6 ms·

There is no universe where Wizz is earning £10 per visitor booking a ticket through their website. Ads are dollars or parts of a dollar per thousand clicks

bhedgeoser 4y ago
Google is the only thing losing a lot of money because of adblockers. They told them to do it?
ErikVandeWater 4y ago
It identifies passengers that are not price sensitive. Price sensitive customers are subsidized in all airlines by overcharging customers that are not price sensitive (e.g. business class).
- tomrod 4y ago
  Someone at Wizz skipped the statistics lesson on variance. There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity outside of qualitative handwaving.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity outside of qualitative handwaving. Perhaps they are banking on this information becoming public knowledge, so it can become a signal? :)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 4y ago
    Why not? It seems at least somewhat plausible that people who know about ad blockers are technically savvy and technically savvy people do better in the job market, therefore higher income and lower price sensitivity.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      Correct. Your comment is qualitative handwaving, an armchair speculation that sounds plausible. Is that enough justification to pend off eventual discrimination lawsuits? I personally doubt it. Very few companies have the analytics maturity to use A/B testing in production to prove your hand-waving assertion without the effect failing sensitivity checks. And by very few, I point to the ones that hire economists and eocnonetricians en masse as having an inkling and trying to work this out in the ad tech space.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >Correct. Your comment is qualitative handwaving, an armchair speculation that sounds plausible. As the saying goes, what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. You rag on people for doing "qualitative handwaving" and "armchair speculation", yet you make the claim of "There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity" with nothing but "qualitative handwaving" and "armchair speculation". >Is that enough justification to pend off eventual discrimination lawsuits? I personally doubt it. Obviously nothing can fend off "eventual discrimination lawsuits", because anyone can sue for any reason. That said, I find it really a reach to say that discriminating based on ad-blocker status would be construed as discrimination against a protected class in a court of law. > Very few companies have the analytics maturity to use A/B testing in production to prove your hand-waving assertion without the effect failing sensitivity checks. Right, that's why I said it was plausible, not that it was a rigorously proven theory.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      On the other hand they're flying Wizz Air which is a budget airline so they've implicitly demonstrated their price sensitivity regardless of ad-block usage.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Anybody flying Wizz Air is price sensitive.
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    On some routes, there are no alternatives to low-cost airlines if you want a direct flight. For example, when I flew from Prague to Milan a couple of months ago, the options were basically Wizz Air and Ryanair.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      No alternative means the outside option is to not fly, so your price sensitivity is impacted.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    Most of Wizz flights are short. Most people will be price sensitive for short flights. Why pay more for what is only two to three hours in a plane?
    - lnxg33k1 4y ago
      Yeah I came home in Italy today from Netherlands it was a 2:40 hrs flight on Transavia, and I had a realisation that I don’t have the age anymore for these kind of airlines and I think I will try to find a better , larger, quieter airline and class from next holiday, it was really hard today, I had a guy next to me that would have needed 2 seats and I couldn’t find a way to seat comfortably to give him space, had to have half body outside in the middle lane , and try to fit back when someone had to pass to go to bathroom, these airlines are shrinking planes like hell and it’s becoming painful
      - InCityDreams 4y ago
        Charge fat people more?
      - brnt 4y ago
jpalomaki 4y ago
Might be valuable if you can monetize the information that this person is looking to travel to certain location at certain time. To my knowledge, there’s different systems that are collecting this kind of information and then driving highly targeted marketing based on that.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  this is a very good answer, sells hotel ads, car rentals, restaurants, casinos, stage shows, theme parks...
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Sites already do this on a commission basis in the same flow which would be more money than running ads.
dalbasal 4y ago
First, perhaps not. In that case, the budget airline mindset kicks in: if some people are willing to pay for something, charge differentially. However, I wouldn't be so sure that £10 per user isn't the actual value of the ad impressions and data. Users who would pay to opt out of ads aren't a random sample. They're adblock using airline ticket buyers who paid for some sort of premium experience. Could easily be a premium segment. Advertising is valuable, and that value isn't evenly distributed at all.
goldcd 4y ago
Maybe not a loss from adverts as you book - but knowing when somebody is going to arrive in a city is worth an f'in fortune to hotels looking to shift unsold rooms.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  But do they really need some kind of elaborate fingerprint-and-retarget scheme when they've already got your name, address, credit card, and possibly passport details?
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    Who says anything about tracking tech? Show the ad right at checkout when the person is booking the travel… yanno on the site they booked the flight. The point isn’t getting info, it’s up selling in the moment.
cortesoft 4y ago
It you are trying to stay revenue neutral as a company, and want to charge people to avoid ads, you can't just charge them the exact same amount that you make per customer from your ad provider. People who can afford to pay to avoid seeing advertisements are more valuable to advertisers because they have more money.
zapt02 4y ago
What's to say the ad blockers aren't visually hiding upsells though? This might actually cost them a lot of money. There are plenty of visual hiding rules in the most used blocklists.
- lodovic 4y ago
  That's like charging a blind person more because they can't see the in-store promotions.
  - zapt02 4y ago
    You are right! I wasn't debating the ethics but the mistaken notion that ads on a website could only give "pennies" of revenue. (aka Cost per impression)

bhedgeoser 4y ago

Google is the only thing losing a lot of money because of adblockers. They told them to do it?

