Pros:
- Attractive investment and possible path for profitability. Advertising is often the path of least resistance to monetize engagement on a platform. Take Fizz, for example, an app used by most students on campus to know what’s going around on campus. There aren’t any ads right now, but I know they will begin to advertise once they’ve developed strong user bases in other campuses in the US. Advertising would offer us the same benefit.
- There’s not honestly many more pros in my opinion (for our product, that is).
Cons:
- Distracting. People just want to find a ride and get on with it. This isn’t the platform where you discover the perfect sandals you’ve always wanted or cheap deals to Hawaii you’ve been looking into. It’s a logistical app: get in, get out, and ads would detract from this general purpose.
- Diminished Credibility. I suspect an end-user viewing ads will not simply detract from a consistent and intentional user-experience, but consequently result is decreased trust in the system being proposed by the app. If I was a first-time user / rider persona looking to be driven by a completely random driver, and an in-app display or footer advertisement consistently popped up on my screen, I would further question the robustness of the already foreign system I’m trying to use.
Maybe there’s a way to gamify ads like some other companies have done (watch n videos to get 1 free ride), but I’ll have to think more about this – gut tells me this is a bad idea.
