Why I Work on Ads(jefftk.com)
jefftk.com
Why I Work on Ads
https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads
879 comments
The author writes that you can either pay with money or you can “pay with your attention”. What’s left unsaid is the cost of that attention. I believe that cost is very high and it isn’t just ads, it’s the design of countless products including social media sites, games and even the site you’re reading this on right now. It’s all designed to extract as much attention as possible, and the cost is people’s ability to concentrate, learn and get shit done. The cost is, in other words, staggeringly high.
That's not a feature of advertising as a business model, it's just a feature of growth-focused businesses. The same forces apply to products that you pay for with money. For a very obvious example, just look at Candy Crush.
It is not even remotely a feature of all growth-focused businesses.
For example, Slack is a growth focused company that uses a subscription model for revenue and has no incentive to maximize time spent in their App.
You are correct that advertising, microtransactions and gambling lead to very similar business model incentives.
For example, Slack is a growth focused company that uses a subscription model for revenue and has no incentive to maximize time spent in their App.
You are correct that advertising, microtransactions and gambling lead to very similar business model incentives.
The arrogance of appropriation is a pathology common to developers.
For example: “we’re rolling out a new tool. It takes only fifteen minutes to learn!” when 100,000 people have to learn it.
Developers working in advertising aren’t just exhibiting this disorder; they are consumed by it.
For example: “we’re rolling out a new tool. It takes only fifteen minutes to learn!” when 100,000 people have to learn it.
Developers working in advertising aren’t just exhibiting this disorder; they are consumed by it.
Can you elaborate
I can tell you this is an unpopular observation to put before developers, who are not often great at considering the human price of their choices, and advertising executives will continue to roundly & loudly defend their value proposition until there is no more toothpaste to sell, or we finally convince them to board the Golgafrincham B Ark. The combination of the two is a potent toxin that can turn an unassuming everyday programmer into a vassal of malignant narcissism.
Time is the most valuable commodity anyone possesses. Stealing it is diabolical.
Time is the most valuable commodity anyone possesses. Stealing it is diabolical.
products subject to direct market forces are incentivized by this as well. you don't pay for crack with popups.
At least you're getting something out of it when it isn't ads, though. If it's a game (like Candy Crush, mentioned in another comment), at least you're getting some tiny dopamine hit, no matter how repetitive and empty. For social media, at least you're getting that slight bit of humor or outrage bait.
I don't like these things at all, but they're something. With an ad, you're solely siphoning off a portion of my infinitesimally fleeting existence. It's like getting stuck in traffic, except deliberate and with malice aforethought.
I don't like these things at all, but they're something. With an ad, you're solely siphoning off a portion of my infinitesimally fleeting existence. It's like getting stuck in traffic, except deliberate and with malice aforethought.
I despise ads, but I think paying for a stimulating, informative article (for example) with an ad view is inherently less destructive than paying for a meaningless, empty dopamine hit, or manufactured outrage.
In that case I'd rather subscribe to/pay the author directly. (Who's to say an ad impression on some company's website will even help the author in any way? Maybe there's a chance it could indirectly, or maybe there's a layoff or pay cut planned soon anyway.)
For that and several other reasons, I strongly prefer independent solo journalists (or very small independent self-operating teams) rather than ones that work for publications. I think Substack and Patreon are far better solutions here than advertising is, for example.
For that and several other reasons, I strongly prefer independent solo journalists (or very small independent self-operating teams) rather than ones that work for publications. I think Substack and Patreon are far better solutions here than advertising is, for example.
It's not just the cost in attention--those ads are produced with the price of our privacy included in the cost.
I feel like there are other costs beyond attention and privacy, too. Costs of malware and fraud are also common, but for the sake of argument we can just focus on somewhat more "legitimate" / "non-malicious" ads. (Emphasis on the scare quotes.)
There's the aesthetic cost. If I see an ad on or near a nicely designed or produced website or video, it immediately detracts from the visual appeal.
There's the annoyance cost. I'm personally immediately irritated and annoyed when I see or hear an ad. It affects my mood and my impression of whatever I'm trying to look at or listen to. (I despise it when I'm away from my computer and have a podcast on which ends and instantly transitions to some loud peppy ad for a fast food restaurant and I have to interrupt whatever I'm doing to walk over and shut the thing off.)
For some, there's the cost of paying for a product or service that an ad misled them about. They may pay more than they should have or get something which is portrayed a certain way in an ad which doesn't hold up in reality.
There's the psychological and sociological cost. Ads (especially in video or audio form) present a certain clinical and biased world frame. People usually talk and act in unnatural or "perfect" ways. A young person exposed to, say, hundreds of ads per week and thousands of ads per year may eventually start to subconsciously find that frame normal and expected. Even though they know they're ads rather than non-fiction, I think those things can potentially seep in in some cases.
There are the conflicts of interest and the effects caused by suspicion of conflicts of interest. If I see a "sponsored search result" or "sponsored article", I expect that the source will be less likely to show things which might propose a competing narrative or say anything negative about the sponsor. "Okay, I can't trust this source for anything related to [X], now."
As a corollary to the annoyance cost, there's the fakeness/sincerity dissonance cost. If I'm reading an article or listening to a podcast that's presented as, or may very well be, sincere and truthful, it's a little bit jarring for it to be interrupted with some fake, artificial, marketer-crafted bullshit with superlatives about how [X] will change your life and is the best thing ever. A little hard to take the rest seriously at that point.
I feel like I could list at least ten more. From a purely subjective and personal perspective, I don't even mind the egregious privacy implications as much as all these other things. I just fucking hate seeing and hearing ads.
There's the aesthetic cost. If I see an ad on or near a nicely designed or produced website or video, it immediately detracts from the visual appeal.
There's the annoyance cost. I'm personally immediately irritated and annoyed when I see or hear an ad. It affects my mood and my impression of whatever I'm trying to look at or listen to. (I despise it when I'm away from my computer and have a podcast on which ends and instantly transitions to some loud peppy ad for a fast food restaurant and I have to interrupt whatever I'm doing to walk over and shut the thing off.)
For some, there's the cost of paying for a product or service that an ad misled them about. They may pay more than they should have or get something which is portrayed a certain way in an ad which doesn't hold up in reality.
There's the psychological and sociological cost. Ads (especially in video or audio form) present a certain clinical and biased world frame. People usually talk and act in unnatural or "perfect" ways. A young person exposed to, say, hundreds of ads per week and thousands of ads per year may eventually start to subconsciously find that frame normal and expected. Even though they know they're ads rather than non-fiction, I think those things can potentially seep in in some cases.
There are the conflicts of interest and the effects caused by suspicion of conflicts of interest. If I see a "sponsored search result" or "sponsored article", I expect that the source will be less likely to show things which might propose a competing narrative or say anything negative about the sponsor. "Okay, I can't trust this source for anything related to [X], now."
As a corollary to the annoyance cost, there's the fakeness/sincerity dissonance cost. If I'm reading an article or listening to a podcast that's presented as, or may very well be, sincere and truthful, it's a little bit jarring for it to be interrupted with some fake, artificial, marketer-crafted bullshit with superlatives about how [X] will change your life and is the best thing ever. A little hard to take the rest seriously at that point.
I feel like I could list at least ten more. From a purely subjective and personal perspective, I don't even mind the egregious privacy implications as much as all these other things. I just fucking hate seeing and hearing ads.
> For some, there's the cost of paying for a product or service that an ad misled them about. They may pay more than they should have or get something which is portrayed a certain way in an ad which doesn't hold up in reality.
This is a big one. Something being free with advertisements doesn't mean that we're not paying for it, just that the way we're paying for it is hidden. Companies don't pay Google money for altruistic reasons, they're paying because they can earn more.
If you think about it, we're actually likely to pay more when we pay through ads. Google wants X dollars. In a subscription model, we pay X. In an ad model, a company gives Google X, because they think they can make X + P (profits). So they get us to buy a product we don't need, and in order to recoup their loss we need to be paying the manufacturing cost M (we'll pretend other costs like transportation and retail markups are included in here as well), plus X, plus P. Otherwise the advertising isn't worth it. Instead of us paying X to Google to us their products, now we're paying X+P+M for their products in a very roundabout way, and then calling it free.
This is a big one. Something being free with advertisements doesn't mean that we're not paying for it, just that the way we're paying for it is hidden. Companies don't pay Google money for altruistic reasons, they're paying because they can earn more.
If you think about it, we're actually likely to pay more when we pay through ads. Google wants X dollars. In a subscription model, we pay X. In an ad model, a company gives Google X, because they think they can make X + P (profits). So they get us to buy a product we don't need, and in order to recoup their loss we need to be paying the manufacturing cost M (we'll pretend other costs like transportation and retail markups are included in here as well), plus X, plus P. Otherwise the advertising isn't worth it. Instead of us paying X to Google to us their products, now we're paying X+P+M for their products in a very roundabout way, and then calling it free.
Usability costs. Ads are by definition content users didn't want but are receiving anyway. They use up the bandwidth of users. They take up space on the interface and distract the user, taking attention away from more important things. They make sites uglier and harder to use. They lower the signal to noise ratio.
Banner blindness. It's been proven that people have become used to ignoring banner ads. Their eyes jump over them as soon as they're recognized. Since there may be false positives, this habit has implications for user interface design: an actual user interface element that looks like a banner ad will be ignored by most people. On the other hand, sites have also begun to style their ads exactly like their main content in order to make it harder for users to distinguish them.
Banner blindness. It's been proven that people have become used to ignoring banner ads. Their eyes jump over them as soon as they're recognized. Since there may be false positives, this habit has implications for user interface design: an actual user interface element that looks like a banner ad will be ignored by most people. On the other hand, sites have also begun to style their ads exactly like their main content in order to make it harder for users to distinguish them.
Oh yeah, I can't believe I didn't even mention some obvious ones like bandwidth usage, slower page performance due to loading and rendering and JavaScript-based trackers, etc. There are so many different things to enumerate.
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My ability to concentrate, learn, or get shit done has only ever been hindered by an ad to the extent that it's annoying waiting for the ad to finish. I can't imagine most people don't just tune ads out most of the time. Still better than having to pay every website a subscription. It's nice having the option though, for example I personally find YouTube Premium worth the money.
There's a very important piece you're missing here and once you get it, it's hard to see the world in the same way. A product you pay for doesn't care how often you use it. The tennis racket sits there. It doesn't matter how much you use it, that's your choice.
A product you pay for with your attention has a voracious appetite for your attention. The more you use it, the more valuable it is to the company that made it. It would be best if you were using it All The Time. It would be best if it was incredibly addictive so you would never get tired of it and move on to something else. It would be best if the maker of this product could measure how much of your time they were capturing so they could make sure to capture even more in the future.
And in fact, if you look at time use studies, we pretty much spend all of our waking lives using a phone, tv or computer. There is literally no time left, so an advertising company is trying to invent a self driving car so you can keep using your phone during your commute, the last sliver of waking life left unconquered. Our dreams will surely be next.
A product you pay for with your attention has a voracious appetite for your attention. The more you use it, the more valuable it is to the company that made it. It would be best if you were using it All The Time. It would be best if it was incredibly addictive so you would never get tired of it and move on to something else. It would be best if the maker of this product could measure how much of your time they were capturing so they could make sure to capture even more in the future.
And in fact, if you look at time use studies, we pretty much spend all of our waking lives using a phone, tv or computer. There is literally no time left, so an advertising company is trying to invent a self driving car so you can keep using your phone during your commute, the last sliver of waking life left unconquered. Our dreams will surely be next.
This is still ultimately true with things you subscribe to though. Netflix vies for your attention even though you pay directly with $$, because if another streaming service takes more of your attention, you'll pay for it (potentially instead).
With Netflix they have to strike a balance, though. Someone who watches Netflix 8 hours a day is going to cost them more in royalties than someone who watches 8 hours a week.
The sweet spot is likely a little different for everyone, and is whatever amount of attention keeps them subscribed, but no more.
Additionally, I have a customer-vendor relationship with Netflix. With a random ad-supported website or something like Facebook, I'm the product, not the customer. I would much much much rather be a customer than a product.
The sweet spot is likely a little different for everyone, and is whatever amount of attention keeps them subscribed, but no more.
Additionally, I have a customer-vendor relationship with Netflix. With a random ad-supported website or something like Facebook, I'm the product, not the customer. I would much much much rather be a customer than a product.
That's not how Netflix thinks about it internally. The north star metric for Netflix is how many people choose to renew every month and the biggest correlation to this is number of minutes watched per month.
All else being equal, given a choice between a change that makes people watch more minutes per month or less, Netflix will always choose more.
All else being equal, given a choice between a change that makes people watch more minutes per month or less, Netflix will always choose more.
>With Netflix they have to strike a balance, though. Someone who watches Netflix 8 hours a day is going to cost them more in royalties than someone who watches 8 hours a week.
Does Netflix license content on a per play basis? All the info over the years I’ve read, although not official, indicate they were paying the content owners a flat amount for a certain time period.
For example
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/netflix-fr...
Does Netflix license content on a per play basis? All the info over the years I’ve read, although not official, indicate they were paying the content owners a flat amount for a certain time period.
For example
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/media/netflix-fr...
"The sweet spot...is whatever amount of attention keeps them subscribed, but no more."
I used to believe that. Nope, they want all your attention all the time. If they lose it, another streaming service might gain some market share, and the stock price will lose billions.
I used to believe that. Nope, they want all your attention all the time. If they lose it, another streaming service might gain some market share, and the stock price will lose billions.
Not really, Netflix definitely wants to have you use their platform frequently so you value it enough to keep paying for it. But this is balanced against the cost of making sure you don't run out of content and cancel anyway. They also pay a bit more for bandwidth and servers if you watch a lot.
So while Netflix wants all your TV time, they derive no extra benefits if all your time us TV time. This is absolutely not true of advertising supported services that make more from you the more time you spend.
So while Netflix wants all your TV time, they derive no extra benefits if all your time us TV time. This is absolutely not true of advertising supported services that make more from you the more time you spend.
> I can't imagine most people don't just tune ads out most of the time.
"Most" means "not all".
"Most" means "not all".
With ads you're not just paying with your "attention" (waste of time and focus), you're also paying with changes in your behaviour, perceptions, and attitudes.
As much as we like to imagine our minds to be impenetrable bastions of rationality, they are not. We can easily be enticed and manipulated to do things we wouldn't otherwise do, to see things differently than we otherwise would, to consider things we wouldn't consider, and all of that is exactly what the advertisers are paying for.
As much as we like to imagine our minds to be impenetrable bastions of rationality, they are not. We can easily be enticed and manipulated to do things we wouldn't otherwise do, to see things differently than we otherwise would, to consider things we wouldn't consider, and all of that is exactly what the advertisers are paying for.
>As much as we like to imagine our minds to be impenetrable bastions of rationality, they are not. We can easily be enticed and manipulated to do things we wouldn't otherwise do
I don't think advertising does work well on everybody nor does it have to. Maybe not even half of us need to be susceptible for it to be as profitable as it is.
I have noticed some people are much more susceptible to suggestion than others. These people are probably responsible for a disproportionate amount of commercial profits and probably more likely to be taken in by paid political campaigning.
Furthermore, I reckon if we could hold a mirror up to many of these people they might reconsider their behavior (it probably would work better than shouting at them at thanksgiving or over Facebook).
I don't think advertising does work well on everybody nor does it have to. Maybe not even half of us need to be susceptible for it to be as profitable as it is.
I have noticed some people are much more susceptible to suggestion than others. These people are probably responsible for a disproportionate amount of commercial profits and probably more likely to be taken in by paid political campaigning.
Furthermore, I reckon if we could hold a mirror up to many of these people they might reconsider their behavior (it probably would work better than shouting at them at thanksgiving or over Facebook).
> not just paying with your "attention"
And maybe abolishing democracy
Political manipulation ads, helping an authoritarian rise to power.
But ads for buying what I just searched for: "buy new running shoes", aren't like that -- they can be helpful instead :-). It's mainly social network ads like on Facebook that are dangerous for society?
From the article:
> I think advertising is positive
It's both? Ads are different from ads, just like different things one can eat are different, like potatoes (running shoe ads) versus poisonous mushrooms (nation states abolishing democracy in the US via political manipulation on Facebook)
And maybe abolishing democracy
Political manipulation ads, helping an authoritarian rise to power.
But ads for buying what I just searched for: "buy new running shoes", aren't like that -- they can be helpful instead :-). It's mainly social network ads like on Facebook that are dangerous for society?
From the article:
> I think advertising is positive
It's both? Ads are different from ads, just like different things one can eat are different, like potatoes (running shoe ads) versus poisonous mushrooms (nation states abolishing democracy in the US via political manipulation on Facebook)
I tried starting a website a while back that would give reliable, unbiased information on a certain class of goods and services.
I looked at my competitors and saw that most of them were obviously shilling for the company that was paying them the most, which was never the best. I figured by being the most honest I could be the most trusted and win out.
The trouble is, the best companies would rely upon word of mouth. Promoting them wouldn't get me paid a dime. Honesty would benefit them, but not me.
Getting traffic, meanwhile, I realized would cost me money.
That's when I realized that the only way to get a non negative margin in that industry was to sacrifice your objectivity (which is what everyone did).
Theoretically you could charge users for this I guess, like Which? magazine does but I couldn't see a straightforward route to that point that wouldn't involve burning a lot of capital I didn't have. The chicken/egg problem rose its ugly head again.
I gave up soon after.
I looked at my competitors and saw that most of them were obviously shilling for the company that was paying them the most, which was never the best. I figured by being the most honest I could be the most trusted and win out.
The trouble is, the best companies would rely upon word of mouth. Promoting them wouldn't get me paid a dime. Honesty would benefit them, but not me.
Getting traffic, meanwhile, I realized would cost me money.
That's when I realized that the only way to get a non negative margin in that industry was to sacrifice your objectivity (which is what everyone did).
Theoretically you could charge users for this I guess, like Which? magazine does but I couldn't see a straightforward route to that point that wouldn't involve burning a lot of capital I didn't have. The chicken/egg problem rose its ugly head again.
I gave up soon after.
Figure out which brand you prefer, contact them and negotiate a commission. If you're open to your readers about it, it should be fine.
Cutting out the commission was partly how the better companies tried to provide a good service at a reasonable price. Some even had FAQs that stated that they wouldn't pay commission. A couple paid pretty meager commissions.
The competing sites would tend to either pretend that these companies don't exist, or if that wasn't possible coz the brand was strong would subtly try to indicate that they weren't all that hot compared to [site that pays a LOT for new customers].
I don't mean to suggest that the challenge was insurmountable, but I couldn't figure out a way to make honesty pay, particularly given the high cost of acquiring traffic.
Moreover, if you acquired some sort of trust (which many parties did) or a high spot in google through an aged domain or something, the incentive to exploit it for profit would inevitably take over.
It was clearly something users cared about coz they complained about it, but there was something akin to a tragedy of the commons going on.
The competing sites would tend to either pretend that these companies don't exist, or if that wasn't possible coz the brand was strong would subtly try to indicate that they weren't all that hot compared to [site that pays a LOT for new customers].
I don't mean to suggest that the challenge was insurmountable, but I couldn't figure out a way to make honesty pay, particularly given the high cost of acquiring traffic.
Moreover, if you acquired some sort of trust (which many parties did) or a high spot in google through an aged domain or something, the incentive to exploit it for profit would inevitably take over.
It was clearly something users cared about coz they complained about it, but there was something akin to a tragedy of the commons going on.
Aha ok. Without knowing the product it’s hard to advise, perhaps you can start a youtube channel around it, become the go to expert in the field? Sell consulting? Sell follow on products or services?
Yeah, I tried content creation but I quickly realized that it was more expensive than advertising, it's fiercely competitive, there are people out there way better at than me, there's major incumbency advantage that I didn't have and it pays off slower. It fundamentally didn't change the economics of what I was trying to do at all. The people taking the highest commissions had a lot more to blow on content creation than I did, with my refusal to play the same tricks.
These market dynamics are fairly common across many industries. I don't think the one I chose was particularly special.
Consulting or something might have been possible but at that point it's basically giving up and joining an entirely different industry - which is what I ultimately did.
I really really tried to make honesty pay but I couldn't.
These market dynamics are fairly common across many industries. I don't think the one I chose was particularly special.
Consulting or something might have been possible but at that point it's basically giving up and joining an entirely different industry - which is what I ultimately did.
I really really tried to make honesty pay but I couldn't.
Nice idea :-) hmm at the same time, from the perspective of the readers, how can they know that Pydry (GP) didn't behind the scenes contact 20 brands, and are now promoting those who paid the most?
Sure, they won't know that, but I don't actually think honesty is an important selling point in most sectors. If the review seems coherent and plausible, that's enough for most people. So in a way, honesty is mostly for his own benefit.
Besides, how could he prove his honesty either way?
I guess he could arrange commission with all companies, hope that his favourite brand isn't also the one paying the most, and then disclose all the commissions.
Besides, how could he prove his honesty either way?
I guess he could arrange commission with all companies, hope that his favourite brand isn't also the one paying the most, and then disclose all the commissions.
> If the review seems coherent and plausible, that's enough for most people
I think so too
> hope that his favourite brand isn't also the one paying the most, and then disclose all the commissions.
I'm thinking that if the site visitors have a way to see that usually the site promotes other brands than the highest paying, then that'd be good enough. At the same time, why would they trust the disclosure info :-)
Another thought: if his/her favorite brand didn't pay enough, s/he could just disclose the commissions, but not write any review. (To encourage that brand to pay more)
I think so too
> hope that his favourite brand isn't also the one paying the most, and then disclose all the commissions.
I'm thinking that if the site visitors have a way to see that usually the site promotes other brands than the highest paying, then that'd be good enough. At the same time, why would they trust the disclosure info :-)
Another thought: if his/her favorite brand didn't pay enough, s/he could just disclose the commissions, but not write any review. (To encourage that brand to pay more)
What if there was something like GPG's network of trust, but for buying stuff
Just googled that to see if the ads are helpful. They weren't. Not surprising, because Google ads are ranked by profitability, not helpfulness, and those metrics don't correlate as much as Google would like you to think. The ads just took my attention away from organic results, which are the ones that are supposed to be ranked by helpfulness.
Those sneaker ads probably aren't destroying our democracy[1], they're just costing the society things that are hard to quantify. They induce me to buy what's most profitable to the sellers, not what's best for me. They take away business from actually helpful resources, and from those who don't advertise on Google.
[1] They are enabling the existence of a search monopoly (along with other factors), so you know, "probably" is the strongest word I'd go with here.
Those sneaker ads probably aren't destroying our democracy[1], they're just costing the society things that are hard to quantify. They induce me to buy what's most profitable to the sellers, not what's best for me. They take away business from actually helpful resources, and from those who don't advertise on Google.
[1] They are enabling the existence of a search monopoly (along with other factors), so you know, "probably" is the strongest word I'd go with here.
No, Google Ads are not ranked for highest bidder. There's Quality Score that affects the decision a lot. If I have a website about running shoes and want to bid on the keyword "second hand cars" two things happen: first my bid gets astronomically high, because it's not matching the user's intent. secondly from all those people who click and leave google search but come back after a few seconds, google figures out that the quality score of the website is so bad (wrong intent) that the bid for that advertiser even gets more astronomically high and at one point even gets stopped.
The whole system incentivises ads that match the intent of the user, any deviation from this is extremely difficult and not profitable for the advertiser in most cases.
The whole system incentivises ads that match the intent of the user, any deviation from this is extremely difficult and not profitable for the advertiser in most cases.
I know. I didn't say the ads were ranked for highest bidder. I said they were ranked to maximize profitability. If the user does not click an ad, it's not profitable to Google. If the user comes back to the search page after visiting the ad, the ad is not profitable to the advertiser.
But if the user buys from the ad, that doesn't say anything about whether the ad was useful (or counter-productive) to the user, it only means that this transaction was profitable to Google and the advertiser.
Ads not matching the search query are not the issue. They are neither profitable nor helpful, so you can't use that criterion to distinguish the two goals.
But if the user buys from the ad, that doesn't say anything about whether the ad was useful (or counter-productive) to the user, it only means that this transaction was profitable to Google and the advertiser.
Ads not matching the search query are not the issue. They are neither profitable nor helpful, so you can't use that criterion to distinguish the two goals.
If I search for “buy new running shoes” I’d rather get the best search results, not the highest paid for.
I’m pretty sure there are better criteria for those results than the amount of money paid to end up in that list.
But alas, that’s not what modern search engines use, because they are advertisers first and foremost. Not reputable search providers anymore.
I’m pretty sure there are better criteria for those results than the amount of money paid to end up in that list.
But alas, that’s not what modern search engines use, because they are advertisers first and foremost. Not reputable search providers anymore.
Yes, completely agree. Advertising is essentially mind hacking. Companies pay advertisers to introduce their brands into the minds of consumers. It's inherently hostile.
The thing is, Google's customers generally do not simply want attention, they want people to pay them for something.
Thus, there is a monetary cost if the advertiser succeeds. Google is just a middleman, taking a cut of those prospective sales.
The sad part of online ads is that the internet allows an advertiser, with Google's help, to potentially annoy hundreds of millions of people in order to make some small number of sales. The "solution" to this inefficiency is "targeting" and "stickiness", and that is where the whole business becomes far too intrusive and counterproductive.
In the earlier days of the internet people knew ads were not what they wanted to see on the network. I remember the first ad someone posted to Usenet. IIRC it was an immigration lawyer. Brin and Page originally said when they announced Google in 1998 that they wanted to offer an alternative to a black box web search engine that is funded by advertising.
The only thing that has changed since then is that new users are less critical, they have no idea what the internet is like without the advertising. Imagine if every household had to participate in an AC Nielson study just to watch TV. There are generations of users now that have no idea what those times were like, when people expected privacy and there were boundaries. They cannot fully appreciate what has been lost because they never experienced it to begin with. It is not too late to reclaim what is being stolen.
Thus, there is a monetary cost if the advertiser succeeds. Google is just a middleman, taking a cut of those prospective sales.
The sad part of online ads is that the internet allows an advertiser, with Google's help, to potentially annoy hundreds of millions of people in order to make some small number of sales. The "solution" to this inefficiency is "targeting" and "stickiness", and that is where the whole business becomes far too intrusive and counterproductive.
In the earlier days of the internet people knew ads were not what they wanted to see on the network. I remember the first ad someone posted to Usenet. IIRC it was an immigration lawyer. Brin and Page originally said when they announced Google in 1998 that they wanted to offer an alternative to a black box web search engine that is funded by advertising.
The only thing that has changed since then is that new users are less critical, they have no idea what the internet is like without the advertising. Imagine if every household had to participate in an AC Nielson study just to watch TV. There are generations of users now that have no idea what those times were like, when people expected privacy and there were boundaries. They cannot fully appreciate what has been lost because they never experienced it to begin with. It is not too late to reclaim what is being stolen.
> The sad part of online ads is that the internet allows an advertiser, with Google's help, to potentially annoy hundreds of millions of people in order to make some small number of sales.
This sentence suddenly made me see all online ads as essentially modern, “intelligent” robocalls at scale.
This sentence suddenly made me see all online ads as essentially modern, “intelligent” robocalls at scale.
@canadianfella: same as TV but worse, and we're just getting started
The problem with ads is that they destroy value, which I think is what you are getting at. If you are an ad-dependent website, you are incentivized to fill your site with so many ads until it becomes just barely tolerable for the marginal reader. E.g. if your site as V viewers, and N ads, with L(N) being the number of viewers who turn off in disgust at seeing the N-th ad, then the equilibrium condition is L(N) = V/(N+1). A website with 10 ads displayed would suffer a 10% drop in readership if it added an 11th ad. That's the only condition whereby they don't ad that 11th ad. And you only added 10 ads because the number of readers you lost with the 10th was less than 1/10 of your total.
That is, you are incentivized to significantly reduce the pleasure obtained from your product, as the attention demanded by ads competes with the attention of your readers/viewers.
But if you are selling a good for money, while you are also incentivized to keep raising prices until the marginal cost of the product is equal to the marginal benefit, the money you charge doesn't reduce the quality of the product. A beautiful car may be painful to buy, but it's still a beautiful car. There is no such thing as a beautiful website with ads, the product is intentionally made awful.
