[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is Google Premium not a thing?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Why is Google Premium not a thing?
We have Youtube premium, where it is possible to pay a monthly fee
not to have adds. Why isn't there an analogous version of this for
the Google search engine?
Author : achenet
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-05-14 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
| erezsh wrote:
| Maybe they're hoping to find better ways to leverage your private
| information in the future.
| classified wrote:
| Google has zero support even for paying users, so if you got
| locked out of your account, you're f*cked without recourse.
| douchescript wrote:
| Heh, I'd Pay to get better search results like google was a
| couple of years ago. Maybe a like/dislike button for search
| results and some machine learning on top of that would do it.
| beej71 wrote:
| Rank sites by "fewest ads". :)
| seydor wrote:
| Would be too expensive
| extropy wrote:
| I spend way more time in YouTube than in search. If anything it
| should be the other way around.
|
| There is the argument that many shopping decisions start with
| the search, but not sure if there is an order of magnitude
| difference.
| achenet wrote:
| for who?
|
| Is the value that Google gets from one user having ads really
| that high?
|
| Youtube Premium is only ~$10/month, does Google really make
| that much more with ads?
| arkitaip wrote:
| No but the value they extraxt from millions of advertisers is
| much higher.
| achenet wrote:
| that seems like a logical contradiction.
|
| Money made with ads = how much advertisers pay
|
| Money made with ads per user = how much advertisers pay /
| number of users.
|
| If they average to... $10/user, then it's viable.
| emerongi wrote:
| There's still long-term brand value in just being the
| biggest ad delivery machine that can bring eyeballs to
| your ads from any potential customer group.
|
| Once you remove a portion of those eyeballs, you might
| make more money short-term, but long-term you might end
| up in difficult conversations with large advertisers.
| est31 wrote:
| > Youtube Premium is only ~$10/month, does Google really make
| that much more with ads?
|
| Yes! Already their average per-user revenue was 21 USD per
| user per month in 2018 (couldn't find newer data) [0].
| Furthermore, the first people to sign up would be the richest
| folks, those who are the most interesting to advertisers.
| Meaning: they are worth way more than 21 USD per month to
| Google.
|
| To compensate, the price would have to be even higher. If
| only 5% of Google's userbase signed up, and those 5% are, on
| average, worth to Google 5 times as people from the general
| population, then you'd have to pay 100 USD per month for
| getting rid of ads across all Google products. That number
| would also have to grow at least as quickly as the ad revenue
| for it to make sense for Google to do it.
|
| [0]: https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-
| every...
| bluenose69 wrote:
| I'd pay for this, if it also applied to other google products. In
| particular, google maps has become unpleasant to use lately, with
| a lot of extra stuff drawn on top of the actual map. I've
| switched to apple maps, for this reason. I wonder how many others
| have done the same.
| altdataseller wrote:
| Because there would be much less demand. Scrolling past goog ads
| takes 1 mouse scroll. Skipping YT ads can take 30 seconds
|
| Some Goog ads are also very useful since it's intent based.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| dude. how can you stand an ad in 2022? i have been using ublock
| origin everywhere since it was released, abp before that. i
| have a pi-hole at home. on my android i often use apps like
| blokada.
|
| the other day i had visited a friend at home and their tv was
| at full blast. the ads felt really jarring/irritating/obnoxious
| to a point i requested them to just turn the tv off.
|
| then another day i saw a coworker on his laptop, edge opened on
| homepage with big 2000's style banner ads, sidebar ads, full
| page ads and they were just keeping the page open because "eh,
| dont care".
|
| try to use ublock origin on your browser for a week and then
| the next week without it.
| altdataseller wrote:
| I was referring to just ads on Google, not any other type.
| Dude.
| pooper wrote:
| I think you are right. If Google thought even a small minority
| of people would subscribe to it, too small to make a dent in
| revenue, Google should do it if it is enough to show
| advertisers that "inventory" is limited and to use it as a
| bargaining chip.
|
| I am sure companies like WPP are pressuring Google even today
| to open up more and share all kinds of data with them. It is
| not in Google's best interest to do so but how do you fend off
| attacks like the adpocalypse if you can't show advertisers that
| you don't need them as much as they need you?
|
| Edit: spelling
| fishtoaster wrote:
| "Pay to have no ads" always seems great from a consumer
| perspective, but terrible from the ad buyer perspective. The
| people who would buy google premium are the people ad buyers most
| want to advertise to.
|
| Widget Salesman: "I'd like to buy some ads for my widgets"
|
| Google: "Cool. Some users won't see them."
|
| Widget Salesman: "Which ones?"
|
| Google: "Only the most-engaged ones with the most money."
|
| Widget Salesman: "..."
| beamatronic wrote:
| "Showing an ad" is a bad paradigm. Instead, get to know me.
| Find out my values and needs. Then, _sell_ to me. Make me
| _feel_ like you understand my problem and then show me several
| good options. That's how you get the users with money to spend.
| flax wrote:
| "Get to know me" is a bad paradigm. I don't want them to know
| shit about me. But since it's safe to assume that is you're
| serving content, then someone is consuming it, you can base
| ads on that content. You know, like TV, radio, and magazines
| have done the whole time.
|
| I'm still going to block those ads though.
| rc_mob wrote:
| This is a brilliant comment to this topic. Its so logical that
| I'm embarrassed I didn't see it.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I would assume that Google cares more about total profit, from
| any available source, over some lesser amount of profit from a
| particular source, such as ad sales.
|
| ...
