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Comment by HelloMcFly | Hacker News Reader

I just want a company to tell me truly what it is worth to them from me to not show me ads. Maybe the cost is truly so much higher than I expect that I wouldn't pay it, but for fuck's sake give me the option! Is it $15/month extra instead of $5? $30/month extra? Somewhere, that line exists where the company would financially benefit, I just wish they'd actually define it.

When I was getting married, I engaged a baker to make pies for our wedding. Two weeks before the wedding they cancelled, saying very apologetically they had not catered many weddings with only pies and couldn't do it at the price they quoted. I had to practically beg them to just give me a price that was profitable for them (20% higher, in the end), and then let me decide. This feels just like that.

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> Somewhere, that line exists where the company would financially benefit, I just wish they'd actually define it.

The line doesn't exists. It's most profitable for the company to repeatedly:

1. Have an ad-supported tier and a no-ads tier

2. Wait for most people to move to the no-ads tier

3. Introduce ads into the no-ads tier

4. Wait for people to get sick of ads

5. Introduce a new, higher cost no ads tier

There is no threshold where it's more profitable for the company to never introduce ads at that price point.

I understand the rationale here, but I just don't believe I'm worth more to Disney (in this instance) as a recipient of these shitty ads than if they let me pay $2000/year to not have them; of course, that is more than I'm willing to pay.

I am receptive to the idea repeated across responses that Disney (or any other internet media company) cannot do this as a tier for all because it degrades the value of the advertising audience they sell to ad buyers by removing high earners. But it is still difficult for me to buy that there is truly no line at which it is worth it for them.

If you would pay to remove ads you are more valuable, so they can charge more, in a never ending spiral.

The problem is that such a line doesn’t exist, because they’re always looking for ways to increase profit for shareholders. On day X, they’ll be fine offering you an ad free sub, but on day X+Y there will be a meeting where they discuss what they can do to improve their revenue numbers and someone will suggest adding just a few ads to the ad-free tier.

This is why people go scorched earth with adblockers. There’s a lot of discussion about “good” ad networks being allowlisted, but they are all just one missed earnings report away from implementing dark patterns. None of them are trustworthy.

Sounds like you're waiting for somebody to tell you how much money they need. There's no answer, they need all the money. If somebody asked you how much money you needed to do something, and you had no competition and they would not or could not walk away, you wouldn't have an answer either. You'd take all the money.

This is just how not having antitrust, media ownership limitations, or consumer protections works. The actors, crew, and production companies are in the same boat as you when dealing with Disney.

> If somebody asked you how much money you needed to do something, and you had no competition and they would not or could not walk away, you wouldn't have an answer either. You'd take all the money.

I mean I wouldn't because I'm not a moral-free corporate entity whose only goal is to maximize my own gain. Further, the analogy doesn't apply because in the streaming and internet media context I can walk away and have walked away. I do not use any social media except this site and Letterboxd; I've moved largely to physical media and season buys of shows I like, I watch sports on the antenna, NBA TV, or illicit streaming sites with ad blockers running overtime (unless it's on NBA League Pass, which doesn't advertise to me!).

It seems like there's no limit on that because you're more valuable to them as a potential product for their ad reselling business that whatever price you may bring not to be a product. I'm sure luxury companies would be interested to show you ad if the subscription was 2000$/month

It's not easy to calculate how much you are worth because it depends on so many factors. And it wouldn't be nice to charge you 10x more than what they charge someone else.

This information is available in the annual reports of all these companies. It's the advertising revenue per user per year. For Meta it's like $100 a year for U.S. users.

The answer is that you're such a small minority that they'd rather not have you as a customer than maintain another pricing tier and logic fork.

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