And that situation of destroying value creates really weird long and short-run equilibria. For example, ads incentivize the kind of products for which attention is more easily shared: you wont find a lot of deep-think pieces that are ad-supported because the ads are too distracting. Instead, you find a lot of short-attention span pieces as these work better with ads. Thus the staccatto assaults of 9 weird tricks to do X, where you read a weird trick and then look at a couple of ads and go to the next weird trick. You can feel the presence of the ads in the work itself. In the Old TV era, episodes would encounter these cliff-hangers when the detective walks into a room, points a gun, you hear the sound of a woman screaming, and then it cuts to a commercial. They needed to create this peak of interest so you'd stick around to see what was in the room. But that peak also artificially disrupted the story. Online, all that is compressed into a few seconds of recognition, it is constant disruption.
In terms of long-run equilibria, there is this ratchet effect: As people flee the ad-sponsored world the ones who remain are more insentitive to ads and so the number of ads increases. In other words, the quality of the writing gets worse over time, in an ad-supported eco-system.
So no, ads are not just an alternate way of paying for content, they are a way of shaping content, and for the worse.
That is, you are incentivized to significantly reduce the pleasure obtained from your product, as the attention demanded by ads competes with the attention of your readers/viewers.
But if you are selling a good for money, while you are also incentivized to keep raising prices until the marginal cost of the product is equal to the marginal benefit, the money you charge doesn't reduce the quality of the product. A beautiful car may be painful to buy, but it's still a beautiful car. There is no such thing as a beautiful website with ads, the product is intentionally made awful.
And that situation of destroying value creates really weird long and short-run equilibria. For example, ads incentivize the kind of products for which attention is more easily shared: you wont find a lot of deep-think pieces that are ad-supported because the ads are too distracting. Instead, you find a lot of short-attention span pieces as these work better with ads. Thus the staccatto assaults of 9 weird tricks to do X, where you read a weird trick and then look at a couple of ads and go to the next weird trick. You can feel the presence of the ads in the work itself. In the Old TV era, episodes would encounter these cliff-hangers when the detective walks into a room, points a gun, you hear the sound of a woman screaming, and then it cuts to a commercial. They needed to create this peak of interest so you'd stick around to see what was in the room. But that peak also artificially disrupted the story. Online, all that is compressed into a few seconds of recognition, it is constant disruption.
In terms of long-run equilibria, there is this ratchet effect: As people flee the ad-sponsored world the ones who remain are more insentitive to ads and so the number of ads increases. In other words, the quality of the writing gets worse over time, in an ad-supported eco-system.
So no, ads are not just an alternate way of paying for content, they are a way of shaping content, and for the worse.
As the person who originally asked "why" I feel like I ought to respond, though much of it is covered by other comments. I used to work in more trad advertising, so my question wasn't so much an objection to working in advertising itself, but specifically Google's version of advertising, which I see as gross overreach into people's personal lives.
In other comments people have mentioned YouTube subscriptions as being an alternative, it really isn't - OK, you don't see any adverts, but they're still harvesting and selling you. That a privately owned corporation is allowed to read your messages and sell what they find to the highest bidder is vile and honestly makes me wonder how we got here.
I quit advertising after only a couple of years because it blackened my soul. If I was helping to harvest people's personal lives for private profit I can only imagine it would have been worse.
In other comments people have mentioned YouTube subscriptions as being an alternative, it really isn't - OK, you don't see any adverts, but they're still harvesting and selling you. That a privately owned corporation is allowed to read your messages and sell what they find to the highest bidder is vile and honestly makes me wonder how we got here.
I quit advertising after only a couple of years because it blackened my soul. If I was helping to harvest people's personal lives for private profit I can only imagine it would have been worse.
I'm not sure why traditional advertising should get a pass here. Traditional advertising finds whatever fears and insecurities you have and exploits them to sell you stuff. If you're worried you're not manly enough, better buy an $80k truck with at least a V-6. If you're worried you're not a good enough parent, better give your kids some sugary crap. Exploiting people's psychology like this is also an overreach.
GP said he worked in traditional advertising then quit after a few years out of disgust, I don't think he's giving traditional advertisers a pass.
To be clear, my comment wasn't meant as a criticism of the person I was replying to, just expanding the discussion of negatives from advertising. I think these ethical decisions are fairly hard to make, and it's hard to blame anyone, unless the career is obviously purely harmful. It's admirable when people even consider these things, considering how many people just take the money and don't think twice about it.
I don't know if the comment has been edited (I doubt it), but I don't see where GP said they quit out of disgust. In fact, this line really does seem to be giving traditional advertisers a pass:
> I used to work in more trad advertising, so my question wasn't so much an objection to working in advertising itself...
(Not commenting on whether they should be given a pass, just noting that GP really did seem to be doing so.)
> I used to work in more trad advertising, so my question wasn't so much an objection to working in advertising itself...
(Not commenting on whether they should be given a pass, just noting that GP really did seem to be doing so.)
Do you have a position on a better alternative business model, or do you feel that a service like YouTube shouldn't exist?
It seems to me that YouTube and many of the ad-supported services out there provide broad benefits to people, and I am swayed by OPs point that a regressively priced business model which restricts these benefits to the global rich is a greater disservice.
It seems to me that YouTube and many of the ad-supported services out there provide broad benefits to people, and I am swayed by OPs point that a regressively priced business model which restricts these benefits to the global rich is a greater disservice.
I disagree completely with the author's point that the ad model is not regressive. The author points out correctly that charging everyone some $ is regressive, because for some people that amount of money is a lot, and for others that is a little. Totally makes sense.
Then, we go on to ads. Ads charge everyone a similar amount of bandwidth, attention, etc. But you know what? Some people who have more resources or knowhow will understand how to block ads. And they probably won't be paying by the MB on a crappy cell phone plan such that they spend their money on bandwidth to load the ads, while the content they want to read languishes below the fold of the ads and they struggle to navigate to it on their crappy device struggling to render ads.
The costs are more abstract than when paying in actual dollars, but surely we can recognize that the cost of ad supported web pages is also not felt evenly by everyone. As a privileged software engineer, I can guarantee you that the impact of "paying" for things with ads is felt far less by me than many others. That is regressive in my opinion.
Then, we go on to ads. Ads charge everyone a similar amount of bandwidth, attention, etc. But you know what? Some people who have more resources or knowhow will understand how to block ads. And they probably won't be paying by the MB on a crappy cell phone plan such that they spend their money on bandwidth to load the ads, while the content they want to read languishes below the fold of the ads and they struggle to navigate to it on their crappy device struggling to render ads.
The costs are more abstract than when paying in actual dollars, but surely we can recognize that the cost of ad supported web pages is also not felt evenly by everyone. As a privileged software engineer, I can guarantee you that the impact of "paying" for things with ads is felt far less by me than many others. That is regressive in my opinion.
> The costs are more abstract than when paying in actual dollars
Keep in mind people are still paying in actual dollars. Companies spend money on advertisement because they want something in return, and that comes from the people being targeted from the ads. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor end up paying much more than the rich in the end. It might even be more regressive than a subscription model.
Also worth noting that their are other negative externalities as well. Health for example - the poor tend to have a much worse diet that leads to bad health conditions, and there's likely a large connection between this and the advertisements for unhealthy products.
Keep in mind people are still paying in actual dollars. Companies spend money on advertisement because they want something in return, and that comes from the people being targeted from the ads. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor end up paying much more than the rich in the end. It might even be more regressive than a subscription model.
Also worth noting that their are other negative externalities as well. Health for example - the poor tend to have a much worse diet that leads to bad health conditions, and there's likely a large connection between this and the advertisements for unhealthy products.
> Do you have a position on a better alternative business model
Sure! Thanks for asking. One idea I like is this: you pay a small, fixed subscription on top of your internet bill. This amount is then given proportionally to the services you visit.
This is nice for several reasons: even a small amount (~3-5$) gives a similar or higher revenue for content creators than ads do (a very rough back-of-the-envelope estimate based on youtube CPM). Plus, there's no problem with the friction of paying for things: you pay the same, regardless of watching 1 or 1000 videos (the netflix model, the cable tv model, heck any subscription model). Plus of course: no ads :)
Sure! Thanks for asking. One idea I like is this: you pay a small, fixed subscription on top of your internet bill. This amount is then given proportionally to the services you visit.
This is nice for several reasons: even a small amount (~3-5$) gives a similar or higher revenue for content creators than ads do (a very rough back-of-the-envelope estimate based on youtube CPM). Plus, there's no problem with the friction of paying for things: you pay the same, regardless of watching 1 or 1000 videos (the netflix model, the cable tv model, heck any subscription model). Plus of course: no ads :)
Ads should not exist period. Youtube worked without ads before and it can work without ads. I don't need to be paying a premium to use a service.
Why are ads the way to generate revenue? Like I don't care about buying a coffee grinder. Ads not only help contribute to needless purchases but also directly affect the environment cause of that.
Why are ads the way to generate revenue? Like I don't care about buying a coffee grinder. Ads not only help contribute to needless purchases but also directly affect the environment cause of that.
Youtube only existed without ads for around a year. It's not clear that a youtube post, say 2008, could exist without ads or a subscription fee.
[0]: You can see what those looked like here https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/youtube-website. Youtube added its first advertisements in mid 2007.
[0]: You can see what those looked like here https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/youtube-website. Youtube added its first advertisements in mid 2007.
YouTube never worked before ads.
Prior to Google's purchase they were running at a massive loss, burning investment money. That's not working by any normal definition.
Prior to Google's purchase they were running at a massive loss, burning investment money. That's not working by any normal definition.
youtube works without ads sure that means you the channel provider pays for the hosting and bandwidth.
tell me how you want to pay for 500h++ of video uploaded to a platform every minute
tell me how you want to pay for 500h++ of video uploaded to a platform every minute
I think the catch is the amount would be 10-20x what you're estimating. FB makes something like $10/user/month by itself.
Does YouTube need to exist? I think most of us were alive before 2007 and I don't remember it being some kind of apocalyptic hellhole in which I could never find information or entertainment.
Only a couple of years to quit something that blackened your soul? A couple of years is a pretty common amount of time to remain in a job these days.
If I sound judgy there, note that you are condemning a lot of people. Not me, actually, but I still take issue because the basis of your condemnation doesn't even make sense to me...
I think ads are a decent way to pay for a service and I prefer targeted ads to generic ads, especially since they are more effective (and if the idea is to pay for the service you are using, that is relevant).
So the issue is the data, and so the fact that Google has never sold or lost their user's data - you seem to imply otherwise - is extremely relevant, and is why I'm OK with them storing my data. In this industry that is very rare, and yet you consider Google the worst - I'm having a hard time squaring that.
If I sound judgy there, note that you are condemning a lot of people. Not me, actually, but I still take issue because the basis of your condemnation doesn't even make sense to me...
I think ads are a decent way to pay for a service and I prefer targeted ads to generic ads, especially since they are more effective (and if the idea is to pay for the service you are using, that is relevant).
So the issue is the data, and so the fact that Google has never sold or lost their user's data - you seem to imply otherwise - is extremely relevant, and is why I'm OK with them storing my data. In this industry that is very rare, and yet you consider Google the worst - I'm having a hard time squaring that.
> That a privately owned corporation is allowed to read your messages and sell what they find to the highest bidder is vile and honestly makes me wonder how we got here.
[I work at Google too, not on ads though] Could you clarify what you mean by this.
A natural reading of these two things ("reading your messages" and "selling to the highest bidder") aren't true. There are lots of things you could mean (reading messages could mean reading emails, reading comments on Youtube, reading hangouts messages, and harvesting that data to sell ads) So I'm curious what things Google does that you mean by that.
> you don't see any adverts, but they're still harvesting and selling you
This is concretely untrue, even by the stretchy definitions. Google (and generally most ad companies) don't sell your data. Sometimes people mean sell your eyeballs, in that they gather data and then use it to sell your attention, and some people find that just as bad.
But if you aren't seeing ads, they're not even doing that. There's no one they're selling anything of yours to. Not your data, not your attention, nothing.
[I work at Google too, not on ads though] Could you clarify what you mean by this.
A natural reading of these two things ("reading your messages" and "selling to the highest bidder") aren't true. There are lots of things you could mean (reading messages could mean reading emails, reading comments on Youtube, reading hangouts messages, and harvesting that data to sell ads) So I'm curious what things Google does that you mean by that.
> you don't see any adverts, but they're still harvesting and selling you
This is concretely untrue, even by the stretchy definitions. Google (and generally most ad companies) don't sell your data. Sometimes people mean sell your eyeballs, in that they gather data and then use it to sell your attention, and some people find that just as bad.
But if you aren't seeing ads, they're not even doing that. There's no one they're selling anything of yours to. Not your data, not your attention, nothing.
>Sometimes people mean sell your eyeballs, in that they gather data and then use it to sell your attention
Does Google collect information about what websites you visit (via Chrome / Google Analytics / Google account cookies) and what search queries you make and what search results you click on and provide or sell that information to advertisers in some shape or form? (Where advertisers includes not just third parties but also Google / Google subsidiaries themselves.)
If so, that's definitely "harvesting and selling you", IMO. I'm not sure what other form of "harvesting and selling you" would be possible, even?
>A natural reading of these two things ("reading your messages" and "selling to the highest bidder") aren't true. There are lots of things you could mean (reading messages could mean reading emails, reading comments on Youtube, reading hangouts messages, and harvesting that data to sell ads) So I'm curious what things Google does that you mean by that.
I assume one of the things they mean is reading Gmail email messages and showing you ads based on the contents of those email messages. My understanding is that Google indeed isn't doing this - but that they did do exactly that up until 2017, which wasn't that long ago.
Does Google collect information about what websites you visit (via Chrome / Google Analytics / Google account cookies) and what search queries you make and what search results you click on and provide or sell that information to advertisers in some shape or form? (Where advertisers includes not just third parties but also Google / Google subsidiaries themselves.)
If so, that's definitely "harvesting and selling you", IMO. I'm not sure what other form of "harvesting and selling you" would be possible, even?
>A natural reading of these two things ("reading your messages" and "selling to the highest bidder") aren't true. There are lots of things you could mean (reading messages could mean reading emails, reading comments on Youtube, reading hangouts messages, and harvesting that data to sell ads) So I'm curious what things Google does that you mean by that.
I assume one of the things they mean is reading Gmail email messages and showing you ads based on the contents of those email messages. My understanding is that Google indeed isn't doing this - but that they did do exactly that up until 2017, which wasn't that long ago.
> provide or sell that information to advertisers in some shape or form?
If you're using "provide" in the common sense, then no I don't think so. No one gets a "Josh is a hackernews reader" report. I just get ads for things that appeal to HN users.
There are arguments that you can use this for sort of targeted attacks to get more info, for example if you have a website and can correlate an ad request with a username, you can then put together that "joshuamorton" is interested in things HN users like. But I'm not sure how real those kinds of attacks are (I think a major limiting factor is that they're expensive, since if your goal is to only gain information, you have to compete but also never win a bid, and that's very difficult and like in practice its just cheaper to do your own tracking).
> My understanding is that Google indeed isn't doing this - but that they did do exactly that up until 2017, which wasn't that long ago.
Yes but my recollection is that even before then (at least for some time), gmail data was siloed. It was only used to serve ads in gmail, so this was very much a first party only sort of thing (same as if I run a forum and serve interest based ads on different parts of that forum).
It's just much hard to explain that than to explain "not used at all", so we stopped entirely.
If you're using "provide" in the common sense, then no I don't think so. No one gets a "Josh is a hackernews reader" report. I just get ads for things that appeal to HN users.
There are arguments that you can use this for sort of targeted attacks to get more info, for example if you have a website and can correlate an ad request with a username, you can then put together that "joshuamorton" is interested in things HN users like. But I'm not sure how real those kinds of attacks are (I think a major limiting factor is that they're expensive, since if your goal is to only gain information, you have to compete but also never win a bid, and that's very difficult and like in practice its just cheaper to do your own tracking).
> My understanding is that Google indeed isn't doing this - but that they did do exactly that up until 2017, which wasn't that long ago.
Yes but my recollection is that even before then (at least for some time), gmail data was siloed. It was only used to serve ads in gmail, so this was very much a first party only sort of thing (same as if I run a forum and serve interest based ads on different parts of that forum).
It's just much hard to explain that than to explain "not used at all", so we stopped entirely.
My understanding is this is how people felt about traditional advertising during the rise of Madison Avenue as well? Or at least, this is how it was portrayed on Mad Men : )
> I quit advertising after only a couple of years because it blackened my soul. If I was helping to harvest people's personal lives for private profit I can only imagine it would have been worse.
I can definitely feel this - I worked in mobile gaming for a little while. The camaraderie was amazing, I keep in touch with a number of coworkers from that job - the company was terrible (like gaming companies tend to be) but the fact that I was devoting part of my life to building a system I knew was deeply immoral and taking advantage of people's addiction is what pushed me away from it in the end.
I really try to avoid judging people over their career or life choices since nobody is as simple as a statistic, but advertising and mobile gaming is where I break this rule - I definitely don't judge marketers as categorically evil, but the vocation is poisonous. In the article the author calls out that...
> One answer is that I'm earning to give: I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give.
As a response to people asking why they're in marketing and I think this is a really bad sign. If you need to justify your work by calling out the charity you're doing with the earnings then I think you, internally, have identified that what you're doing is causing harm to society.
I understand and sympathize with the fact that brands with poor visibility can struggle to break into established markets but these positives seem quite limited when stacked up against over-consumption, addiction exploitation, decreased general attentiveness, a weakening of what objective truths are and leaving a gigantic security hole in our society for disinformation to easily penetrate deep into folks' hearts and minds.
Advertising, at it's most basic, is trying to change the minds of consumers - you're attempting to take someone who is thinking wrong and make them think right - where right is the mindset that leads them to purchase your product. I think that advertising is really an emotional manipulation at its core.
There is probably a distinction between purely informational marketing that's done to increase general awareness of your brand and marketing that's targeting increasing the chances that an uninterested party will impulse buy your product (the later is what can lead to the over consumption of high sugar products and spur on obesity). I, honestly, couldn't draw a line between the two so if we have to throw out the baby with the bathwater so be it.
I've tried to write this up with a calm head and in an even manner, but my apologies in advance if it's too strong - it's a subject I personally have extremely strong feelings on.
I can definitely feel this - I worked in mobile gaming for a little while. The camaraderie was amazing, I keep in touch with a number of coworkers from that job - the company was terrible (like gaming companies tend to be) but the fact that I was devoting part of my life to building a system I knew was deeply immoral and taking advantage of people's addiction is what pushed me away from it in the end.
I really try to avoid judging people over their career or life choices since nobody is as simple as a statistic, but advertising and mobile gaming is where I break this rule - I definitely don't judge marketers as categorically evil, but the vocation is poisonous. In the article the author calls out that...
> One answer is that I'm earning to give: I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give.
As a response to people asking why they're in marketing and I think this is a really bad sign. If you need to justify your work by calling out the charity you're doing with the earnings then I think you, internally, have identified that what you're doing is causing harm to society.
I understand and sympathize with the fact that brands with poor visibility can struggle to break into established markets but these positives seem quite limited when stacked up against over-consumption, addiction exploitation, decreased general attentiveness, a weakening of what objective truths are and leaving a gigantic security hole in our society for disinformation to easily penetrate deep into folks' hearts and minds.
Advertising, at it's most basic, is trying to change the minds of consumers - you're attempting to take someone who is thinking wrong and make them think right - where right is the mindset that leads them to purchase your product. I think that advertising is really an emotional manipulation at its core.
There is probably a distinction between purely informational marketing that's done to increase general awareness of your brand and marketing that's targeting increasing the chances that an uninterested party will impulse buy your product (the later is what can lead to the over consumption of high sugar products and spur on obesity). I, honestly, couldn't draw a line between the two so if we have to throw out the baby with the bathwater so be it.
I've tried to write this up with a calm head and in an even manner, but my apologies in advance if it's too strong - it's a subject I personally have extremely strong feelings on.
> If you need to justify your work by calling out the charity you're doing with the earnings then I think you, internally, have identified that what you're doing is causing harm to society.
You're misunderstanding the author's intent here. He's saying he works so that he can donate to charities. That part of his answer would remain no matter what type of work he did. Charity is important to him. He was giving a large fraction of his income before he ever started working on ads.
I think that because you believe ads are harmful, you're assuming that the author must also internally feel that ads are harmful. That may be your own bias. What seems obvious to you may not seem true to others. The author explained why he feels ads are a net benefit to society (and also acknowledged some negatives of ads).
You're misunderstanding the author's intent here. He's saying he works so that he can donate to charities. That part of his answer would remain no matter what type of work he did. Charity is important to him. He was giving a large fraction of his income before he ever started working on ads.
I think that because you believe ads are harmful, you're assuming that the author must also internally feel that ads are harmful. That may be your own bias. What seems obvious to you may not seem true to others. The author explained why he feels ads are a net benefit to society (and also acknowledged some negatives of ads).
But, specifically, he mentioned that when asked why he works in that field. There are lots of different industries and different roles within those industries - my understanding is that marketers don't make particularly outsized salaries and as such it doesn't really logically click for me that you'd choose to work as a marketer to maximize the amount you could give to charity.
I could say that I specifically play board games because I need to repay my student loan - maybe board games are a slightly more economic choice than playing MMORPGs but these two qualities are only tangentially related and, if I made that statement - you'd probably be awfully curious why I thought playing board games was a tactic specifically related to paying off my student loan.
I definitely do feel they're harmful so while I'll try to remain neutral in logic I won't downplay the fact that I'm very much not emotionally neutral - but that sort of a statement specifically rings false to me, it sounds like someone trying to make an excuse.
I could say that I specifically play board games because I need to repay my student loan - maybe board games are a slightly more economic choice than playing MMORPGs but these two qualities are only tangentially related and, if I made that statement - you'd probably be awfully curious why I thought playing board games was a tactic specifically related to paying off my student loan.
I definitely do feel they're harmful so while I'll try to remain neutral in logic I won't downplay the fact that I'm very much not emotionally neutral - but that sort of a statement specifically rings false to me, it sounds like someone trying to make an excuse.
He's not a marketer. He's a software engineer. At Google. They do make outsized salaries.
He's not donating to charity out of guilt from working on ads. We know this because he was giving large amounts to charity well before he started work on ads. His behaviour hasn't changed.
I understand you're interpreting it as, "Really, I'm just doing this (distasteful) job to make money." That isn't how the author meant it. It's more like, "Ultimately, the reason I work at any job is to make money. But here's why I think this job in particular makes the world better."
I'm curious though. If you didn't think he was working for the money, and you also think he feels that ads are bad, then why do you think he chose that job?
He's not donating to charity out of guilt from working on ads. We know this because he was giving large amounts to charity well before he started work on ads. His behaviour hasn't changed.
I understand you're interpreting it as, "Really, I'm just doing this (distasteful) job to make money." That isn't how the author meant it. It's more like, "Ultimately, the reason I work at any job is to make money. But here's why I think this job in particular makes the world better."
I'm curious though. If you didn't think he was working for the money, and you also think he feels that ads are bad, then why do you think he chose that job?
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My gripe with the author's rationalization (which is probably held by many of his peers as well, not to point specifically at him) is that the default of the web has become that you must accept ads being thrown in your face to do the most benign browsing activity.
a user makes an http request to a domain. the current accepted response is to send back ads and trackers, pillage and extract as much value from that user as possible, immediately. as a user I feel I should be prompted:
"this site is funded by ads. by continuing, you agree to the following..."
its just a sort of zero permission adulteration of the web - guaranteed ad revenue from a click begets more crap clickbait content and so on. in fact, perhaps ads and tracking mechanisms should be treated by browsers the same as zero click JS malware. no content til the user agrees to have ads delivered to them.
i get it, of course prompting a user would create friction and decrease revenue. its the user's machine, data. they are entitled to the optionality of rejecting an HTTP response if it contains unwanted/unwelcome crap.
a user makes an http request to a domain. the current accepted response is to send back ads and trackers, pillage and extract as much value from that user as possible, immediately. as a user I feel I should be prompted:
"this site is funded by ads. by continuing, you agree to the following..."
its just a sort of zero permission adulteration of the web - guaranteed ad revenue from a click begets more crap clickbait content and so on. in fact, perhaps ads and tracking mechanisms should be treated by browsers the same as zero click JS malware. no content til the user agrees to have ads delivered to them.
i get it, of course prompting a user would create friction and decrease revenue. its the user's machine, data. they are entitled to the optionality of rejecting an HTTP response if it contains unwanted/unwelcome crap.
The web, even as it is, functions exactly like this. You make a request to a domain, that domain says "here are some trackers". The user's browser then has a choice about whether to load them. My browser (and the browsers of many here) just ignores the request to download scripts that I don't want, because that's what I told it to do and the browser is my agent.
The big problem is that most people do not use a browser that is truly their agent--they use a browser that is an agent of an advertising company. The result is entirely predictable: Chrome acts in the best interests of its client, and loads the ads and trackers.
If we want to change the status quo with regards to advertising, we don't need to change the technology at all: we have to change the way people see a web browser. We need to help people to make the paradigm shift from "Chrome is how you consume content on the internet" to "a browser is an agent that acts on my behalf in the digital realm".
The big problem is that most people do not use a browser that is truly their agent--they use a browser that is an agent of an advertising company. The result is entirely predictable: Chrome acts in the best interests of its client, and loads the ads and trackers.
If we want to change the status quo with regards to advertising, we don't need to change the technology at all: we have to change the way people see a web browser. We need to help people to make the paradigm shift from "Chrome is how you consume content on the internet" to "a browser is an agent that acts on my behalf in the digital realm".
For me the first big disagreement begins with asking for what's the alternative. I don't think there needs to be an alternative. I think ads are largely responsible for the sorry state of the seo spammed web where finding what you want can be a complete nightmare. (It costs almost nothing to run a website, and if you spam enough ~zero cost sites loaded with ads and affiliate links, you can probably make a buck. This prospect just encourages spam and low effort sites.)
I don't care one bit if ad supported sites just vanish, no need for an alternative. Yes please, clean up the web. What's left is the stuff that is worth enough for people to pay for.
I don't care one bit if ad supported sites just vanish, no need for an alternative. Yes please, clean up the web. What's left is the stuff that is worth enough for people to pay for.
Just to add a little data from personal experience... About 4 years back I ran a small study in grad school where I was trying to find some alternative to ads. For a survey I basically asked "how much would you be willing to pay to view websites without ads".
I bucketed the responses to something along the lines of greater than $1, $.75, $.5, $.25, $.01 or nothing.
What I was (secretly) hoping was that people would be willing to pay something like a cent for a page view, since I was building a prototype for a more user friendly anti-adblocker, seeing that many websites started to deploy their own back then, and hating that there was no middle ground.
However, what I found was that people were unwilling to pay anything for a page view. I think the author actually mentions this as a failed alternative model.
Point being it really seems like people have decided/agreed that they prefer the ad model to anything else. Even if it means that the cost of serving ads is actually higher (in terms of bandwidth) than what it would cost to just pay a cent or two cents or whatever for pageviews.
I bucketed the responses to something along the lines of greater than $1, $.75, $.5, $.25, $.01 or nothing.
What I was (secretly) hoping was that people would be willing to pay something like a cent for a page view, since I was building a prototype for a more user friendly anti-adblocker, seeing that many websites started to deploy their own back then, and hating that there was no middle ground.
However, what I found was that people were unwilling to pay anything for a page view. I think the author actually mentions this as a failed alternative model.
Point being it really seems like people have decided/agreed that they prefer the ad model to anything else. Even if it means that the cost of serving ads is actually higher (in terms of bandwidth) than what it would cost to just pay a cent or two cents or whatever for pageviews.
> Point being it really seems like people have decided/agreed that they prefer the ad model to anything else.
I'm not sure how you mean this but what you say comes dangerously close to implying that people want ads. That may be true if you force them into a false dichotomy (pay or have ads).
I think it's more just that people don't want to pay. If it's on the web, they read it for free, period. If it's not on the web, then it isn't and they don't read it. If you look at it from this perspective, ads aren't even part of the discussion. I think people prefer the "someone pays for it" model to anything else.
The dichotomy is only real if you construct a hypothetical scenario about some ad-or-paywall site that absolutely must exist and that people absolutely want to read and for which no alternative can emerge if that site stops existing.
