Google Launches Service To Replace Web Ads With Subscriptions

An anonymous reader writes: Everyone understands by now that ads fund most of the sites on the web. Other sites have put up paywalls or started subscription bonuses, with varying success. Google, one of the web's biggest ad providers, saw a problem with that: it's a huge pain for readers to manage subscriptions for all the sites they visit — often more trouble than it's worth. And, since so few people sign up, the subscription fees have to be pretty high. Now, Google has launched a service called Contributor to try to fix this situation.

The way Contributor works is this: websites and readers can opt in to the service (and sites like Imgur, The Onion, and ScienceDaily already have). Readers then pay a fee of $1-3 per month (they get to choose how much) to gain ad-free access to all participating sites. When the user visits one of the sites, instead of showing a Google ad, Google will just send a small chunk of that subscription money to the website instead.

Comments

Ads

[seededfury]

Haven't seen ads since I installed adblock plus and no script. Cost me nothing.

Re:Ads

[seededfury]

I live according to my rule, not yours. I made a choice to filter out 99% of the garbage on the internet. Additionally, I donate money to those who deserve it. Your opinion is worthless.

Re:Ads

[TheGratefulNet]

I like the idea of micropayments.

however, I don't trust google to manage this. they ONLY do evil, these days, disguised as good.

if google is part of it, I want no part of it. sorry. but I already block anything that has a G domain in it. this would require me to unblock them and that is just 100% unacceptable to me.

we need a truly good company to help make this happen. google is not the way forward. google is PART OF THE PROBLEM!

Re:Ads

[morgauxo]

I've done that a few times but always end up uninstalling it. There are too many sites I visit regularly where the ads aren't that obtrusive and the revenu from them is the only compensation the authors are getting for entertaiing me. And, there aren't that may sites I go to anymore where the ads are so bad that I feel I just HAVE to block them. I haven't seen any pop overs or unders or endless spawning popups in a long time. Or.. maybe the browsers are just smart enough to block that crap on their own.

Although... those damn videos that suddenly pop up out of nowhere and ambush you as you scroll... those have me coming close to blocking again!

It's too bad though, it's usually big corps that do evil stuff that makes blocking worthwile and individuals just trying to support themselves while doing what they love that have the reasonable ads.

Re:Ads

[seededfury]

It's not freeloading to visit publicly available sites. Like my site, I choose to put it out there and it doesn't cost me any extra if you visit or someone else does. Thinking you need to pay for everything you do in life is a bit moronic.

Re:Ads

[crypticedge]

I've cleaned far too many viruses in my day to trust any ad network at all. They all must be blocked.

Re:Ads

[dotancohen]

Haven't seen ads since I installed adblock plus and no script. Cost me nothing.

Exactly. Now I can get off Adblock and start contributing to the websites I visit.

I would happily pay $1-3 per month for an ad-free but publishers-making-money web. I think that they found the sweet spot of enough money to fund the program vs. too expensive for most web users. I signed up before even reading the comments here, I've been waiting for this for years.

Re:Ads

[spire3661]

Exactly. There is no reason to apologize, advertisers brought this upon themselves. First it was pop ups, then Netsend then JS injection. Its a WAR, and we got sick of playing nice.

Re:Ads

[davester666]

Really? Every time I disable adblock, I get a "what the hell" moment. Banner ads, footer ads, ads on both sides of the content, and if the text is more than a paragraph or two, ads in the middle. And for fun, if flashblock is also off, time for some auto-playing video ads.

On it goes.

Re:Ads

[StarFace]

Bullshit. The World Wide Web ran just fine for over a decade without excruciating ads everywhere. And yes, if you were to ask me which version of the Web I would take, the free but relatively low-key, or the highly commodified wasteland of Capitalism run amok, then of course I would take the old WWW back. I would gladly see this whole JavaScript, Flash riddled shallow 'social' monster that it has become, vanish without a trace.

