we did a consumer survey in April (adblocksurvey.com) that suggested a range of 10-15% of people would pay for a subscription for content. Based on that we think that adblocking should be monetized by a subscription/tip combo (optimal.com is kind of a hybrid + we also have a really good iOS 10 ad blocker that uses DNS) AND we need to fix ads. there are several companies in this space and we all talk to each other about how to solve some of these problems - I hope to speak to Brad at CoinTent soon and share some of our ideas. I think there are many of us that want a sustainable solution (and obviously feel we can play a part in building that, but I'm also realistic that none of us can do it by ourselves, this includes getting publishers on board!) that is less prone to abuse than some of the 'whitelisting' schemes we see out there today.
The tracking of browsing is something I spent a long time agonizing about, especially also given our experiences at Root Markets back in 2006 with Root Vaults / AttentionTrust etc. An interesting failed experiment to write about at some point. Anyway we decided to switch to letting users just tip sites they like without doing an allocation model based on traffic. This is a new change for us but I think there will be room for a bunch of different models depending on what users are comfortable with. We also took pains with our other product, optimalblock.com for iOS to make sure that we will never use or share individual level-data, and wrote that into the privacy policy. It will limit our ability to pursue other revenue models but that's key in this space I think.
Perhaps it means that if you can build a really (objectively testable) great product, you can get customers without having to do BS like "content marketing" or advertising(?)
"what about the theory of the second best? This theory — which is just basic micro — says that when some markets are distorted, for whatever reason, social costs and benefits across the economy don’t correspond to private costs, so that unprofitable, even seemingly wasteful activities can sometimes be beneficial. And an economy in which millions of willing workers can’t find work is surely one with massive distortions of some kind."
Part of the humiliation voyeur effect is that notion that, "my life sucks, but they have it worse than I do". One thing in 15 Million Merits that I found interesting too is that in the first-person shooter game, the player is killing the 'lower class' annoyances versus aliens, other factions/countries, enemies - it actually creates an even greater sense of claustrophobia in this world and emphasizes that whoever is in power is not even part of the consideration set for "revolution".
Black Mirror is awesome. My favorite episode is "15 Million Merits", which reminds me of the John Maynard Keynes discussion about digging holes in the desert and putting jars filled with banknotes for people to dig up, or Paul Krugman's suggestion about makework preparing for an alien invasion (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/coalmines-and-al...). In the future, is any work (even if not that productive, like riding a bike and accumulating points) better than no work and potential social costs?