This doesn't seem that useful to me as only a small number of sites (none of which I visit) support it.
Hypothetical question: If I were allowed to bid on my own ad impressions - and if I won an auction, no ad would be shown - how much would it cost a month for me to see no adverts? (I realize this is heavily dependent upon the type of sites that are involved, so I guess take the average HN user as an example).
This is certainly relevant to the ad-blocker debates. Counting up "lost revenue" at all-user clickthrough rates is a fairly dirty trick when people running adblockers almost certainly have exceptionally low clickthrough rates.
(It's a lot like the creative accounting around media piracy, actually. Assuming that 100% of people who pay $0 for a torrented movie would have paid $10 instead is absolutely deranged.)
Fair points, but... The whole point of contributor seems to be the warm fuzzy feeling that you still contribute, without seeing ads. At what level is the feeling warm and fuzzy enough? That, in my opinion, would be the correct price for contributor.
The thing is, for Google we have CPI = CPC • CTR. Which means: if you never click an ad, no money ever changes hands. Thankfully our usage of the web is subsidized by those who do click ;-)
So each ad gets a quality score based on clicks. After a few days of no clicks, your own ads would be pulled for a higher quality and more profitable ad would replace it.
Hypothetical question: If I were allowed to bid on my own ad impressions - and if I won an auction, no ad would be shown - how much would it cost a month for me to see no adverts? (I realize this is heavily dependent upon the type of sites that are involved, so I guess take the average HN user as an example).