|
| Which implies that they think that continuing to sell ads will
| make them more total profit than Google Premium, at any price.
| vonwoodson wrote:
| Are you aware of Neeva? https://neeva.com/
|
| I've tried it on a couple of demo searches, and the results seem
| good.
| slotrans wrote:
| I tried to sign up for it and they wanted to do a _Zoom call_
| before they 'd give me an account. Absurd.
| ceeg wrote:
| Undermines the psychological warfare google is waging to make a
| normal part of life IMHO, it would be tacit acknowledgment that
| search ads and widespread data collection are a messed up
| business model. Youtube ads are different to them bc they
| interrupt directly and are much more of a clear "nuisance" in an
| entertainment product
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
| mrkramer wrote:
| Because 90% of people don't even know it exists despite Google
| flashing it in their face every now and then inside the YouTube's
| app. And the second thing is like other people said the price;
| $10 a month is just too much for the moderate income people
| taking in consideration they have other subscription/s plus costs
| of living are rising without signs of stopping.
| eimrine wrote:
| Because you will end up with no-result for mostly any search
| input, except of few situations when you are searching something
| like "hackernews" on input and getting "news.ycombinator.com" on
| output.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| What? Are you really suggesting that most searches only return
| sponsored results?
| [deleted]
| ISL wrote:
| One could be offered the opportunity to bid for ad slots on your
| own search results -- that way you would know that someone was
| paying oodles for your eyes....
|
| I doubt there would be much of a market, especially when ad-
| blockers exist.
| darkerside wrote:
| This would only make it even more obvious that all Google search
| results for anything that can be sold are advertisements at this
| point.
| tmoertel wrote:
| I'd rather have the ability to buy a Google Bond for $X that
| Google must return to me in the event they lock or terminate my
| account. That way, if their algorithmic classifiers on a whim
| decide that I'm a bad person and they should lock my account,
| Google would have a financial incentive to invest up to $X verify
| that I wasn't the victim of a false positive before pulling the
| rug out from under me.
| 6510 wrote:
| Buy some adsense revenue and never cash it out. You would have
| to be an extra bad person before they consider banning you. If
| they do it's still dubious to terminate a business relationship
| while you owe the other person money.
|
| They would kinda not want to go in front of a judge even if he
| states they are allowed to seize peoples funds without any
| explanation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Google will _happily_ terminate an AdSense account and
| confiscate the earnings. Has happened for years, including to
| prominent sites like BoingBoing and Fark
| (https://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/you-wont-believe-the-
| reason...).
| 6510 wrote:
| But they will state a reason for doing so. The "incentive
| to verify" was there. Ofc it doesn't change that it is an
| evil corp that (if at all possible) you shouldn't get
| involved with.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| LOL, no they won't.
|
| https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/57153?hl=en
|
| > Because we have a need to protect our proprietary
| detection system, we're unable to provide publishers with
| any information about their account activity, including
| any pages, users, or third-party services that might have
| been involved.
| joezydeco wrote:
| For a company with $60,000,000,000 in annual revenue, what
| should the price of the bond be?
|
| What amount would make them think investigating your lock is
| worth the effort?
| kylecordes wrote:
| It's not so much that they would be desperate to keep the $x;
| but rather "has had $x posted for Y years" is a strong signal
| the account warrants careful human review for any flagged
| issue.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Surely any actual nefarious user would see that $x as a
| small cost of doing business...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Why do you think that? What kind of nefarious use makes a
| hundred bucks or more per account and is subtle enough
| for the ban review to let them keep doing it?
| jsnell wrote:
| There is no cost to a bad actor in the OP's proposal.
| If/when the account gets terminated, the money is
| returned to them. This policy would be worse than
| useless. No real users would sign up for it, only
| abusers.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Well the bond will be meaningless if it was only put
| there yesterday. If it's been there for a while that's a
| real cost. But true, it's not the full amount unless they
| do something that makes them owe Google money.
| tmoertel wrote:
| For bad actors, an extra careful review is still going to
| result in account termination. So, for them, the bonds
| buy virtually no protection, but it does tie up real
| money. How many bad actors are going to prefer to loan
| Google $100 per active account rather than $0 per active
| account?
| eimrine wrote:
| Maybe $1000 is reasonable amount both for me and GOOG. BTW
| they might just not to give you anything anyway, for example
| if some algo considers you a terrorist who is strictly
| forbidden to be funded.
| joezydeco wrote:
| $1,000 is their daily budget for M&Ms. You need to go a few
| orders of magnitude larger.
| tmoertel wrote:
| Across the entire user base is a few orders of magnitude
| larger.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| But they'd never block the entire user base, right? So
| it's only about a few one offs. M&M money, no?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 0.5% of the entire userbase (which might be a fair
| estimate of their false-positive ratio) is a sizeable
| number.
| jfoster wrote:
| On YouTube, the ads block the entire experience until they're
| done. Search ads are relatively unintrusive, even if some users
| take offence.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| Too expensive. Google makes, on average, smtg like $50/user/year
| or something (not an accurate number). Now obviously this varies,
| so some people are much more valuable, and some are less
| valuable. The value depends on many things, but one of the
| biggest factor is purchasing power.
|
| Now -- if you're willing and able to pay eg. $10/month for Google
| Premium, then you likely worth much more than the average user.
| So the more you're willing to pay the more you worth as an
| advertisement target. I am not sure where those curves meet, but
| I presume it'd be a lot.
| ithkuil wrote:
| If I'm willing to pay to not see ads in search results it's
| more likely that I'm not really engaging much with ads.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| The problem with paying to not see ads is that now you have
| made yourself known as a juicier target for advertising -- they
| know you have enough money to buy frivolous things like a 'no
| ads' experience. Which makes them want to advertise to you even
| more.
|
| Examples: cable TV, Hulu, soon Netflix?
