content enough, I’ll set up an exception in my ad blocker, or otherwise, I’ll go somewhere else. As a provider of web content (OK an amateur), I don’t see it any differently - I like the modest income that I get from my ads, but I don’t consider them a mandatory part of my website - if my visitors want to block them, they’re free to do so. I guess it would be bad if the ad revenue was my main income and it started to dry up, but really, that kind of shift can happen in any business - today’s goldmine is tomorrow’s ghost town. Tough titty. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/28 "2010-04-03T00:00:59Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Sounds like the price you choose to pay to enter their site. Sure, you’d like it if they lowered that ‘cost’ - but that doesn’t answer whether you have the right to circumvent it. I may not mind being charged for the bandwidth used by their content; I certainly do mind being charged for their advertisers’ content. And then there’s the time issue. Each page typically only has a few paragraphs of text, which are quick to transmit, but also gobs of graphics, which are not. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/29 "2010-04-03T07:19:31Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > When I watch commercial TV, I don’t feel obliged to watch the ads - and I don’t feel I’m cheating the broadcaster by getting up and leaving the room to make a cup of tea. > > Maybe there’s some reason why that’s not an apt analogy, but I can’t think of one. > > As a consumer of web content, I understand that ad revenue supports the people that make the content I enjoy, but I don’t think this translates to an obligation on my part to see the ads. In actual point of fact, there’s no guarantee that the particular ads served to me are money-making ones for the webmaster, so there’s no absolute proportional relationship between the amount of content I consume and the amount of ad revenue the content provider receives, even if I turn off AdBlock. For this reason, I don’t think that allowing the ads can really be described as paying for the content. In the statement by Ars Technica in the OP, it described how you can’t compare television commercials to their web ads. Basically, television advertisers have complicated models that calculate how many people they think _might_ watch the ads, whereas Ars’ advertisers have hard info on how many people _did view_ the ads. Ars doesn’t get money basic on clicks, they get money based on views. If your ad blocker is on, you don’t count as a view. > [@](#): > > There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won’t hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn’t pay. In a way, that’s what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources. The difference, of course, is that our visitors don’t pay us directly but indirectly by viewing advertising. (Although a few thousand of you are subscribers, and we thank you all very, very much!) > > \ > > Invariably someone always pops into a discussion like this and brings up some analogy with television advertising, radio, or somesuch. It is not in any way the same; advertisers in those mediums are paying for potential to reach audiences, and not for results. They have complex models which tell them if X number are watching, Y will likely see the ad (and it even varies by ad position, show type, etc!). But they really have no true idea who sees what ad, and that’s why it’s a medium based on potential and not provable results. On the Internet everything is 100% trackable and is billed and sold as such. Comparing a website to TiVo is comparing apples to asparagus. ---
**Author:** ![Oerdin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Oerdin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oerdin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/30 "2010-04-03T08:37:36Z")
My personal take is Ars Technica is free to block their site if they wish but doing so will likely alienate half of their users who will simply leave. That will mean they will have much less content and so ever fewer people will go there. If that’s what they want then great but I don’t think it is a good way to maintain a top notch website. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/31 "2010-04-03T09:36:16Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > …And when content creation is sidelined into a hobby, then that will be the end of high-quality content. This is simply nonsense. Plenty of great, valuable content comes from enthusiastic and knowledegable amateurs who don’t want or expect to get paid. Plenty of utter garbage that isn’t even factually accurate comes from ‘paid’ professionals who ought to know better. The internet has made it possible for those who _want_ to provide content to connect with those who _want_ to receive it. This is a wonderful thing. If this doesn’t suit your preferred career path, tough. Seen many blacksmiths around lately? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/32 "2010-04-03T13:52:31Z")
> [@Oerdin](#): > > My personal take is Ars Technica is free to block their site if they wish but doing so will likely alienate half of their users who will simply leave. That will mean they will have much less content and so ever fewer people will go there. If that’s what they want then great but I don’t think it is a good way to maintain a top notch website. Not to mention a significant aspect of the content on Ars is the comments and forums, which is generated by users. Just for example, those system guides? Written by Ars employees, but the recommendations in them are hashed out in long threads on their forum arguing the pros and cons of different gear. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/33 "2010-04-03T15:43:38Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > In the statement by Ars Technica in the OP, it described how you can’t compare television commercials to their web ads. Basically, television advertisers have complicated models that calculate how many people they think _might_ watch the ads, whereas Ars’ advertisers have hard info on how many people _did view_ the ads. Ars doesn’t get money basic on clicks, they get money based on views. If your ad blocker is on, you don’t count as a view. \ this just means they’re argument is based on assumption of some kind of privilege - in other words, they’ve done their sums wrong and need to build some extra variables into their models. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745/34 "2010-04-09T23:45:06Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > In the statement by Ars Technica in the OP, it described how you can’t compare television commercials to their web ads. Basically, television advertisers have complicated models that calculate how many people they think _might_ watch the ads, whereas Ars’ advertisers have hard info on how many people _did view_ the ads. Ars doesn’t get money basic on clicks, they get money based on views. If your ad blocker is on, you don’t count as a view. That’s just foolishness. Those “complicated models” that calculate how many people watch ads are based on how many people watch ads. If people _didn’t_ get up and stop watching, then the models would reflect that, and they’d get paid more for the ads. Claiming that morality of it is different on the web because there’s one less layer of obfuscation doesn’t hold water. Unless, of course, you want to take the position that it is morally ok to not watch television ads _unless_ you are selected as a Nielsen rater, in which case you are obligated to watch them, because otherwise the advertisers’ payment models would change. This is not particle physics. The act of observation does not change the morality of viewing advertisements. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ars-technicas-lesson-about-content/534745.md?page=1)