Contributor was invented by Nemo Semret, as a
20% Project. The system allowed users to view online content resources (webpages, video streams, mobile apps), without advertising, by automatically bidding for the publisher's ad slots in real-time on behalf of the user and competing against advertisers. Thus it was a market-based content micro-payment system, ensuring fewer ads for users, and at least as much revenue for publishers as they would get from ads. Users could set a maximum monthly contribution starting at US$1.99 up to $14.99. After February 2016, Google Contributor changed to a fixed subscription fee of $6.99. When the user visits any of the Contributor-supported websites, a small part of the contribution will go to the website owners. The ad blocks, instead of displaying advertisement material, will, by default, display a thank you message with a pixel pattern. This pattern can be configured to contain cats or other patterns. In the implementation, Contributor bids for ad slots on the user's behalf using the standard Google ad auction system; if the user wins the auction, the Contributor image is placed in the ad space, and the cost of the ad is deducted from the user's monthly contribution. If the user does not win, the winning ad is displayed as normal and the user pays nothing for that slot. The website owners are paid for the ad slot as normal, although the revenue could, in theory, be marginally higher due to an additional participant in the ad auction. With the new Google Contributor, each site set its own price independently. This is a fixed price per page view. Each time a visitor views a page, the corresponding fixed fee is deducted from the Contributor balance. ==See also==