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Just think about all the times you accidentally click the first
| result and how much it cost those companies. They probably paid
| a sum total that's way more than what you're willing to pay in
| a year.
| throwamon wrote:
| I know I'd pay just to never see an ad again _because I don 't
| care about them at all_. If one slips through the cracks I do
| whatever I can to suppress it as soon as possible while
| actively denying any form of sensorial engagement with it. I
| suppose this is true for many people and paying might be more
| convenient than using adblockers, installing alternative apps,
| using PiHoles...
| fartcannon wrote:
| Ublock Origin and never see an ad again. I can't believe
| there are still people who don't do this. You can even do it
| on your mobile device if you use android and firefox.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I literally feel bad. Is there a name for that disorder?
| Excess corporate empathy? Idk
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Do you feel bad when you don't read every marketing junk
| mail you receive?
| fartcannon wrote:
| I'd call it marketing.
| flanking_pajama wrote:
| I'd feel bad if advertising law wasn't a joke, and ads
| weren't basically an aggressive waste of time/money as a
| result.
|
| Like man, I always hear "so many people make their living
| on this" but uh, maybe if false advertising law is
| _practically unenforced_ and most ads are _practically
| usually lies pushed by the already established winners in
| their industry_...
|
| Which it certainly seems to be, then. I find it hard to
| feel too bad, especially when people in the advertising
| business are probably not going to end up street beggars
| if things suddenly changed.
|
| edit: although that "makes a living" argument may go
| wayside a little with the inevitable AI-generated, focus-
| group tested future we'll be living in. Hmm.
| Teever wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Truth
| slotrans wrote:
| UBlock Origin, as awesome as it is, does not remove ads
| from Google search results.
| allisdust wrote:
| It certainly does. Even text ads.
| yissp wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it does. I don't see any adds in Google
| search with uBlock Origin installed.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| It works pretty well but (a) not on mobile and (b) not on
| blogspam.
| karolist wrote:
| (a) mobile -> VPN -> server with PiHole
| wruza wrote:
| Adguard does the same good job on ios as ublock origin
| does on a pc. Even on youtube.com. No third-party
| browsers, no mandatory vpn. Just install it and enable
| its rules in safari settings.
| fartcannon wrote:
| That's good stuff. Can you personally compile and install
| it on iOS?
| wruza wrote:
| This rhetoric only makes sense if you're reviewing every
| update of uBlock your device receives. My concern is:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31380528
| gzer0 wrote:
| Paying google for google premium wouldn't help with the
| blogspam
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If Google's only revenue was from _users_ they would have
| more incentive making features that encourage those users
| to keep paying them.
| thisismyaccoun7 wrote:
| Kiwi browser allows for full add-ons including ublock
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Content blockers on iOS work well for removing ads on
| Google. I'm not sure if there's an Android equivalent.
|
| The catch for iOS is that you have to use Safari, unless
| the browser has an ad blocker built-in. It won't solve
| blog spam either.
| OJFord wrote:
| The Android 'equivalent' is just using the uBlock Origin
| add-on in Firefox as usual, not some new Apple-invented
| category of app and hamstrung browsers that are all
| basically Safari.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| I didn't mean an equivalent to iOS's content blockers
| specifically, but an ad block solution in general. I
| don't use Android, so I'm not familiar with what's
| available.
| wruza wrote:
| _not some new Apple-invented category of app_
|
| This is bad why exactly?
|
| _and hamstrung browsers that are all basically Safari_
|
| Content blockers work in original Safari. Which part
| don't you like? Content blockers as an app, safari
| itself, or inability to load third party js into every
| page you visit?
|
| I wish PC browsers had something like that, because while
| I trust uBlock Origin (and others, e.g. Bitwarden),
| there's always a chance someone hacks into their repo.
| Modular integration - separate Bitwarden and Adguard apps
| - is objectively better for these use cases than just
| pouring some javascripts into every website.
| OJFord wrote:
| > This is bad why exactly?
|
| I just mean that 'content blockers' are a solution to a
| problem of Apple's own creation -
|
| > Content blockers work in original Safari.
|
| I know, what I mean there is that all the browsers on iOS
| are only superficially not Safari; which is the only
| reason 'content blockers' work in anything 'not' Safari.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Good luck with using that "equivalent" in an embedded web
| view.
|
| Besides, if I care about my privacy, why would I want to
| use an ad blocker that has access to my web browsing
| history?
|
| iOS content blockers tell Safari what to block and don't
| have access to where you go.
| OJFord wrote:
| > Good luck with using that "equivalent" in an embedded
| web view.
|
| It works, so thanks. Maybe you're referring to the
| impossibility to access the plugin's settings from the
| embedded web view. But if it's a site you've visited
| before and configured to your preference, then it takes
| effect in the same way there as in full FF.
|
| > iOS content blockers tell Safari what to block and
| don't have access to where you go.
|
| If I tell it 'block scripts from example.org on
| news.ycombinator.com' then it's a pretty good bet that I
| visit news.ycombinator.com.
|
| Right, I realise iOS content blockers aren't that
| powerful, so it's hypothetical. ;)
| scarface74 wrote:
| So how does "it work" when Mozilla themselves says that
| GeckoView can't be used as a drop in embedded WebView?