If running with AdBlock contributes in some small way to the decline of the materialistic money grubbing component of the Web that I despise, well that is all the more reason to run it. And Gladly.

Re:Ads

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It seems you forgot to quote the later part of that post, where I did acknowledge the problem of content that comes malware-laden... Personally, I don't buy AAA games any more (nor do I pirate them instead). I got bored of the generally poor quality and accompanying malware breaking things a few years ago. Given the comments I see every time gamers' enjoyment of a big new title is spoiled because someone's DRM screwed up again, I suspect my life is still better that way. However, I do miss and would gladly pay for the kind of experience I used to enjoy from the top end games of yesteryear, before everything went downhill when the Internet became an excuse for shipping software that wasn't finished yet (we'll just patch it later, or not) and using ever more obnoxious DRM schemes (of course we can expect gamers to be online with a perfect connection any time they're playing our game).

Re:Ads

[SeaFox]

I've done that a few times but always end up uninstalling it. There are too many sites I visit regularly where the ads aren't that obtrusive and the revenu from them is the only compensation the authors are getting for entertaiing me.

Why didn't you just whitelist those sites in Adblock's menu?

Welp, sold

[Sowelu]

Signing up for this basically asap.

But if the price is the same no matter how many different sites you consume, or how much of their bandwidth you chew up, well...I'm not sure how I think about that, from an "I want my favorite websites to actually get money" point of view.

With it work without tracking?

[ThatsMyNick]

Will this work with google analytics disabled/blocked. If not, no thank you.

Adblock plus is free

[kruach aum]

That's all.

Re:Adblock plus is free

[Graydyn Young]

Think of it less as a way to avoid ads, more of a way for your favourite sites to stay in business.

Micropayments are finally here, YouTube is next

[MobyDisk]

This could turn into a real micropayment system.

About 7 years ago I (incorrectly) predicted that ISPs could bootstrap micropayment systems by allowing users to put money into an account with their ISP. When the user visits a site with ads, the site could "bill" the customer via the ISP anonymously, transparently to the user, and cheaply. The payment system would essentially live in the ISP's HTTP proxy server.

The Google model sounds like a variation of that, with Google collecting the money and distributing the micropayments to the web site via the ad network.

A similar ad-free subscription-oriented option will be available for YouTube soon. I am surprised to see this announcement without it connecting to that one.

Flattr

[Troed]

Dear Google,

Why didn't you just buy Flattr instead? https://flattr.com/

(And pay off Brokep's debt while at it)

Mod parent up.

[khasim]

My first question is what needs to be allowed in order for this to work? Do I have to whitelist sites in adblock? NoScript? Do I have to abandon those addons?

What about any of the anti-tracking stuff I use?

And, lastly, the main reason I use all of that is because I got very tired of clicking on a site and WAITING FOR ALL THE SHIT TO LOAD AND RELOAD AND RERELOAD.

I might use this. I might not. But there isn't enough information available right now to tell whether it will be better or worse for me than what I'm doing today.

Google is a freaking genius

[gurps_npc]

First and foremost, the program itself doesn't have to make google any money.

Because when you do this, you are giving google information on all the websites you visit.

Want to advertise to people that visit the Onion? Well, google can do that now - as soon as you leave the Onion, your next ad will be for Cracked.com or some other funny website in competition with The Onion.

Invite link?

[Teppy]

I would love one. I would actually pay as much as $100/month for a fully ad-free web experience (and I realize that most adds are not Google ads.) But $3/month is a no-brainer. Hope this includes YouTube.

Cable TV Anyone?

[WhatHump]

Remember how cable TV was supposed to be ad (commercial) free, because the subscription fee was supposed to be the primary source of revenue? How long did that last?

Re:Interesting taking cues from other industries

[dotancohen]

You might notice that there exist only two industries in which the customer is called "a user".

Re:Static ads vs. animated ads

[spire3661]

Why? Ad revenue based models should DIE. They are pointless in an Information Age where everyone should be informed and capable of making their own choices.