I listened to “We Know What You Did.” The advertising revenue model allows websites/businesses/products to stay afloat, but it has several downsides that were unexpected at its conception.
Pros
- Websites can outsource to other companies to worry about making money, just cut a deal and they’ll give you the content that they want advertised. The hosts don’t have to craft the specifics of revenue-generating content.
- Website visitors can access content “for free,” instead of having to pay a subscription of some sort.
- By generating revenue, websites can stay up, which (ideally) benefits both products and the website visitors.
- Pro for the companies whose stuff is being advertised: more business!
- Pop-up adds are not actually very common on the Internet today, and ads can feel non-intrusive to the browsing experience.
Cons
- Very difficult to tailor / match websites with ads, especially around brand image and values. (For example, the Ford and HotDudes porn discussed in the podcast.)
- Pop-up adds in particular are considered “cockroaches” with endless multiplication and no end in sight.
- With the end of one ad trend comes the birth of another: for instance, with pop-up adds phasing out, hidden/discreet ads are on the rise, where data is “secretly” collected, then used to tailor ads to the viewer without them ever knowing how that process works.
- Public has become too comfortable with being under surveillance.
With regard to individual well-being, I think the content-tailoring and the not-knowing are some of the most dangerous parts of the ad revenue model. For example, if I search about anxiety on the Internet because I have been feeling anxious, companies might take that data to advertise something “meant for anxious people,” which might lead me to try a solution that cares more about money than legitimate mental health — this is not okay.