I'm not sure how you mean this but what you say comes dangerously close to implying that people want ads. That may be true if you force them into a false dichotomy (pay or have ads).
I think it's more just that people don't want to pay. If it's on the web, they read it for free, period. If it's not on the web, then it isn't and they don't read it. If you look at it from this perspective, ads aren't even part of the discussion. I think people prefer the "someone pays for it" model to anything else.
The dichotomy is only real if you construct a hypothetical scenario about some ad-or-paywall site that absolutely must exist and that people absolutely want to read and for which no alternative can emerge if that site stops existing.
If you remove pay models, a vast majority of the internet will just disappear. (I think you) in a previous comment mention that it is 'cheap' to run a site, which is generally true on a per user basis for primarily text sites. But cheap != free.
I see it often, but it is honestly the most laughably selfish opinion to believe that one should be entitled to the internet as it exists today, but also not pay directly or indirectly to be able to use those services.
I see it often, but it is honestly the most laughably selfish opinion to believe that one should be entitled to the internet as it exists today, but also not pay directly or indirectly to be able to use those services.
That's not what they were saying though. It's one way to read it, sure, but another way is "most content on the web is so low value that if it ceased existing users would not care".
Which is true. If its not on the web, then I don't read it, and don't miss it - by and large.
A huge number of people seem to believe that 95% of the internet is of any value - yet the existence of HN itself shows that's not true. This whole site exists to turn "the internet" into a selection of high quality links, and even then the front page is maybe 20% interesting to me on a day by day basis.
So how much of the internet matters to me? 6 links out of 30, selected by a community which completely avoids all the "major" sites.
Which is true. If its not on the web, then I don't read it, and don't miss it - by and large.
A huge number of people seem to believe that 95% of the internet is of any value - yet the existence of HN itself shows that's not true. This whole site exists to turn "the internet" into a selection of high quality links, and even then the front page is maybe 20% interesting to me on a day by day basis.
So how much of the internet matters to me? 6 links out of 30, selected by a community which completely avoids all the "major" sites.
Most of the time I browse on my phone. If I'm on e.g. HN and I click a link, and I get a 3/4 page cookie notification, or if Intercom pops up a bubble over half the phone, I usually just close the page and don't bother. I think this backs up what you are saying, so much content isnt pay or watch ads, its "I'll glance at it but really I dont care enough about it even to dismiss a popup". This is very different from physical or service purchases. As I said in another comment, its "browsing".
I think you're missing that content creators (whether they be small or large) need to be able to subsist off of their work.
This is especially true if we want high quality content. So the dichotomy is only false if you assume people are willing to accept "stop consuming content" which, by and large, they aren't.
This is especially true if we want high quality content. So the dichotomy is only false if you assume people are willing to accept "stop consuming content" which, by and large, they aren't.
How many content creators are fully supported by ads? All the material I read says that is probably the worst way of trying to earn a living as a content creator.
Seems to me that creators are getting a dreadful deal from the current set up and that FB etc are the ones gaining massively.
Seems to me that creators are getting a dreadful deal from the current set up and that FB etc are the ones gaining massively.
To all but one of the YouTubers I watch, I get the impression that anything it pays is at most secondary to them; they're not optimising for payout because they're not 'trying to earn a living'.
Clough42 for example is a software engineer, and makes metalworking & 3D-printing videos that I enjoy watching; he certainly gets ad money (O(100ks) subscribers) but I'd guess he spends more on equipment, tools, etc. (and would despite the income) - certainly if you counted lost earnings from 'he could be doing contract work instead' - because that's not the point, it's a hobby, and a secondary hobby is putting it on YouTube for me (and millions of others) to enjoy.
(I'm sort of hesitant to single someone out - especially someone who's probably on HN, heh - but I that's the impression I get anyway. If it's not totally true for him I'm sure it is for others.)
Clough42 for example is a software engineer, and makes metalworking & 3D-printing videos that I enjoy watching; he certainly gets ad money (O(100ks) subscribers) but I'd guess he spends more on equipment, tools, etc. (and would despite the income) - certainly if you counted lost earnings from 'he could be doing contract work instead' - because that's not the point, it's a hobby, and a secondary hobby is putting it on YouTube for me (and millions of others) to enjoy.
(I'm sort of hesitant to single someone out - especially someone who's probably on HN, heh - but I that's the impression I get anyway. If it's not totally true for him I'm sure it is for others.)
The best content I get these days are from people who create content for free (hobbyists with personal sites, discussions on web forums, ad free podcasts, etc.). Getting rid of ads would make this content a lot easier to find, as it would get rid of all the SEO spam that clutters up the internet at the moment.
I wholeheartedly agree, but we are probably 'unusual' in that regard. 'Normal' is probably something (depressingly) closer to 'from #influencers who are like omg so down to Earth in their product recommendations and #lifehacks'...
No, they don't. Creative jobs have always been boom or bust, following a power law where ten people earn a living directly off of it and everyone else waits tables by day and hopes to someday catch a break. That was fine for centuries. The world didn't collapse prior to the invention of widescale cross-site tracking of user behavior to create intelligent targeted ads, and I'm not sure it was worse for "content creators," either. Maybe they're just being old and grumpy, but the actual most talented people in creative industries seem to yearn for yesteryear when they were allowed to actually be creative and all the major publishers and studios weren't in an unwinnable death race to the bottom with Netflix and Amazon seemingly generating true crime docs and superhero stories by algorithm.
As for quality, it's all opinion, I guess, but the only form that seems to have gotten better recently is prestige television, but even there I'd say it so far peaked around 2010. Film and pop music peaked in the 60s and 70s. Instrumental music, literature, and painting peaked centuries ago. Artists have created perfectly good art for as long as humans have existed without the need to track their consumers private behavior to develop targeted ad profiles.
As for quality, it's all opinion, I guess, but the only form that seems to have gotten better recently is prestige television, but even there I'd say it so far peaked around 2010. Film and pop music peaked in the 60s and 70s. Instrumental music, literature, and painting peaked centuries ago. Artists have created perfectly good art for as long as humans have existed without the need to track their consumers private behavior to develop targeted ad profiles.
> Creative jobs have always been boom or bust ...
> That was fine for centuries...
I always assumed that this was an artifact of recording technology: if you can record a movie or music, then you can have a handful of actors and musicians service the entire world, but without that each city needs its local musicians and theater troupes. If that's correct then we've been in this state for maybe 1 century.
For writers though it's been centuries, since writing enabled distribution of content in many places.
> That was fine for centuries...
I always assumed that this was an artifact of recording technology: if you can record a movie or music, then you can have a handful of actors and musicians service the entire world, but without that each city needs its local musicians and theater troupes. If that's correct then we've been in this state for maybe 1 century.
For writers though it's been centuries, since writing enabled distribution of content in many places.
I don't think you could expect people to start paying by page for the "content" on the web as it is now after 25 years of evolution under an ad funded model.
People pay for an internet connection, and e.g. will pay more to get a faster connection or higher quota. There is value, its just not in the casual attention model that the ad driven internet has developed. Even the term "browser" implies how we interact with most content, and to me doesn't evoke "I'll pay by the page"
A partial parallel is radio. Would you pay for local FM radio without ads? Unlikely, but some might pay for satellite radio because of the bundled content and national accessibility. And even more would pay for spotify. These are not just the old radio with ads swapped for direct cash, they provide something better. Paid internet will have to be the same.
People pay for an internet connection, and e.g. will pay more to get a faster connection or higher quota. There is value, its just not in the casual attention model that the ad driven internet has developed. Even the term "browser" implies how we interact with most content, and to me doesn't evoke "I'll pay by the page"
A partial parallel is radio. Would you pay for local FM radio without ads? Unlikely, but some might pay for satellite radio because of the bundled content and national accessibility. And even more would pay for spotify. These are not just the old radio with ads swapped for direct cash, they provide something better. Paid internet will have to be the same.
Ironically, nowadays it is becoming difficult even to find a specific product that you wanted to buy.
I never wish ad-supported content to be disappeared or behind paywall
Thanks for laying out your logic.
I work in the ads business at FB. I do so because I personally like ads and my biggest gripe is that ads are not relevant and personalized enough. I want better ads.
Ultimately ads support a robust ecosystem of free software and content that keeps many creators going. Consumers can also choose to buy their software and content, or donate, but most don’t. Despite their whining, most people want free stuff, and ads are almost free (a small attention cost).
I think people comparing ads to guns, plagues, and locusts need to check their own values. Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes. Rich coastal elites can tell themselves they will pay for everything, and that’s great (most don’t). Most consumers cannot afford to pay for software or news subscriptions. Ad models fill out the spectrum of options.
Is the current ads ecosystem perfect? Clearly not. There’s a lot we need to do to educate users, get consent, and increase control and transparency. On the flip side, this needs to be simple and easy: consent needs to be an understandable and low friction process to avoid consent fatigue. They are also plenty of privacy enhancing technologies like differential privacy and local caching to deal with data sharing issues.
If you hate ads, lean into that. Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything. I support you and respect that! I just think it’s mean and shortsighted to think that everyone else is like you and to aggressively attack adtech engineers, platforms, businesses, and the billions of consumers who aren’t as rich as you and will happily watch ads to get free stuff. The internet is great because a lot of high quality stuff like software, news, videos, etc is free for anyone, anywhere. Ads make that possible and I’m proud of it.
I work in the ads business at FB. I do so because I personally like ads and my biggest gripe is that ads are not relevant and personalized enough. I want better ads.
Ultimately ads support a robust ecosystem of free software and content that keeps many creators going. Consumers can also choose to buy their software and content, or donate, but most don’t. Despite their whining, most people want free stuff, and ads are almost free (a small attention cost).
I think people comparing ads to guns, plagues, and locusts need to check their own values. Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes. Rich coastal elites can tell themselves they will pay for everything, and that’s great (most don’t). Most consumers cannot afford to pay for software or news subscriptions. Ad models fill out the spectrum of options.
Is the current ads ecosystem perfect? Clearly not. There’s a lot we need to do to educate users, get consent, and increase control and transparency. On the flip side, this needs to be simple and easy: consent needs to be an understandable and low friction process to avoid consent fatigue. They are also plenty of privacy enhancing technologies like differential privacy and local caching to deal with data sharing issues.
If you hate ads, lean into that. Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything. I support you and respect that! I just think it’s mean and shortsighted to think that everyone else is like you and to aggressively attack adtech engineers, platforms, businesses, and the billions of consumers who aren’t as rich as you and will happily watch ads to get free stuff. The internet is great because a lot of high quality stuff like software, news, videos, etc is free for anyone, anywhere. Ads make that possible and I’m proud of it.
> Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes. Rich coastal elites can tell themselves they will pay for everything, and that’s great (most don’t).
Why doesn't FB offer a "premium" tier for people to buy their way out of ads?
Why doesn't FB offer a "premium" tier for people to buy their way out of ads?
>Why doesn't FB offer a "premium" tier for people to buy their way out of ads?
Warning: here goes my armchair theory.
Because as soon as you put a price tag on it, people will instantly see that they can actually get that "premium" tier for free by using an adblocker, which will lead to more people using adblockers.
If something is just free, most people don't really care for it. But if it is something that is free while it is normally not free, people will flock to it. Just think about random just that people wouldn't care to buy normally, but end up buying it because it is on a "90% off sale" (even if the "sale" price is the same as it would've been without a "sale").
Which sort of makes sense with FB, because you get a clear price tag attached and you feel bad for spending those money, when you can get the exact same experience "for free".
Warning: here goes my armchair theory.
Because as soon as you put a price tag on it, people will instantly see that they can actually get that "premium" tier for free by using an adblocker, which will lead to more people using adblockers.
If something is just free, most people don't really care for it. But if it is something that is free while it is normally not free, people will flock to it. Just think about random just that people wouldn't care to buy normally, but end up buying it because it is on a "90% off sale" (even if the "sale" price is the same as it would've been without a "sale").
Which sort of makes sense with FB, because you get a clear price tag attached and you feel bad for spending those money, when you can get the exact same experience "for free".
A think this is a brilliant hypothesis. It makes a lot of sense
Except you can't really do this with FB - they serve the ads from the same place they serve the content. AFAIK, ad blocking in FB/IG/WA doesn't work except on Desktop?
That's only really true for Web. Mobile ad blockers can't work since their ads are served from the same hosts as the content. And most of their usage is on mobile.
For additional paid feature, change the Facebook logo to "Facebook Premium" and bundle music subscription service.
Why doesn't (or does?) this apply to youtube, spotify, or other similar services?
My guess is because for those services you listed, ads explicitly stop the experience and make you watch ads to continue to be able to use the service normally.
If I watch a Youtube video and it gets interrupted by an ad, I am stuck until it is over and cannot consume my content. Same with Spotify. So understandably, people would be willing to pay for the premium tier. I, myself, pay for premium on those services to not deal with ads, as they steal my time and interrupt my normal usage of those services.
With FB, ads aren't interrupting the experience. They are just there, but you are welcome to completely ignore them and proceed consuming your content. I wouldn't pay premium to get rid of FB ads, even if it was just $1/mo. Especially given that, more than once, I got genuinely useful ads that helped me with making a good purchasing decision (the final decision came down to me doing my independent research before buying, but the ads pointed me towards the type of stuff I was looking for). So I don't gain much by getting rid of FB ads (as they are non-interruptive), while potentially losing out on some stuff.
I think the last bit I mentioned is kind of the key to FB strategy. They don't want to offer the "no-ads" premium tier, because they don't want to pose their ads as an annoyance you have to pay to get rid of, they want to pose them as a value add. Not trying to argue whether it is indeed a value add for users or not, just theorizing how FB product team sees it and tries to pose it.
P.S. I don't work in ads or anything even tangentially related. And neither do I have a stake in FB or any other ad-related business. Just describing my genuine user experience.
If I watch a Youtube video and it gets interrupted by an ad, I am stuck until it is over and cannot consume my content. Same with Spotify. So understandably, people would be willing to pay for the premium tier. I, myself, pay for premium on those services to not deal with ads, as they steal my time and interrupt my normal usage of those services.
With FB, ads aren't interrupting the experience. They are just there, but you are welcome to completely ignore them and proceed consuming your content. I wouldn't pay premium to get rid of FB ads, even if it was just $1/mo. Especially given that, more than once, I got genuinely useful ads that helped me with making a good purchasing decision (the final decision came down to me doing my independent research before buying, but the ads pointed me towards the type of stuff I was looking for). So I don't gain much by getting rid of FB ads (as they are non-interruptive), while potentially losing out on some stuff.
I think the last bit I mentioned is kind of the key to FB strategy. They don't want to offer the "no-ads" premium tier, because they don't want to pose their ads as an annoyance you have to pay to get rid of, they want to pose them as a value add. Not trying to argue whether it is indeed a value add for users or not, just theorizing how FB product team sees it and tries to pose it.
P.S. I don't work in ads or anything even tangentially related. And neither do I have a stake in FB or any other ad-related business. Just describing my genuine user experience.
I started hearing the idea that people wanted more personalized ads when I joined an ad tech company, and I have only heard it since from people working in the space. It doesn't seem to be an idea that normal people voice.
I have heard the opposite, which is people getting creeped out due to things like getting ads for infant products before they've told their family they're pregnant (presumably inference from browsing).
I have heard the opposite, which is people getting creeped out due to things like getting ads for infant products before they've told their family they're pregnant (presumably inference from browsing).
> Despite their whining, most people want free stuff, and ads are almost free (a small attention cost).
> Most consumers cannot afford to pay for software or news subscriptions.
> Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything.
All this is false.
Growth hacking has created products that are addictive and which people don't really need. These are then justified by saying that consumers can't afford to pay for them (fact is that they wouldn't do because deep down they know they're not worth much). And in the meantime society suffers the consequences whilst FB etc profits hugely.
> Most consumers cannot afford to pay for software or news subscriptions.
> Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything.
All this is false.
Growth hacking has created products that are addictive and which people don't really need. These are then justified by saying that consumers can't afford to pay for them (fact is that they wouldn't do because deep down they know they're not worth much). And in the meantime society suffers the consequences whilst FB etc profits hugely.
"In my ultimate wisdom, I know what people need better than they do. Products I don't like shouldn't be allowed to exist"
Are you quoting the opinion of Advertisers? Advertising could only be benifical to society if advertisers knew better about what a person needed then the person itself.
Certainly if this were not the case, people seek out advertisements themselves (classifieds).
Certainly if this were not the case, people seek out advertisements themselves (classifieds).
"All possible services are good for society and the only valid criteria use as to whether they are offered is whether they make someone (probably Facebook or Google) money"
Is it really conceivable that the Web would have been stillborn without ads, or with limits to the externalities of ads? Does "software will eat the world" only mean "software will eat the world if it can sell ads?"
I'm pretty sure ads don't support the cell phone industry, or at least didn't support its exponential growth phase, yet the middle class and poor have cell phones.
I'm pretty sure ads don't support the cell phone industry, or at least didn't support its exponential growth phase, yet the middle class and poor have cell phones.
Cellphone industry? No. The smartphone industry? Definitely. There are two major OSs for phones. One by a hardware-software company and the second from an adtech company. Guess which one is the cheap/free OS and which one is the more premium product of the two. :)
Android destroyed its competition by having excellent support for Google's "free" software and because of their huge ad income they can pay to develop it further.
So yeah I believe the modern phone industry has to thank the freemium adtech world for pushing Android into the world.
Android destroyed its competition by having excellent support for Google's "free" software and because of their huge ad income they can pay to develop it further.
So yeah I believe the modern phone industry has to thank the freemium adtech world for pushing Android into the world.
Indeed, it's arguable that things that cost money will tend to come from an industry that's flush with money. So I can't really dispute your point. Before Android, smart phones were evolving, but outside of iOS, a phone came with a bespoke OS and a handful of apps.
I'm still not convinced that even smartphones would have been stillborn. The apps might have been more klunky, but I'm not sure that's important. For instance, I would be happy to receive my daily news in a giant flat text file, and don't need the features that generate "engagement" or tell me what other people are reading. People who are "in the know" about computing tend to use less flashy interfaces, and more of the terminal window.
But of course the ultimate answer is... I don't know.
It's interesting that the freemium model kind of contradicts that idea that we benefit from ads, since we are willing to pay money to get rid of them, rather than the other way around. Maybe the industry could be funded by making ads available to those who want them, for a price.
I'm still not convinced that even smartphones would have been stillborn. The apps might have been more klunky, but I'm not sure that's important. For instance, I would be happy to receive my daily news in a giant flat text file, and don't need the features that generate "engagement" or tell me what other people are reading. People who are "in the know" about computing tend to use less flashy interfaces, and more of the terminal window.
But of course the ultimate answer is... I don't know.
It's interesting that the freemium model kind of contradicts that idea that we benefit from ads, since we are willing to pay money to get rid of them, rather than the other way around. Maybe the industry could be funded by making ads available to those who want them, for a price.
> I think people comparing ads to guns, plagues, and locusts need to check their own values. Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes.
Until i can ACTUALLY opt out by paying money, you need to get off your high horse. My data is clearly more valuable to you than my dollars - otherwise I'd have a choice.
> If you hate ads, lean into that. Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything. I support you and respect that!
I do, pls continue to support me by:
1. making it possible to not have my data constantly collected and sold by facebook in exchange for dollars.
2. Stop tracking me after my account has been deleted.
3. Stop acting like you are part of something good while I don't have a "no surveilance" option. Until then, YOU are the problem.
Until i can ACTUALLY opt out by paying money, you need to get off your high horse. My data is clearly more valuable to you than my dollars - otherwise I'd have a choice.
> If you hate ads, lean into that. Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything. I support you and respect that!
I do, pls continue to support me by:
1. making it possible to not have my data constantly collected and sold by facebook in exchange for dollars.
2. Stop tracking me after my account has been deleted.
3. Stop acting like you are part of something good while I don't have a "no surveilance" option. Until then, YOU are the problem.
> My data is clearly more valuable to you than my dollars - otherwise I'd have a choice.
Alternatively, people are just not that willing to pay money to avoid ads. FB's revenue per user in the US is ~$5/month, but users who would pay to avoid ads tend to be richer, so to break even FB might need to charge, say, $20/month. I'd bet too few people are willing to pay $20/month to justify the costs and complexity of offering an ad free product. Especially when you consider the bad publicity that would come from offering something "overpriced".
Alternatively, people are just not that willing to pay money to avoid ads. FB's revenue per user in the US is ~$5/month, but users who would pay to avoid ads tend to be richer, so to break even FB might need to charge, say, $20/month. I'd bet too few people are willing to pay $20/month to justify the costs and complexity of offering an ad free product. Especially when you consider the bad publicity that would come from offering something "overpriced".
"Per user" implies a relationship between the mark and the platform - a continuation of the fiction of consent that pervades Facebook and Google. So I'd rephrase your apologia this way:
"FB's revenue per human datum in the US is ~$5/month, but discrete datums who both know they are tracked by Facebook and are rich enough to pay protection money for privacy are few. To protect everyone, they would need to pay $20/month."
"FB's revenue per human datum in the US is ~$5/month, but discrete datums who both know they are tracked by Facebook and are rich enough to pay protection money for privacy are few. To protect everyone, they would need to pay $20/month."
I think the displeasure you feel should be directed towards website developers. As far as I know the "no surveillance" option is there: the person who wrote the website can choose whether to inject a tracking program to the code or not.
People are misdirecting their hatred towards ad-tracking towards ad developers when in reality the people who decide to use ad trackers in their websites should be asked questions.
I understand some giant sites will always come with "we will track you" (Facebook is the easiest example) but even those Facebook spy buttons appear on websites because the developer of the site agreed to it and embedded it there.
People are misdirecting their hatred towards ad-tracking towards ad developers when in reality the people who decide to use ad trackers in their websites should be asked questions.
I understand some giant sites will always come with "we will track you" (Facebook is the easiest example) but even those Facebook spy buttons appear on websites because the developer of the site agreed to it and embedded it there.
That's pure bs. I think I'll blame the giant, powerful monopolists (either aspiring or actual). They have been using their clout to kill off organic discovery and trying to ensure stuff that isn't part of the surveillance system gets buried. This isn't a "guns don't kill people; people kill people situation", this is a "I don't like money but I want to eat, so I'll use money" situation - website developers can participate in the surveillance state or starve. That's not a practical choice.
Ads pit platform owners against their users because their incentives drive platforms to employ addictive designs that prey on psychological weakness to maximize user time on site. This is the fundamental misalignment that drives a lot of downstream effects.
On the other hand, a fixed fee would cap the incentive to push the upper bounds of user time on site, thereby respecting users time and inherent interest in whatever platforms offer, absent addictive designs that try to alter that inherent interest.
Features that nag you to invite people into groups, add non-friends via PYMK, push low quality notifications to reengage, show you outrage-inducing content, push you to constantly engage or share private details of your life, check out related groups and drive you deeper down rabbit holes, etc wouldn’t have the same oxygen if the fixed fee model was used. And a service to chat with and find out what your friends were up to wouldn’t be costly at scale; likely pennies per month [1].
I appreciate your thoughtful comment and the logic you’ve laid out but disagree. I believe we’ve settled on a lucrative, low friction, easy to implement incentive model with ads but it is far far from the ideal model with way too many negative externalities.
Note this only goes for ad models with unlimited appetite for user time. I wouldn’t have a problem with ad models that have an upper bounds, eg 5 ad impressions a day max.
[1] see: WhatsApp $1/yr model prior to FB acquisition
On the other hand, a fixed fee would cap the incentive to push the upper bounds of user time on site, thereby respecting users time and inherent interest in whatever platforms offer, absent addictive designs that try to alter that inherent interest.
Features that nag you to invite people into groups, add non-friends via PYMK, push low quality notifications to reengage, show you outrage-inducing content, push you to constantly engage or share private details of your life, check out related groups and drive you deeper down rabbit holes, etc wouldn’t have the same oxygen if the fixed fee model was used. And a service to chat with and find out what your friends were up to wouldn’t be costly at scale; likely pennies per month [1].
I appreciate your thoughtful comment and the logic you’ve laid out but disagree. I believe we’ve settled on a lucrative, low friction, easy to implement incentive model with ads but it is far far from the ideal model with way too many negative externalities.
Note this only goes for ad models with unlimited appetite for user time. I wouldn’t have a problem with ad models that have an upper bounds, eg 5 ad impressions a day max.
[1] see: WhatsApp $1/yr model prior to FB acquisition
I would add one more thing to your arguments: people who don't like ads should simply ask web devs of their favourite sites not to serve ads at all. Even if ads and trackers exist it is still ultimately the developers choice to include ad code in their websites.
I sense A LOT of misdirected anger towards ad companies when the "enablers" of ad companies – the web developers willing to monetise traffic with ads – are not getting any blame directed at them.
As long as you guys at Facebook are transparent about what happens if you embed your like buttons or comment sections in blogs and forums etc. the onus is on the developers to serve their visitors with safe content.
I sense A LOT of misdirected anger towards ad companies when the "enablers" of ad companies – the web developers willing to monetise traffic with ads – are not getting any blame directed at them.
As long as you guys at Facebook are transparent about what happens if you embed your like buttons or comment sections in blogs and forums etc. the onus is on the developers to serve their visitors with safe content.
While I applaud the author for giving a chunk of his income to charity, to me it just feels like paying a penance for doing something bad.
I may be in the minority on this belief, but I think advertising -- any kind of advertising -- is inherently bad. To me, it's just psychological manipulation. I never want to see any ads, ever. If I could wear a pair of contact lenses that removed things like billboards from my vision, I would wear them in a heartbeat, even though billboards are far less harmful than internet-based ads.
I sometimes hear arguments that advertising isn't all bad because when someone actually is planning to make a particular kind of purchase, advertising can help them figure out which brand/model/etc. to buy. The problem with that is that the ads have no interest in satisfying anyone's particular needs in the best way. Someone could easily be swayed by a slick ad for a product that is not as good for their use as another product that had a less-engaging/less-manipulative ad.
The worst thing about internet advertising is of course the erosion of privacy. If ad networks were merely paying for people's eyeballs, that might not be too nefarious. But they're paying to track people and build intimate profiles about them, and that's not ok. I have very little faith that any of these initiatives that will supposedly make ad targeting privacy-preserving will actually work. All they do is make it appear that a company is doing something, so they can point to it when they get in trouble, claiming that they tried really hard to help preserve privacy, but it just didn't work out.
I'm just not interested in any of this crap. I know micropayments and pay-per-article and such are really hard to do, and really hard to get adopted, but that is the only model I will accept if people want me to pay in some way for web content. Making me pay for a $30/month subscription for the three or four articles I'll end up reading on your site per month is not something I'm interested in doing. And I will not pay through psychological manipulation and erosion of privacy.
I may be in the minority on this belief, but I think advertising -- any kind of advertising -- is inherently bad. To me, it's just psychological manipulation. I never want to see any ads, ever. If I could wear a pair of contact lenses that removed things like billboards from my vision, I would wear them in a heartbeat, even though billboards are far less harmful than internet-based ads.
I sometimes hear arguments that advertising isn't all bad because when someone actually is planning to make a particular kind of purchase, advertising can help them figure out which brand/model/etc. to buy. The problem with that is that the ads have no interest in satisfying anyone's particular needs in the best way. Someone could easily be swayed by a slick ad for a product that is not as good for their use as another product that had a less-engaging/less-manipulative ad.
The worst thing about internet advertising is of course the erosion of privacy. If ad networks were merely paying for people's eyeballs, that might not be too nefarious. But they're paying to track people and build intimate profiles about them, and that's not ok. I have very little faith that any of these initiatives that will supposedly make ad targeting privacy-preserving will actually work. All they do is make it appear that a company is doing something, so they can point to it when they get in trouble, claiming that they tried really hard to help preserve privacy, but it just didn't work out.
I'm just not interested in any of this crap. I know micropayments and pay-per-article and such are really hard to do, and really hard to get adopted, but that is the only model I will accept if people want me to pay in some way for web content. Making me pay for a $30/month subscription for the three or four articles I'll end up reading on your site per month is not something I'm interested in doing. And I will not pay through psychological manipulation and erosion of privacy.
Here's an honest question: Why should a search engine cost so much?
