• JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    16 hours ago

    I’ve said this a few times in various places, but I’m really surprised we aren’t allowed to bid for ad space for ourselves to not show an ad the way advertisers do for ads. Obviously a flat monthly rate is simpler, nobody is denying that, but just from a purely “free market” perspective (which shareholders love to say they want while using the government to crush opposition) why can’t I pay slightly more than whatever small amount of money someone is paying to show me an ad to not see the ad?

    Realistically I don’t think we’ll ever see that because it’s a fairly complicated. I don’t have any hard data, but I can’t imagine that the majority of users using something like YouTube Premium are getting a “good deal.” Sure, some folks probably watch all day every day and they get the better end of the deal, but I’d bet for a lot of folks YouTube makes more money off charging the subscription than they would showing the ads. Which is sort of an odd scenario we’ve gotten ourselves into (but amazing if you’re a company that serves ads).

    • Auth@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Its a good idea but mentally people hate micro-transactions(transactions that are lower than 10cents) so they get mad every time its suggested. Plus its technically quite challenging to process those kind of transactions efficiently.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        10 hours ago

        You wouldn’t prompt them every time. And it would be no more difficult than serving the ads which are also charging every time they’re shown.

        • Auth@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          No I wouldnt prompt them at all because the costs would be so low. Even if you paid 5x what an ad pays you’d spend less than a dollar or two a week. But people hate the idea of paying half a cent when visiting a website or watching a youtube video because they think they either shouldnt have to or that it will eventually become $2 to vist that blog and $4 to watch that video and thats a horrible future.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        12 hours ago

        Not necessarily, like if it was YouTube you’d just deposit money and maybe set a maximum amount of money you’re willing to bid. Honestly most standard banner ads are from Google too, so they could handle that. For streaming services you’d need to set it up for each individually, but that’s no different from setting up billing for each of them. They wouldn’t need to talk to each other.