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by pessimizer·14y ago·view on hn ↗
As far as I've heard, almost nobody clicks on ads. Just because ads produce enough revenue to support a business, don't assume that that means that a majority ever clicks on them. That's akin to an argument I read a lot on HN when people complain about particular content always getting on the front page (bitcoin, apple-this-or-that); that if it's getting on the front page, a majority must be for it.

According to this article from 2009 reporting about some consultant study that divided people into "heavy clickers, moderate clickers, light clickers and non-clickers" of ads, between 2007 and 2009, the non-clickers grew from "68 to 84% percent of the entire Internet population."

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/4720-16-of-users-click-on-ba...

The study also claimed that the more savvy people became about the internet, the less likely they clicked on ads. The population as a whole is becoming more savvy about the internet.

1 comments
> As far as I've heard, almost nobody clicks on ads.

You need to talk to people outside your circle of friends then.

> The population as a whole is becoming more savvy about the internet.

Is this why googles ad revenue is growing at such an astounding rate?

I don't talk to my friends for evidence, I look at studies.

Google's ad revenue has nothing do with what the majority of anybody does. Google is doing ads well, better than they had been done before, and ads have gradually become more relevant and less seedy; I could see those two things countering the slide of clicks, at least in their case, but maybe in all cases. I don't have a problem with ads, and I would start clicking on them if the odds that it wouldn't be a waste of my time got better.

I do have a problem with bald-assed assertions instead of arguments, defended by insults that assume that you know anything about anyone else's circle of friends but your own.