Look at Wikipedia - it's a search engine and content repository for all of the world's knowledge, and its operating expenses are around $100M / year.
The Internet Archive has an annual budget of $10M / year.
Google on the other hand, has annual revenues of $181B / year, or about 2000 times Wikipedia's spending.
Is the crawling part hard? The folks at Common Crawl (https://commoncrawl.org/) crawl the entire web every month and release it free of charge.
What about the search algorithms? Well, you can do a bunch with TFIDF and PageRank, for which patient protection has expired.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the cost of hosting a ubiquitous search engine would be double Wikipedia's annual costs. Still about a thousand times less expensive than Google.
Ads don't pay for a search engine. They pay for vast amounts of excess.
What keeps such a solution from us? Here are a few of many reasons:
* Google pays billions of dollars a year to make it the default option on browsers.
* Exclusive deals with portals such as LinkedIn which exclude open engines such as Archive.org from their content.
* Limits on peer-to-peer connections perpetuated by IPv4 which prevent us from hosting a distributed engine ourselves.
Posing the problem as one of "there's no other way to pay for this expensive machine" is pretty lame isn't it?
Look at Wikipedia - it's a search engine and content repository for all of the world's knowledge, and its operating expenses are around $100M / year.
The Internet Archive has an annual budget of $10M / year.
Google on the other hand, has annual revenues of $181B / year, or about 2000 times Wikipedia's spending.
Is the crawling part hard? The folks at Common Crawl (https://commoncrawl.org/) crawl the entire web every month and release it free of charge.
What about the search algorithms? Well, you can do a bunch with TFIDF and PageRank, for which patient protection has expired.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the cost of hosting a ubiquitous search engine would be double Wikipedia's annual costs. Still about a thousand times less expensive than Google.
Ads don't pay for a search engine. They pay for vast amounts of excess.
What keeps such a solution from us? Here are a few of many reasons:
* Google pays billions of dollars a year to make it the default option on browsers.
* Exclusive deals with portals such as LinkedIn which exclude open engines such as Archive.org from their content.
* Limits on peer-to-peer connections perpetuated by IPv4 which prevent us from hosting a distributed engine ourselves.
Posing the problem as one of "there's no other way to pay for this expensive machine" is pretty lame isn't it?
Ah yes, the "how much could it cost" comment.
"Businesses should keep adding engineers to work on optimization until the cost of adding an engineer equals the revenue gain plus the cost savings at the margin. This is often many more engineers than people realize." https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/
"Businesses should keep adding engineers to work on optimization until the cost of adding an engineer equals the revenue gain plus the cost savings at the margin. This is often many more engineers than people realize." https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/
Yeah, I think the amount of Google employees is completely rational if you consider it for what it is.
The key takeaway from that article:
>Businesses that actually care about turning a profit will spend a lot of time (hence, a lot of engineers) working on optimizing systems, even if an MVP for the system could have been built in a weekend.
Google's goal is to make as much profit as possible. Wikipedia's isn't. If Google had stayed a non-profit search engine the whole time (as proposed in the original paper for Google), then its costs would probably be not too different from Wikipedia's.
The key takeaway from that article:
>Businesses that actually care about turning a profit will spend a lot of time (hence, a lot of engineers) working on optimizing systems, even if an MVP for the system could have been built in a weekend.
Google's goal is to make as much profit as possible. Wikipedia's isn't. If Google had stayed a non-profit search engine the whole time (as proposed in the original paper for Google), then its costs would probably be not too different from Wikipedia's.
[deleted]
Biggest issue with this argument - advertising supported businesses are fine, contextual advertising is fine, targeted cross site advertising is a pointless red queen race that is undermining our society in multiple ways.
Can you say more what you mean by "pointless red queen race"?
Let's say someone wants to sell fishing equipment. The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. So now my fishing equipment purchases make there be more writing about fishing; yay!
Then one of the fishing websites decides to put a tracking pixel on their site to drop "fishing website visitor" cookies (or, in a future without third-party cookies, a turtledove interest group). They make a deal with a third party provider and get paid a small amount per visitor. Then fishing retailers have a new choice: instead of buying ads on fishing sites they can instead buy ads on any site for users who have one of the "fishing website visitor" cookies. If there were a monopoly fishing site, then this would increase their earnings: while the ad space on their site isn't as valuable, they will set the pixel price high enough that they come out ahead. It's not a monopoly, though, so the price of the pixel gets driven down through competition, and money that would go to fishing sites instead goes to the publishers that people who spend money on fishing equipment visit.
In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites.
But there are also many niches that don't have economic tie-ins, or have ones that are far weaker than "writing about fishing" and "buying fishing equipment". In a world with targeted advertising, these niches do better, because of overlap between audiences. A "let's have better housing policy" blog can show ads for fishing equipment, vacations, HVAC supplies, or whatever else visitors have shown interest in on other sites.
Additionally, targeted advertising increases the total amount of funding available for online content, because people with niche interests are available to be advertised to in more places. Seeing ten fishing ads once a week when you visit a fishing site vs seeing twenty fishing ads spread over the course of the week, etc.
So while niche publishers in lucrative niches would likely make more money if we only had context-based advertising, I don't think niche publishers overall, publishers overall, or consumers would be better off.
(This is modified from a comment I originally posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763)
Let's say someone wants to sell fishing equipment. The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. So now my fishing equipment purchases make there be more writing about fishing; yay!
Then one of the fishing websites decides to put a tracking pixel on their site to drop "fishing website visitor" cookies (or, in a future without third-party cookies, a turtledove interest group). They make a deal with a third party provider and get paid a small amount per visitor. Then fishing retailers have a new choice: instead of buying ads on fishing sites they can instead buy ads on any site for users who have one of the "fishing website visitor" cookies. If there were a monopoly fishing site, then this would increase their earnings: while the ad space on their site isn't as valuable, they will set the pixel price high enough that they come out ahead. It's not a monopoly, though, so the price of the pixel gets driven down through competition, and money that would go to fishing sites instead goes to the publishers that people who spend money on fishing equipment visit.
In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites.
But there are also many niches that don't have economic tie-ins, or have ones that are far weaker than "writing about fishing" and "buying fishing equipment". In a world with targeted advertising, these niches do better, because of overlap between audiences. A "let's have better housing policy" blog can show ads for fishing equipment, vacations, HVAC supplies, or whatever else visitors have shown interest in on other sites.
Additionally, targeted advertising increases the total amount of funding available for online content, because people with niche interests are available to be advertised to in more places. Seeing ten fishing ads once a week when you visit a fishing site vs seeing twenty fishing ads spread over the course of the week, etc.
So while niche publishers in lucrative niches would likely make more money if we only had context-based advertising, I don't think niche publishers overall, publishers overall, or consumers would be better off.
(This is modified from a comment I originally posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763)
Now take us through the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection.
You seem to be deliberately focusing on the beneficial parts of advertising, at the exclusion of the harmful bits. If you want to maintain your credibility -- let alone give the impression of someone striving to live ethically -- you'll need to give that second part its due attention.
Addendum:
If I were offered a generous salary to work on Google ad technology, I might accept. I'm not 100% sure, but the temptation would very real. As such, I want to make it clear that my criticism does not stem from any feeling of moral superiority, but rather from deep-seated respect and sympathy for someone engaged in an ethical dilemma.
I believe the comments would be much more charitable had your position been something along the lines of "I do it because it's good money, and I sometimes struggle with the dilemma. Here is the nature of the issue as I see it." As a general rule, people respect earnest introspection. Not so with playing ostrich.
You seem to be deliberately focusing on the beneficial parts of advertising, at the exclusion of the harmful bits. If you want to maintain your credibility -- let alone give the impression of someone striving to live ethically -- you'll need to give that second part its due attention.
Addendum:
If I were offered a generous salary to work on Google ad technology, I might accept. I'm not 100% sure, but the temptation would very real. As such, I want to make it clear that my criticism does not stem from any feeling of moral superiority, but rather from deep-seated respect and sympathy for someone engaged in an ethical dilemma.
I believe the comments would be much more charitable had your position been something along the lines of "I do it because it's good money, and I sometimes struggle with the dilemma. Here is the nature of the issue as I see it." As a general rule, people respect earnest introspection. Not so with playing ostrich.
Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell!
Maybe I'm just terribly dense, but I seriously can't think of any reasonable objection to what google does. The best I personally can come up with is that most people don't understand what google is doing and if they did know some of them might object.
When I google "the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection" I get results that talk about the NSA and human rights -- this doesn't seem to have much to do with what google is doing though. When I add "google" to that search I get a rambling article on "How surveillance changes people's behavior".
Please help me out here -- how am I or anyone else being harmed by google knowing what sites I visit?
I don't think the author is being disingenuous. I do think there is a sizable subset of privacy advocates who have become so stringently ideological about this issue they would downvote even thoughtful replies and are so caught up in their bubble that they seemingly can't have a conversation with anyone outside of it.
Maybe I'm just terribly dense, but I seriously can't think of any reasonable objection to what google does. The best I personally can come up with is that most people don't understand what google is doing and if they did know some of them might object.
When I google "the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection" I get results that talk about the NSA and human rights -- this doesn't seem to have much to do with what google is doing though. When I add "google" to that search I get a rambling article on "How surveillance changes people's behavior".
Please help me out here -- how am I or anyone else being harmed by google knowing what sites I visit?
I don't think the author is being disingenuous. I do think there is a sizable subset of privacy advocates who have become so stringently ideological about this issue they would downvote even thoughtful replies and are so caught up in their bubble that they seemingly can't have a conversation with anyone outside of it.
>Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell!
Yes, let's. I'm not an expert, so I don't have any insight. Do you?
Still, this question seems like an essential part of essay about the ethics of working in the ad industry.
Perhaps you meant to direct your sarcasm towards the author?
Yes, let's. I'm not an expert, so I don't have any insight. Do you?
Still, this question seems like an essential part of essay about the ethics of working in the ad industry.
Perhaps you meant to direct your sarcasm towards the author?
Are you being sarcastic? You cannot see consequences in the fact of a gigantic tech company having access to: searches, emails, attachments, photos, videos, location, messages, calls, apps installed and their usage, sleep schedules, driving styles, medical records, and about 1001 things I forgot to mention?
As long as they're not doing anything illegal? No.
genuinely cannot tell if trolling or not -- do you not see a security implication to centralizing PII (or similar data)?
to me it seems really bad to mine and centralize PII (note: this PII is also arbitrarily being shared with third-parties, usually without explicit or informed consent from user).
---
ie: this is data which is mined in a way, depth and scope of any implication is usually abstracted away from the user or hand-waved away in legalese or presented in such an annoying way users have become conditioned to unconditionally accept that which they do not understand, and therefore they likewise usually remain uninformed/ignorant/naive of any implication, security or otherwise, in order to get to the service asap. and this is something absolutely exploited by these companies.
---
do we really want companies, companies who have demonstrated they are not immune to simple mistakes leading to vulnerabilities, or leaked PII, mind you, to be in a position where we the user have no choice, but to trust it won't leak PII to nefarious persons (persons who can then do meaningfully harmful things with even basic PII)?
we are already bleeding enough PII as it is -- when should we truly be concerned with stopping it? if never, and there is no concern as you seem to indicate, then let us arbitrarily share medical information, too.
on that subject, there are also so many instances of arbitrarily collected and shared PII, for the sake of ads, that would almost unequivocally be a HIPA violation in other contexts -- to me it seems asinine to have such well-defined understandings of PII for the protection of the person in some contexts, but yet in the context of ads, suddenly <i>anything</i> goes, and the spiel we always get from the ads advocates is: but it is good for the user and the content creators cannot exist without it, so it must exist as is, unchained.
(un)ironically this is also a psychology presented by abusive relationships where the abuser keeps the abused thinking they need them, and the abuser establishes itself as a (survival) dependency in the abused's mind.
idk, i'm pretty skeptical of the claim that ad tech and the ad industry has good intentions, and i am becoming increasingly of the opinion that most of the advertising models advocates are trying so hard to convince users to enable, are just fucking profit-driven-at-all-costs cancer.
to me it seems really bad to mine and centralize PII (note: this PII is also arbitrarily being shared with third-parties, usually without explicit or informed consent from user).
---
ie: this is data which is mined in a way, depth and scope of any implication is usually abstracted away from the user or hand-waved away in legalese or presented in such an annoying way users have become conditioned to unconditionally accept that which they do not understand, and therefore they likewise usually remain uninformed/ignorant/naive of any implication, security or otherwise, in order to get to the service asap. and this is something absolutely exploited by these companies.
---
do we really want companies, companies who have demonstrated they are not immune to simple mistakes leading to vulnerabilities, or leaked PII, mind you, to be in a position where we the user have no choice, but to trust it won't leak PII to nefarious persons (persons who can then do meaningfully harmful things with even basic PII)?
we are already bleeding enough PII as it is -- when should we truly be concerned with stopping it? if never, and there is no concern as you seem to indicate, then let us arbitrarily share medical information, too.
on that subject, there are also so many instances of arbitrarily collected and shared PII, for the sake of ads, that would almost unequivocally be a HIPA violation in other contexts -- to me it seems asinine to have such well-defined understandings of PII for the protection of the person in some contexts, but yet in the context of ads, suddenly <i>anything</i> goes, and the spiel we always get from the ads advocates is: but it is good for the user and the content creators cannot exist without it, so it must exist as is, unchained.
(un)ironically this is also a psychology presented by abusive relationships where the abuser keeps the abused thinking they need them, and the abuser establishes itself as a (survival) dependency in the abused's mind.
idk, i'm pretty skeptical of the claim that ad tech and the ad industry has good intentions, and i am becoming increasingly of the opinion that most of the advertising models advocates are trying so hard to convince users to enable, are just fucking profit-driven-at-all-costs cancer.
Why do all the examples from the advertising industry have such easy-peasy, neutral goods? Fishing equipment. Basket weaving books. Dog food.
Targeted advertising hasn't been a blessing just for small businesses selling fishing equipment and organic combucha, but also -- actually, especially, for companies that sell things like:
* Potentially addictive subscriptions (for e.g. online casinos or other gambling games) -- thus specifically targeting people who are at risk for addiction, unless your targeting settings are crap.
* Snake oil skincare products for teenagers, or potentially dangerous weight loss tablets -- thus compounding peer pressure against young people with poor self esteem.
* Bullshit therapy "options" like German New Medicine, specifically targeting people who are terminally ill, or researching things like cancer treatment for a relative or a friend.
Boy am I glad we're increasing the total amount of funding available for online content!
Targeted advertising hasn't been a blessing just for small businesses selling fishing equipment and organic combucha, but also -- actually, especially, for companies that sell things like:
* Potentially addictive subscriptions (for e.g. online casinos or other gambling games) -- thus specifically targeting people who are at risk for addiction, unless your targeting settings are crap.
* Snake oil skincare products for teenagers, or potentially dangerous weight loss tablets -- thus compounding peer pressure against young people with poor self esteem.
* Bullshit therapy "options" like German New Medicine, specifically targeting people who are terminally ill, or researching things like cancer treatment for a relative or a friend.
Boy am I glad we're increasing the total amount of funding available for online content!
You can make similar arguments for almost all jobs.
You make cars? You focus on good things like driving to a vacation, but what about all the cars used in drive by shootings?
You sell cloud services? You talk about the great websites, but what about all the people who host scam sites on the cloud?
You write monitoring software? What about all the people who monitor ad services?
You make cars? You focus on good things like driving to a vacation, but what about all the cars used in drive by shootings?
You sell cloud services? You talk about the great websites, but what about all the people who host scam sites on the cloud?
You write monitoring software? What about all the people who monitor ad services?
I believe that the key of the message was that the advertisement companies gather a plenty of personal data and vulnerable groups are very easy to find and target. The same private data is also useful for "all the people who host scam sites on the cloud".
This. The more ad platform becomes accurate, the more ads will exploit vulnerabilities in human mind. Some might believe they don't have such vulnerabilities, but there can be some in subconscious level. Ad tech is basically PSYOP and people really should be on guard.
Bullshit. Targeting depressed teenagers with self-esteem issues is not the same thing as selling a car.
You cannot be in good-faith with these kinds of arguments.
You cannot be in good-faith with these kinds of arguments.
I think targetting depressed teenagers with something that makes their depression worse is bad.
But advertising mental health apps or government intervention programs doesn't seem intrinsically unethical within limits.
It's almost like the actual unethical item should be regulated!
But advertising mental health apps or government intervention programs doesn't seem intrinsically unethical within limits.
It's almost like the actual unethical item should be regulated!
Yeah, so?
The author of the post specifically (you read the article, didn't you?) said:
> The thing is, I think advertising is positive, and I think my individual contribution is positive. I'm open to being convinced on this: if I'm causing harm through my work I would like to know about it.
Then goes on to not mention a single example of harm being caused through their work, like virtually all articles that attempt to defend the advertising industry's practices. I thought I'd list a few.
The author of the post specifically (you read the article, didn't you?) said:
> The thing is, I think advertising is positive, and I think my individual contribution is positive. I'm open to being convinced on this: if I'm causing harm through my work I would like to know about it.
Then goes on to not mention a single example of harm being caused through their work, like virtually all articles that attempt to defend the advertising industry's practices. I thought I'd list a few.
If those are troubling industries (which I agree) it should be illegal to advertise those products. That doesn't mean advertising as a methodology is bad.
What value does advertising produce? I mean it, if advertising magically ceased to exist tomorrow, would anything be worse? Advertising is in itself a manipulative activity, an attempt to pass a worse product as a better one, or to create a demand where there was none, or to persuade someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't.
I think advertising has been crucial to increasing the economic size of the world. It's a valid argument if you think our world is crap, and we should never have switched to bigger civilizations. But the economic growth, driven significantly by increasing the available market for products, has led lots of people out of poverty, spurred innovation, and generally enabled a lot more humans to be born than would have.
Advertising expands markets for goods.
Advertising expands markets for goods.
I think it's pretty much this, advertising is lubrication for an economy of consumption.
Word of mouth and aggregators (like yelp) can help people find solutions when they know of a problem, but ads inform/manipulate (depending on how you see it) people to know they have a problem in the first place.
Also if you've ever written ad copy it's all pretty structurally similar: hook, problem statement, solution, testimonials, etc.
Word of mouth and aggregators (like yelp) can help people find solutions when they know of a problem, but ads inform/manipulate (depending on how you see it) people to know they have a problem in the first place.
Also if you've ever written ad copy it's all pretty structurally similar: hook, problem statement, solution, testimonials, etc.
1) New small businesses (like Shopify stores) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB.
2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job).
3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job).
3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
> The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites.
Before digital advertising or Google reading emails to find out you're going on a fishing trip, how did people buy fishing equipment?
Whatever we did then, we can probably go back to and be much better off.
Like why do I need "relevant ads" on a blog about urban planning? What problem does that solve for me?
Before digital advertising or Google reading emails to find out you're going on a fishing trip, how did people buy fishing equipment?
Whatever we did then, we can probably go back to and be much better off.
Like why do I need "relevant ads" on a blog about urban planning? What problem does that solve for me?
Google doesn't read emails for ad targeting.
Is this a new policy? As far as I know Google employs algorithms and bots of different sorts to read emails to identify topics and then use it for ad targeting.
I.e if I send you an email talking about finding a vacation deal to go to Egypt, we will get ads to that effect (obviously it'll vary somewhat).
I.e if I send you an email talking about finding a vacation deal to go to Egypt, we will get ads to that effect (obviously it'll vary somewhat).
Not really new, they changed that policy in 2017 based on some news headlines I see on the topic.
Official documentation:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en#:~:text=Th....
Official documentation:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en#:~:text=Th....
Thanks for sharing. I don't keep up too much so sometimes miss things. I don't use Gmail for example so occasionally it's "the last I heard".
Appreciate it
Appreciate it
Jeff contends that '"relevant ads" on a blog about urban planning' solve the problem of funding the blog for you. They allow the blog to not be required to focus on 'fishing equipment' in order to place such ads, only that it attract people known to Google's ad network to like fishing.
I’d prefer the blog shut down or just self-host or find some alternative. Donations work well enough. I’m blocking the ads anyway and if they block me because of that, then that’s fine too.
Ad blockers are a godsend though. I either get to opt-out of ads, or I get to opt-out of sites that rely on ads (for the most part, caveats aside).
Ad blockers are a godsend though. I either get to opt-out of ads, or I get to opt-out of sites that rely on ads (for the most part, caveats aside).
They saw ads for fishing equipment in fishing magazines, or in the newspaper.
Or catalogs. Reputation was by word of mouth.
We can use the web to bring those in the fishing community into wider contact with each other.
Or use it to create communities vulnerable to ads. I know which one I prefer.
We can use the web to bring those in the fishing community into wider contact with each other.
Or use it to create communities vulnerable to ads. I know which one I prefer.
> In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers
I have an example loosely inspired by real life.
Let's say I visit a fishing forum using the shared computer of my very, very vegan family. That website has now dropped the "fishing website visitor" cookie, and suddenly all my computer shows are ads for lure and fishing rods. My father is now furious, asking everyone in the house who has been visiting "those" websites.
I want the association between me and fishing gone. But who do I talk to? The website says they had nothing to do with this, the ad network won't even give me the time of day, and if the cookie is a supercookie then clearing history and cache may not be enough. And heavens help me if I get targeted mail, like Target used to do with pregnant women...
That, I believe, is the problem with targeted advertising: that my privacy is taken away in the name of helping somebody's website, it's leaked everywhere, and I have no real way to say "I don't want this".
I have an example loosely inspired by real life.
Let's say I visit a fishing forum using the shared computer of my very, very vegan family. That website has now dropped the "fishing website visitor" cookie, and suddenly all my computer shows are ads for lure and fishing rods. My father is now furious, asking everyone in the house who has been visiting "those" websites.
I want the association between me and fishing gone. But who do I talk to? The website says they had nothing to do with this, the ad network won't even give me the time of day, and if the cookie is a supercookie then clearing history and cache may not be enough. And heavens help me if I get targeted mail, like Target used to do with pregnant women...
That, I believe, is the problem with targeted advertising: that my privacy is taken away in the name of helping somebody's website, it's leaked everywhere, and I have no real way to say "I don't want this".
People who don't know how the sausage is made expect that when they're alone in a room, what they read about or watch or listen to is between them and no one. Imagine for a second your fishing interested potential customer didn't have any digital devices at all. They just asked friends and neighbors for word of mouth recommendations or went to the nearest Bass Pro Shop where they expected the people who work there would know what they're talking about.
Fishing retailers have a choice. They can rely on the strength and quality of their products and organic interest in fishing as a recreational activity. Or they can contract out their marketing to a commercial version of a spy agency that invents a silent, invisible device that follows their customers around when they're otherwise alone, recording everything they ever do to learn how to better predict their future spending preferences.
Surely, even if this resulted in better sales for the fishing industry, lower prices for the consumer, and the ability of niche publications to exist by predicting that their readers also like fishing and charging the fishing industry to sell them this information, you would not find this okay.
You've convinced yourself that this kind of surveillance and profiling is totally okay and different when it takes place on network connected computing devices and that people have even consented to it, but the actual people being monitored do not feel this way.
Fishing retailers have a choice. They can rely on the strength and quality of their products and organic interest in fishing as a recreational activity. Or they can contract out their marketing to a commercial version of a spy agency that invents a silent, invisible device that follows their customers around when they're otherwise alone, recording everything they ever do to learn how to better predict their future spending preferences.
Surely, even if this resulted in better sales for the fishing industry, lower prices for the consumer, and the ability of niche publications to exist by predicting that their readers also like fishing and charging the fishing industry to sell them this information, you would not find this okay.
You've convinced yourself that this kind of surveillance and profiling is totally okay and different when it takes place on network connected computing devices and that people have even consented to it, but the actual people being monitored do not feel this way.
> n this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites.
It's bad for the consumer because their privacy is being violated and their metadata is being sold, in order for advertisers to track them everywhere they go online, so businesses can try and extract all of their spending money as efficiently as possible.
It also is bad for the consumer because it's bad for the collective whole: instead of quality content online everything is being driven by outrage and clickbait in order to serve as many targeted ads as possible.
Personally I don't even want to support that ecosystem or those sites.
It's also bad for the fishing site because now their niche targeted ad slots that used to pay decently in order to target people with an interest in fishing are pushed into the same race to the bottom low return ads that are being automatically targeted. So they lose too.
Only winners are huge publishers that don't have any niche audience to target because now they effectively target every niche. And Google of course. Basically the two groups who I want to win the least.
It's bad for the consumer because their privacy is being violated and their metadata is being sold, in order for advertisers to track them everywhere they go online, so businesses can try and extract all of their spending money as efficiently as possible.
It also is bad for the consumer because it's bad for the collective whole: instead of quality content online everything is being driven by outrage and clickbait in order to serve as many targeted ads as possible.
Personally I don't even want to support that ecosystem or those sites.
It's also bad for the fishing site because now their niche targeted ad slots that used to pay decently in order to target people with an interest in fishing are pushed into the same race to the bottom low return ads that are being automatically targeted. So they lose too.
Only winners are huge publishers that don't have any niche audience to target because now they effectively target every niche. And Google of course. Basically the two groups who I want to win the least.
> their privacy is being violated and their metadata is being sold, in order for advertisers to track them everywhere they go online
This is exactly what I'm working on changing; have a look at the second half of the post?
(Or read https://github.com/WICG/turtledove)
This is exactly what I'm working on changing; have a look at the second half of the post?
(Or read https://github.com/WICG/turtledove)
Just wanted to mention I appreciate seeing a different perspective here.
I know there's a lot of negative reaction to it, and I can empathize with that because there's a long history of negative behavior by the advertising industry. But there's no doubt that there are benefits too, and seeing some nuance on HN is always a win.
I know there's a lot of negative reaction to it, and I can empathize with that because there's a long history of negative behavior by the advertising industry. But there's no doubt that there are benefits too, and seeing some nuance on HN is always a win.
I see advertising as intrinsically immoral. So it's not only the privacy abuses (which are the most serious part) but advertising in general.
So its immoral for a math tutor to post a flyer about his services in a local coffee shop?
Advertising is a very wide spectrum and I think its way too heavy handed to say it is all intrinsically immoral. Some is, maybe even most of it, but surely not all is immoral.
I'd argue that advertising in general is a good thing, but that there are a few parts that are bad. One bad part is the vast surveillance and privacy intrusion of modern digital advertising is what is bad. Another are the advertising tactics used to manipulate people into buying things they shouldn't.
Advertising is a very wide spectrum and I think its way too heavy handed to say it is all intrinsically immoral. Some is, maybe even most of it, but surely not all is immoral.
I'd argue that advertising in general is a good thing, but that there are a few parts that are bad. One bad part is the vast surveillance and privacy intrusion of modern digital advertising is what is bad. Another are the advertising tactics used to manipulate people into buying things they shouldn't.
Perhaps what is immoral is when the volume of advertising and the workload it places on the brain becomes too much.
The coffee shop with far too many flyers or 7 by the same local tutor becomes very hard to handle. With experience you fight through the flyers to read the menu and get to the counter to order that coffee.
There is so much 'opportunity' in the world at any moment for which the provider of the opportunity's ad thinks that it could be relevant to me. I can accept a little of that every day without it being bad, but patience wears very fast.
The coffee shop with far too many flyers or 7 by the same local tutor becomes very hard to handle. With experience you fight through the flyers to read the menu and get to the counter to order that coffee.
There is so much 'opportunity' in the world at any moment for which the provider of the opportunity's ad thinks that it could be relevant to me. I can accept a little of that every day without it being bad, but patience wears very fast.
Just as an analogy, one could imagine similar comments:
* I see contraception as intrinsically immoral...
* I see gun ownership as intrinsically immoral...
* I see capitalism as intrinsically immoral...
Which are all sort of arguments by normative value and probably not very convincing to those who don't share the same values.
* I see contraception as intrinsically immoral...
* I see gun ownership as intrinsically immoral...
* I see capitalism as intrinsically immoral...
Which are all sort of arguments by normative value and probably not very convincing to those who don't share the same values.
>But there's no doubt that there are benefits too
There most certainly are doubts that there are any benefits. Online ads aren't any more beneficial than billboards.
I think we would do well to follow the example of Sao Paulo.
