No Ads?

Can you imagine a world without advertisements? I mean, Internet world. I was eating lunch with my colleague outside in the patio area in the Water Garden building in Santa Monica. We were chatting about "Design Thinking". Suddenly, one idea popped out of nowhere and rang the bell on my head.

"No Advertisement on the websites?" How cool is that? What if you visit websites such as CNN.com, NYTimes.com, TechCruch.com, TED.com, etc. etc. And you don't see any ads but only content? What? I know. Yeah, it's "what?" We are so used to see advertisements whenever we visit websites. It's annoying. It's REALLY annoying sometimes. Pop-ups everywhere. After installing pop-up blockers, I still see whole bunch of crazy ads filling the half of the space. I usually spend some time looking for the content. Sometimes, I can't tell what the content part is and what advertisement part is.

I myself am working in a company where the advertisement is the main revenue source. But, when I think of this from the consumer's point-of-view, I scratch my head. Hmmm. What I develop something, like "No Ad Filter" widget. People can download the widget as a browser plug-in. Once they turn on the plug-in, suddenly no ads on the web sites. I know, it may look kind of weird. So what! No ads. My dream come true, right?

Okay, now, I'm thinking about how I can make money out of it. I may charge 1 cent per day for blocking ads? Not bad. $3.65 per year. It's your freedom. You are buying freedom for $3.65 per year? What a deal! Will people be convinced? I don't know. Will people know the value of it? I don't know, since we are so used to be a slave of advertisements.

What about the law-suits coming from all the publishers? They might try to get rid of me. They might use "carrot-and-stick" to kick my butt out of it. Of course, because this thing will kick millions of people out of job. Wow! I may become the worst enemy of the corporate American but the best friend of the public.

It's so crazy. I don't know how in the world we become a slave of advertisements. TV ads, radio ads, banner ads everywhere, not even on the Internet world. In the movie, "Social Network", Mark once said that he would lose the "coolness" once they put advertisements when his friend wanted to do something to make money. What happened now? Do you not see ads on Facebook? Where is all the revenue coming from for Facebook? Maybe, Facebook is big enough to keep the "coolness" even with ads.

I strongly disagree. Someone else will come and replace whatever is not cool, someday. Someday, I may rise to provide the best thing in the world to free people from slavery of advertisement.

Someday!
z