Ask HN: “Pay to turn off ads” SaaS

4 pointslenomad10y ago2 comments

Scenario: An author/website publishes quality content and makes money with ads. There are some regular readers who prefer to remove ads (or who use an ad-blocker but would like to support the site).

The website would get a cost-per-visit (capped to a maximum per month from one user).

The service would support multiple websites, and it should be super-easy, like clicking a button "Remove Ads" to remove ads and start the micropayments.

I have a feeling that such a service will be popular soon (but do not plan on building it myself, if it doesn't exist)

2 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

masonicb00m10y ago· 1 in thread

Tried it.

See https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/.

Users who don't like ads can just run an ad-blocker, so this hypothetical service would be competing with free, and would only convert the fraction who feel guilty enough about running ad-block to pay what the publisher charges.

The bigger sites will already have set up such a system, so you're left chasing smaller sites. The smaller ones are probably already on AdSense, so Google's experiment with Contributor will address them.

iMerNibor10y ago

> The bigger sites will already have set up such a system

The main issue what that is you need to pay a lot of money if you visit a lot of big sites and dont like ads

5$ a month for one service vs. 10 or so is a big difference

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse