How do ads fit into your idea of the yesterweb/web 1.0?

[xandra]

i wanted to open a discussion about advertising because it's come up a couple of times elsewhere on the yesterweb.

in my opinion, having non-intrusive advertising is okay on organization or service sites, but ads all over a personal site or interest site seems weird, especially if those ads are super intrusive.

what's your stance on advertising on sites like these, returning to the retro web? what do you think?

[Nightdrift]

This is a really great topic confetti, I'm really curious and hoping to hear input from folks : )

I am of a similar mindset that it feels strange for personal sites to have advertisements. However, I'm semi-willing to overlook/accept those ads depending on what it is: for example, I'd be more willing to have to see ads that shuffle through a random selection, rather than ads that are tailored to me based on browsing info, etc... In addition, advertisements for other people's sites, personal projects, etc are always welcome. I also agree that it's less strange to see ads on corporate/organization sites...ultimately, I'd rather there not be ads at all (wishful thinking lol), but situations are unique, and ultimately it is the webmaster's choice -- but I know I tend to avoid sites on the retro web that feel overly commercial, or intrusively so.

Speaking personally (and very cheekily), I think if personal sites on the retro web want to add ads, they should play up the retro angle and present them in a more dated style. At least then it'd sort of be on brand, and I'd get a good chuckle out of it.

Last thought: As long as we don't go back to pop ups with sound being the norm, I'm a happy camper XD

[Melooon]

Aha, another good question!

So I am going to take a hard line and say, regular GoogleAds type ads are absolutely not acceptable on a personal site, ads are about making money and a personal site should not be about making money.

Some people do enjoy putting pretend ads on their site, or ads for other personal sites. That's fine because its about community building rather than money making, its like an alternative version of site badges.

For service sites (like this forum or GifyPet), I'm still going to take a pretty hard line and say no, again because I think it muddies the goal. These sites are and should be about creativity and community, not about making money. I feel it creates an imbalance: For example, our sites rely on community connections, you link to me and I link to someone else and that creates the web trail. What if I start earning a bunch of cash from my site? Should you still link to me, sending me free traffic even though you're not getting any benefit from that? Maybe you'll start to try and monetize your site too, and then we are all in a rat race of site monetization. That path is how we got to the modern web; isolated sites all trying to get your cash, crammed with SEO because only search engines will link to them.

That doesn't mean money on sites is bad; you can accept donations (as I do) or sell your art. That's fine because that's about supporting your work; the difference with ads is that ads are about making money for moneys sake, and also making money off traffic rather than your work. If you are going to advertise your own work for sale though, I think it should be done modestly and unobtrusively; if people want to support you, they will, you don't need to cram it in their face.

I'm sure there is a balance, one or two ads wont end the world. Generally speaking though I don't interact with sites that I perceive as using the old web as a money making platform rather than really being a part of its ideals.

[xandra]

Speaking personally (and very cheekily), I think if personal sites on the retro web want to add ads, they should play up the retro angle and present them in a more dated style. At least then it'd sort of be on brand, and I'd get a good chuckle out of it.

Last thought: As long as we don't go back to pop ups with sound being the norm, I'm a happy camper XD

such a good idea! do old-style banners at least. xD definitely no to the pop-ups. that is one thing i do not miss about the old web.

[xandra]

If you are going to advertise your own work for sale though, I think it should be done modestly and unobtrusively; if people want to support you, they will, you don't need to cram it in their face.

I'm sure there is a balance, one or two ads wont end the world. Generally speaking though I don't interact with sites that I perceive as using the old web as a money making platform rather than really being a part of its ideals.

i totally agree with your whole post, and these especially. i don't usually visit sites that aren't doing this for the fun of it, because that's what we're trying to rebuild, right? there's enough of that on modern web.

[InvisibleUp]

Back on webcomics around the late 00's/early 10's there was Project Wonderful, which I quite liked. It's very specifically tailored to blogs and webcomics, by letting advertisers auction for ad space on a specific website. This tended to lead to webcomics advertising other webcomics, and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, it died out due to the dominance of social media.

[Cobra!]

The only ad I have on my site are the NeoLink ads that show ads/links to other Neocities sites, and I don't get a penny off that, of course. It's about lettins visitors explore the rest of the Neospace!

[m15o]

I somehow feel like it would be incredibly fun to run a parody ads network. The way I'd envision it would be to allow anyone to submit ads for their homepage (not allowed to submit for a commercial product). The ads would use a standard banner format. The person would then need to add the banner's snippet to their homepage to "activate" their submission.

Like that, all participating sites would show ads to other homepages. A little like a webring. I think it could be fun!

[fLaMEd]

I’ve also thought that would be a really cool ad network of old replacement @m15o.

Back when I moved off of the free hosting services onto shared hosting services provided by hobbyist website networks, they funded the hosting by requiring each site on the hosting network to display a simple banner at the top of the page. The ads were simple banners for CNet and other sites of the time. The main one I remember was Neoplanet (which was a skin over IE)

One that I was part of shared ad revenue with the hostees and I made a fair amount of pocket money off of that!

These days I don’t see ads, don’t really see how they line up with my current values in personal web pages.

I also don’t like the entire economy of food blogs that sprung up, not to share awesome food related content, but to build websites around adverts! I become very disillusioned in the blog community as a result of this.

[j4yc33]

We should make ads for artists and artisans, awesome 3d Print models, or the other kinds of things that support community or community building.

Like, an ad for Spotify: Boooo
An ad for an indie synthwave artist trying to put their own stuff out there: Fantastic!

A new toy Radio Control thing: Boooooo
An ad for a tutorial where you can make one of these new fantastic RC toys: AWESOME!

[Neonriser]

Just classic ads: not to intrusive, but enough to get your attention. They can lead you to various places on the internet, such as an interactive html5 game or a webcomic you haven’t even heard before.

[Sylvian]

Properly formatted neo-retro banner ads probably would add to the aesthetic (basically larger site badges)

[Sylvian]

Speaking personally (and very cheekily), I think if personal sites on the retro web want to add ads, they should play up the retro angle and present them in a more dated style. At least then it'd sort of be on brand, and I'd get a good chuckle out of it.

Last thought: As long as we don't go back to pop ups with sound being the norm, I'm a happy camper XD

such a good idea! do old-style banners at least. xD definitely no to the pop-ups. that is one thing i do not miss about the old web.

[xX_irkeneonz_Xx]

I actually like user-run or curated ads most of the time, thinking like what Subeta has where I don't think they have traditional ads (I use adblock so i wouldn't know lmao) but users can buy ad space on the site. It can be a fun way to find new stuff and get your own stuff out there and that's how my system found some webcomics back in the day

Corporate ads I hate with a passion though

[ellievoyyd]

ads are cool if they are for small folks doing stuff and aren't obtrusive. i like them and actually like what others were saying when they are curated i actually really enjoy them and they are helpful.

i wish that the neolink and other neocities ad embeds were more frequently updated though cause i pretty much only get the same like half a dozen or so pages advertised so i stopped putting them on my site cause it felt bad just advertising a tiny number of people unfairly.