The World Runs On Ads- But, Should It?
“Cookie Consent”. These two words are bemoaned by website visitors and website owners in unison. The formulation of a cookie consent policy is a pain in the neck for website owners and Ad agencies, as major manual work is being put in to confer to the strict new guidelines.
Consider the recent GDPR policies, Google’s hegemony over the digital ad sector has brought forth much condemnation. While many suspect that the company is pushing its own revenue market, Ad agencies and Publishing Trade bodies are already losing revenue with its implementation.
For the website visitors, the cookie policies are mostly defaulted to agreement because there really are not many options left if they need access to content, or to stay active with their connections online. The cookie bots crawl through user information like PacMan rampaging on their privacy, to display personalized ads. And honestly, many don’t mind an occasional ad, and prefers to give up their personal information rather than subscribing with fees. It’s the most comfortable and effortless choice out there.
Perhaps, the most famous example of how respecting privacy is no longer a virtuous business model for many, is Facebook. Once a contrarian to the notion, Mr. Zuckerberg is now one of loudest advocates to Ad based revenue model. It can be assumed that this was so far apart from the company’s initial business model that, co-founders of WhatsApp (now owned by Zuckerberg), Acton and Koum left the million dollar venture. Ostensibly:
There isn’t much merit to this model, except that it runs the business.
Almost as a serendipity, the Raven Protocol’s platform forms an alternative method to generate revenue without ads.
The Raven Model for Website Income, Sans The Ads
Raven Protocol is a platform that facilitates training of Deep Learning models through the network. Anyone can simply upload their datasets and algorithm to get the model trained, taking up very little time and next to nothing in-house compute space. Sharing of compute resources is incentivized/commissioned through the blockchain, and any GPU-based device, including smartphones can contribute.
So, it is a win-win situation for both the website owners, as well as the visitors.
Though it was not part of the plan for the team at Raven Protocol, it struck us that it would be a welcome model if the platform could be used as a substitute revenue option for website owners.
The model is based on the intricate and dependent relationship between content generators and content consumers.
Ads take up much of the webpage space, and spoils the aesthetic and UI/UX. Sponsored content has garnered public contempt, and owing to the uproar around the topic stringent rules regarding consent are now mandated.
Customers are attracted to a transparent business model. Charitable or socio-environmental causes always gathered general public interest.
In this scenario, you as the owners of websites are left with not many options for a mode of revenue, other than ads.
Raven Foundation is working towards building a sustainable network, that is also dynamic. The immense compute power needed for training deep learning ML models through the network is contributed by users who lend their computers, laptops and smartphones for a remuneration.
And, Raven being a secure transaction platform, contained in the Ethereum Blockchain is a win-win situation for all.
The diagram below outlines the network to show how all this works:
Master Node: Controls the allocation of compute space and training of Deep Learning models.
Website Partner: Earns through the Raven Network by extending their user base to lend their compute space.
Compute Nodes (Nn): The users (website visitors) who contribute their compute space to the network, which is the foundation of the whole system.
So, there you have it. A system where everyone in the network benefits and earns, as opposed to compromising your personal space and information. This could set a new chapter in the world of digital economics.
A majority of the human crowd are still oblivious of the extensive struggle that a small section of the AI community are facing, to make AI an easy and accessible affair for all. This stems from the realization that AI is here and will become part of our lives in ways that we may not yet fathom. Regular AI companies or companies seeking to implement AI into their systems strive to bring about new ways to improve life with AI are finding themselves at a crippled stage to fully explore their ideas. Raven aims to help such set of individuals and companies to fully exploit the potential of AI, economically.
