Why I Work on Ads

With money, you know exactly what you’re paying and to whom, and you can cancel payments when you want. Transactions become transparent, and incentives become properly aligned. While platforms that depend on ad sales must harvest attention any way they can, platforms that depend on people’s willingness to pay must foster trust and satisfaction.

Several individual publishers have experimented with removing ads as part of a larger subscription package. Talking Points Memo, for instance, offers an ad-free “Prime” membership for $100 a year. Some publishers like Slate promise “fewer ads” for paying subscribers. But for every publisher that offers an ad-free experience for subscribers, there a... See more

witter could offer one price tier for no ads, and another price tier for getting past paywalls, and perhaps even individual site subscriptions above that.

Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of  the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. For  example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for cellular phone is "The Effect of  Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver At... See more