At Homefood, we are cultivating an experience of nostalgia (memories of home) and good food for college students. Given that we are offering a variety of cuisines for our users’ consumption, an advertising revenue model provides an opportunity for various home chefs to promote their food while giving users an insight into what’s available and/or appeals to their appetite. While this would contribute to increased revenues for our product, this also elevates the use of surveillance in our product. However, “Users have been so well trained to expect surveillance” (Zuckerman) that while we consider it an ethical issue (which it totally is), the mainstream audience will not put much thought into it when ordering tonight’s dinner. An advertising revenue model would provide some convenience on our platform as users can choose from chefs that are paying extra to highlight and display their food first and potentially offer incentives like discounts or deals, this does fall in line with the Doordashs and Grubhubs by commercializing our offerings and taking away from the sense of community and home we hope to cultivate. While users are a driving force in our business model, we can also raise revenues through advertising and potentially avoid a subscription-based model (initially) by making “it very easy for users to ‘try before they buy’” and feel like there is no cost to using Homefood.
An advertising revenue model would not explicitly impact individual well-being. It does, however, begin to influence user actions and potentially persuade them to consume certain cuisines over other. This would run counter to our intention which is to promote a diverse offering of cuisines. Mitigating this harm could manifest with advertisements not visually “crowding out” the main page, so users have an initial fair chance to explore our offerings.