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't know, I'm just reporting my experience as a user.
| I don't develop for Android or know anything about what
| Mozilla says about it.
|
| Feel free to reproduce it yourself: block third party by
| default (for example), open some broken page, observe it
| as such; 'open in browser' from 3-dot menu; amend
| settings to allow whatever it needs; back out, observe it
| functional.
| deadbunny wrote:
| Android uses the default browser for webview. If you have
| Firefox + uBlock Origin as your default browser you get
| ad blocking in your webview.
| scarface74 wrote:
| By "embedded web view", I don't mean when you click on a
| link it switches to another app. I mean something like an
| RSS reader where you view a web page inside the hosted
| app.
|
| https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView
|
| > Mozilla uses GeckoView to power Firefox for Android,
| Firefox Reality, Firefox Focus, and other Android apps.
| GeckoView serves a similar purpose to Android's built-in
| WebView, but it has its own APIs and is not a drop in
| replacement.
| yissp wrote:
| You _can_ replace the default web view, although I
| believe it requires root access. I 've been using
| https://www.bromite.org/system_web_view for a while and
| it works pretty well.
| scarface74 wrote:
| But you can't replace it with Firefox's GeckoView since
| they don't support the equivalent APIs _according to
| their own documentation_.
|
| So the only way you can actually _use_ your ad blocked
| system wide is through a series of hacks
|
| https://github.com/bromite/bromite/blob/master/FAQ.md
|
| That's _definitely_ a lot easier than just...going to the
| App Store.
|
| Of course when your phone is using an OS that is created
| by an ad tech company, they aren't going to make it easy
| to block ads system wide.
| fartcannon wrote:
| And android is actually getting worse, too, not better.
| And Firefox is slowly knee capping the freedom
| (presumably because they're all Apple users haha)
|
| Its why it's important for folks like yourself who are
| pro-Apple to push for Apple to open up. That way we can
| have the best of both worlds (if you believe the
| marketing, like it would appear you do). I'll use the
| most open device at the end of the day.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You can now run arbitrary web extensions in Safari.
| 1Blocker has the standard Content Blocking framework
| that's been supported 7 years where it just gives Safari
| a list of rules and it supports embedded Safari
| extensions where it does have access to your browsing
| history.
|
| You don't just get a pop up that allows you to enable it.
| You have to go into settings and get a scary warning.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| At some point, you have to trust someone. I trust uBlock
| Origin to not be malicious and so do plenty of people.
| Ideally you'd want to pin versions and always stay a few
| versions behind so that an overnight "rug pull" where the
| extension becomes compromised doesn't affect you.
|
| The problem with iOS' declarative blocking framework is
| that it's not powerful enough to deal with more advanced
| ads.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Like what?
| fartcannon wrote:
| It's open source. You can verify whether or not they're
| doing anything nefarious with your browsing history. You
| can then package it yourself and run it!
| scarface74 wrote:
| Or, instead of digging through every line of source code
| and packaging it myself, I can use an operating system
| where the vendor designed a content blocking framework
| that is privacy focused by default and that works with
| third party apps that use web views.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That's a great starting point / default but can't block
| complicated things as effectively and shouldn't be the
| only option on a platform.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Care to post some real world example websites?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The data processing consent popups on Google properties
| aren't blockable by this because they are JS-based and
| integrate with the rest of the page's JS code, so the
| only way to "defuse" them is to run active JS code
| provided by the blocker. The declarative framework can't
| do this by design.
| scarface74 wrote:
| 1Blocker iOS
|
| > Block Annoyances: blocks cookie notices
|
| And if you really want to, you _can_ run 1Blocker scripts
| within Safari that can do the same type of thing. You
| have to go into Settings and you get a huge privacy
| warning.
|
| And this also works with embedded web views - unlike with
| Android
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yeah, because you're just taking Apple's word that they
| aren't being nefarious. You can quite literally see for
| yourself whether or not ublock origin is. It's like
| arguing that being able to film the police shouldnt be
| allowed because they promise to be good.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You can also see for yourself how ad blockers register
| what can be blocked to Safari by looking at the open
| source WebKit code...
| fartcannon wrote:
| Sorta! You can't install it so you can't prove it's the
| same thing! That's the problem with a locked OS.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So you suggest that everyone look through every line of
| source code to ensure that it is legitimate?
|
| Did you also verify that Firefox installed from the App
| Store was the same as the open source version?
|
| Are you using only open sourced code on your phone or are
| you using Google provided binaries? Are your drivers open
| source for your chipset?
|
| If not, you are also using "locked down code"
| fartcannon wrote:
| Towards open source freedom is my goal, not towards Tim
| Cook's bonus. nvidia just moved more towards open
| sourcing their drivers. You think that's out of kindness?
| No, it's because AMD and Intel have open drivers and
| nvidia is scared to lose market share to them.
|
| Vote with your wallet and we can have a better future. I
| don't care if it's iOS, Android, or Linux! Just that it's
| actually open.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Nvidia no more moved toward open source than Google with
| the play store. It still depends on binary closed source
| blobs.
|
| I assure you that Nvidia is not going to lose market
| share to _Intel_ in the GPU race. Even Apple is creating
| chipsets Thad trounce Intel in graphics performance.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Yeah, but it's still Android... Yuck.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I actually even go further and degoogle my android phones
| so it's just this quiet, open source minimalist utopia.