There most certainly are doubts that there are any benefits. Online ads aren't any more beneficial than billboards.
I think we would do well to follow the example of Sao Paulo.
I notice immediately two main points are wrong:
> Minimal friction.
Fair enough when the site had one ad. Pretty much no site had one ad now. They have lots of them, which is significantly slowing down loading the page. And if you add all tracking and surveillance code, it can inflate a simple site into megabytes of data. There are common sites that load literally hundreds of outside URLs for ad and surveillance mechanics.
Which brings us to point 2:
> Non-regressive. Paywalls, like other fixed costs, are regressive
Ad costs are regressive too - if you have weak computer and low bw connection, if your connection is unstable or expensive, if your only internet device is a mobile phone with less than excellent bandwidth - which is commonly the case in low income communities - then the last thing you want is to be hit with megabytes of ad data which have zero relationship to what you want to get. Of course, for people sitting on optical gigabit networks with latest-greatest hardware their employer paid for is not much of a problem...
If it was just a paid service, you could work out a deal - maybe it could be cheaper for your country, or have some kind of library or per-provider setup that could make it easier for you to get to it - but you don't have this option, it's megabytes of ad everywhere.
> Minimal friction.
Fair enough when the site had one ad. Pretty much no site had one ad now. They have lots of them, which is significantly slowing down loading the page. And if you add all tracking and surveillance code, it can inflate a simple site into megabytes of data. There are common sites that load literally hundreds of outside URLs for ad and surveillance mechanics.
Which brings us to point 2:
> Non-regressive. Paywalls, like other fixed costs, are regressive
Ad costs are regressive too - if you have weak computer and low bw connection, if your connection is unstable or expensive, if your only internet device is a mobile phone with less than excellent bandwidth - which is commonly the case in low income communities - then the last thing you want is to be hit with megabytes of ad data which have zero relationship to what you want to get. Of course, for people sitting on optical gigabit networks with latest-greatest hardware their employer paid for is not much of a problem...
If it was just a paid service, you could work out a deal - maybe it could be cheaper for your country, or have some kind of library or per-provider setup that could make it easier for you to get to it - but you don't have this option, it's megabytes of ad everywhere.
> Ad costs are regressive too
Not to mention how they disproportionately affect "non tech savvy" groups. I almost never see ads, especially not the really obnoxious ones, and I imagine it's the same for most people here. Meanwhile elderly people are being inundated with ads that look like forms and buttons and warnings, and getting tricked into doing who knows what. Even if that's not financially regressive, it still has an outsized impact that is worse for groups that are already having a harder time of it.
Not to mention how they disproportionately affect "non tech savvy" groups. I almost never see ads, especially not the really obnoxious ones, and I imagine it's the same for most people here. Meanwhile elderly people are being inundated with ads that look like forms and buttons and warnings, and getting tricked into doing who knows what. Even if that's not financially regressive, it still has an outsized impact that is worse for groups that are already having a harder time of it.
Right. I am adblocked up to my ears, but when I use a new device or somebody's else device, I am always startled how bad it is with the ads. I'm like "people, how do you live like this? It's literally impossible to do anything!". But people get used to that. Annoyed in the best case, defrauded very commonly.
Also regarding regressivity: poorer and/or less informed people are more at-risk for predatory advertising: think scratch lotteries, payday loans, etc. Also of course the "YOU HAVE [241] VIRUSES DETECTED, DOWNLOAD SUPER CLEANER SX"
There's a lot of talk in the comments here about how ads are terrible, Jeff is terrible, etc. Eg "I personally have a very low opinion of anyone who works for a company that does that and even lower of anyone who actually works on serving those adverts."
According to https://www.jefftk.com/donations, Jeff and Julia have donated about $1.5m. GiveWell top rated charities are estimated [1] to save a life for each $3,000 - $5,000 donated. For a ballpark analysis, let's call that $4,000 and ignore secondary factors (eg inflation over their donation history).
Jeff and Julia have saved something like 375 lives, many of them likely children.
Please keep that in mind while forming and communicating your views.
[1] https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
According to https://www.jefftk.com/donations, Jeff and Julia have donated about $1.5m. GiveWell top rated charities are estimated [1] to save a life for each $3,000 - $5,000 donated. For a ballpark analysis, let's call that $4,000 and ignore secondary factors (eg inflation over their donation history).
Jeff and Julia have saved something like 375 lives, many of them likely children.
Please keep that in mind while forming and communicating your views.
[1] https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
If you really want to be utilitarian about it, then you must weigh the lives saved by donations against the lives destroyed by advertisements. If Jeff does not comes out ahead, he is terrible. The Less Wrong creed "shut up and multiply" is relevant, I ask commenters be sure to understand what I mean before replying to my argument.
I estimate that while he is still earning income, the upper bound for person-years saved will be 550_000 (30 more working years, 19_000_000$ total donations, a lifetime is worth 100 years and costs 3_500$). I estimate the lower bound for person-years destroyed will be 24_000 person-years (50_000_000 people affected, each losing 365 seconds every year over 42 years). These numbers are inconclusive.
I cannot answer the big philosophical question whether he shares responsibility with the other people working in advertisements, so we would divide the total destruction person-years by the number of people working in advertisements. If yes, this would certainly make the donation scheme very favourable/positively utilitarian.
I estimate that while he is still earning income, the upper bound for person-years saved will be 550_000 (30 more working years, 19_000_000$ total donations, a lifetime is worth 100 years and costs 3_500$). I estimate the lower bound for person-years destroyed will be 24_000 person-years (50_000_000 people affected, each losing 365 seconds every year over 42 years). These numbers are inconclusive.
I cannot answer the big philosophical question whether he shares responsibility with the other people working in advertisements, so we would divide the total destruction person-years by the number of people working in advertisements. If yes, this would certainly make the donation scheme very favourable/positively utilitarian.
That isn't how to evaluate a career choice. You evaluate it against all other choices, not in a vacuum. Choosing to work in advertising only comes out ahead if the excess of the good you do with the money you earn over the harm done by the job exceeds the excess good you could have done with money earned over harm of the job from any other job you could have chosen. Net good is better than net harm, but it's not better than even more net good.
Even then, while this kind of individual calculus is at least tractable, there is also the concern of large-scale cultural drift, as in the net impact of the world's smartest people collectively working on things like ad targeting, engineering synthetic financial derivatives, and figuring out how to manufacture scarcity out of abundance so speculators can get rich off of modern tulip mania, compared to what good might have come from whatever else they could have collectively accomplished. It's entirely possible that if Google and Facebook are as good at identifying uniquely talented and intelligent people as they think they are, they could have figured out how to entirely eradicate malaria if that is where they chose to direct the effort rather than figuring out how to predict the spending habits of most people in the world and using some of the profit to buy nets.
I'm not saying this for sure comes out against working for personal profit, of course. Louis Pasteur effectively proved the germ theory of disease, enabling the population explosion of the post-industrial age and possibly the most good ever done, while trying to figure out how to make better wine so he could patent and sell the process. But scant historical knowledge though I have, I'm having trouble thinking of historical examples of great good done by people just being wealthy and giving money to others who then do good, as opposed to direct work on technological good multipliers even when doing good is not the intention. At first, I was thinking maybe Da Vinci, but he might even be a counterexample in that he had little to no direct impact on science and engineering in the centuries to come despite conceiving of quite a few novel devices that were eventually invented. Perhaps if the patrons of Renaissance era Europe had paid their greatest minds to work on engineering instead of art, we could have had the industrial age centuries earlier.
Even then, while this kind of individual calculus is at least tractable, there is also the concern of large-scale cultural drift, as in the net impact of the world's smartest people collectively working on things like ad targeting, engineering synthetic financial derivatives, and figuring out how to manufacture scarcity out of abundance so speculators can get rich off of modern tulip mania, compared to what good might have come from whatever else they could have collectively accomplished. It's entirely possible that if Google and Facebook are as good at identifying uniquely talented and intelligent people as they think they are, they could have figured out how to entirely eradicate malaria if that is where they chose to direct the effort rather than figuring out how to predict the spending habits of most people in the world and using some of the profit to buy nets.
I'm not saying this for sure comes out against working for personal profit, of course. Louis Pasteur effectively proved the germ theory of disease, enabling the population explosion of the post-industrial age and possibly the most good ever done, while trying to figure out how to make better wine so he could patent and sell the process. But scant historical knowledge though I have, I'm having trouble thinking of historical examples of great good done by people just being wealthy and giving money to others who then do good, as opposed to direct work on technological good multipliers even when doing good is not the intention. At first, I was thinking maybe Da Vinci, but he might even be a counterexample in that he had little to no direct impact on science and engineering in the centuries to come despite conceiving of quite a few novel devices that were eventually invented. Perhaps if the patrons of Renaissance era Europe had paid their greatest minds to work on engineering instead of art, we could have had the industrial age centuries earlier.
I like this argument and would like to strengthen it in sligthly diffent dimension...
Every time I hear/read a "net offset" justification like in the greatgrandparent comment my brain only hears
Some see the nature of advertising as neutral, some even see it as good, some see it it as evil. I see it as too impractical to wield as intended; rare-times good, some-times neutral and most-times bad.
Although we can measure air water and noise pollutions, we still have wild disagreements over how much to allow. Given that we suck at measuring the mental pollution produced by advertising-based business models, it is natural that disagreement is even greater over mental pollution.
Where is the startup that shows folks the pollution-free mental spaces that they didn't know they wanted_needed, but that they will never let-go once experienced. Sadly, most minds are limited to imagining the same sad choices jefftk listed. I for one choose to believe that people exist who see how to "fund the web" sans advertising. To them I leave this future message: "Hurry up dammit. We need you. The jefftk's of this world are making the most ungodly of big messes."
Every time I hear/read a "net offset" justification like in the greatgrandparent comment my brain only hears
I'm gonna sell heroin/meth/crack to fund a rehab clinic;
AND
if more persons are rehabbed than addicted
then the whole endeavour is a good thing;
AND
I am a good person; call me "one of the good ones.
Some see the nature of advertising as neutral, some even see it as good, some see it it as evil. I see it as too impractical to wield as intended; rare-times good, some-times neutral and most-times bad.
Although we can measure air water and noise pollutions, we still have wild disagreements over how much to allow. Given that we suck at measuring the mental pollution produced by advertising-based business models, it is natural that disagreement is even greater over mental pollution.
Where is the startup that shows folks the pollution-free mental spaces that they didn't know they wanted_needed, but that they will never let-go once experienced. Sadly, most minds are limited to imagining the same sad choices jefftk listed. I for one choose to believe that people exist who see how to "fund the web" sans advertising. To them I leave this future message: "Hurry up dammit. We need you. The jefftk's of this world are making the most ungodly of big messes."
Yeah, I still don't like it. I used to not mind ads because they were just images, but then came the ones that moved, then the ones that made sound, then the ones that injected malicious JavaScript. Then I installed an adblocker, then I installed a script blocker, then I installed a proxy. Now most websites won't work and I'm fine with that.
> I think advertising is positive
> (…)
> So: why is advertising good? (…) The question is, what is the alternative?
“I can’t think of a better alternative than the status quo, thus the status quo is positive” isn’t a sound conclusion. Every sufficiently ingrained societal negative we’ve abolished since was likely reasoned in that manner at one point.
> (…)
> So: why is advertising good? (…) The question is, what is the alternative?
“I can’t think of a better alternative than the status quo, thus the status quo is positive” isn’t a sound conclusion. Every sufficiently ingrained societal negative we’ve abolished since was likely reasoned in that manner at one point.
To me the article read like they were trying to justify working at Google to themself. It never explains why it's acceptable that ads target themselves at consumers in the first place when such a thing would have been considered dystopian fifty years ago (selling flower ads on a flower show is okay, but showing flower ads on a car show the next week because the consumer watched a flower show last week could have been the plot of a Twilight Zone episode), instead it just talks about how they're trying to protect privacy while using principally privacy-hostile ad targeting technology.
Yep, without otherwise equating the two, this is basically “But who will pick the cotton then?” argument against the abolition of slavery.
I invented 'antiad'.
I see an annoying ad in public space? I might get in contact with them to complain about that ad.
I think it is just fair to tell someone my honest opinion as soon as they take the time and effort to target me.
I'm totally lost on why we support generic unrelevant ads in public spaces. It makes our cities ugly.
I see an annoying ad in public space? I might get in contact with them to complain about that ad.
I think it is just fair to tell someone my honest opinion as soon as they take the time and effort to target me.
I'm totally lost on why we support generic unrelevant ads in public spaces. It makes our cities ugly.
You should become Wanksy, but for advertisements. "Rate My Add, with totally coincidental Poo on it". Maybe there's a market for YTMND with split screen ads, poo or whatever and music for us to mock all these brands with.
Sao Paulo banned billboards and advertisements. I see no reason why other cities and states cannot do the same.
Some of the states that care a lot about their communities have done so, like Maine and Vermont.
Some of the states that care a lot about their communities have done so, like Maine and Vermont.
Absolutely. I cannot even walk through my city without an assault being waged on my senses.
I’m against advertisement, in my opinion it’s the worst thing to happen to the internet.
However, I have a problem with Google adverts specifically and that is that they’re absolute hot garbage. Google has advertised to me: outright scams, malware, gambling, mobile games with extremely exploitative monetisation.
And they are working to take away any privacy I might have to keep showing me this shit. In my opinion, Google is basically evil these days.
I personally have a very low opinion of anyone who works for a company that does that and even lower of anyone who actually works on serving those adverts.
However, I have a problem with Google adverts specifically and that is that they’re absolute hot garbage. Google has advertised to me: outright scams, malware, gambling, mobile games with extremely exploitative monetisation.
And they are working to take away any privacy I might have to keep showing me this shit. In my opinion, Google is basically evil these days.
I personally have a very low opinion of anyone who works for a company that does that and even lower of anyone who actually works on serving those adverts.
When I was a impoverished kid, how else was I supposed to get internet and email accept for with Juno, then NetZero or stealing internet? Yeah I used gophernet through a local library dialup and it was not the internet.
I mean, my brother once bought a "personal fan" for $1 and that was the most coveted possession we had for about 6 months.
As someone who grew up extremely poor and effectively dumpster dived for my first computer what pragmatic alternative is there?
I don't want to be uncharitable but this seems like a very middle class and annoyed wealthy problem to have, I haven't seen any non regressive approaches accept for MAYBE from crypto browsers.
Maybe the wealthy and middle class are just tired of subsidizing the internet and the content on it. As a broke child ads got me to a place where I could download html, learn to program and code and break out of an insane degree of poverty. The borland turbo c books at the library never seemed to have code that would compile.
It may just be my personal experience but all of this feel like pulling up the ladder behind me and I haven't seen anyone articulate practical alternatives that address this issue.
edit: Even mass surveillance and government control seems like an orthogonal near strawman issue to me, as far as I'm aware the most restricted countries on earth like China and NK don't need or use ad networks for their lockdowns. Frankly if you can't scrape data off my hard drive, don't have the power of incarceration (or feed data to those who do), and don't tie it to my credit score or ability to bank (I think we should pass legislation explicitly banning that on the banking side) and don't make it illegal to use ad blockers, I don't see the problem.
I mean, my brother once bought a "personal fan" for $1 and that was the most coveted possession we had for about 6 months.
As someone who grew up extremely poor and effectively dumpster dived for my first computer what pragmatic alternative is there?
I don't want to be uncharitable but this seems like a very middle class and annoyed wealthy problem to have, I haven't seen any non regressive approaches accept for MAYBE from crypto browsers.
Maybe the wealthy and middle class are just tired of subsidizing the internet and the content on it. As a broke child ads got me to a place where I could download html, learn to program and code and break out of an insane degree of poverty. The borland turbo c books at the library never seemed to have code that would compile.
It may just be my personal experience but all of this feel like pulling up the ladder behind me and I haven't seen anyone articulate practical alternatives that address this issue.
edit: Even mass surveillance and government control seems like an orthogonal near strawman issue to me, as far as I'm aware the most restricted countries on earth like China and NK don't need or use ad networks for their lockdowns. Frankly if you can't scrape data off my hard drive, don't have the power of incarceration (or feed data to those who do), and don't tie it to my credit score or ability to bank (I think we should pass legislation explicitly banning that on the banking side) and don't make it illegal to use ad blockers, I don't see the problem.
From my experience, every educational website I visit (encyclopedias, scholarly articles, college coursework/notes, personal how-to blogs, ebooks) is hosted for free without advertisements, bitcoin miners, or tolls whatsoever.
But perhaps I have not noticed very much because I mostly use an ad-blocker. When I don't use an ad-blocker, I notice ads are mostly on crappy click-baity sources and social media (youtube, forums, etc.).
educational information is usually just text, so it's easy to host I suppose. wikipedia, for example is only a couple hundred gigabytes. But the stuff most people want to spend their time on is video and image forums, which are expensive to host.
But perhaps I have not noticed very much because I mostly use an ad-blocker. When I don't use an ad-blocker, I notice ads are mostly on crappy click-baity sources and social media (youtube, forums, etc.).
educational information is usually just text, so it's easy to host I suppose. wikipedia, for example is only a couple hundred gigabytes. But the stuff most people want to spend their time on is video and image forums, which are expensive to host.
There are definitely good free resources once you get on the internet, stack overflow (vc funded & only recently profitable?), github, wikipedia, early on.. ruby on rails (and it's comparatively very friendly and prolific teaching community), etc... these are wonderful examples of accessing high quality data for free.
Scholarly articles and research have been behind paywalls (jstore, etc.) if you don't have access through a university (which I never have.)
Alternatively, everything is free if you pirate the content, I just don't think the numbers add up to having that be a lasting funding model.
The most helpful "free" content for doing home electrical work, car repair, etc. which make a big difference for people on near $0 budgets is media on youtube.
I think the argument could be made for publicly subsidized video, media hosting and other "utility" style services, but the mass adoption and accessibility of the internet for the poor wasn't built on that (as far as memory serves from my experience of being on BBSs and then online in the 90s.) and I think killing ads without an alternative feels like a regressive cart before horse approach.
Scholarly articles and research have been behind paywalls (jstore, etc.) if you don't have access through a university (which I never have.)
Alternatively, everything is free if you pirate the content, I just don't think the numbers add up to having that be a lasting funding model.
The most helpful "free" content for doing home electrical work, car repair, etc. which make a big difference for people on near $0 budgets is media on youtube.
I think the argument could be made for publicly subsidized video, media hosting and other "utility" style services, but the mass adoption and accessibility of the internet for the poor wasn't built on that (as far as memory serves from my experience of being on BBSs and then online in the 90s.) and I think killing ads without an alternative feels like a regressive cart before horse approach.
Juno and NetZero were magic for me growing up when we couldn't afford dialup (and could only rarely make it to the library). And my current job is almost entirely, if indirectly, funded by the ad industry, doing work which I hope has some intrinsic value.
But I think the advertising industry as currently constituted is a misuse of attention, money, and other resources.
I haven't solved this dilemma for myself, but I don't ignore the conflict just because of the positives. Hopefully I'll find the courage to do more than gripe.
But I think the advertising industry as currently constituted is a misuse of attention, money, and other resources.
I haven't solved this dilemma for myself, but I don't ignore the conflict just because of the positives. Hopefully I'll find the courage to do more than gripe.
Justify it however you want, its not (IMHO) adding value to society and has created perverse incentives on the internet. Donating to "efficient" charities does not excuse what you do for a living. That was thrown out there first to virtue signal, but something tells me if that is your first argument you know that what you are doing isnt good for society. I honestly would feel better about the guy if he just said 'I work on ads. They pay me a shit ton of money. I know its a dirty business, but right now I want to get paid'.
Thanks for sharing. This was a compelling argument that nudged my understanding in a new direction.
I recently started paying creators on Patreon and subscribing to news outlets I wanted to support. But within a year, I realized that this was inefficient, I didn't like/read/watch most of the content that my subscriptions were supporting. As much as I wanted to support the content creators and quality journalism, I questioned the value of my subscriptions and cancelled - I felt like I signed up for a gym membership on Jan 1st that I wasn't using anymore.
Ads allow me "to pay" with my attention for only the content that I value. I don't like ads, I generally use an ad-blocker, but I appreciate the post and the perspective.
I recently started paying creators on Patreon and subscribing to news outlets I wanted to support. But within a year, I realized that this was inefficient, I didn't like/read/watch most of the content that my subscriptions were supporting. As much as I wanted to support the content creators and quality journalism, I questioned the value of my subscriptions and cancelled - I felt like I signed up for a gym membership on Jan 1st that I wasn't using anymore.
Ads allow me "to pay" with my attention for only the content that I value. I don't like ads, I generally use an ad-blocker, but I appreciate the post and the perspective.
I pay for youtube, support some people on patreon and use an adblocker. But I still think ads a net positive and a clever solution to bootstrapping and continuing to support a relatively open online publishing ecosystem.
Thanks for your work and sharing your thoughts jefftk!
Thanks for your work and sharing your thoughts jefftk!
> but what about all those sites that don't have a strong commercial tie-in?
Surely it's okay for sites that "don't have a commercial tie-in" to stick with untargeted ads? I just think that building a giant stalking network is an extreme (and ideally illegal) solution to the "problem" that a couple of sites won't make as much money off their popularity as they'd like.
And is it that uncharitable to characterize what Facebook and Google are building as a giant stalking network?
Surely it's okay for sites that "don't have a commercial tie-in" to stick with untargeted ads? I just think that building a giant stalking network is an extreme (and ideally illegal) solution to the "problem" that a couple of sites won't make as much money off their popularity as they'd like.
And is it that uncharitable to characterize what Facebook and Google are building as a giant stalking network?
Each ad serve is not worth that much to start with, facebooks CPMs are about $7-8, so they are getting $0.007 per serve with extensive targeting. The falloff is something around 10x+ for completely non targeted ads which for most sites push them below the level of economic feasibility.
This is also why if you stumble into some parts of the web, they vomit out a billion ads per page to try and compensate.
Really the problem is that there is a tremendous gap between the costs to serve content and users willingness to pay (either directly or via any indirect method). It is a tremendously deep hole we've built with freemium models that will probably require some level of societal agreement to dig back out of.
This is also why if you stumble into some parts of the web, they vomit out a billion ads per page to try and compensate.
Really the problem is that there is a tremendous gap between the costs to serve content and users willingness to pay (either directly or via any indirect method). It is a tremendously deep hole we've built with freemium models that will probably require some level of societal agreement to dig back out of.
Ads are a corrupting influence on the web - the issue with framing this as more open access compared to for-pay services is that it sidesteps how the model corrupts the content of the services itself. There are the data collection and privacy issues as well, but it's the corruption of the content that's a really serious destructive force. In the end you can't even pay for the original non-ad supported content anymore because the content itself is an ad created entirely for the purpose of driving engagement. (There are some exceptions to this e.g. Substack).
It also corrupts what products get built because the incentives between the users of the software and the funders of the software are not aligned (even though ad devs pretend they are by pretending users like relevant ads). To test if users truly find 'relevant ads' as value-add: make two products, one with ads and one without and charge for the one with ads - see how many people buy it.
Why doesn't Hulu charge more many for their streaming service with ads instead of their service without? The behavior of these companies suggests they know on some level this value-add nonsense is a rationalization. Even if you say it's only value-add when compared to un-targeted ads - let users choose to have un-targeted ads without giving up their data privacy. I'd bet money on what choice they'd make.
The truth is targeted ads work and make enormous amounts of money for the ad companies - that's why they do them. The twisted narratives of why this is actually good for people or society are just another example that there is no limit to humanity's ability to rationalize anything when it's in their interest to do so.
--
"“In the beginning not everyone tended to their free data farms. Many did not know what to do with them, some only planted one or two tweets and then abandoned them entirely. This disappointed the earls of our kingdom. If they don’t encourage growth, their share of the data harvest is smaller, there’s no one to hear their pronouncements, and all of the land they spent time cultivating is wasted. They realized that not only do they need to make the land easy to cultivate, but they need to make the serfs want to cultivate it. They experimented for a while and learned that new types of controversial, viciously competitive crops are great for encouraging data farming - they call this type of encouragement ‘engagement’.”"
https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/07/14/the-serfs-of-facebook...
It also corrupts what products get built because the incentives between the users of the software and the funders of the software are not aligned (even though ad devs pretend they are by pretending users like relevant ads). To test if users truly find 'relevant ads' as value-add: make two products, one with ads and one without and charge for the one with ads - see how many people buy it.
Why doesn't Hulu charge more many for their streaming service with ads instead of their service without? The behavior of these companies suggests they know on some level this value-add nonsense is a rationalization. Even if you say it's only value-add when compared to un-targeted ads - let users choose to have un-targeted ads without giving up their data privacy. I'd bet money on what choice they'd make.
The truth is targeted ads work and make enormous amounts of money for the ad companies - that's why they do them. The twisted narratives of why this is actually good for people or society are just another example that there is no limit to humanity's ability to rationalize anything when it's in their interest to do so.
--
"“In the beginning not everyone tended to their free data farms. Many did not know what to do with them, some only planted one or two tweets and then abandoned them entirely. This disappointed the earls of our kingdom. If they don’t encourage growth, their share of the data harvest is smaller, there’s no one to hear their pronouncements, and all of the land they spent time cultivating is wasted. They realized that not only do they need to make the land easy to cultivate, but they need to make the serfs want to cultivate it. They experimented for a while and learned that new types of controversial, viciously competitive crops are great for encouraging data farming - they call this type of encouragement ‘engagement’.”"
https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/07/14/the-serfs-of-facebook...
That sure sounds like appeasing guilt with charity donations.
I started on ads at Google in 2017, and have been donating since 2008: https://www.jefftk.com/donations
Jeff have you ever considered giving to specific people? It's quite ridiculous that college costs what you might give in a year, but $264,727 could concretely allow several people to attend college each year (state schools, community colleges, etc). Or how about removing bad debt, letting people rebuild their credit and start to save. I can think of myriad reasons why this is harder and less desirable (finding them, funding them, ensuring it has real impact, etc). But curious what your take on this would be.
If you click through to some of Jeff's other articles, you can see he's interested in effective altruism. Broadly, at the same total cost, paying for 5-6 globally wealthy people to attend college is going to have lower QALY impact than buying ~132,000 Long-Lasting Insecticidal bed nets ("LLINs") for people in regions with lots of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
For more on effective altruism broadly, some resources:
https://www.givewell.org/giving101
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/about-us/#our-mission
For more on effective altruism broadly, some resources:
https://www.givewell.org/giving101
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/about-us/#our-mission
If you strongly believe there are some unexplored avenues for impactful donations to individuals you should make the case to Givewell. It's what they're all about, and that seems to be what Jeff is mainly giving to (all those Against Malaria donations I assume were the top Givewell recommendation of their year). I think Jeff is doing the smart thing by outsourcing the analysis to Givewell who specialize in it.
Heinous idea to give to Americans going to college instead of starving people or something.
This statement does not address the parent's comment.
"appeasing guilt with charity donations" implies something like "ads -> guilt -> donations". That the donations came years before the ads is pretty good evidence otherwise?
I make no judgement as to whether you are or are not attempting to offset guilt with donations, but no, I'm not sure the order of events matters that much.
A person who donates generously may more easily justify dubious money-earning efforts by saying, "it's really not for me so much, it's for the kids!" In other words, it is possible (again, not saying this is case for you) that one might take a job in advertising because they feel their donations provide ethical cover.
A person who donates generously may more easily justify dubious money-earning efforts by saying, "it's really not for me so much, it's for the kids!" In other words, it is possible (again, not saying this is case for you) that one might take a job in advertising because they feel their donations provide ethical cover.
Appreciate seeing pages like this, and 50% is pretty great. I need to set one up for myself.
...and good old fashion virtue signaling https://www.jefftk.com/donations
imo, honest hearts never need to publicize their altruism to the world.
imo, honest hearts never need to publicize their altruism to the world.
Completely disagree: https://www.jefftk.com/p/make-your-giving-public
Publicizing altruism helps build a culture of altruism.
Publicizing altruism helps build a culture of altruism.
Bravo. It's weird sort of moral pretzel to advertise your donations which simultaneously wins you some respect and a whole lot of antipathy for being self-righteous. Unfortunately there's no way I know of to self-advertise your donations without being self-righteous but it's the right thing to do. Ironically you find yourself wondering do you pay more with your pocketbook for the charity or more with your social capital for the charity advertisement (which makes the charity more impactful).
