What Happens If A Hub Is Commercial
What Consequences For Commercial Hubs?
The primary cause for concern about the HubPages commercial setting is whether being a commercial hub has any drawbacks. In other words, what are the pros and cons of commercial hubs?
Is A Commercial Hub Bad?
In a word, no.
There is nothing wrong or bad about being a commercial hub. The only affect being commercial has on any hub is that the Ads setting cannot be set to Low or Medium.
While this may sound like a negative, if you have read any hubs, you know that the basic HubPages ads display is not overly intrusive and quite unlikely to offend most readers.
In fact, the most annoying ads are not displayed by default and are not affected by whether or not a hub is commercial. (Kontera ads have to be enabled by the hubber either as the new default, or for each hub.)
What Benefit For Being Non-Commercial?
If there is nothing wrong with being a commercial hub, then why does it matter? Why is there even a setting for non-commercial hubs?
Why Choose Non-Commercial Hub Setting?
Non-commercial hubs can change the amount of ads shown from High (the standard default) to Medium, Low, or None. There are a couple of reasons one might care about this setting.
No Commercialization
While most professional authors are comfortable with the fact that their hard work and talent can be used to earn money in numerous ways, some authors have different goals. These authors consider their work to be art and don't want it to be "commercialized" by having advertising displayed with it. For example, Hubbers who publish poetry on Hubs might fight it unseemly to have ads for motor oil placed alongside a poem that includes a line about the lubrication of heart beats.
Along these lines, some authors might feel that some of the ads interfere with their ability to connect with the reader. Typically, it is the ads in the middle of the writing that these authors would like to do away with. Again, lower ad settings make this possible.
Ads Would Be Offensive On Hub
Finally, for some hubs, the whole concepts of advertising being included is flat out offensive. Typically this involves hubs that relate to real life and often to real life tragedies. No one wants to see an advertisement for cheap plane tickets on a website dedicated to the victims of 9/11.
There are many other examples, ranging from tragedy, to very personal hubs, to hubs dedicated to people or causes.
Consider a hub published in memory of a young child, or a hub dedicated to police officers killed in the line of duty. Other examples include hubs dedicated to charity, or a hub dedicated to a recovering alcoholic's ten years sober, would all be less for having had ads placed on them. In these cases, setting the Ads level to None would be more than appropriate.
Note: Some Hubbers choose to display ads even on their non-commercial hubs with the intent of donating the proceeds to their cause.
