Quote:
Originally Posted by Xennex1170
Well, either that or a lot of Developers that know how much it hurts when you subvert a revenue source that both the seller and buyer agreed upon.
We don't know really how their ad system gets paid or how they prove to their advertisers that there is a certain number of units that are showing ads but it is likely it has something to do with the ereader connecting to the Kobo servers and updating its cache of ads. (Ok, I'm assuming the ads change from time to time here and it's not the same ones for months on end.) Another thing is that the agreement to purchase an ad supported unit DIRECTLY affected your purchase price. It is the primary reason for it being cheaper.
You are correct in saying Kobo probably makes no ad revenue from those not turning on their devices or ever connecting to their servers but honestly how many owners will do that? If I worked for Kobo and was devious enough I would probably link the advertising code tightly with the code that controls updating the DB or the wireless. You'll be either unable to sideload or not have Wifi access and won't have ads but you'll have to do deal with something hobbled on your ereader.  |
I admit I have no idea how their profits are earned from the ad enabled units, but I severely doubt it's based on "each and every time a specific units runs a specific ad" - as there's too many ways Kobo can be screwed out of $ on that deal.
It makes 100% more sense to me for the
sales figures to be what attracts the advertisers. "We have a product that is in front of blahblahblah many users each day - how much will you pay us to advertise on it?" makes more sense than "Okay - give us money and we'll put you on serial number 472720-794793 for 2 weeks...but your time may be cut off since most users have wifi off and may not connect to our servers in time for your ad run...you can just not pay us for that time, that's cool."
The user paid less by agreeing to
purchase an ad supported reader, and indeed that's what they purchased. Once they own it and apply a hack to it, they would be just as guilty as any of us who have ever broke a software agreement (
if there is in fact a software agreement somewhere)...and I'm sure pretty much everybody here has at one time or another.
They didn't pay to have to personally
view each and every ad,..how would you enforce that? And what about the people who turn their device upside down and ignore them all?