| It's magnificent.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Give me a third option. Both Android and iPhone are
| inferior products compared to even Windows 10 in terms of
| what control I have on my device
| px43 wrote:
| What a crazy thing to say. Do the konami dance on Android
| to set your device to developer mode, and it literally
| gives you a root shell on a Linux system with a
| completely open source OS that you can tweak, complile,
| and reflash yourself. That whole process is simple enough
| that any given 10 year old can figure it out in a weekend
| and have complete control over their device if they want
| it, no fancy exploits or anything required.
|
| The fact that Windows 10 has zero protections WRT
| physical or app security is not something to be proud of.
| easrng wrote:
| You can't root or reflash all android phones. You can use
| the adb shell without root but it... isn't root.
| jon-wood wrote:
| You have to use Safari on iOS anyway, because the only
| permitted web view implementation is Safari's.
| Firefox/Opera/Chrome on iOS is just Safari in a trench
| coat.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| You also have to use Safari on MacOS if you're interested
| in getting the longest battery life.
| schleck8 wrote:
| There is Bromite, a Chromium fork -Google +Adblock.
|
| Also you can change your DNS server permanently to an
| adblocking one like ControlD or NextDNS, iOS hilariously
| enough only allows this on a per-network basis.
| fartcannon wrote:
| ... You can use ublock origin on Firefox on mobile. Its
| part of the reason to favour an open OS like Android,
| over iOS.
| b15h0p wrote:
| There are ad blockers on iOS, too. They are implemented
| in such a way that they can not spy on you--they simply
| provide a ,,block list" that is executed by the browser.
| Works pretty well in my experience.
| fartcannon wrote:
| That's good. I don't trust Apple though and I have no way
| to verify Apple isn't spying on me. In fact I'm pretty
| sure they are.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Ultimately, you have to trust someone. Unless you write
| your own compilers in machine code, and get the source,
| review it, etc. you have to trust someone along the
| chain. Hell, Intel/AMD could be fucking with you via the
| CPU.
|
| If I have to trust someone, I trust the multi-trillion
| dollar company built on privacy. If they are found to be
| spying on people, the hit to the wealth of everyone who
| works there will be massive.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They're built on advertising. The same advertising that
| makes you think they're not spying on you.
| wruza wrote:
| Made me laugh. For nine month I gave a chance to full-
| time android phone, and every two weeks or so it showed
| me ads based on what I discussed with my coworker in
| voice (I mean mouth and ears, not voice messaging) but
| never googled etc. If Apple does that, they at least
| pretend not to.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I haven't seen an ad in a decade, save for when my wife
| tries to show me something on her iPhone.
| wruza wrote:
| But if you prefer Chrome, there are actually less (or
| less useful) options than on iOS.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| How does one remove YouTube app ads on iOS?
|
| Already have pihole on my home network and unlock on all
| non-iOS browsers.
| b15h0p wrote:
| I think using an adblocker and uninstalling the YouTube
| app should be sufficient. The downside being that the
| playback quality is worse (720p max, I think).
| ipaddr wrote:
| Most top videos are 1080/60 some higher.
|
| Does anyone upload 360 or 180 videos on here?
| yonaguska wrote:
| I simply don't use the YouTube app on mobile. I use
| YouTube via the brave browser which automatically blocks
| ads. Not the best experience since you can't background
| videos playing, but it works for me.
| backerei wrote:
| Try turning on Background video playback in Settings in
| General category. At least it works for me.
| shaoonb wrote:
| AdGuard and use the web version of YouTube.
| kenosis wrote:
| You need to jailbreak for that, and there are multiple
| adblocking tweaks. You can also add the iSponsorBlock
| tweak in the mix to skip paid video segments.
| eins1234 wrote:
| As a YouTube Premium subscriber who sees no ads, I find
| sponsor segments to be the real bane of my existence.
| indecisive_user wrote:
| Crowd sourced extension to skip over those parts -
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-
| for-y...
| noisem4ker wrote:
| Browser-agnostic main site: https://sponsor.ajay.app
| lordnacho wrote:
| Can you imagine what would happen when "advertisers" discover
| they can make money by annoying people? Micro digital
| muggings will become a thing.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I use Brave Browser. I am always shocked to see how bad the
| internet is for users without ad blocker. I also totally
| forgot that YouTube has annoying ads.
| passerby1 wrote:
| Using adblock is indeed very convenient. Enable browser
| extension and forget about all web annoyances. Calm and
| peece.
|
| Google Ad Premium disables google ads only (or most of
| them?), while other ad nets (avg more than 80 cookies on
| every major news site!) will continue to annoy.
| [deleted]
| latexr wrote:
| > So the more you're willing to pay the more you worth as an
| advertisement target.
|
| So the common wisdom goes. Alternative thought: the more you're
| willing to pay to not see ads the likelier you are to block
| them or never click on them, making you worth less as a target.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Search makes ~$40B per year. They likely have over >3B MAU.
|
| People that would realistically pay for the product - maybe
| 50M. I think a ~$10/m subscription could make sense.
|
| The problem is - they probably need to offer something beside
| just being ad free. And I'm not sure what they could possibly
| add that wouldn't be better suited just improving the product
| for the other 99% of searchers.
|
| I'd pay more than $10/m for Search if I had to. I pay for
| YouTube premium to get rid of the ads (and free YouTube Music).
| But I don't think the search ads are intrusive enough that I'm
| willing to pay $10 to get rid of them.
