this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
815 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
58303 readers
19 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Question is what do you do then? First, you try to reach profitability. Get out of the red by milking users and reducing costs, but there is little chance to get that really sweet ROI that you dreamt of in the last decade. What do you do next? My guess is that we will see some websites change ownership into some shadier hands in the next years. The personal data collected could still be worth something after all.
Do websites even make much from collecting data? There are so many trackers and only so many people. Ads are obvious, but it's clear that relying on those two isn't enough for revenue.
I'm guessing that websites with a large userbase will start charging for access to their sites. It might look like the NYT, where you get your 3 free articles, sign in for more, then you're required to pay. Free tiers won't be a reasonable compromise like they are now.
Will people stay and pay, or will they migrate? Most likely the former, especially for the older demo. Moving to the fediverse has been confusing enough for many of us who actually committed to learning about it. An average Twitter user wouldn't put in this much effort.
I’m skeptical that ads themselves actually have a return on investment. There are so many, they are almost entirely ignored. Of course the advertising companies have done a good job convincing people to buy ads. But do they work well enough to justify the cost?
Ads don't make enough. I play a solitaire game that pays out money for sitting through the ads. Those ads are highly targeted and very likely to drive traffic to those other apps that say they will also pay you to play solitaire or even Candy Crush! I still only get maybe $.10 per game and sit through around 3 ads. I accidentally click ads a lot, too.
What else are web companies going to do for revenue, though? It doesn't really cost them anything to host ads.