ErikVandeWater 4y ago

It identifies passengers that are not price sensitive. Price sensitive customers are subsidized in all airlines by overcharging customers that are not price sensitive (e.g. business class).

tomrod 4y ago
Someone at Wizz skipped the statistics lesson on variance. There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity outside of qualitative handwaving.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity outside of qualitative handwaving. Perhaps they are banking on this information becoming public knowledge, so it can become a signal? :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 4y ago
  Why not? It seems at least somewhat plausible that people who know about ad blockers are technically savvy and technically savvy people do better in the job market, therefore higher income and lower price sensitivity.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Correct. Your comment is qualitative handwaving, an armchair speculation that sounds plausible. Is that enough justification to pend off eventual discrimination lawsuits? I personally doubt it. Very few companies have the analytics maturity to use A/B testing in production to prove your hand-waving assertion without the effect failing sensitivity checks. And by very few, I point to the ones that hire economists and eocnonetricians en masse as having an inkling and trying to work this out in the ad tech space.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >Correct. Your comment is qualitative handwaving, an armchair speculation that sounds plausible. As the saying goes, what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. You rag on people for doing "qualitative handwaving" and "armchair speculation", yet you make the claim of "There is no way an adblocker accurately identifies price sensitivity" with nothing but "qualitative handwaving" and "armchair speculation". >Is that enough justification to pend off eventual discrimination lawsuits? I personally doubt it. Obviously nothing can fend off "eventual discrimination lawsuits", because anyone can sue for any reason. That said, I find it really a reach to say that discriminating based on ad-blocker status would be construed as discrimination against a protected class in a court of law. > Very few companies have the analytics maturity to use A/B testing in production to prove your hand-waving assertion without the effect failing sensitivity checks. Right, that's why I said it was plausible, not that it was a rigorously proven theory.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    On the other hand they're flying Wizz Air which is a budget airline so they've implicitly demonstrated their price sensitivity regardless of ad-block usage.
jacquesm 4y ago
Anybody flying Wizz Air is price sensitive.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  On some routes, there are no alternatives to low-cost airlines if you want a direct flight. For example, when I flew from Prague to Milan a couple of months ago, the options were basically Wizz Air and Ryanair.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    No alternative means the outside option is to not fly, so your price sensitivity is impacted.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  Most of Wizz flights are short. Most people will be price sensitive for short flights. Why pay more for what is only two to three hours in a plane?
  - lnxg33k1 4y ago
    Yeah I came home in Italy today from Netherlands it was a 2:40 hrs flight on Transavia, and I had a realisation that I don’t have the age anymore for these kind of airlines and I think I will try to find a better , larger, quieter airline and class from next holiday, it was really hard today, I had a guy next to me that would have needed 2 seats and I couldn’t find a way to seat comfortably to give him space, had to have half body outside in the middle lane , and try to fit back when someone had to pass to go to bathroom, these airlines are shrinking planes like hell and it’s becoming painful
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      Charge fat people more?
    - brnt 4y ago

jpalomaki 4y ago

Might be valuable if you can monetize the information that this person is looking to travel to certain location at certain time. To my knowledge, there’s different systems that are collecting this kind of information and then driving highly targeted marketing based on that.

fsckboy 4y ago
this is a very good answer, sells hotel ads, car rentals, restaurants, casinos, stage shows, theme parks...
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Sites already do this on a commission basis in the same flow which would be more money than running ads.

dalbasal 4y ago

First, perhaps not. In that case, the budget airline mindset kicks in: if some people are willing to pay for something, charge differentially. However, I wouldn't be so sure that £10 per user isn't the actual value of the ad impressions and data. Users who would pay to opt out of ads aren't a random sample. They're adblock using airline ticket buyers who paid for some sort of premium experience. Could easily be a premium segment. Advertising is valuable, and that value isn't evenly distributed at all.

goldcd 4y ago

Maybe not a loss from adverts as you book - but knowing when somebody is going to arrive in a city is worth an f'in fortune to hotels looking to shift unsold rooms.

mattkrause 4y ago
But do they really need some kind of elaborate fingerprint-and-retarget scheme when they've already got your name, address, credit card, and possibly passport details?
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  Who says anything about tracking tech? Show the ad right at checkout when the person is booking the travel… yanno on the site they booked the flight. The point isn’t getting info, it’s up selling in the moment.

cortesoft 4y ago

It you are trying to stay revenue neutral as a company, and want to charge people to avoid ads, you can't just charge them the exact same amount that you make per customer from your ad provider. People who can afford to pay to avoid seeing advertisements are more valuable to advertisers because they have more money.

zapt02 4y ago

What's to say the ad blockers aren't visually hiding upsells though? This might actually cost them a lot of money. There are plenty of visual hiding rules in the most used blocklists.

lodovic 4y ago
That's like charging a blind person more because they can't see the in-store promotions.
- zapt02 4y ago
  You are right! I wasn't debating the ethics but the mistaken notion that ads on a website could only give "pennies" of revenue. (aka Cost per impression)