| firloop wrote:
| Advertising CPMs vary wildly between geographies and
| demographics. GP's point is still valid: even if average
| global revenue is $10/mo/user, the average revenue of the
| group that would pay $10/mo is likely much higher.
| jsnell wrote:
| > Search makes ~$40B per year.
|
| Per quarter, no?
| legitster wrote:
| > Now obviously this varies, so some people are much more
| valuable, and some are less valuable.
|
| I think people also underrate how much this varies. Our company
| has paid $50-$100 _per click_ in the past for certain search
| terms.
|
| Letting a CTO at a tech company opt out of ads for like $50 is
| a sucker deal for Google.
| sflicht wrote:
| What was the ratio of clicks to impressions for those super
| expensive terms?
| lelandfe wrote:
| Google had a service, now discontinued, that allowed a user
| to enter into those bids, setting a monthly limit on ad
| spend. It was for external sites using AdSense, not Google
| Search, but I thought it was an amazing idea.
|
| > _if the user wins the auction, [a thank you message] is
| placed in the ad space, and the cost of the ad is deducted
| from the user 's monthly contribution. If the user does not
| win, the winning ad is displayed as normal and the user pays
| nothing for that slot_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
| Nextgrid wrote:
| How many CTOs out there _don 't_ run ad-blockers though? I'd
| argue that anyone who doesn't run those shouldn't be let
| anywhere near a CTO position.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Maybe using a search engine that's trying to sell your
| attention to the highest bidder is a sucker deal for a CTO.
| zamadatix wrote:
| YouTube Premium is $14.99/month for no YouTube ads for up to 5
| people (among other features) so I'm not sure it is really so
| hard for the curves to meet.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Because ads on Google Search are among the least
| intrusive/offensive, and most frequently relevant, ads in the
| entire advertising space, and most people using it aren't
| bothered by it. It won't make relevant revenue; it will in some
| degree harm their real customers; it's a distraction serving no
| purpose.
| paulcole wrote:
| People love to say they'd pay for something until they have the
| opportunity to pay for it. Then the interest in paying suddenly
| dries up.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Just my opinion/suspicion:
|
| Google doesn't want to give up its current model of operation.
| Google as a corporation likes being able to surveil the Earth.
| Google likes being able to control information. Google likes
| being (essentially) part of the US state department.
| smoovb wrote:
| Brave IS Google Premium. Sadly they tied it to crypto and made a
| mess of the payment / payout mechanism, but the product is live
| and works. Likely Google has noted Brave's uptake and is in no
| hurry to compete. I'd pay for Chrome Premium as I do for YT
| premium.
| alaricus wrote:
| No one would pay for it. Why pay for somthing that uBlock Origin
| can give you for free?
| morsch wrote:
| I'm paying for YouTube. I already blocked ads on my desktop
| computer, but I wanted to use the official (I know third-party
| apps exist including YouTube vanced) youtube app on Android.
|
| Similarly, I can block ads in web search results in desktop and
| mobile. But I can't block ads in the Android apps for Google
| maps and Gmail.
|
| What would I pay to get rid of them. Not much, admittedly. But
| I would pay more if it was part of an overall package that'd
| make it easier to pretend Google is not a semi-hostile entity.
| rc_mob wrote:
| Kagi.com is my nee search engine of choice for this among other
| reasons
| sedad wrote:
| How to Accordion instagram hacked
| 6510 wrote:
| You can buy queries tho.
| jstx1 wrote:
| The people who would pay for premium are also the among the most
| desireable targets for ads because they have disposable income.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Because Google can sell you for a lot more money than you'd be
| willing to pay
| 1270018080 wrote:
| This is hackernews, is installing uBlock Origin not the first
| thing everyone does when they set up a browser?
| sedad wrote:
| How to Acquired instagram hacked
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Because if google offered it, people that are worried about
| tracking like myself wouldn't buy it.
|
| Indeed, it would require a google account, and one that is always
| connected. Basically giving full view of my private life to
| google and trust that no matter how bad their track record is,
| from now on they are going to respect it.
|
| I don't trust them to give them that data, and even if I did, I
| don't trust a gov won't abuse it eventually or something else
| down the line.
|
| Hence I'd rather not have a google account, and use ad blockers
| so that the data is just not communicated to them. It should be a
| constitutional right to do so.
| gtirloni wrote:
| _> people that are worried about tracking like myself wouldn 't
| buy it._
|
| That's an incredibly tiny fraction of Google Search users.
| OJFord wrote:
| But a larger fraction of the users that seek a method of
| stopping ads.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Ideally you would be able to have an extension that says "hey,
| I'm on example.com/page and I'm not going to load ads. That all
| you get to know to pay out a portion of my subscription to the
| website operator". The issue with this is that Google typically
| doesn't have an exclusivity agreement with websites, and header
| bidding is quite prevalent, so it doesn't make sense for Google
| to allow people to pay to remove Google ads if they're just
| going to get out-header-bid anyways when someone comes along
| with Google Premium+no ad blocker and suddenly the website is
| showing ads from another ad network instead, leading the user
| to think Google Premium doesn't work.
|
| And I don't think most people would buy a Premium offering if
| all it did was remove results in Google Search; the only people
| that helps is Google and most people can easily scroll past
| those even without Adblock.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Brave tried to build this into the browser.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Do you use Android?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I do, but don't login to a google account, don't have the
| play store, use micro-g, etc.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Of course they would never do this. But it is possible with
| cryptography to have a system where you can prove that you paid
| for such service without proving who you are.
