I am mixed on this. While I like the idea of moving more revenue into the Steem ecosystem, I'm pretty sure that the majority of our users would not appreciate seeing ads. But like you mentioned in another comment, this could be up to the different UIs and the users (showing ads on their channels).
My question is, what metrics would an advertiser use to decide which channels to display ads on? I imagine you would need some serious viewership in order to get noticed by advertisers, and that's something most people don't have unless they're promoting their posts with bid bots.
Allow me to Play Devil's Advocate
So I feel that what would happen is, people would be try to hit trending (even more than they do now) just to get noticed by advertisers (improve their views/metrics). But they likely won't improve on their actual content, which means that their content is likely to get flagged down. Then what happens to the relationship between the content creator and advertiser?
I think this could be done, but with some careful considerations. You would have to ensure that there's a healthy relationship between the content creator and advertiser, allow some type of refund to the advertisers in situations like I mentioned (perhaps an intermediary escrow), and decide what metrics you would provide to advertisers (and how true they are).
I agree with you on your concerns. I don't think we should let people keep ANY ad revenue. Instead, I would like to see all advertising money go towards boosting Steem, and increasing the rewards pool. Lets let the community decide who they want to support with their increased upvote power. This should be the only compensation.
Let the advertisers to pay directly into the rewards pool, so we can all have more powerful upvotes.
This way will get better content, because there will be more money coming into the system, but the only compensation writers should get, is from the increased upvote value. What do you think of my proposal?
Could you imagine a threefold increase in Steem, and a tenfold increase in upvote value? If first time users were getting a dollar per post, instead of 10 cents, it would make a huge difference. It would create a self-feedback loop, because many new users would want to join Steem.
We can also create some filters to turn ads off. Maybe by default, people get a flat rate of compensation, if they choose to view ads.
The main purpose of advertising, would be to get money into the system, without having to rely on exchange speculation. All ad revenue should go towards boosting Steem, increasing the rewards pool, and minnow support, so we can reduce the income inequality, and attract new users and investors.
Just don't make one mistake. Don't divert money from the rewards pool, but allowing elite users to keep ad revenue. That will do less to boost the price of Steem.
@brandonfrye,
This is why you have to kill all vote-gaming mechanisms (bidbots, multiple-account-self-upvoting) and channel "upvoting capital" into manual curation. If Hot and Trending really were "the best quality content," (like they're supposed to be), advertisers wouldn't care about Follower counts. They want "quality content" and "honestly engaged audiences" and placement in Hot or Trending would be evidence enough and many would pay a premium for it.
Each author interested in attracting advertising would fill out a Certification Checklist prior to posting: Subject Matter; Profanity; Graphic Images; Political Controversy; etc. Advertisers could then tailor their desired audiences accordingly.
BTW: Some advertisers WANT profanity and/or political controversy: Nike and the "Colin Kaepernick Ad" ... that was a deliberate attempt by Nike to "create a controversy" (and thereby generate a ton of FREE advertising via news coverage and social media warfare).
Besides advertising on legit Hot/Trending posts, some advertisers may decide to regularly advertise on all of certain authors' posts, perhaps seeking a long-term advertising relationship with guaranteed placement and a fixed cost. Others may seek to advertise solely within certain categories (tags).
The controversy at YouTube respecting demonetization was about YouTube demonetizing certain videos for "ALL advertisers" (because of the sensibilities of a few of the largest ones). Why didn't YouTube just insist that each video be accurately tagged according to its content, and then let each individual advertiser apply their own criteria?
"Speech Suppression" now comes into play ... many (myself included) believe that YouTube (Google) is deliberately trying to silence certain kinds of speech, by bankrupting the speakers, and using "advertiser objection" as the excuse for yielding the cudgel.
Quill