karchesky :: blog :: miscellaneous

Seth Godin wrote a brief entry basically saying that people should click on ads more often as a means to give something back to the writers of the blogs you enjoy.

This won’t work and this graphic shows you why:

Does this picture scare you?

A is where ad income is right now for the writers. If people started clicking in ads more often, we would get to B, which is what Seth proposes. So far so good. The problem is, the amount of money advertisers pay per click is a function of how much they sell because of those clicks. If those clicks don’t translate into sells, the amount they pay would start diminishing (C) until we’d finally find ourselves back where we started (D).

…OK, I admit I twisted that until I had an excuse for using that really scary picture, but I think the point remains even if you consider Seth’s other thoughts on the subject; unless people buy more stuff, those extra clicks are worthless.

If you want to help the writers of the sites you enjoy, I suggest turning off AdBlock. Back in the day, when I first installed Firefox, this was a must. Many sites had all kinds of utterly annoying fake-pop-ups, fly-through, roll-over, what-ever ads getting in the way of your content. AdBlock was like a breath of fresh air for me, as it allowed me to enjoy other people’s content in peace.

Nowadays, most admins have realized the lameness of their old ways, and don’t use those means anymore. For me the turning point was when I realized that there were a few sites whose ads I actually missed, because they were offering me stuff I was interested in (like the ads in Penny Arcade).

In short: if you want to help your favourite writers, see their ads, and click on them if they interest you. It works best for everybody.