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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 21 2016, @08:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the NOW-we-know-what-the-'Plus'-is dept.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/13/12890050/adblock-plus-now-sells-ads

A story at The Verge reveals the newest plan for the company behind Adblock Plus, they are entering the ad network business. In exchange for 20% of your revenue, you can get pre-approved ads that will show to users with acceptable ads enabled. While pitched as an easier alternative to the old process of getting ads approved, the ultimate goal is the same. Now, they will get a percentage of all acceptable ads though the program. The article points out that this is one big step closer to racketeering, as they are directly taking a 6% cut. Or, as the old gangsters would say, "would you rather pay me to keep 80% of something or keep 100% of nothing?"


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 21 2016, @04:26PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 21 2016, @04:26PM (#404827)

    Where's the harm of having a few billionaires control the news?

    You mean like we have now? The entire mainstream entertainment complex in the US amounts to, at most, 5 companies.

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  • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:43PM

    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:43PM (#404951)

    Entertainment, yes. There used to be (in the 90's) local papers that weren't under a couple of corporate umbrellas. Most of the news is generated at the "newspaper" level.

    Now, Bezos owns the Washington Post, Murdoch owns the WSJ, and it goes on. Newspapers went from being profitable things (which encouraged people to invest in them to make money) to money sinks (where people invest in them to control the news.) In addition to the latter being less socially good, people can split profit many ways, allowing for minority owners. Control of public discourse... less so.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:11AM (#404961)

      > There used to be (in the 90's) local papers that weren't under a couple of corporate umbrellas.

      I think you over-estimate. In the 80s I lived in a state with a population under a million. There were 2 papers in the big city and then a handful of other local town papers. They we are all owned by larger companies. Sure there were more than 5 total owners, but a concentrate among rich 30 owners or rich 5 owners isn't that big of a difference.

      • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:31AM

        by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:31AM (#405045)

        I mean, if you look at really rich groups of 30 (say, teams of sports organizers) where a lot of the wealth is illiquid, you'll see they have a far different profile than groups of 6 with more liquid wealth. See how the football group that Trump was part of, compared to the smaller group of 6 that successfully joined the NFL. Or the current NBA owners meetings vs. when Google execs are on Apple's board.