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The Downfall of Internet Advertising

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barney:
It's actually contributing to the downfall of free web hosting too.
-SeraphimLabs (May 24, 2012, 04:31 PM)
--- End quote ---

When you get right down to it, the cult of free is being slowly ostracized/eviscerated/eradicated.  There is an ultimate bottom line, and free just doesn't work, long term  :(.  Yeah, free open source software (FOSS) sounds great, but those developers need some way to pay the bills while they're developing that FOSS  :tellme:.  Or, the free hosting providers have to pay ICANN & server charges  :tellme: :o.  And there is that bottom line:  I need to make a living while providing someone else with something for free, even though I enjoy the process (and, sometimes, the accolades).

The world cannot run on hobbyist output.  And as some of you on DC know, contributors can be scarce, few and far between.  Methinks the DC folk have a better time of it than most, but that's not really saying a lot, now is it  :-\?

Free is something (that the purveyors of/subscribers to the Internet are going to have to learn) that just cannot be longtime extant.  It's nice when it happens, but it is not a sustainable model.  Somebody has to pay the electric bills, if nothing else  :P.

cmpm:
Learning of a product via 'word of mouth' is the best advertising there is.
You get to hear the good and bad of such things.

Of course you need to to find what people are really saying.
By way of forums like this one or face to face.

I don't trust ads, either on the net or the TV.

The ads are mostly misleading in the TV sector.
They say things that are designed to make it look good,
but if you really look and learn what is said,
it's to make you think it's a good product and better then others.

For instance, 'dollar for dollar ******** gives you more'.
That says nothing of any value about the price and service.
A slogan they use to make you think it's better.

Web ads are designed to get you to their site, to read the info.
The testimonies about the product are their choices.
So not much to go on.
Most are fairly good at saying what the product can do.
But not what it can't do.

Anyway, I block ads because I don't shop that way.
If I could I would block TV ads too.

I would like to donate to what I have received for free.
But I just don't have the money.
What I do, is recommend sites and products I like, with what I think of them.

barney:
I would like to donate to what I have received for free.
But I just don't have the money.
What I do, is recommend sites and products I like, with what I think of them.
-cmpm (May 24, 2012, 08:22 PM)
--- End quote ---

And by so doing, you quite possibly pay for that freebie many times over  :Thmbsup:.  It's most any marketer's dream to have scores of people doing what the marketer would have to pay an ad firm to do.  What's more, those people will use contexts and descriptives than no group of ad firms could dream up.  And those contexts and descriptives will be relevant/relative to the people to whom you speak, which means that there is [potentially] a lot more persuasiveness there than any ad campaign could even begin to approach.  WoM is going to be the thing  :-*... until something better comes along  :P :P.

TaoPhoenix:
I don't have an answer yet either - but we have a tremendous legacy owed to the culture-of-free because it jump started many low level components of the info age. Ads vs selling data vs ... hmm.

Edvard:
WoM is going to be the thing... until something better comes along.
--- End quote ---
One thing I've noticed is when people recommend a free (FOSS or Freeware) application or suite, others chime in with their happy reports on a software that is NOT free, thus the commentary on something that is freely available becomes an unwitting WoM platform to drive profitable business.

I bet if you went WAAAAY back to the first merchants of civilization, I'd bet even they would tell you that Word of Mouth is their best advertising, and I think it's not going to go away anytime soon.
Targeted advertising is basically attempting to sell you something you were going to buy anyway, which is why they think it's such a success, whereas the opinion of someone you trust is more likely to turn you towards something that you hadn't thought of yourself.

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