The podcast was quite interesting. It made me think about pop up ads more than I had ever thought before — I had never realised that they were basically a way to monetise on ads without explicitly endorsing on the content. I also agree with the observation that the host had that finding pop up ads on the regular internet is not that easy — it is only through shady websites that you stumble upon those.
In terms of using an advertising revenue model for our product (scheduling app):
Pros:
- Would not have to worry if people will pay for our service or not — we will get money from ads
- Would be better equipped to fight our competitors (when2meet, doodle etc.) who don’t charge for their services
- Can provide a free service to our users (students mostly — and they don’t have extra money to pay us) that would help them be more productive
Cons:
- Ads are too impersonal and random most of the times. You have to collect user data to personalise them and that is against our values. Our users trust us with their data. It takes a lot to build trust, but just one incident to lose it
- No one wants to use a scheduling tool that would collect their data — might lose users as well. People are also scared that clicking on ads can lead to a computer virus
- We don’t want to advertise stuff we don’t believe in and it is tough to control that
I think these pros and cons also apply to the overall internet. The biggest pro remains that users get a free service as you get your revenue from ads. But at what cost? Is the free service worth your data being misused (incase of targeted ads)? Many times people don’t even know that their data is being used for targeted ads. The lack of transparency scares me and I believe is truly unethical.