By the way I don't donate anything to charity at the moment, although I plan to someday. So I'm speaking from a no-skin-in-the-game perspective.
By the way I don't donate anything to charity at the moment, although I plan to someday. So I'm speaking from a no-skin-in-the-game perspective.
Worked with Jeff ages ago. I promise you you've got the wrong read on him
The collection, cataloging, and storage of personal data is the issue. We can have effective ads without constantly looking over everyone's shoulder and documenting what they do. But obviously, the author sees this data collection as beneficial, I respectfully disagree. I left advertising because I didn't like what I could see on the backend.
This ubiquitous and ever-growing surveillance is a catastrophe. But to be honest I'm against ads altogether.
I hate ads. I always hated them.
It doesn't mean I hate people who work on ads / ad software. It doesn't mean I want to cancel them. You, and the others in that field, don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to donate to charity to feel better about what you're doing (it doesn't mean "stop donating NOW", it's just.. do what you feel is good, like you are doing now).
There's a lot of bad going on in the world. Ads are shady-grey area. I know how to fight it and have my internet ad-free. You're ok, don't let negative comments get to you. Cheers!
It doesn't mean I hate people who work on ads / ad software. It doesn't mean I want to cancel them. You, and the others in that field, don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to donate to charity to feel better about what you're doing (it doesn't mean "stop donating NOW", it's just.. do what you feel is good, like you are doing now).
There's a lot of bad going on in the world. Ads are shady-grey area. I know how to fight it and have my internet ad-free. You're ok, don't let negative comments get to you. Cheers!
The crux of his justification for what he does is that, he argues, people wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee for services like youtube bundled with complete respect for their privacy.
First, users do not currently have that choice. Sure, you can pay for some things (e.g. youtube premium), but it does nothing for your privacy. If you buy youtube premium you'll very likely see more ads for youtube premium (if you're not already blocking ads).
Second, The real benefit of ads is that it lets small sites that might get a single one-time visit from a user monetize that visit. A blog with a trending post is not going to be able to sell micro-subscriptions to one-time users, but they can get some ad revenue. The only current alternative here is begging for donations. That takes some effort and can piss off readers.
Ironically, although Kaufman mentions that micropayments are hard, Google is one of the few companies currently situated to implement them in a way that would actually improve user privacy. e.g. If a user paid a "Premium Internet" monthly fee, Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off and replaces it with micropayments to any site that user visits that are running Google Ads.
Of course, it does seem a little bit like a mafia protection racket for a company devoted to invading user privacy and selling their data to turn around and offer to stop doing that if paid by users!
First, users do not currently have that choice. Sure, you can pay for some things (e.g. youtube premium), but it does nothing for your privacy. If you buy youtube premium you'll very likely see more ads for youtube premium (if you're not already blocking ads).
Second, The real benefit of ads is that it lets small sites that might get a single one-time visit from a user monetize that visit. A blog with a trending post is not going to be able to sell micro-subscriptions to one-time users, but they can get some ad revenue. The only current alternative here is begging for donations. That takes some effort and can piss off readers.
Ironically, although Kaufman mentions that micropayments are hard, Google is one of the few companies currently situated to implement them in a way that would actually improve user privacy. e.g. If a user paid a "Premium Internet" monthly fee, Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off and replaces it with micropayments to any site that user visits that are running Google Ads.
Of course, it does seem a little bit like a mafia protection racket for a company devoted to invading user privacy and selling their data to turn around and offer to stop doing that if paid by users!
> If you buy youtube premium you'll very likely see more ads for youtube premium
Really? I have youtube premium and I can't recall seeing ads for it. Why would they advertise a product to people that already have that product?
> Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off and replaces it with micropayments to any site that user visits that are running Google Ads.
FWIW, this flag already exists, except you don't have to do micropayments: https://adssettings.google.com/
I guess you still see ads with this setting, they're just not personalized. Hypothetically you could imagine a "stronger" setting that doesn't just do away with personalization, it does away with ads altogether by allowing the user to "outbid" any advertiser. But I suspect there will be some surprised users who get a bill for hundreds of dollars by doing some particularly high-value searches like "personal injury lawyer" or "mortgage" or something.
And if it were a flat rate, my intuition is that the fee would have to be much higher than most would expect or be willing to pay.
Really? I have youtube premium and I can't recall seeing ads for it. Why would they advertise a product to people that already have that product?
> Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off and replaces it with micropayments to any site that user visits that are running Google Ads.
FWIW, this flag already exists, except you don't have to do micropayments: https://adssettings.google.com/
I guess you still see ads with this setting, they're just not personalized. Hypothetically you could imagine a "stronger" setting that doesn't just do away with personalization, it does away with ads altogether by allowing the user to "outbid" any advertiser. But I suspect there will be some surprised users who get a bill for hundreds of dollars by doing some particularly high-value searches like "personal injury lawyer" or "mortgage" or something.
And if it were a flat rate, my intuition is that the fee would have to be much higher than most would expect or be willing to pay.
> Hypothetically you could imagine a "stronger" setting that doesn't just do away with personalization, it does away with ads altogether by allowing the user to "outbid" any advertiser.
Google built this, it was called Contributor, and it wasn't very popular.
Google built this, it was called Contributor, and it wasn't very popular.
> If a user paid a "Premium Internet" monthly fee, Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off and replaces it with micropayments to any site that user visits that are running Google Ads.
It's not exactly what you're describing, but they've tried several (unsuccessful) approaches along these lines with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
(speaking only for myself)
It's not exactly what you're describing, but they've tried several (unsuccessful) approaches along these lines with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
(speaking only for myself)
> First, users do not currently have that choice.
Have you thought about the possibility that there actually was a choice and it just miserably failed. Or we can call it a "natural selection". One example would be https://contributor.google.com/, which never has gained enough traction since publishers don't like it. This is simply a hard problem. You can build another big tech if you can provide a meaningful, scalable alternative.
Have you thought about the possibility that there actually was a choice and it just miserably failed. Or we can call it a "natural selection". One example would be https://contributor.google.com/, which never has gained enough traction since publishers don't like it. This is simply a hard problem. You can build another big tech if you can provide a meaningful, scalable alternative.
"First, users do not currently have that choice. Sure, you can pay for some things (e.g. youtube premium), but it does nothing for your privacy. If you buy youtube premium you'll very likely see more ads for youtube premium (if you're not already blocking ads)."
This doesn't make sense. I mean, you might see ads for YouTube premium on other sites, but you aren't seeing them on YouTube. You're paying to remove ads on YouTube, not the whole web. (Nor does it prevent people from stalking you IRL)
This doesn't make sense. I mean, you might see ads for YouTube premium on other sites, but you aren't seeing them on YouTube. You're paying to remove ads on YouTube, not the whole web. (Nor does it prevent people from stalking you IRL)
> If a user paid a "Premium Internet" monthly fee, Google Ads could have a flag that turns it's data collection/sharing off
That would be horrible! Data collection and sharing should be off by default, and I never want to see a "Premium Internet" experience.
That would be horrible! Data collection and sharing should be off by default, and I never want to see a "Premium Internet" experience.
1. Good points. There is no better alternative available.
2. There are worst jobs to have like working for the auto industry.
3. He's definitely a better person than I am with better values. Who gives 50% earned to charity?
2. There are worst jobs to have like working for the auto industry.
3. He's definitely a better person than I am with better values. Who gives 50% earned to charity?
>>Who gives 50% earned to charity?
Perhaps some. But I'm sure they don't brag to the world about it.
Perhaps some. But I'm sure they don't brag to the world about it.
Can you advocate for doing an ethical thing like that and not have it be considered bragging? I've often wondered about how to encourage others to give more, volunteer more.
If I don't do those things (or don't claim to), people will say, "Why should I do that? You don't do that! Hypocrite."
If I do those things, people will say, "You are just bragging/virtue signaling."
If I don't do those things (or don't claim to), people will say, "Why should I do that? You don't do that! Hypocrite."
If I do those things, people will say, "You are just bragging/virtue signaling."
Both are defense mechanisms to prevent any responsibility to do something themselves.
More people should: https://www.jefftk.com/p/make-your-giving-public
(Written years before I started on ads at Google)
(Written years before I started on ads at Google)
Ads are fine.
Trying every way possible to track and record every second of my life online and in the physical world is evil.
Trying every way possible to track and record every second of my life online and in the physical world is evil.
Disclaimer: I work at Google too (not ads), all opinions my own.
I'm surprised the author focused singularly on the "funding the open web" stance, and did not discuss the alleged negative externalities created by advertising-driven business incentives. The top comments of the blog comments (e.g. https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads#lw-Nvd9ZHJLxZpNZD...) also point this out.
For instance, The Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" discusses these at length, and it forms a lot of the political zeitgeist around regulation of adtech companies (e.g. driving polarization, radicalization, depression and such).
> The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:
It's possible to simultaneously believe that ads are currently the effective way to lower barrier of entry to accessing content, and also believe that ads are a detriment to people's mental health.
One alternative would be an ad-supported system that performs less-personalized ad-targeting, and in doing so influences people's behavior less but generates enough revenue to keep the lights on with a reasonable profit margin. The government has laws for regulating natural monopolies like this, where they prevent utility companies from price gouging but grant them a certain amount of margin.
I'm surprised the author focused singularly on the "funding the open web" stance, and did not discuss the alleged negative externalities created by advertising-driven business incentives. The top comments of the blog comments (e.g. https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads#lw-Nvd9ZHJLxZpNZD...) also point this out.
For instance, The Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" discusses these at length, and it forms a lot of the political zeitgeist around regulation of adtech companies (e.g. driving polarization, radicalization, depression and such).
> The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:
It's possible to simultaneously believe that ads are currently the effective way to lower barrier of entry to accessing content, and also believe that ads are a detriment to people's mental health.
One alternative would be an ad-supported system that performs less-personalized ad-targeting, and in doing so influences people's behavior less but generates enough revenue to keep the lights on with a reasonable profit margin. The government has laws for regulating natural monopolies like this, where they prevent utility companies from price gouging but grant them a certain amount of margin.
The author jefftk is getting unfairly downvoted maybe because cynics just see it as a version of, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
I will offer a contrarian opinion as a user whose salary does not depend on advertising: the advertising model for using Google search and watching Youtube videos works better for me as a consumer.
The alternative of paying $9.99/month for Youtube... or micropayments for each search query or a "Google Search Engine yearly subscription" ... or Patreon donations for video content ... are all more user hostile for my use cases. I don't like ads but they are the most friction-free way to consume a wide variety of content.
I've been using Google Search for over 20 years for free which is pretty amazing. Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No.
That said, there are also many corrosive aspects of advertising. Advertising should be open and transparent. If the business of ads are truthful, I will sometimes pay to see ads. E.g. I pay $10 ticket for a home & garden convention show so the manufacturers in booths can advertise their wares to me. The opposite and immoral idea of hidden ad tracking is Facebook trying to convince Apple not to show confirmation dialogs about ad IDFA tracking.
I will offer a contrarian opinion as a user whose salary does not depend on advertising: the advertising model for using Google search and watching Youtube videos works better for me as a consumer.
The alternative of paying $9.99/month for Youtube... or micropayments for each search query or a "Google Search Engine yearly subscription" ... or Patreon donations for video content ... are all more user hostile for my use cases. I don't like ads but they are the most friction-free way to consume a wide variety of content.
I've been using Google Search for over 20 years for free which is pretty amazing. Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No.
That said, there are also many corrosive aspects of advertising. Advertising should be open and transparent. If the business of ads are truthful, I will sometimes pay to see ads. E.g. I pay $10 ticket for a home & garden convention show so the manufacturers in booths can advertise their wares to me. The opposite and immoral idea of hidden ad tracking is Facebook trying to convince Apple not to show confirmation dialogs about ad IDFA tracking.
I find the "ads are useful" argument frustratingly disingenuous. It's a transparent and deliberate attempt to move the discussion away from what people actually take issue with in modern internet advertising - tracking and data collection - and instead tries to frame it as something far more benign.
The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is.
Ads can be useful. But no one is saying they aren't! So why is it constantly the case that when internet users make the simple and reasonable request "Please, can you just not stalk us everywhere we go?" the response is "but we're helping you!"
The parasitic advertising industry likes to pretend we're in a symbiotic relationship while conveniently ignoring the actual symbiotic solution (see e.g., DDG) because it won't make them nearly as much money.
The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is.
Ads can be useful. But no one is saying they aren't! So why is it constantly the case that when internet users make the simple and reasonable request "Please, can you just not stalk us everywhere we go?" the response is "but we're helping you!"
The parasitic advertising industry likes to pretend we're in a symbiotic relationship while conveniently ignoring the actual symbiotic solution (see e.g., DDG) because it won't make them nearly as much money.
>The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is.
Exactly. If you want online ads done right, look no further than how podcasts do it. The medium doesn't allow for stalking. Podcast producers often stake their own reputation by voicing the ads themselves. That editorial freedom lets them be creative and respectful of their audiences. And advertisers can use podcast-specific coupon codes to attribute ad campaigns to sales. It's a win-win for everyone.
Exactly. If you want online ads done right, look no further than how podcasts do it. The medium doesn't allow for stalking. Podcast producers often stake their own reputation by voicing the ads themselves. That editorial freedom lets them be creative and respectful of their audiences. And advertisers can use podcast-specific coupon codes to attribute ad campaigns to sales. It's a win-win for everyone.
> The medium doesn't allow for stalking.
Huh. Are you sure? I don't know anything about how podcast advertising works, but it sounds like you're assuming the full audio track, complete with ads, is the same everywhere and always.
Huh. Are you sure? I don't know anything about how podcast advertising works, but it sounds like you're assuming the full audio track, complete with ads, is the same everywhere and always.
Relevant:
Spotify will use everything it knows about you to target podcast ads https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056336/spotify-streaming...
Spotify will use everything it knows about you to target podcast ads https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056336/spotify-streaming...
Spotify is a bit of an oddball in the podcast world in that they're an all-in-one closed platform with a player and a production arm. They can easily feed user behavior data back to their podcast producers and advertisers.
Most podcasts and players operate on RSS feeds though. While they can very well target things via IP addresses and user-agent (no getting around that), podcasters and their advertisers don't have the capability to read/write persistent tracking data on the client, at least as far as I know. An advertiser would be hard-pressed to see that I personally listen to Stuff You Should Know and This American Life, even if the advertiser had contracts with both. The medium really hobbles how much tracking can be done.
Most podcasts and players operate on RSS feeds though. While they can very well target things via IP addresses and user-agent (no getting around that), podcasters and their advertisers don't have the capability to read/write persistent tracking data on the client, at least as far as I know. An advertiser would be hard-pressed to see that I personally listen to Stuff You Should Know and This American Life, even if the advertiser had contracts with both. The medium really hobbles how much tracking can be done.
Traditionally, podcasts worked like radio and everyone got the same ad. Recently, people have been trying to "innovate" by ruining podcasts like how the web was ruined and use dynamic ad insertion. AFAICT, it still hasn't totally caught on yet. Anecdotally, I used to hear it on one of my shows, but then they changed networks and it went away.
The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking. Do you listen to podcasts? Their ads are shite. I don't want to hear another ad about "Coroner" on Netflix. The only reason they are making money is because podcasts are "hot" right now and everyone is throwing money at them. That money pile will slowly deplete in due time and they'll find a way to introduce ads that are more targeted towards the individual that's listening and guess what, we'll be right back here with the same supposed problem.
Well, Slate Star Codex and its sidebar of ads was a good counterexample. I would routinely click through to find out more, because its ads were a) aesthetically pleasing (they had a consistent style, for example) and b) highly relevant to my interests (because a very consistent type of person is interested in the ads on that particular site). To a lesser extent, I think the human-delivered ads given by the presenters of The Magnus Archives podcast were decent enough, though the algorithmic ones were predictably useless.
It's possible to target ads to a specific audience by exploiting the selection effect that led to your audience existing. This doesn't favour general-audience communities, sure, but I'd honestly be happy with the answer "general-audience things just aren't how the future looks".
It's possible to target ads to a specific audience by exploiting the selection effect that led to your audience existing. This doesn't favour general-audience communities, sure, but I'd honestly be happy with the answer "general-audience things just aren't how the future looks".
What's strange is that podcasts and baked into video ads are far more effective on me. I'll block any alternative ad source I can, so if it's not baked into the content I don't see it.
But I have no clue what would distinguish (to me) a non-shit ad? Is it saving me money on something I was already going to buy?
But I have no clue what would distinguish (to me) a non-shit ad? Is it saving me money on something I was already going to buy?
> But I have no clue what would distinguish (to me) a non-shit ad? Is it saving me money on something I was already going to buy?
Yes. I've been looking for weight equipment over the past year because of the pandemic and gyms being closed and the majority of ads on Instagram are now exercise equipment. I ended up seeing an ad for a company in my country with fairly decent prices and bought a new squat stand. The price difference between the one I bought and the ones I was looking at from companies in the area was around $200. I give up some privacy, they give me targeted ads. Please give me more.
Yes. I've been looking for weight equipment over the past year because of the pandemic and gyms being closed and the majority of ads on Instagram are now exercise equipment. I ended up seeing an ad for a company in my country with fairly decent prices and bought a new squat stand. The price difference between the one I bought and the ones I was looking at from companies in the area was around $200. I give up some privacy, they give me targeted ads. Please give me more.
> The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking.
The usual answer to this is to use the context rather than personal information and browsing history. You bring less value to the company advertising their product, but I'd argue that most people are fine with this approach.
The problem is that current incentives lead to a race to the bottom: if some advertisers are less ethical, they can arguably bring more value to their clients, and the ethical advertiser cannot compete anymore.
The usual answer to this is to use the context rather than personal information and browsing history. You bring less value to the company advertising their product, but I'd argue that most people are fine with this approach.
The problem is that current incentives lead to a race to the bottom: if some advertisers are less ethical, they can arguably bring more value to their clients, and the ethical advertiser cannot compete anymore.
I hate to be cynical, but I think the reason why online advertisers keep harping on about the "benefits" of personalized ads is that it justifies their existence. They can keep trying to sell whiz-bang audience profiling and attribution technology, even if it doesn't work all that well.
Contextual advertising, on the other hand, is simple. It shifts the focus away from technology and toward people: recognizing your audience and crafting a message to them, instead of trying to have a computer do it for you. It's old-fashioned marketing.
Contextual advertising, on the other hand, is simple. It shifts the focus away from technology and toward people: recognizing your audience and crafting a message to them, instead of trying to have a computer do it for you. It's old-fashioned marketing.
> The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking.
Perhaps today, but not if we design browser APIs that allow targeting without cross-site tracking: https://github.com/WICG/turtledove https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads/blob/main/Par...
Perhaps today, but not if we design browser APIs that allow targeting without cross-site tracking: https://github.com/WICG/turtledove https://github.com/WICG/privacy-preserving-ads/blob/main/Par...
The stalking is the problem, but the ads are too. Ads have been a problem well before tracking was a thing.
Since at least the 1920s (I’m thinking of Edward Bernays but there are probably earlier examples) the goal of advertising is to manipulate consumers into making irrational decisions. The majority of ads make us feel inadequate to get us to buy something, like the only the thing that will make us whole is a new instant pot or whatever.
Since at least the 1920s (I’m thinking of Edward Bernays but there are probably earlier examples) the goal of advertising is to manipulate consumers into making irrational decisions. The majority of ads make us feel inadequate to get us to buy something, like the only the thing that will make us whole is a new instant pot or whatever.
> The majority of ads make us feel inadequate to get us to buy something
I know it's hard to disprove but I don't think adverts have that effect on me, partially it's because I don't see many adverts and partly because that kind of blatant manipulation is so hilariously blatant.
I acknowledge that someone might be running a really effective advertising campaign on me but since I basically don't buy anything I don't actually need I can't imagine what that would be.
I know it's hard to disprove but I don't think adverts have that effect on me, partially it's because I don't see many adverts and partly because that kind of blatant manipulation is so hilariously blatant.
I acknowledge that someone might be running a really effective advertising campaign on me but since I basically don't buy anything I don't actually need I can't imagine what that would be.
I’m going to conflate packaging with advertising here but I think it’s the same idea and a little easier to visualize:
Our cogniitive biases act as shortcuts to save energy when making decisions, and advertisers exploit those shortcuts. If you’re on high alert while shopping, catching and recalibrating for your biases at every step of the way then yeah you can probably escape most marketing but for most people that doesn’t come naturally.
If you’re not careful I bet you too slip up sometimes. I know I’ve caught myself at the grocery store reaching for one product over another just because it’s in unbleached cardboard packaging (signaling to me that it’s somehow more local or organic or whatever).
These tricks become obvious when you consciously work through them (ex: obviously some megacorp can package their items in cardboard the same way mom and pop small businesses can) but most of the time we aren’t processing consciously, and that’s how marketing works.
Our cogniitive biases act as shortcuts to save energy when making decisions, and advertisers exploit those shortcuts. If you’re on high alert while shopping, catching and recalibrating for your biases at every step of the way then yeah you can probably escape most marketing but for most people that doesn’t come naturally.
If you’re not careful I bet you too slip up sometimes. I know I’ve caught myself at the grocery store reaching for one product over another just because it’s in unbleached cardboard packaging (signaling to me that it’s somehow more local or organic or whatever).
These tricks become obvious when you consciously work through them (ex: obviously some megacorp can package their items in cardboard the same way mom and pop small businesses can) but most of the time we aren’t processing consciously, and that’s how marketing works.
Fair points, as I mentioned elsewhere I have a pathological loathing of been manipulated so I do pay attention to everything u buy - the missus however likes brands and does most of the food ordering.
Even if you think you are immune, you probably agree ads attempting to psychologically manipulate people into buying a product are unethical?
Exactly. For the most part I'm also immune to the ads, but not because of the ads. It takes a huge mental effort to constantly stay aware of all the bullshit that these scum are trying to manipulate me into buying. And it's even more infuriating that all these 'people' who have no morals and ethics whatsoever try to convince everyone that we actually want to see ads!
If people were interested in seeing ads, a business of selling pure ad catalogues would actually be a successful venture! As it stands now, you can't even give such material away for free without generating hate. Because people don't want to see ads! It doesn't matter if they're tracked or not. The ad is the problem!
If people were interested in seeing ads, a business of selling pure ad catalogues would actually be a successful venture! As it stands now, you can't even give such material away for free without generating hate. Because people don't want to see ads! It doesn't matter if they're tracked or not. The ad is the problem!
Do you have a new $gadget/$smartphone/$tablet/$whatever? What about your SO/father/niece? (You might not, but I bet a lot of people reading this and agreeing do buy a bunch of stuff they don't need without realizing it).
Nope, mobile is three years old, desktop is nearly three, ThinkPad is nearly four.
Haven't bought anything techie for about 18mths and when I do mostly shop on specs, reviews from sources I trust.
I viscerally loathe advertising, I don't like been manipulated in any context so I run a background process mentally watching for it :).
I'm an advertisers nightmare, I'll not only ignore your advertising I'll go to significant technical lengths to block it for myself and everyone in my family.
Haven't bought anything techie for about 18mths and when I do mostly shop on specs, reviews from sources I trust.
I viscerally loathe advertising, I don't like been manipulated in any context so I run a background process mentally watching for it :).
I'm an advertisers nightmare, I'll not only ignore your advertising I'll go to significant technical lengths to block it for myself and everyone in my family.
Do you buy brand name clothing? Cereal? Medicine? Did you buy your car/bike/transportation new or used? Where do you go to find a job? Etc
But ads are the problem. Ads are the robbery of your time and attention. On a screen they steal screen real estate, consume CPU cycles, consume bandwidth, etc. And all of the stalking and tracking is a direct consequence of ads themselves, further cementing ads as the problem.
One of the other replies note that podcasts do ads right. I hugely disagree. Not only does it steal the listener's time and focus (presuming they don't just scrub past it, which I presume most people do unless they put little value on their own time, and think a host is being sincere when they pitch some snake-oil supplement, pillow or VPN), it puts a dirty veneer over the whole realm where everyone becomes half-bit hucksters.
One of the other replies note that podcasts do ads right. I hugely disagree. Not only does it steal the listener's time and focus (presuming they don't just scrub past it, which I presume most people do unless they put little value on their own time, and think a host is being sincere when they pitch some snake-oil supplement, pillow or VPN), it puts a dirty veneer over the whole realm where everyone becomes half-bit hucksters.
Many of the primary use-cases for podcasts (exercising/driving/doing chores) don't put people in a position where they have the free hands to scrub past the ads.
Frame I have used on HN many times:
Many people have a favorite TV ads. People watch the Super Bowl for the ads. People sing radio jingles to themselves. College kids put nice magazine ads on their dorm walls. People pay money for clothes with logos that are essentially just ads for themselves. People watch videos of influencers unboxing/using/reviewing products they are paid to unbox/use/review. Etc. People love all kinds of ads.
No one likes banner ads. It is failed ad format and should be replaced. No one likes direct targeting. It should be made illegal. There are lots of other ad formats and methods that work great. Those two are the problem.
Many people have a favorite TV ads. People watch the Super Bowl for the ads. People sing radio jingles to themselves. College kids put nice magazine ads on their dorm walls. People pay money for clothes with logos that are essentially just ads for themselves. People watch videos of influencers unboxing/using/reviewing products they are paid to unbox/use/review. Etc. People love all kinds of ads.
No one likes banner ads. It is failed ad format and should be replaced. No one likes direct targeting. It should be made illegal. There are lots of other ad formats and methods that work great. Those two are the problem.
People like well-made thoughtful creative ads. Algorithmic targeting misses the point completely. It's the human element that doesn't scale that's valuable.
I agree that's one problem. But even without stalking as a business model, the point of ads is mostly to manipulate people into buying things with little regard as to utility.
Look, for example, at large advertisers like Coca Cola. Coke spends ~$1 billion/year in the US alone on ads. That's not because nobody has heard of them. The point is to shift money into Coke's pockets.
Almost all advertising provides no net benefit to society; it's just an arms race between companies competing to manipulate people. If we banned it, we'd quickly find other ways to get people the minimal information content it contains. We'd definitely find ways to spend the $1tn or so that it consumes now. And that's not even counting the benefits from less waste and market distortion caused by advertising.
Look, for example, at large advertisers like Coca Cola. Coke spends ~$1 billion/year in the US alone on ads. That's not because nobody has heard of them. The point is to shift money into Coke's pockets.
Almost all advertising provides no net benefit to society; it's just an arms race between companies competing to manipulate people. If we banned it, we'd quickly find other ways to get people the minimal information content it contains. We'd definitely find ways to spend the $1tn or so that it consumes now. And that's not even counting the benefits from less waste and market distortion caused by advertising.
> it won't make them nearly as much money.
Yes. That's the problem. Make less money from ads --> make less content/riskier to make content (same thing). The more money ads make, the fewer of them you have to see to fund the same amount of content (or, alternatively, you get more/higher quality content for a given (fixed) quantity of ads).
Yes. That's the problem. Make less money from ads --> make less content/riskier to make content (same thing). The more money ads make, the fewer of them you have to see to fund the same amount of content (or, alternatively, you get more/higher quality content for a given (fixed) quantity of ads).
That's not how it plays out though. More effective/profitable ads does not lead to less ads being shown. In fact, it's the opposite. As ads have become more targeted, and theoretically more profitable according to this argument, we have more of them.
There is no set "amount of effectiveness," so to speak. If ads are more profitable, advertisers are still going to spend just as much or more on them, precisely because they have a higher ROI.
There is no set "amount of effectiveness," so to speak. If ads are more profitable, advertisers are still going to spend just as much or more on them, precisely because they have a higher ROI.
Right, ok.
So you see more ads, the people publishing content make more money (more ads + better ads --> more valuable eyeballs --> more valuable content), and then the ROI for making content is higher, so people make + publish more of it. You get more, more valuable content.
Now, you may argue that the privacy cost is higher than the reward of more/better content, but I think that it probably isn't. Especially because it's hard (not impossible) to match your browsing history with your IRL identity and no one really cares about you, I think that the privacy cost is smaller than the reward. You might disagree.
