I think at a festival it's a little tricky to value (if it pulled you away from seeing your favorite band play a song, maybe this cost you the equivalent of $X, where that's what you would pay to see them perform that song. If no bands were playing, you walk over while chatting with friends - the same thing you'd be doing if there were no free beer tent - it was free)
When I'm on stack overflow my time is valuable. I'm programming which can pay me something like $50-300/hour (maybe more?)
How expensive is the 1 second I spend reading an ad? Let's call it $50/3600. Is that expensive? By my most conservative estimate it's over 1ยข.
Should we round that down to free given that I've spent hours/many page loads on stack overflow? I guess that's up to you.
I mean, we can play that game if you want. Let's suppose that if we look hard enough, that every opportunity has a cost.
"Oh, a free concert downtown on Saturday? And you can pick me up at 2? Yeah, I do really like that band, and I sure would like to go -- that's pretty exciting, thanks for the invite!
But instead of making plans with you right now, I'd rather tell you about all of the ways I could be using my time on that Saturday afternoon instead.
No, no. It's not that I don't want to go. I just want to really drive home the idea that there's an opportunity cost to attending, so it can't really be free -- it can't be a free show for you, or for me, or for anyone else that goes. It's important to me that you realize that this "free concert" is anything but free.
Listen, I don't know what you mean by "dead-ass loser." I'm just being a realist here!
Oh, so now you're saying that you're not going to pick me up on Saturday? Some friend you are! I haven't even fully amortized this yet!"
I think we're maybe gleefully posting past each other, but the point I'm trying to hit is that business models matter. Stack overflow provides a service. It's a good service. They host a great q&a platform for developers and myriad other category enthusiasts.
However, they have a business model. They are categorically different than eg Wikipedia. It's important to understand that.
This business model matters because it tells you what economic forces will lead them to do. When business models break down at public companies they commit acts of desperation. On an ad run site that will mean more ads, more invasive ads, etc.
As you're forced to sit through 30s unskippable ads on YouTube I hope you think "I'm so glad this is free"
I think at a festival it's a little tricky to value (if it pulled you away from seeing your favorite band play a song, maybe this cost you the equivalent of $X, where that's what you would pay to see them perform that song. If no bands were playing, you walk over while chatting with friends - the same thing you'd be doing if there were no free beer tent - it was free)
When I'm on stack overflow my time is valuable. I'm programming which can pay me something like $50-300/hour (maybe more?)
How expensive is the 1 second I spend reading an ad? Let's call it $50/3600. Is that expensive? By my most conservative estimate it's over 1ยข.
Should we round that down to free given that I've spent hours/many page loads on stack overflow? I guess that's up to you.