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How would I start a website with ads in it?

Is it fair for a website to start off without ads to hook users and then punish users with ads later?

  • is this the quora plan?  lets see if they add this question.

  • Answer:

    Your question shows an advertising bias - hook users and punish them with ads is pretty dramatic, considering it's just an old model. Google created a great service, delivers relevant results, then put in ads to turn itself into the legend it is...I don't hear people talking about being punished by AdSense or Adwords, in fact looking at heat maps of sites you see that quite the contrary, users block the ads out if they are not interested. If a site, like Quora, just threw up random ads that "punished" users, it wouldn't make money on those ads, people would ignore them. Yet if a site adds value to the users experience, and if they are lucky enough like Google to figure out a way to show relevant ads, then punishment, in your words, is turned into a service. People hate ads when it has nothing to do with their interest; targeting and figuring out ways to deliver relevant ads is the name of the game, and if a business just chucks up ads and doesn't understand this, then no, it's not fair to hook in users and punish them, because the business is punishing itself for trying to make money on ads when it doesn't understand the advertising game. And ads get low response in general, so I think most users find it fair to get hooked to a good service, then ignore ads, thereby punishing the business for failing to deliver relevant results. Ads don't always deliver the punishment, users do by ignoring the ads, and that's the way it should be.

Declan Dunn at Quora Visit the source

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To me, it is strange that you consider Ads to be a punishment.  Why would you expect something for free and not have to give something back sometime? There's only a few business models that make sense.  Giving out free product and charging for consulting to get it working is/was the fashionable plan a few years ago euphemistically referred to as Open Source.  Later the fashion moved to Freemium where you give away a trivial version of something you want to charge for and then charge for those who can justify paying for a superior version.  While all this was transgressing, Google and Facebook quietly went about their business showing free content together with making boatloads of cash from advertisers. Now they are big, and there's a few others ready to launch their own boats... why complain?  People have been watching TV ads for years, listening to radio ads for years, reading newspapers and magazines that are mostly ads. For myself, I decided to go with a simple approach.  Operate a lean operation, put a lot of value into a product, and charge as little as possible for it, hoping that enough people will buy it so that it's all worth it.  That's kind of old fashioned, but I'm no spring chicken either :). -- Ward Yaternick http://www.nextanalytics.com

Ward Yaternick

I think it all depends on your business model and if it makes sense. I think we are so used to using websites that are free that many of us seem to think that is just how things are. Eventually these large organizations get investors that get itchy and want to see some revenues coming in and companies don't have a choice but to go with an ad platform. I think it depends on how tasteful you approach it. I think LinkedIn does a great job of not jamming the ads into people's faces. Eventually Quora will have to do something it just depends on how they approach the idea.

Maciej Fita

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