So you see more ads, the people publishing content make more money (more ads + better ads --> more valuable eyeballs --> more valuable content), and then the ROI for making content is higher, so people make + publish more of it. You get more, more valuable content.
Now, you may argue that the privacy cost is higher than the reward of more/better content, but I think that it probably isn't. Especially because it's hard (not impossible) to match your browsing history with your IRL identity and no one really cares about you, I think that the privacy cost is smaller than the reward. You might disagree.
> You get more, more valuable content
There's a couple of non-sequitors here.
1. You don't necessarily get more valuable content. A lot of times the higher ROI leads to gamification of the whole system and you get more content, but it's all spam or varying levels of quality. This spam varies from complete trash to fairly polished, but none of it is actually valuable.
2. Even if we concede the point and assume that we get purely more valuable content, there is a limit to the amount of content anyone can consume in a day. And the advertising itself competes for your attention with even that valuable content. So the benefit from an increased amount of valuable content has a natural limit. The harm from the increase of ads is not so naturally bounded. So even if the balance of cost/benefit starts on the side you think, where the benefit of the content outweighs the cost of advertising, it will naturally, eventually trend towards the cost outweighing the benefit.
You are correct that in my view, personally, the cost already far outweighs the benefit. We can argue whether that's true on the whole for most people, but there is no argument when it comes to me personally. It's not worth it. There is a lot of content I only consume because I'm blocking ads. If I was unable to block ads and had to pay that cost, I would certainly forgo the content.
There's a couple of non-sequitors here.
1. You don't necessarily get more valuable content. A lot of times the higher ROI leads to gamification of the whole system and you get more content, but it's all spam or varying levels of quality. This spam varies from complete trash to fairly polished, but none of it is actually valuable.
2. Even if we concede the point and assume that we get purely more valuable content, there is a limit to the amount of content anyone can consume in a day. And the advertising itself competes for your attention with even that valuable content. So the benefit from an increased amount of valuable content has a natural limit. The harm from the increase of ads is not so naturally bounded. So even if the balance of cost/benefit starts on the side you think, where the benefit of the content outweighs the cost of advertising, it will naturally, eventually trend towards the cost outweighing the benefit.
You are correct that in my view, personally, the cost already far outweighs the benefit. We can argue whether that's true on the whole for most people, but there is no argument when it comes to me personally. It's not worth it. There is a lot of content I only consume because I'm blocking ads. If I was unable to block ads and had to pay that cost, I would certainly forgo the content.
The problem here is really just general flaws in capitalism. The main thing I hate about ads is the broken corporate incentive -- companies want to earn as much as possible and the feedback loop of worse customer experience is weak.
So annoyingly while it is true that ads are a currently necessary part of funding the internet, it is also true that a perverse incentive exists to just keep hammering the $ button once you find a model that works. It is a good argument for why we probably should want to pay directly for content. Or y'know, just topple capitalism on account of it generating toxic localized optimizations literally everywhere.
So annoyingly while it is true that ads are a currently necessary part of funding the internet, it is also true that a perverse incentive exists to just keep hammering the $ button once you find a model that works. It is a good argument for why we probably should want to pay directly for content. Or y'know, just topple capitalism on account of it generating toxic localized optimizations literally everywhere.
> The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is.
But what about the manipulation?
But what about the manipulation?
We should research how much ads contribute to overconsumption and hence the demise of the planet. If the connection becomes clear, then there really is no excuse left for ads.
> The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is.
My primary work is on https://github.com/WICG/turtledove (discussed in the post), which allows well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers
My primary work is on https://github.com/WICG/turtledove (discussed in the post), which allows well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers
Hm, with that system, isn't it possible for the advertiser to ultimately know which users saw the ads and ultimately what their interests are?
Nope! The proposal includes:
* Ads render inside "fenced frames" where they cannot learn what page they are on and the page cannot learn what ad is being shown
* Reporting is available, but it is aggregate-only
* Ads render inside "fenced frames" where they cannot learn what page they are on and the page cannot learn what ad is being shown
* Reporting is available, but it is aggregate-only
I've read the original turtledove readme, maybe there's something better, maybe it went over my head. But there is this request:
> GET https://first-ad-network.com/.well-known/fetch-ads?interest_...
So, at the very least, the ad network will be able to see your IP and know that you like athletic shoes and visited www.wereallylikeshoes.com. If you visit some other domain first-ad-network.com owns with the same IP whithin a small window of time, it can be pretty confident it's the same person and even store some client side data at that point. It feels like they can construct a reasonably good profile about their users by using that technique. That's considering the browser doesn't leak out any other potentially identifying information.
Then, the actual ad owner could have something in the URL that identifies which campaign you ultimately came from, as they probably know which interest groups they were targeting. So, when you click on the ad, they know one interest about you and, if you clicked in ads from other campaigns they run, they may reconstruct your profile well.
> GET https://first-ad-network.com/.well-known/fetch-ads?interest_...
So, at the very least, the ad network will be able to see your IP and know that you like athletic shoes and visited www.wereallylikeshoes.com. If you visit some other domain first-ad-network.com owns with the same IP whithin a small window of time, it can be pretty confident it's the same person and even store some client side data at that point. It feels like they can construct a reasonably good profile about their users by using that technique. That's considering the browser doesn't leak out any other potentially identifying information.
Then, the actual ad owner could have something in the URL that identifies which campaign you ultimately came from, as they probably know which interest groups they were targeting. So, when you click on the ad, they know one interest about you and, if you clicked in ads from other campaigns they run, they may reconstruct your profile well.
> at the very least, the ad network will be able to see your IP and know that you like athletic shoes and visited www.wereallylikeshoes.com. If you visit some other domain first-ad-network.com owns with the same IP it within a small window of time, it can be pretty confident it's the same person and even store some client side data at that point. It feels like they can construct a reasonably good profile about their users by using that technique.
Yes, there are a lot of user identifying bits in an IP address. Chrome has two proposals: https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness I'm not sure what other browsers are thinking?
> That's considering the browser doesn't leak out any other potentially identifying information.
Which they definitely do. All the browsers are working on figuring out how to thwart fingerprinting, and it's really hard. I am glad, at least, that we were able to get Google Ads to publicly commit to not fingerprinting.
> when you click on the ad, they know one interest about you and, if you clicked in ads from other campaigns they run, they may reconstruct your profile well
Yes, when people click on ads in Turtledove the advertiser does learn something. This is a huge improvement to the status quo where advertisers learn things just by bidding, or an intermediate stage where advertisers learn things when they win an auction -- users don't click on ads very often, so the amount of information leaked this way is very low.
Exactly how much information the advertiser is able to learn on a click is still very much up in the air, so if you have views on this you might consider participating on the repo?
Yes, there are a lot of user identifying bits in an IP address. Chrome has two proposals: https://github.com/bslassey/ip-blindness I'm not sure what other browsers are thinking?
> That's considering the browser doesn't leak out any other potentially identifying information.
Which they definitely do. All the browsers are working on figuring out how to thwart fingerprinting, and it's really hard. I am glad, at least, that we were able to get Google Ads to publicly commit to not fingerprinting.
> when you click on the ad, they know one interest about you and, if you clicked in ads from other campaigns they run, they may reconstruct your profile well
Yes, when people click on ads in Turtledove the advertiser does learn something. This is a huge improvement to the status quo where advertisers learn things just by bidding, or an intermediate stage where advertisers learn things when they win an auction -- users don't click on ads very often, so the amount of information leaked this way is very low.
Exactly how much information the advertiser is able to learn on a click is still very much up in the air, so if you have views on this you might consider participating on the repo?
I agree that it mitigates the problem, but it does not seem to solve the root cause of it. Aren't ads and ad targeting the main reason why companies want to store and sell that data? Other uses of user data is considered a lot shadier and respectful companies will not engage in them. If we start considering ad targeting to be a shady business practice, we may actually end the incentives for big conglomerates to want to store user data in the first place and thus end up with a system where user profiles are the exception rather than the norm.
In a less techinical point of view, ads are probably a net negative for society. People are buying things they don't need, spending time they could be doing other things and just having a worse experience they could have were not for content farms and other practices incentivised by ads. I do see the value of ads bringing services to people who wouldn't have money to pay for them otherwise, it's income distributions of sorts, but I think we can do better.
Anyway, interesting read about ip blindness. As long as the CDNs and proxies are not controlled by the same company that owns the ad networks, then it could work out. Though it's hard to find the correct incentives for the right people to own the right parts of the network. Another alternative would be something like onion, which is more distributed (although quite wasteful of resources).
In a less techinical point of view, ads are probably a net negative for society. People are buying things they don't need, spending time they could be doing other things and just having a worse experience they could have were not for content farms and other practices incentivised by ads. I do see the value of ads bringing services to people who wouldn't have money to pay for them otherwise, it's income distributions of sorts, but I think we can do better.
Anyway, interesting read about ip blindness. As long as the CDNs and proxies are not controlled by the same company that owns the ad networks, then it could work out. Though it's hard to find the correct incentives for the right people to own the right parts of the network. Another alternative would be something like onion, which is more distributed (although quite wasteful of resources).
Okay, do you have an example of someone being hurt by tracking and data collection done by Facebook and Google?
Sure. FB knows your ethnicity. In violation of US federal law, this information is used to show you different apartment ads. This makes it harder for black people to live in integrated communities.
Similar things happen with jobs and ethnicity, jobs and gender, with jobs and age discrimination, etc.
Similar things happen with jobs and ethnicity, jobs and gender, with jobs and age discrimination, etc.
FB does enforce the fair housing act and other laws. The platform is actually quite strict nowadays and catches lots of innocent ads in their filters for protected categories. Ad platforms should follow the law, that's working as planned.
FB may do so now but that's only because of lawsuits as recently as 2019. It wasn't something they volunteered to do.
But you asked how targeted ads hurt people, and I showed a fairly recent example. Something that wouldn't exist without targeted advertising. How does that not prove my point?
But you asked how targeted ads hurt people, and I showed a fairly recent example. Something that wouldn't exist without targeted advertising. How does that not prove my point?
Its not like FB has ever let advertisers "exclude black people" before. The critics said it may be possible that protected categories get less ads for housing, employment, etc due to algorithmic bias. That is a subtle danger, and honestly hard to technically implement at scale, but I think FB has always given a good faith effort in this area.
If by "not ever let advertisers exclude black people" you mean "after March 2019 has not knowing let advertisers exclude black people" than FB and the NYT would agree with you: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/technology/facebook-discr...
No, you have never been able to target by race. NY times is referring to algorithmic targeting that incidentally correlated to race, which FB cleaned up in 2019.
There is no difference between "filter out black people" and "filter out X, (X correlates 99% with black people)". And I mean that legally, morally and practically.
Here's a list of ways around "cannot filter by race". It took 2 seconds on google: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2011/12/06/how-to-target-e...
But, you seem to be shifting the goalposts pretty significantly. So, do you agree with the base point that targeted ads can produce pretty bad results?
Here's a list of ways around "cannot filter by race". It took 2 seconds on google: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2011/12/06/how-to-target-e...
But, you seem to be shifting the goalposts pretty significantly. So, do you agree with the base point that targeted ads can produce pretty bad results?
I'm not them but from the top of my mind, an example:
1. Facebook tracks users across the internet to enrich the profiles of their users
2. Data leaks.
3. Users are now in trouble.
I can come up with many more if you ask and then give me a sec.
1. Facebook tracks users across the internet to enrich the profiles of their users
2. Data leaks.
3. Users are now in trouble.
I can come up with many more if you ask and then give me a sec.
This doesn't actually happen though. When FB is hacked its the same banal hacks anyone else has, phone numbers, etc.
Cambridge analytica, brexit (economically) hurt a lot of people. Similarly the regime changes in 3rd world countries that these guys engaged in probably physically hurt quite a few people.
I mean there are so many examples it's difficult to believe this is a genuine question. It sort of like asking in 1984 did anyone really get hurt by big brother watching?
I mean there are so many examples it's difficult to believe this is a genuine question. It sort of like asking in 1984 did anyone really get hurt by big brother watching?
Cambridge is a nonsense story that people who know fb ads at all laugh at. It didn't impact the election or any election in any way.
I was shocked at the Cambridge story because I thought everybody already knew that hundreds of thousands of 3rd parties had full access to that sort of data, with the only protection being Facebook had a policy that you weren't supposed to make a copy & pass it around.
The collection is per se harmful as long as warrants exist.
Beyond that, it's an open secret (as in: it's been mentioned several times in available documents, but never deliberately disclosed or extensively discussed publicly, so far as I know) that since at least the mid or late 00s the US government has had contracts with multiple major tech companies that have a high level of access to citizen Internet traffic to basically search their databases of Internet activity at will. Which companies these are, I'm not sure—I suspect it's mostly telcos, personally—but it's another reason the existence of these datasets is inherently dangerous, and that they should not be permitted to exist at all, no matter who holds them.
Beyond that, it's an open secret (as in: it's been mentioned several times in available documents, but never deliberately disclosed or extensively discussed publicly, so far as I know) that since at least the mid or late 00s the US government has had contracts with multiple major tech companies that have a high level of access to citizen Internet traffic to basically search their databases of Internet activity at will. Which companies these are, I'm not sure—I suspect it's mostly telcos, personally—but it's another reason the existence of these datasets is inherently dangerous, and that they should not be permitted to exist at all, no matter who holds them.
That has nothing to do with ads, Google would turn that over even if sub supported.
There are so many examples readily available that I have a hard time believing any HN user claiming to be unaware of them is anything other than willfully ignorant. It’s probably discussed here every single day if not multiple times each day.
A simple search here for “facebook data” will get you started: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=facebook+data
A simple search here for “facebook data” will get you started: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=facebook+data
See my other comments on responses to specific claims. 99% of HN comments on the matter talk about irrelevant or unrelated risks.
Information is not passively processed by the brain!
The cost of advertising is not your attention; it is your perception. Advertisements fundamentally alter your perception of the world in favor of whatever the advertiser is showing you. You are choosing to have your view of the world shaped in a way that may change your behavior. Note that this change occurs on an emotional level and cannot simply be discarded by your rational mind even if you don't believe / care about the ad at a conscious level.
The cost of advertising is not your attention; it is your perception. Advertisements fundamentally alter your perception of the world in favor of whatever the advertiser is showing you. You are choosing to have your view of the world shaped in a way that may change your behavior. Note that this change occurs on an emotional level and cannot simply be discarded by your rational mind even if you don't believe / care about the ad at a conscious level.
This is a really underrated comment. People here tend to oversubscribe to their own capacity for rational behavior. Just because you can be hyper-rational it in one context doesn’t mean you aren’t human. It does mean that as people with better understanding you have a greater responsibility to protect others still capable of believing the internet has one old weird trick.
There are many, many cases where users choose pay options over `free'-but-ad-supported options. The pay options usually have a better/more honest financial model, and more aligned interests with their users.
And there certainly is a universe where we would pay for search, in the same way that we pay for countless other things. Google's business model scorched Earth the realm, though, so there isn't a lot of potential for that now, but it's a universe I could easily imagine.
"the advertising model for using Google search and watching Youtube videos works better for me as a consumer."
Do you use an ad blocker? I certainly do, as does most of HN. Layers of ad blockers. It works for me because I get the content for free and I don't have the scourge of ads, so sure it's a fine model.
When that podcast starts with six minutes of promos I just scrub right past them. I don't believe I've clicked on a single ad online in decades, at least not intentionally. I honestly don't even understand how that industry survives. My gut instinct is that it's a giant illusion and effectively a massive fraud.
A major reason many of us have such a laissez-faire attitude towards the detritus of the ad world is that it's something that other people endure.
And there certainly is a universe where we would pay for search, in the same way that we pay for countless other things. Google's business model scorched Earth the realm, though, so there isn't a lot of potential for that now, but it's a universe I could easily imagine.
"the advertising model for using Google search and watching Youtube videos works better for me as a consumer."
Do you use an ad blocker? I certainly do, as does most of HN. Layers of ad blockers. It works for me because I get the content for free and I don't have the scourge of ads, so sure it's a fine model.
When that podcast starts with six minutes of promos I just scrub right past them. I don't believe I've clicked on a single ad online in decades, at least not intentionally. I honestly don't even understand how that industry survives. My gut instinct is that it's a giant illusion and effectively a massive fraud.
A major reason many of us have such a laissez-faire attitude towards the detritus of the ad world is that it's something that other people endure.
I suspect most people's attitudes towards ads are more nuanced than either "I am fine with ads" vs. "I am not fine with ads." And, frankly, most web users probably just don't understand how ad tracking works, rather than being Laissez-faire.
I understand it pretty well. I pay for a variety of services for the value they provide me and to ensure they remain viable. I use a lot of free, ad-supported tools without an ad-blocker.
I make a small amount of money from ad-supported sites. I make more money from user-supported sites.
I tend to be more concerned with the user experience. I don't mind ads that don't get in the way of my intent for using a tool or site. I have backed out of many sites that show me more ads than content, especially if presented in a way that make them more likely to be clicked accidentally than out of actual interest. They loose me as a user. That's a choice I get to make.
I enjoy physical magazines (or digital versions of physical magazines). I pay for several subscriptions, but I know they are making much more money from advertising. I wouldn't pay more for a version without ads. I like many of the ads. They are well-targeted and visually appealing. But I am free to ignore them and I am free to stop subscribing if the advertising diminishes the value I get from it.
Ad-supported sites are important to the ecosystem. Can they be done better? Yes! Can we make choices as consumers as to whether or not we patronize a site based on their advertising behavior? Yes! Ad blockers may play a role in that. Perhaps both will help push the industry in a more privacy-centric direction.
Privacy is more commonly seen as a feature these days. I have a few services I promote as both free and privacy-focused; no ads, no or minimal analytics, etc. And with enough interest I would hope to eventually charge for them to make them sustainable without ads.
I understand it pretty well. I pay for a variety of services for the value they provide me and to ensure they remain viable. I use a lot of free, ad-supported tools without an ad-blocker.
I make a small amount of money from ad-supported sites. I make more money from user-supported sites.
I tend to be more concerned with the user experience. I don't mind ads that don't get in the way of my intent for using a tool or site. I have backed out of many sites that show me more ads than content, especially if presented in a way that make them more likely to be clicked accidentally than out of actual interest. They loose me as a user. That's a choice I get to make.
I enjoy physical magazines (or digital versions of physical magazines). I pay for several subscriptions, but I know they are making much more money from advertising. I wouldn't pay more for a version without ads. I like many of the ads. They are well-targeted and visually appealing. But I am free to ignore them and I am free to stop subscribing if the advertising diminishes the value I get from it.
Ad-supported sites are important to the ecosystem. Can they be done better? Yes! Can we make choices as consumers as to whether or not we patronize a site based on their advertising behavior? Yes! Ad blockers may play a role in that. Perhaps both will help push the industry in a more privacy-centric direction.
Privacy is more commonly seen as a feature these days. I have a few services I promote as both free and privacy-focused; no ads, no or minimal analytics, etc. And with enough interest I would hope to eventually charge for them to make them sustainable without ads.
Things being paid from advertising, rather than from user's pocket, is also patronizing. When things are paid from user's pockets, it's the user who controls whether the expense is made, to whom and how much. If things are paid through ads, it is companies (and their management) that make the decisions, not their customers. I argue that paying from your own pocket is a more free system.
However, I understand that if this had to change, the income would have to shift, too.
However, I understand that if this had to change, the income would have to shift, too.
It's funny, in the past about 99.999999 percent of the time ads never interested me. I think I might have clicked one in a decade.
Recently, just from my youtube subscriptions I think, my youtube ads have been surprisingly relevant, for things like cnc routers or various embedded tools or what not -- ads that are actually for things I might be interested in buying. (Granted there's still a ton of obnoxious get rich quick schemes that I have to skip).
I have to admit, seeing ads that actually are of interest to me does change my mindset on advertising a little bit. I still find it super creepy being tracked, and I'd like the ability to know what they know about me, and erase it if I don't like it (is that even possible?), but it is kind of nice to get ads that don't suck if I have to sit through ads.
Recently, just from my youtube subscriptions I think, my youtube ads have been surprisingly relevant, for things like cnc routers or various embedded tools or what not -- ads that are actually for things I might be interested in buying. (Granted there's still a ton of obnoxious get rich quick schemes that I have to skip).
I have to admit, seeing ads that actually are of interest to me does change my mindset on advertising a little bit. I still find it super creepy being tracked, and I'd like the ability to know what they know about me, and erase it if I don't like it (is that even possible?), but it is kind of nice to get ads that don't suck if I have to sit through ads.
Everyone ignores the elephant in the room.
Just let the users set their own advertising profiles! Always relevant ads, no tracking needed.
Just let the users set their own advertising profiles! Always relevant ads, no tracking needed.
two thumbs up.
with our own set profiles, we could opt out of gambling, loot boxes, and alcohol ads too. I've been suggesting this for some time now.
with our own set profiles, we could opt out of gambling, loot boxes, and alcohol ads too. I've been suggesting this for some time now.
But you don't need to run a giant spying system to make that happen, so the companies whose moat is their giant spying system don't want to even try that. They also happen to have all the users/eyeballs (they need them for their spying system, in addition to serving ads to them). So it's hard for anyone else to try it to see how well it works.
I was going to delicately skip that point but what the hell, what's a few rungs up the watchlist these days anyway.
I would like that. Or even a scheme where they can collect data, but it's stored on my local computer so I can edit it and delete it (granted I know there's a ton of issues with that, but there is w/ the current scheme also)
advertising is the primary driver for clickbait and emotion-driven content. it enables The Daily Mail, it results in youtube's algorithm hell, it's why facebook exists. 'clicks = money' is bad for mental health. as long as wikipedia et al are free, give me subscription-based web all day.
Good point, but I think headline writers that don't need clicks for advertising money would still write headlines that make people click - the popularity of a writer or article is one measure of success.
yes but amplification matters -- there's been at least one study which measured the clickbaity-ness of headliness of paid vs ad-based news sites and the difference was sth like an order of magnitude. i'll see if i can find the link.
I don't think they'd face the same pressure.
Making doughnuts and soft drinks available to everyone for free is superficially a huge win for people. They are valuable (as determined by marketplace) and lowering the cost makes them more available to everyone.
But measuring the net societal impact of a cheap stopped at that point is basically worthless. There are many 2nd and 3rd order impacts that must be included. The obvious is health, but others include the marginal cost considerations of where the money will go that is "saved". Or what alternative food would be purchased (if it's deep fried Twinkies, maybe free doughnuts are a health win).
Any work that makes the ad marketplace more efficient (easier for creation and deployment of effective ads or ad instrumentation) has huge effects on relative competitiveness of startups vs. conglomerates. Just as one example. And those effects directly affect consumers.
I can avoid ad surveillance to some degree, but am powerless to help a business that can't survive in an ad-driven economy. I can't single-handedly keep my local hardware store in business against the threat from conglomerates capable of operating indefinitely on zero margins.
But measuring the net societal impact of a cheap stopped at that point is basically worthless. There are many 2nd and 3rd order impacts that must be included. The obvious is health, but others include the marginal cost considerations of where the money will go that is "saved". Or what alternative food would be purchased (if it's deep fried Twinkies, maybe free doughnuts are a health win).
Any work that makes the ad marketplace more efficient (easier for creation and deployment of effective ads or ad instrumentation) has huge effects on relative competitiveness of startups vs. conglomerates. Just as one example. And those effects directly affect consumers.
I can avoid ad surveillance to some degree, but am powerless to help a business that can't survive in an ad-driven economy. I can't single-handedly keep my local hardware store in business against the threat from conglomerates capable of operating indefinitely on zero margins.
If "The alternative of paying $9.99/year for Youtube" was really an option - I would buy it for at least 4 kids I know, and two adults that need it, to remove the horrible ads, especially on mobile.
Get me started on the ads that come with play store apps and "free games".
however at $12/month that would be $864 per year to help them. I would jump at $60 / year for 6 people.. heck that would save me on comcast overages several months of the year.
We still pay for some searches by paying the ad costs of the places we spend money, but that's another thing to figure.. $120 / year for search? I doubt my clicks amount to that for any advertiser. I'd pay 20 for ad free, zero tracking searches, but not 100.
Get me started on the ads that come with play store apps and "free games".
however at $12/month that would be $864 per year to help them. I would jump at $60 / year for 6 people.. heck that would save me on comcast overages several months of the year.
We still pay for some searches by paying the ad costs of the places we spend money, but that's another thing to figure.. $120 / year for search? I doubt my clicks amount to that for any advertiser. I'd pay 20 for ad free, zero tracking searches, but not 100.
My family pays for youtube premium (https://www.youtube.com/premium/family), it's $18/month for 5 people. They also get access to "youtube music premium", which is basically a spotify clone (so unlimited music with no ads). It's quite a good deal imo
thanks for this info - I was not aware - it does not work for my six - as two are here and two west of town and two south of town.. some fosters.. so not same household.. but glad this is a thing.
The other day to prevent a young one from replaying the same soundtrack over and over via youtube - (bandwidth repeatedly counting against and lots of ads for the same repeated songs oh my) - I just popped over to amazon and bought the album and popped it onto a usb stick for them.
I picked up a couple of gift cards for their bday this week - one of them was a google play card - then I remembered G killed the music section of the play store, so I put it back and got an amazon card instead.
that premium would be a great deal if we had one more in the household here. we've got three chromecasts - two with the google tv - but not the gtv plan - sheesh the ads via youtube with that are a drain, and I wonder about the compression for music - but they still use them for convenience and the other things like discovery+ which is affordable.
Oh if only they would plex-like into a win7 box on the network and pull my collection of mp3s.
Maybe all this is going in a good direction. Fingers crossed.
The other day to prevent a young one from replaying the same soundtrack over and over via youtube - (bandwidth repeatedly counting against and lots of ads for the same repeated songs oh my) - I just popped over to amazon and bought the album and popped it onto a usb stick for them.
I picked up a couple of gift cards for their bday this week - one of them was a google play card - then I remembered G killed the music section of the play store, so I put it back and got an amazon card instead.
that premium would be a great deal if we had one more in the household here. we've got three chromecasts - two with the google tv - but not the gtv plan - sheesh the ads via youtube with that are a drain, and I wonder about the compression for music - but they still use them for convenience and the other things like discovery+ which is affordable.
Oh if only they would plex-like into a win7 box on the network and pull my collection of mp3s.
Maybe all this is going in a good direction. Fingers crossed.
A quick search (haha) shows that google pulls in $182/year per user and 90% of that is from advertising. So yes google makes a lot more than people think from ads. I also suspect that is heavily lopsided, with certain demographic being more sought after by advertisers. If they were to offer a flat opt out rate, would need to account for those people switching away and losing a very lucrative market. I would even imagine kids are unfortunately a target for advertisers because they can be very impressionable, and become lifelong customers if convinced early on.
In addition, a flat fee could lead to a slow on googles growth, as once a users pays, they can not find new ways to monetize that user.
Don't get me wrong, I love the option to pay a fee to opt out of certain ads. It really helps align the incentives of the user with the company, but unfortunately it would have to be expensive to average out the more lucrative ads.
In addition, a flat fee could lead to a slow on googles growth, as once a users pays, they can not find new ways to monetize that user.
Don't get me wrong, I love the option to pay a fee to opt out of certain ads. It really helps align the incentives of the user with the company, but unfortunately it would have to be expensive to average out the more lucrative ads.
Well I wouldn't. To each their own.
After realizing how often I use youtube i got premium and I'm not looking back.
I grew up with "free internet services" but I can't complain on one side about ads and consuming stuff and in the other side not just paying for those services directly and it's a monthly thing. Easy to cancel much better than all those 1 year contracts for stuff like paytv.
I grew up with "free internet services" but I can't complain on one side about ads and consuming stuff and in the other side not just paying for those services directly and it's a monthly thing. Easy to cancel much better than all those 1 year contracts for stuff like paytv.
There is a middle ground.
You advertise to me, You don't track every single fucking thing I do online to do it.
If we agree to that then I'll turn my adblocker/pi-hole off - otherwise enjoy the null-hole.
You advertise to me, You don't track every single fucking thing I do online to do it.
If we agree to that then I'll turn my adblocker/pi-hole off - otherwise enjoy the null-hole.
> don't track every single fucking thing I do online to do it.
Yes. However...
