Google Kills the Ads

Google is killing ads on select sites with the launch of a new experiment called Contributor. Google has teamed up with publishers like Imgur, Mashable and WikiHow to test the new service where users trade advertising for donations.

Basically you choose a monthly contribution and the site(s) you want the money to go to and peruse the site as you wish, ad free.

Micropayments aren’t new (read: Tipjoy) and services like ChangeTip and Coinbase Tip are approaching payments from the Bitcoin angle.

Will this work? Potentially. If it were anybody other than Google I’d say probably not but with their weight behind the idea it may take off. My biggest grudge with the idea is the cost per site per month. A dollar, at minimum, is too much to pay per site. My threshold is considerably higher before I would consider using it.