| SquareWheel wrote:
| Google has tried this multiple times with Contributor. They
| tested a few different models but it never seemed to gain any
| traction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
| dcminter wrote:
| I'd be slap bang in the cross hairs of this product. I mooch
| around online reading stuff like HN in my spare time, and yet
| have never ever heard of it. From an advertising company.
|
| Is this the upside or the downside of ad blockers? So hard to
| decide...
| sc00ty wrote:
| I used this when it was announced but it's been a while since I
| even thought about it. I decided to dig up some old emails and
| see how it went for me.
|
| Invited and signed up on 2015-04-28, service ended 2017-01-17.
| I had a $2 monthly reoccurring charge to fund the account, but
| I just accrued a balance, so I cancelled the charge in
| 2015-11-15 and that balance lasted until the service ended. In
| the final email they sent they included some stats:
|
| > Thanks for being a Contributor! Your contribution of $14.01
| helped to fund 351 sites! A refund for your remaining balance
| of -$0.02 is being processed and your account is now closed.
|
| I don't remember it being particularly noticeable, and I think
| on some sites it would just replace the ads with a banner
| saying something like "Thanks for being a contributor". I also
| recall there being tiers / budgets you could set.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Yup. I know some people at Google who just smack their
| foreheads every time the HN "of course we'd all pay to
| eliminate ads" narrative shows up. There have been a bunch of
| attempts at this over time. They've just never got traction and
| slowly died.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Speculation but: there will be a huge amount of institutional
| inertia around this. It sure suits a large number of Google
| employees that "paying for a service" will fail.
|
| Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the
| assertion that people won't pay for things - even when
| they've previously been free.
|
| Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad
| debate is long-term done.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > It sure suits a large number of Google employees that
| "paying for a service" will fail.
|
| Let me get this straight. The idea is that Google has
| deliberately constructed several different systems over the
| years to enable micropayments or subscriptions to replace
| ads with the _plan_ of them failing so they can use this as
| evidence that the ad model is unstoppable and that people
| shouldn 't try to replace it? And this was done despite
| knowing that an alternative would make Google more money?
| And not a single person who was involved in this deliberate
| sabotage has ever spoken about it?
|
| Come on.
|
| > Newspapers, tv, and music, are counter-examples to the
| assertion that people won't pay for things - even when
| they've previously been free.
|
| Newspapers are a dying industry and are filled with ads. TV
| is filled with ads. Even paid streaming services like Hulu
| (and soon maybe Netflix) are ad supported. Spotify has an
| ad-driven free service.
|
| > Google's main product focus now should be Cloud, the ad
| debate is long-term done.
|
| Ad revenue continues to grow every quarter. Yes, Google
| obviously wants another similarly sized revenue stream and
| there are very few domains that can generate that kind of
| revenue. But "the ad debate is long-term done" is just not
| based in facts.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Hulu has an ad free plan and Netflix is offering an
| cheaper ad tier.
| Hasu wrote:
| I don't think there needs to be a conspiracy. From what
| I've read about Google (I have never and will never work
| there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship new stuff,
| even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up building a
| bunch of stuff that isn't successful.
|
| It's not at all hard for me to believe that a company
| that has built, shipped, and killed multiple chat apps
| has also built and killed multiple subscription and
| micropayments systems. Then, the employees who are
| pushing adtech can use those failures as evidence that
| adtech is the only way.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| But it isn't the adtech people, it's the contributor
| people, who are willing to say it's an unviable consumer
| model.
| Hasu wrote:
| The same incentive system explains that too, though. The
| incentive is to ship. Once you've shipped the system,
| improving it isn't rewarded, so if it isn't immediately
| viable, who cares, you got your promotion and you can
| say, "Well we tried".
| joshuamorton wrote:
| That uhhh... Won't get you promo.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > From what I've read about Google (I have never and will
| never work there), ICs are incentivized to build and ship
| new stuff, even if it isn't successful, so Google ends up
| building a bunch of stuff that isn't successful.
|
| I work at Google. What you say here is not true.
|
| Yes, Google is indeed often very bad at long term product
| strategy and has rebooted its chat offerings an
| embarrassing number of times. But "it shipped, fuck it if
| it works" is not actually a sufficient justification for
| promotions.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Contributor v1 didn't eliminate google ads, just reduced
| them. v2 only worked on a random handful of sites and charged
| per view.
|
| Give me something approaching YouTube premium and I'll go for
| it. Does Scroll support enough sites ye-- oh no Twitter
| bought them and gutted it.
| slotrans wrote:
| Isn't it telling that few/none of us have heard of this?
| Maybe these efforts didn't get traction because Google made
| no effort to let the world know they existed.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I mean, it works for YouTube Premium, but maybe it only works
| there because of how absolutely annoying ads are on YT.
| [deleted]
| magusd wrote:
| I'd pay for google premium, but since that's not offered I use ad
| blockers. Just like I used to torrent before streaming services
| came up.
| oefrha wrote:
| Google has a custom search API that comes in two flavors -- ad-
| supported or $5/thousand queries (beyond 100 free queries a day).
| You can either use their Search Element API (HTML, comes with
| standard Google Search UI, customizable) or build your own UI
| with the JSON API.
|
| Obviously you're talking about a consumer offering, but I just
| want to point out that paid, ad-free Google Search does exist and
| is pretty easy to set up.
|
| https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/overview
| gtirloni wrote:
| I didn't know it existed, thanks. This should be the top
| comment for the tech-savvy HN crowd.
