MARK SURMAN, PRESIDENT, MOZILLA Keeping the internet, and the content that makes it a vital and vibrant part of our global society, free and accessible has

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    18 hours ago

    I’m completely fine with anonymized ads being an option in theory, but there needs to be a way to compensate services w/o resorting to advertising. I think Mozilla should provide a way for users to pay to opt-out of ads, and get websites on board that way.

    Websites want to get paid for their work, and advertising is the easiest way to do that. The solution isn’t better ads, but alternative revenue streams for websites, and I’m 100% fine with Mozilla taking a cut of that alternative revenue stream. But I will not tolerate ads on my browser.

    I hoped Brave would’ve solved this problem by letting users pay to remove ads, but instead they went to crypto to reward viewing ads. That’s the opposite of what I want, and I really hope Mozilla has someone still working there in a position that matters that understands that.

    • felsiq@lemmy.zip
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      15 hours ago

      Isn’t that exactly what brave did? I wasn’t a fan of their “watch ads to get BAT” system either, but the alternative was always to just buy BAT with actual money. I’d rather see Mozilla work with brave to collaborate and improve on the BAT strategy than to start another competing standard, personally.

      • abbenm@lemmy.ml
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        11 minutes ago

        Isn’t that exactly what brave did?

        I’m actually quite intrigued with Braves attempts at innovating here, but I don’t know how effective they have been and, alas, Brave relies on Chromium.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        Does buying BAT compensate websites? AFAIK, no sites actually signed up to be compensated that way, so it just ended up being a random cryptocurrency. Brave went crypto first, websites second, and that obviously didn’t work.

        Mozilla should do the opposite IMO. Go out and make agreements with major sites to make their content available w/o ads for compensation, and then get users to start using that service. What they use for payment isn’t particularly important to me, but it should be stable and low-cost. I think GNU Taler is a good start to keep costs really low (no money is actually changing hands), and Mozilla can settle up with websites monthly, quarterly, etc.

        It should be Brave collaborating w/ Mozilla, not the other way around, because Brave obviously has weird motivations. Brave can keep BAT to reward watching ads, I just don’t think they should use the same system for rewarding ads vs compensating websites for not showing ads.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          43 minutes ago

          BC banking has a host that’s higher for both cash and administrative.

          I didn’t like how brave did it but the idea is sound IMHO.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
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      18 hours ago

      that’s actually the first good idea ive seen somebody suggest mozilla do instead!

      For the moment you can donate to sites you like while keeping the adblocker on.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        17 hours ago

        Yup, and that’s generally what I do.

        I honestly just want to put $20 in a pool or something and have the browser deduct from that balance when I visit a site. The sites I visit more get more of my money, and I’ll get a record of how much each site changes per visitor to decide whether I want to keep going there. If they use something like GNU Taler for the accounting, the sites can’t track me at all, they’ll just get micropayments and settle up with Mozilla at some interval.

        Yet Mozilla seems to not consider this at all. Their entire messaging is “better ads,” not “alternatives to ads.”

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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          13 hours ago

          This is exactly what I’ve been saying. Shove a virtual tip jar in the browser and let it pay out to websites based on viewership. I could even imagine a model where sites simply say “you must have at least $x in your tip jar to view this site, or pay us directly $y per month” for sites like Wall Street Journal that now paywall everything away

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            3 hours ago

            Exactly. I don’t want to have a dozen small subscriptions, I want one pot of money that handles all of my online stuff, with no recurring monthly obligations. If they continue to produce good content, they’ll continue to get my money, and that’s how it should be.