The Subtle Balance of Ads: Finding the Golden Ratio Between Creator Revenue and User Experience

In today's internet world, everyone is surely fed up with ads. I was once adamant about removing ads, but now I’m starting to rethink this issue.

Ads have always appeared alongside media. Even before the internet became widespread, advertising was common in newspapers, on television, and on the radio. Ads are typically a form of commercial promotion, where the advertiser pays to buy exposure from media outlets in order to promote their products or services. In today’s internet age, ads are everywhere, with many popular mobile apps displaying ads. However, from a user's perspective, ads aren’t exactly a positive thing. First, they interrupt the normal browsing experience and degrade the user experience. Second, the quality of online ads is inconsistent, and even when there is a genuine need, users are often reluctant to make purchases due to distrust of the advertisements.

Are Ads Really Useless?

Watching ads is the lowest-cost way to support creators.

Creators produce content to be seen by their audience. In my personal opinion, high-quality content should be accessible to as many people as possible. However, if creators want to earn revenue, adding ads is a good option. If creators choose to monetize through paid purchases or memberships, fewer people will be able to see their content. But by inserting a reasonable amount of ads in appropriate places, creators can generate income through ads, allowing users to view high-quality content without paying directly. This shifts the creator's revenue stream from directly earning from the audience to earning from advertisers.

Why Do We Hate Ads?

At its core, advertising is a well-established business practice. The advertiser pays for exposure, and the media provider gets compensated, creating a win-win situation. So why has advertising become notorious?

The first reason is the sheer volume of ads. Many websites and apps aim to maximize profits by placing as many ads as possible, making it hard for users to focus on the content itself. You can see an ad after just a few scrolls in the content stream.

Furthermore, there are many "aggressive" ad formats nowadays, such as frequent pop-ups, forced redirects, mandatory views, and even ads that use gyroscope sensors to trigger ad pages when you move your phone. In the past, apps only had splash screen ads on startup, but now, even switching between apps or returning to the app from the background may trigger another ad. Naturally, such behavior is met with resistance from users.

Many ads are of very low quality. Some exploit human nature by creating the illusion of imminent rewards. For example, in platforms like Pinduoduo, you might be told that you can withdraw 500 yuan by referring just one person, but in reality, you need to refer dozens. At the beginning, the rewards are generous, but as you approach the final 99.9%, it becomes extremely difficult to progress further. This creates a false sense of almost succeeding, making users reluctant to quit, thinking that the next try might be successful. Of course, some people have actually managed to cash out, but the misleading nature of such ads is real.

There are also trickery-based apps, where watching ads earns you coins, and after collecting enough, you can redeem them for cash. The funny part is that the ads inside these apps are often promoting another money-making app, claiming "no barriers, earn hundreds per day," with tiny disclaimers at the bottom saying "Ad creative is for reference only." These ads are essentially scams, and many elderly people fail to see those tiny letters, only believing they can earn money and watching ads to accumulate coins.

Ads on popular foreign software are somewhat more restrained, but due to regulations, they are limited in how aggressively they can monetize.

In addition to apps, there are also many ads in browsers. For instance, on Baidu search, ads are mixed with search results, and in some cases, the entire first page is made up of ads. To maximize profits, many websites even recommend pirated sites.

How to Find Balance?

For Creators

If you're a YouTube creator, you can enable ads to generate revenue and actively filter ad content to avoid inappropriate or low-quality ads. YouTube ads are already quite mature, and even if users don’t want to see ads, they can subscribe to YouTube Premium to avoid them.

If you're a website owner, whether it's a content site or a tool site, you can add ads like AdSense while minimizing impact on user experience. Even small earnings from ads can help cover server or domain costs and serve as an incentive for creators. Try not to rely completely on automatic ad platforms and instead design a reasonable layout for your ads. Avoid pop-ups and forced redirects.

Some websites now check if users are using ad blockers and prevent them from viewing content if ads are blocked. This protects the creator’s revenue, but it also reduces the number of readers. If you want your content to be seen by more people, it’s better not to use this feature. Instead, you can encourage users to disable ad blockers in exchange for access to content. Only if your content is of exceptionally high quality or rare can it justify users taking such actions.

For Users

Accepting some non-intrusive ads is a way of supporting creators. Not everyone will donate or subscribe to memberships. If you’re getting useful content for free, watching ads is the least costly contribution you can make.

Use ad blockers judiciously to block ads you don’t like, but consider disabling them on specific sites to support creators.