| bryans wrote:
| An interesting portion of this is the Restricted API, which
| limits the number of sites to 10, but allows an unlimited
| number of requests at the $5/k rate. There doesn't seem to be
| any restriction on business use, which seems like a good option
| for paid, ad-free and anonymized code search, since 95% of the
| desired results are from three sources: GH, SO and Reddit.
| whs wrote:
| I wish someone would plug this into Searx, then we could reuse
| its UI.
|
| [Searx upstream doesn't seems to be keen on implementing it
| though](https://github.com/searx/searx/issues/2622)
| AhtiK wrote:
| It's about target platform and time spent.
|
| Youtube Premium is a perfect proposition for an easy ad free
| streaming to TV and to mobile. On Desktop browser adblock
| extension is efficient enough to cut out the ads.
|
| Google search on the other hand is primarily for desktop and is
| not a streaming platform that consumes your attention minutes,
| hence Google Premium has little market with effective adblockers.
| smoovb wrote:
| The product needs to be Chrome Premium, which blocks all ads,
| on all platforms for a fee, where a share goes back to the
| sites you visit most.
| hamiltont wrote:
| My ad experience has changed dramatically after I leaned into
| multiple browser personas. In personal persona, I hate ads with
| passion and do everything to get rid of them (browser extensions,
| premium membership, etc). I value my personal time and the ads
| are totally useless.
|
| In work persona, I suddenly have found ads are actually useful.
| Often find myself choosing to spend 30 seconds watching a YouTube
| ad because it is relevant to topics I need to be aware of as a
| CTO. It's clear my daily browsing history influences the ads I am
| seeing, and I see useful information. Been looking into SIEM
| tools lately, and via an ad I was just made aware of some data
| center appliances for security. I clicked to their website and
| browsed a while to learn what was available. When you have some
| real challenges to solve and the targeting is on point, ads can
| be a great news feed.
|
| Clearly segmenting my browser history into one persona where I am
| actively looking for solutions vs my personal persona where I
| want to be left alone helped the feeds target me.
|
| Still, surreal feeling to intentionally choose to watch an ad...
| londons_explore wrote:
| You would be far better served by taking advice of someone
| you've hired than taking the advice from YouTube ads about
| snake-oil...
| yumraj wrote:
| > Been looking into SIEM tools lately, and via an ad I was just
| made aware of some data center appliances for security.
|
| Would you not have come cross them if you were actively
| searching for _data center appliances for security_? Were Ads
| the only way to find them?
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, ads should be locked up inside services that users
| specifically choose to use if and when they want.
|
| Those services should not have overlapping features, like
| providing mail, social media, or general search, for example,
| as that would be a clear conflict of interest.
| unixhero wrote:
| Just install Adblock: ublock origin
|
| And if you can't on your iPhone, get a better phone
| scarface74 wrote:
| You realize content blockers have been on iOS for 8 years -
| including supporting embedded web views.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The iOS content blocking framework is nowhere near as
| powerful as what uBlock Origin can do.
| scarface74 wrote:
| A real world example?
| skdotdan wrote:
| YouTube ads are way more disruptive because they have to
| interrupt the video you are playing for at least a few seconds.
| corderop wrote:
| I guess Google don't want this. In the last years Google has been
| hiding ads making them looking like the normal results [1]. From
| an advertiser perspective, you want to have your ad as the best
| result for a search, "lying" to users to use your website or
| product because is the best for what you're looking for.
|
| I think this is different with Youtube. I see those ads like TV
| ones. Everyone know it's an ad, so the advertiser has to use
| their ability to catch the costumer.
|
| [1] - https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/1/23/21078343/google-
| ad-d...
| binarymax wrote:
| Because paying customers expect some modicum of support, and
| Google HATES providing support.
| robk wrote:
| They hate unprofitable service. If they can give email away why
| should you get service without paying?
| passerby1 wrote:
| Google loves to provide support, but for its customers only.
| Customer is a one who pays them millions of dollars for ads.
| binarymax wrote:
| That's not support, it's account management :)
| cal85 wrote:
| I'm a paying customer. They do not like to provide support.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| No they don't, you are going to find plenty of horror stories
| from people who make Google money. Content/app creators,
| people paying for ads, G-suite customers, Pixel phone buyers,
| etc...
|
| Maybe it is different for companies literally paying millions
| of dollars, but don't expect more than bot treatment below
| that.
| JaceLightning wrote:
| Adblock works wonders. I never see Google ads.
| asiachick wrote:
| This won't solve your issues imo. Go to almost any ad laden site.
| There is generally at most one ad by Google per page and 50 ads
| by other providers
| sysadm1n wrote:
| Well there is Kagi[0], a 'Premium search engine where everything
| on the page matters'
|
| Haven't tried it, but it looks promising.
|
| [0] https://kagi.com/
| mertd wrote:
| It requires a login to use and aside from not showing ads, the
| FAQ makes no promises about not monetizing the per user search
| history. That's bit of a red flag for me.
| voltaireodactyl wrote:
| This portion of the FAQ: https://kagi.com/faq#privacy
|
| Would seem to address those concerns -- if the only money
| coming in is users paying directly, that would seem to
| preclude selling the data for further monetization. Or are
| those known weasel words?
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| I've been using it for over a month now and it's great. Search
| results are on par with Google,if not better. (Probably better,
| subjectively, since I switched mostly due to getting annoyed
| daily with worsening results. Ignoring my search terms was
| especially annoying.) The privacy aspect felt like a bonus, but
| now I never want to go back.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-14 23:02 UTC)