When my group, Streamline Realty, was initially constructing our pitch deck, we added advertisements as a potential revenue stream without a second thought, believing that it has been so normalized that we would be foolish to not include it. However, upon deeper consideration, I actually do not think that external advertisements would be beneficial to our product, especially ads irrelevant to our platform. As we try to recruit college students to use our platform, we should try to give them the ideal user experience, which typically does not include advertisements. Targeted ads for these students could be beneficial in adding some value to our platform, but ultimately I believe that students would prefer an ad-free experience. In terms of a freemium model, I have trouble believing that students would be interested in paying even a small fee to rid their experience of ads.
In regards to the internet as a whole, advertisements can be beneficial to users by allowing them to use the majority of the internet for free. However, as the creator of the pop-up ad realized, these users are not truly browsing the internet freely; rather, platforms are tricking them into paying one way or another through these advertisements. Whether it be paying to remove advertisements or paying by giving companies access to their data, users are paying for the majority of services. The creator of the pop-up ad has repeatedly apologized for what he did, and I think that this expression of regret does a great job of summarizing the thoughts of the general public on advertising as a revenue model.
