once advertising hits the slide down the slippery slope starts. advertisers are going to want content to be policed more heavily so their ads aren't shown next to "undesirable" content, and investors are going to push to derank posts with links to keep users on the site longer to view more ads - ThreadSky

eniko.bsky.social • 92 days ago

once advertising hits the slide down the slippery slope starts. advertisers are going to want content to be policed more heavily so their ads aren't shown next to "undesirable" content, and investors are going to push to derank posts with links to keep users on the site longer to view more ads

Reposted from Ben Morris

It's depressing, but this worries me as much: techcrunch.com/2024/12/05/b...

Comments

lagomcore.bsky.social•92 days ago

I rly wonder if third party apps etc that use blueskys protocol can just bypass that. Like how there’s different apps for fediverse, if one has ads one can rly just switch to a different one.

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

yeah, and that could work for the 0.1% of users who care enough to do that. won't help sex workers, people who post adult content, or those who need to reach their followers with links much though

lagomcore.bsky.social•92 days ago

Yeah, and if there somehow was a massive migration to whatever alternative app, bsky would probably be pressed by investors to fix that possibility.

lagomcore.bsky.social•92 days ago

Oops i replied to the wrong post 💀 you did not see that

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

see what? >_>

lagomcore.bsky.social•92 days ago

I was gonna reply to my own post about ellipses and accidentally tapped on your thread lmao

lesleylai.info•92 days ago

As much as I dislike ads, I'd rather that they have a steady revenue stream.

Besides, there’s always Mastodon, which I prefer anyway.

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

sure, but once ads hit things people praise bluesky for are going to rapidly go away because of the new business pressures such a system entails

vl2m.bsky.social•92 days ago

the slope started longer ago but some people notice it later.

wintersouls.bsky.social•92 days ago

i will probably move off bluesky once the ads get here tbh

i don't want to deal with the eventual content-policing as someone who makes art for adults

chrise.bsky.social•92 days ago

I think they're proving that not deranking links is a positive move that keeps people coming back to the site, rather than making them leave.

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

investors won't see it that way 3 years from now when they want to see growth on the next quarterly earnings report

chrise.bsky.social•92 days ago

If they have three years of analytic data showing that links actually increase the user base and engagement I think the advertisers will listen. They love that kind of data.

terramachina.bsky.social•92 days ago

It's always a push for more and more growth just always and forever.

hollyphantpants.bsky.social•92 days ago

One reason that this app is so incredibly fast and responsive is that it doesn’t have shittily coded ads crashing it constantly like everywhere else. If they get ads you should be able to pay a subscription to see zero ads (not less ads)

klaustrix.com•92 days ago

This is one of the few places I would legit pay to not have ads. It's rare I enjoy social media and I like it here.

izzem.bsky.social•92 days ago

Yeah, it feels inevitable. It's nice to reconnect with a few accounts I forgot about when I left the other site.

There are some decent tools for moderating here so at the very least it'll help the majority of people who can't be bothered to look beyond what app is the most popular and use that.

sharpiepls.com•92 days ago

this is why i'm making sure to direct all of my follower to my website for socials ; this site is in its infancy stage and i've been on the internet too long to trust the growth will remain sustainable

i still wish activepub had won this war 😔

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

i still have more followers on fedi than here so i'm definitely not ditching activitypub

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

i guess once the crackdown on adult content and external links starts at least we'll still have the nuclear block

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

just to be clear, i'm not saying they have a good alternative. the problem is that bluesky is corporate social media, so this was always going to happen unless they somehow invented an entirely novel and radically new revenue stream which seems rather unlikely

amisma.bsky.social•92 days ago

They have mentioned a small subscription which could work if it doesn’t go down the X Verified route, but I guess the hope would be we’d get decent ads, rather than crypto, etc

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

unfortunately, subscriptions are unlikely to do more than nibble at the margins

issaissa.bsky.social•92 days ago

they should start a patreon /s

badlogic.bsky.social•92 days ago

It's going to be an interesting technical challenge for them.

https://bsky.app/profile/badlogic.bsky.social/post/3lcn5cy4uos2r

contextfree.bsky.social•92 days ago

They need some kind of revenue. What do you think would work best?

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

oh ads are definitely the only way for them to get into the black, selling premium subscriptions and such is going to be nibbling at the margins. but a lotta folks are convinced that bluesky won't go the way of every other corporate social media platform even though once ads hit the honeymoon's over

eline.bsky.social•92 days ago

I thought they were planning to go more into a Discord-model where you would subscribe and get some cute customization options or whatever... I'd happily support that to keep this running

maybedonn.bsky.social•92 days ago

The thing with Discord is that you do not own your data and almost every click is tracked. Meaning they can track the time you spend on each page, etc.

I'm terrified by Discord's endgame. It's unsettling not knowing how they make their money. Ads are the evil we know at least.

pinkiepower.bsky.social•92 days ago

Everybody seems to have Nitro except me.

contextfree.bsky.social•92 days ago

I don't pay for nitro.

hmantegazzi.bsky.social•92 days ago

The problem with that is that it's not a sustainable model, even for businesses that aren't trying to grow constantly. Most people will only use the free tier of a tiered service, and the few that pay tend to expect costly additional services to keep paying.

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

yeah that stuff is nice but its nibbling at the margins

eniko.bsky.social•92 days ago

the real solution, of course, is non-corporate social media

contextfree.bsky.social•92 days ago

I still donate a wimpy $2 / month to the Hachyderm fediverse instance. I don't know what I'll do in the long term, but I've still been doing that so far.

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