I have found 0.001% of what I wanted because of an ad. That's something like one item in a decade. I don't think that's worth the costs of tracking to privacy and bandwidth. Certainly not worth the obtrusiveness of contemporary ad space which is the result of the inevitable runaway arms race between the flitting attention of users and the desperate need of businesses to sale their wares.
I don't see any resolution to the waste other than abandoning tracking for ads. Good enough demographics can be found by the content being consumed. Please, let's leave it at that.
Yes. However...
I have found 0.001% of what I wanted because of an ad. That's something like one item in a decade. I don't think that's worth the costs of tracking to privacy and bandwidth. Certainly not worth the obtrusiveness of contemporary ad space which is the result of the inevitable runaway arms race between the flitting attention of users and the desperate need of businesses to sale their wares.
I don't see any resolution to the waste other than abandoning tracking for ads. Good enough demographics can be found by the content being consumed. Please, let's leave it at that.
> I've been using Google Search for over 20 years for free which is pretty amazing. Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No.
I feel the main point is, no you haven't got this for free.
If you were to pay $2400 dollars, Google would also need to pay you for your attention during this time
I feel the main point is, no you haven't got this for free.
If you were to pay $2400 dollars, Google would also need to pay you for your attention during this time
I agree with you although I feel you might be seeing things to simplistically?
Showing ads is the first level and from that perspective I suppose it's fine.
At the next level is harvesting data from those ads and sharing that data with third parties. I feel that's where things get very, very messy.
Because if ads can be targeted based on a person's profile, so can other manipulations. Especially if that data is available with an authoritarian government.
Since most companies showing ads don't play fairly, users in turn choose to block ads completely.
Showing ads is the first level and from that perspective I suppose it's fine.
At the next level is harvesting data from those ads and sharing that data with third parties. I feel that's where things get very, very messy.
Because if ads can be targeted based on a person's profile, so can other manipulations. Especially if that data is available with an authoritarian government.
Since most companies showing ads don't play fairly, users in turn choose to block ads completely.
The problem is that ads are not free. It's paid. And it's paid by you.
When you say "I'm using Google for free because it's supported by ads", what it means is:
- some companies are buying (expensive) ads on Google
- they are therefore increasing their marketing budget
- which mechanically increases the price of their services and products
- which you ultimately have to pay
so no, the "free ads" are not free for the consumers, you pay them as a "marketing tax" on each product and service that you pay for
When you say "I'm using Google for free because it's supported by ads", what it means is:
- some companies are buying (expensive) ads on Google
- they are therefore increasing their marketing budget
- which mechanically increases the price of their services and products
- which you ultimately have to pay
so no, the "free ads" are not free for the consumers, you pay them as a "marketing tax" on each product and service that you pay for
True, but by the same logic, how much each of us pays for ad funded services depends on how much each of us can spend. I.e. wealthy people pay more per Google search than poor people.
And there's another issue. Even if all online services switched to a subscription model tomorrow, companies would not suddenly stop spending money on promoting their products. They would just do it differently and we would pay twice.
And there's another issue. Even if all online services switched to a subscription model tomorrow, companies would not suddenly stop spending money on promoting their products. They would just do it differently and we would pay twice.
I would prefer the payment model if it means I get the things I expect from other premium models: hand-on user support that is motivated to keep me paying, features that actually enrich me instead of sap me further, and an internal culture of working for the customers instead of working for the shareholders.
> most friction-free
Maybe it's personal taste, but signing into an account is much more pleasant for me than watching an ad. As for the monetary cost, it only takes one ad per year that works on you to lose as much money anyway.
> Advertising should be open and transparent. If business of ads are truthful
Ads are not truthful because they are highly incentivized to lie > I will sometimes pay to see ads. E.g. I pay $10 ticket for a home & garden convention show so the manufacturers in booths can advertise their wares to me.
I have to honestly ask why? What do you feel you are measuring other than the advertising budget of the sellers? Granted, such a convention would also allow you to evaluate the wares to some extent, but doing that is to ignore the ads.
Maybe it's personal taste, but signing into an account is much more pleasant for me than watching an ad. As for the monetary cost, it only takes one ad per year that works on you to lose as much money anyway.
> Advertising should be open and transparent. If business of ads are truthful
Ads are not truthful because they are highly incentivized to lie > I will sometimes pay to see ads. E.g. I pay $10 ticket for a home & garden convention show so the manufacturers in booths can advertise their wares to me.
I have to honestly ask why? What do you feel you are measuring other than the advertising budget of the sellers? Granted, such a convention would also allow you to evaluate the wares to some extent, but doing that is to ignore the ads.
> it only takes one ad per year that works on you to lose as much money anyway
Only if you regret the purchase, no? For example, I subscribed to CBS (now Paramount+) because I saw ads for a show I was interested in watching (Picard).
(I realize lots of advertising does not follow this model)
Only if you regret the purchase, no? For example, I subscribed to CBS (now Paramount+) because I saw ads for a show I was interested in watching (Picard).
(I realize lots of advertising does not follow this model)
In my experience, I always come to regret anything I ever bought from ads. To the point that now I use an adblocker. For people who are unaffected by ads, it's just a minor annoyance. For people who actually affected by ads, I'd say it's a net negative, not a net positive for their lives.
I think the fact people like HN's readership are living in a golden age is underappreciated. Think about it: we block ads while the people who don't subsidize our digital lifestyle. Sooner or later the providers are going to decide we're getting too much for free. Instead of an easily-blocked separate video, the YouTube ad will be part of the video stream and the server will refuse to send any part of the video until such time as the ad has had time to play. You might be able to blank the player for the ad but you'll get a fifteen second black screen instead of a fifteen second video.
So I resolved to sit back and enjoy what time I have left for getting a great experience.
So I resolved to sit back and enjoy what time I have left for getting a great experience.
A Google subscription would likely need to cost over $20/m - considering how many people wouldn't pay even one dollar for paid search. Google had $186Bn in revenue last year and ~1.8Bn monthly active users. The revenue comes almost entirely from search - with 1.2Tn searches per year - that's $0.15 per search - hardly anyone would pay that - and to get the same amount of revenue and profit with less users - they'd have to charge many many multiples of that. It's just not feasible.
If Google had a paid, ad-free option for more then just YouTube and some drive space I would be happy to pay it. I don't know if I would shell out for paid Google searches but I would at-least like to see an alternative option.
As someone who has worked in ads in the past, this is exactly what it sounds like.
In advertising, context matters. Ads when you’re in discovery mode looking for things to consume? Great, ads are usually unobtrusive in that context. But there are only so many discovery scenarios but lots of ad money to be made.
Advertising is a zero-sum game to dominate the human attention span. This has negative effects on our social lives and mental health. Is saving a few dollars a month worth the societal impact that constant advertising entails? In my opinion this constant barrage of ads is a big part of why we as a society can disagree about basic facts about the world: we’ve been conditioned to consume media that is promoted by virtue of its ability to draw eyeballs through being controversial / shocking, rather than the veracity or value of the information. Ads create a perverse incentive for publishers to operate at the edge of truth because those stories / media get more views.
In advertising, context matters. Ads when you’re in discovery mode looking for things to consume? Great, ads are usually unobtrusive in that context. But there are only so many discovery scenarios but lots of ad money to be made.
Advertising is a zero-sum game to dominate the human attention span. This has negative effects on our social lives and mental health. Is saving a few dollars a month worth the societal impact that constant advertising entails? In my opinion this constant barrage of ads is a big part of why we as a society can disagree about basic facts about the world: we’ve been conditioned to consume media that is promoted by virtue of its ability to draw eyeballs through being controversial / shocking, rather than the veracity or value of the information. Ads create a perverse incentive for publishers to operate at the edge of truth because those stories / media get more views.
> The author jefftk is getting unfairly downvoted maybe because cynics just see it as a version of, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
It reads a lot like that.
Jeff posits that advertising is competing only with paywalls and brushes aside hobby work, people producing content for the pure benefit of it, as if that is not impacted.
If I produce something creative with real value as part of a hobby, I know there is a high chance it will be copied/stolen by a slick advertiser who will then out-compete me.
So, I'm net less motivated to participate in the whole system of creating content.
It reads a lot like that.
Jeff posits that advertising is competing only with paywalls and brushes aside hobby work, people producing content for the pure benefit of it, as if that is not impacted.
If I produce something creative with real value as part of a hobby, I know there is a high chance it will be copied/stolen by a slick advertiser who will then out-compete me.
So, I'm net less motivated to participate in the whole system of creating content.
The outcry would be huge if everything went to a pay model.
I already hate it with Music and Video content: With music, I pay Youtube Music, but they don't have all the artists I like. I would have to pay for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube Music to get close to it. This means paying $30 USD per month
With video... I pay $70 USD for my cable company (HBO+Star+misc-crap) plus $13 USD for Netflix, plus $12 for disney plus (wife likes a couple shows there), plus $13 Amazon Prime, plus $10 for the local Netflix-like crap in my country (for some local shows).
That means $118 USD for video only, which is 14% of the average income in my country ($843 USD). Imagine if I had to pay $10 dollars a month for each of the internet services we use?
$10 Gmail $10 google $10 Reddit $10 HackerNews $10 Youtube $10 Linkedin $10 Facebook $10 twitter $10 Whatsapp $10 LiChess $10 Slack $10 Samsung Health $10 Google Maps $10 Podcast Republic $10 CBS News (The only US channel I like for news) $10 Home Workout $10 Discord
And that's at the top of my head, it will be $180 USD, or 21% of the average income of someone in my country.
If that happened, the internet will become "a place for the rich" and pretty much only the north emisphere will use it. Yeah, ads suck... but their are a necessary evil to "monetize" users that are just not monetizable any other way.
With video... I pay $70 USD for my cable company (HBO+Star+misc-crap) plus $13 USD for Netflix, plus $12 for disney plus (wife likes a couple shows there), plus $13 Amazon Prime, plus $10 for the local Netflix-like crap in my country (for some local shows).
That means $118 USD for video only, which is 14% of the average income in my country ($843 USD). Imagine if I had to pay $10 dollars a month for each of the internet services we use?
$10 Gmail $10 google $10 Reddit $10 HackerNews $10 Youtube $10 Linkedin $10 Facebook $10 twitter $10 Whatsapp $10 LiChess $10 Slack $10 Samsung Health $10 Google Maps $10 Podcast Republic $10 CBS News (The only US channel I like for news) $10 Home Workout $10 Discord
And that's at the top of my head, it will be $180 USD, or 21% of the average income of someone in my country.
If that happened, the internet will become "a place for the rich" and pretty much only the north emisphere will use it. Yeah, ads suck... but their are a necessary evil to "monetize" users that are just not monetizable any other way.
Your point is a good one but let me offer some tweaks that make paying for stuff not look as bleak.
1. Bundling multiple subscriptions is a long-time practice and if more services were paid offerings we'd likely all buy some bundle that gave us most of what we wanted at a reasonable price.
2. Paying for services will reduce the number of services around... which may be a good thing when so many offerings are sub-par.
3. With more paid offerings, we will be more deliberate about how we spend our time, which is what advertising-based models make us forget we are really spending. And as you age you realize that the time you spent watching ad-supported drivel was more expensive than if you had just paid directly for the things you really needed and spent the rest of your time on things that matter - friends, family, experiences, learning etc.
1. Bundling multiple subscriptions is a long-time practice and if more services were paid offerings we'd likely all buy some bundle that gave us most of what we wanted at a reasonable price.
2. Paying for services will reduce the number of services around... which may be a good thing when so many offerings are sub-par.
3. With more paid offerings, we will be more deliberate about how we spend our time, which is what advertising-based models make us forget we are really spending. And as you age you realize that the time you spent watching ad-supported drivel was more expensive than if you had just paid directly for the things you really needed and spent the rest of your time on things that matter - friends, family, experiences, learning etc.
>> plus $12 for disney plus (wife likes a couple shows there)
Sh, it's OK, everyone does it, you are not alone :P
Sh, it's OK, everyone does it, you are not alone :P
You're right - but I find that strange. Most of us are not angry about the pay model for groceries or haircuts. A smaller - but still large - fraction of us are okay paying for other zero-marginal-cost goods like software as well. I wonder why we are so attached to free content online. Maybe because of the historical television model that's been mentally transferred to the internet?
Its just the fact that people are used to free content, so the idea of paying for it is foreign.
If groceries used to be free, but suddenly cost money, people would riot.
If groceries used to be free, but suddenly cost money, people would riot.
That's absurd. People need groceries. If the National Enquirer went to a paid subscription model or disappeared entirely nobody would riot.
> That's absurd. People need groceries.
Thus: if groceries used to be free, but suddenly cost money, people would riot.
Arguably: why would people riot about not-free Youtube?
Thus: if groceries used to be free, but suddenly cost money, people would riot.
Arguably: why would people riot about not-free Youtube?
See also this Planet Money episode about formerly-free doughnuts. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-...
I think it's just because we've been conditioned to expect free content online.
Free services like YouTube have provided me with an immense amount of value, but I would still be hesitant to pay for them unless I absolutely had to.
Free services like YouTube have provided me with an immense amount of value, but I would still be hesitant to pay for them unless I absolutely had to.
Was the web supported by ads before Google? I don't remember.
Does the web have to be supported by ads? If the web was a non-profit service, supported by public funds, managed by academic institutions for example, would we miss 90% of the content that's basically sponsored by someone who wants to sell something?
From my point of view it looks like the web is a giant advertising machine built on top of something that could be ... not a giant advertising machine. Still from my POV, it just happens that the big players on the web are suppoting ads because that's where their revenue comes from and if they weren't the big players, then we wouldn't have a web of ads.
So basically we're not paying for ads that we wouldn't be paying for if google didn't run the web.
Does the web have to be supported by ads? If the web was a non-profit service, supported by public funds, managed by academic institutions for example, would we miss 90% of the content that's basically sponsored by someone who wants to sell something?
From my point of view it looks like the web is a giant advertising machine built on top of something that could be ... not a giant advertising machine. Still from my POV, it just happens that the big players on the web are suppoting ads because that's where their revenue comes from and if they weren't the big players, then we wouldn't have a web of ads.
So basically we're not paying for ads that we wouldn't be paying for if google didn't run the web.
I'm probably too nostalgic, but that's what the web used to be... and it was so much better. Most of the content we would lose I wouldn't miss at all. Clickbait and buzzfeed style sites. Already I'm paying for a lot of sites that actually do reporting, for instance, so I already feel like the content of real value is already for-pay or produced completely for free by enthusiasts and academics.
I remember ~2001 or so a lot of the sites I visited were ad supported, but it mostly just made enough to cover hosting costs. At this point hosting costs are so cheap that I don't even think those style of sites would have trouble existing. Most of those sites existed because some people were interested in a hobby or a subject, and would publish news and have bulletin boards and articles and stuff. Sadly those kind of communities don't seem to exist anymore, now those kind of things end up being subreddits or facebook groups and I never feel like those are quite the same, they just don't have the same curation or community feel.
I remember ~2001 or so a lot of the sites I visited were ad supported, but it mostly just made enough to cover hosting costs. At this point hosting costs are so cheap that I don't even think those style of sites would have trouble existing. Most of those sites existed because some people were interested in a hobby or a subject, and would publish news and have bulletin boards and articles and stuff. Sadly those kind of communities don't seem to exist anymore, now those kind of things end up being subreddits or facebook groups and I never feel like those are quite the same, they just don't have the same curation or community feel.
Most of that outcry would be from terrible media outlets who would have to shut down. 95% of the things I click on I wish I hadn't. They would still get an impression (if I weren't adblocked to the teeth.) They're trash that keeps me from the information that I want, and matchmaking stalkery ad markets are the reason for them.
The content people really value is already being paid for.
I didn't hear any outrage at all when several newspapers transitioned to a pay model and threw up a paywall. The parties most upset were the newspapers themselves.
I didn't hear any outrage at all when several newspapers transitioned to a pay model and threw up a paywall. The parties most upset were the newspapers themselves.
I foresee micropayments being extremely common place in the future. Something like a digital wallet browser extension. And instead of paying 5p to watch a video, you will instead pay 5p to skip 3 minute ads.
This would be an absolute nightmare experience. It would force you to make small decisions about money constantly. You would have to constantly make the decision "Do I want to pay some money now or do I suffer through this ad? How much have I paid lately? It feels like it might be adding up? But I really can't be bothered, maybe I'll just pay. I feel bad about paying so much though..."
It would be utterly exhausting, which is why it will not happen.
It would be utterly exhausting, which is why it will not happen.
People have been saying this for decades. I don’t see a way for this to happen that is both more convenient to users and not open to all manner of automated attacks that would be difficult if not impossible to track down.
Ad fraud is already a huge problem, as are things like ransomware. Micropayments would just give bad actors a direct line to your wallet.
Ad fraud is already a huge problem, as are things like ransomware. Micropayments would just give bad actors a direct line to your wallet.
You can allow certain domains to automatically withdraw from your bitcoin wallet and set limits to how much they can withdraw. This is not a technical problem but more of a marketing/adoption one.
There are very smart people working on these: https://socket.money/
And what happens when one of those domains gets hacked and a malicious script injected into their code that takes advantage of a 0-day in the browser to siphon the cash? Not at all a far-fetched situation as it’s how ransomware works today.
The articles said that the industry has been talking about micropayments for 25 years and says it's hard. I think the real issue is that no large-ish tech organization has any incentive to invest in micropayments.
Digital cash saw no uptake for decades either, between Chaum and Satoshi. This may turn out similarly (and it's not as if it's implausible for digital cash to be a prerequisite for micropayments to take off, in practice).
I'd be happiest with a daily subscription model.
It wouldn't happen at once.
I wonder whether the gradual switch would need to be made possible through something similar to a micropayment subscription model, which is non publisher specific.
I don't want to commit to subscriptions for 5+ publications, but I'd happily buy a days access occasionally. This feels much more akin to buying a newspaper in the old world.
I think we'd end up seeing positive changes. Especially the end of content producers being held to ransom by advertisers and commercial pressures.
I wonder whether the gradual switch would need to be made possible through something similar to a micropayment subscription model, which is non publisher specific.
I don't want to commit to subscriptions for 5+ publications, but I'd happily buy a days access occasionally. This feels much more akin to buying a newspaper in the old world.
I think we'd end up seeing positive changes. Especially the end of content producers being held to ransom by advertisers and commercial pressures.
"The alternative of paying $9.99/month for Youtube..."
I completely agree - until you have kids watching Youtube the Ads are much better in general.
I am however extremely concerned with the amount of data being collected on my family to then aggregate and sell.
I completely agree - until you have kids watching Youtube the Ads are much better in general.
I am however extremely concerned with the amount of data being collected on my family to then aggregate and sell.
I don't mind ads, I mind data mining.
Ads on podcasts don't bug me as much as the ads Google/Facebook does. Nor do the ads that are sponsored inside videos (see LTT). I don't mind the ads that DDG does (which just uses key words in your search).
I don't like this dichotomy of ads vs no ads, I'm not sure that's really the right framework. I turn off ads everywhere I go because I can't trust ads. But I don't bother skipping through ads on my podcasts or in videos. So it isn't the ad part that's the problem.
Ads on podcasts don't bug me as much as the ads Google/Facebook does. Nor do the ads that are sponsored inside videos (see LTT). I don't mind the ads that DDG does (which just uses key words in your search).
I don't like this dichotomy of ads vs no ads, I'm not sure that's really the right framework. I turn off ads everywhere I go because I can't trust ads. But I don't bother skipping through ads on my podcasts or in videos. So it isn't the ad part that's the problem.
> I don't like ads but they are the most friction-free way to consume a wide variety of content.
That might be true in the beginning but long term ad's add a lot of friction and frustration e.g. having to wait X amount of seconds before getting access to the content.
I have been a YouTube Premium user since day one and I can't imagine not using it.
What I would love to see more is having a choice of having a free ad supported version and the option to upgrade and pay to remove those ads.
That might be true in the beginning but long term ad's add a lot of friction and frustration e.g. having to wait X amount of seconds before getting access to the content.
I have been a YouTube Premium user since day one and I can't imagine not using it.
What I would love to see more is having a choice of having a free ad supported version and the option to upgrade and pay to remove those ads.
> The alternative of paying $9.99/month for Youtube...
I do pay for YouTube Red, and it's worth it to not see ads.
> micropayments for each search query or a "Google Search Engine yearly subscription"
I would pay for this, too.
> ... or Patreon donations for video content ...
I do it for music. It feels really good to support creators directly.
Ads are the worst, and I adblock everything.
I'd happily pay for web content if there were microtransactions. Either that, or a content marketplace that disburses based on views or some other accounting.
I do pay for YouTube Red, and it's worth it to not see ads.
> micropayments for each search query or a "Google Search Engine yearly subscription"
I would pay for this, too.
> ... or Patreon donations for video content ...
I do it for music. It feels really good to support creators directly.
Ads are the worst, and I adblock everything.
I'd happily pay for web content if there were microtransactions. Either that, or a content marketplace that disburses based on views or some other accounting.
> I've been using Google Search for over 20 years for free which is pretty amazing. Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No
I would absolutely pay that.
Search is incredibly valuable and has deteriorated as has the web as a whole largely because of ads and this terrible business model.
It’s not even slightly ‘free’, your attention is being wasted on stuff that other people are paying for you to see.
I value that at way more than $120 per year.
I would absolutely pay that.
Search is incredibly valuable and has deteriorated as has the web as a whole largely because of ads and this terrible business model.
It’s not even slightly ‘free’, your attention is being wasted on stuff that other people are paying for you to see.
I value that at way more than $120 per year.
You (me, all of us) are (indirectly) paying for Google ads in the same way that we are (indirectly) paying for merchant credit card processing fees. If you paid for search, some businesses might be able to lower the cost of their products because they don’t have to pay for advertising.
Companies wouldn't stop paying for advertisement if we banned internet advertising, they'd have to spend more in other advertisement spaces and now those spaces aren't funding the search which we'd have to pay for.
Where does the money you seemingly save come from? You pay for them whenever you buy something that was advertised. If Google Search was $10/month, the average Google user would save about that much spread across all the products they buy.
Short term yes, not paying for things feels better than paying for things. Long term, we end up in the situation when most people recognize current model leads to gross distortions, perverse initiatives, and many sites being next to unusable.
Jeff is defending shareholders and not ads as a revenue model. Without shareholders Google would be free to pursue alternate strategies. Not as profitable but better for the user.
Are you saying there is something specifically about ads that make using these products friction-free or non-hostile? Or are you just saying that you like that the products are free?
If search wouldn't be free out ad-supported. Paying for it would be the biggest productivity boost for a developer.
But people don't like to pay for software. So we alternatives.
But people don't like to pay for software. So we alternatives.
>The author jefftk is getting unfairly downvoted maybe because cynics just see it as a version of, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
I don't think that's why people are downvoting. Speaking for myself, it's because his analysis focuses only on the benefits of ads, and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information).
In other words, I see no fresh insight and perspective in jefftk's writing, and worse still, it bears remarkable semblance to a bad-faith argument. I'm sure he is a decent person (really!), but this particular essay is neither interesting, nor particularly respectable IMHO. As a result, a downvote feels appropriate.
I don't think that's why people are downvoting. Speaking for myself, it's because his analysis focuses only on the benefits of ads, and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information).
In other words, I see no fresh insight and perspective in jefftk's writing, and worse still, it bears remarkable semblance to a bad-faith argument. I'm sure he is a decent person (really!), but this particular essay is neither interesting, nor particularly respectable IMHO. As a result, a downvote feels appropriate.
In the span of just a few comments in the thread below, I've seen people claim that the ethical problem is:
1. All ads in general.
2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications.
3. Data collection for targeted advertisement.
4. Data collection for anything.
5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above.
So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed upon actual ethical problem in web advertising.
1. All ads in general.
2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications.
3. Data collection for targeted advertisement.
4. Data collection for anything.
5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above.
So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed upon actual ethical problem in web advertising.
Why it has to be a single ethical problem? The industry is quite capable of having multiple ethical problems in parallel.
Because everybody is complaining to everybody else that they aren't discussing the real ethical problem. This is being pointed at OP as well as commenters. It makes conversations difficult to have because as soon as people start talking about one thing, somebody jumps in and says "but you aren't talking about the real problem".
I have also noticed this in other HN discussions. Everyone seems to assume everyone else agrees with their view on the topic and there is never any open discussion about it. Usually people just talk past each other and it's never pointed out.
Because it's much easier to have constructive outputs when you focus on a single problem with a clear definition. But people usually conflate multiple topics into single and take advantages from this intentional ambiguity, irrespective of whether you're a proponent or a critic.
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I don't know if it was mentioned here but another issue that many people have with Google specifically is it's perceived monopoly position and market power.
>In other words, I see no fresh insight and perspective in jefftk's writing,
May be I am living in my bubble, but most of the site I visit, mostly mainstream media news in tech, along with most of the social media post, has a flat out dismissal of Ads in general.
So while ads works to pay for X isn't a "fresh" insight, it was never really pointed out ( enough ) in most of the discussions. If the discussion in general was even slightly balanced in pros and cons, then pointing out ads do serve some usefulness wouldn't even be what OP labeled as "contrarian opinion".
>and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information).
In the context of Ads. Not all ads are large-scale collection of personal information. Which is what FloC was ( AFAIK ) trying to solve. As Apple did with their differential privacy. I often wondered if Google didn't decide to invent a new term called FloC and instead follow Apple and call it differential privacy would the backlash still be the same. But I think at the end of the day it is just a matter of trust. Whether you Trust Google or Apple. ( Or Facebook )
May be I am living in my bubble, but most of the site I visit, mostly mainstream media news in tech, along with most of the social media post, has a flat out dismissal of Ads in general.
So while ads works to pay for X isn't a "fresh" insight, it was never really pointed out ( enough ) in most of the discussions. If the discussion in general was even slightly balanced in pros and cons, then pointing out ads do serve some usefulness wouldn't even be what OP labeled as "contrarian opinion".
>and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information).
In the context of Ads. Not all ads are large-scale collection of personal information. Which is what FloC was ( AFAIK ) trying to solve. As Apple did with their differential privacy. I often wondered if Google didn't decide to invent a new term called FloC and instead follow Apple and call it differential privacy would the backlash still be the same. But I think at the end of the day it is just a matter of trust. Whether you Trust Google or Apple. ( Or Facebook )
>a flat out dismissal of Ads in general.
Yes, I agree. That is indeed another unoriginal, stale perspective.
The question for me isn't so much whether hear from one side more than the other, but whether there is some new idea. For me, intellectual content matters much more than equal representation in (social) media.
By this measure, the OP's post is equally trite.
>In the context of Ads. Not all ads are large-scale collection of personal information.
We're talking about Google ads here. Let's stop pretending otherwise.
>Which is what FloC was ( AFAIK ) trying to solve.
Leaving my skepticism aside for a moment, this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not. There is no insight here, either.
So again, I think a downvote is a pretty reasonable and measured response. The OP's post was unconvincing and cliched. No big deal. I've written plenty of stuff like that, myself.
Yes, I agree. That is indeed another unoriginal, stale perspective.
The question for me isn't so much whether hear from one side more than the other, but whether there is some new idea. For me, intellectual content matters much more than equal representation in (social) media.
By this measure, the OP's post is equally trite.
>In the context of Ads. Not all ads are large-scale collection of personal information.
We're talking about Google ads here. Let's stop pretending otherwise.
>Which is what FloC was ( AFAIK ) trying to solve.
Leaving my skepticism aside for a moment, this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not. There is no insight here, either.
So again, I think a downvote is a pretty reasonable and measured response. The OP's post was unconvincing and cliched. No big deal. I've written plenty of stuff like that, myself.
> this may have been an opportunity for OP to provide some insight into how the adtech market is evolving, and make the case that it is headed in an ethical direction. He did not
There's a section of post with "build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies"; I'm curious what you think of it?
There's a section of post with "build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies"; I'm curious what you think of it?
I personally am of the opinion that "targeted advertising" _is_ the problem.
Random generic advertising is fine. It isn't as profitable but it doesn't exploit a person's mental weaknesses. Targeted advertising is straight up exploitation.
Kids being bombarded with ads for plastic surgery nonestop on TikTok, radicalized individuals being targeted with fear-based ads. This is super toxic. And while advertising is a tale as old as human commerce, such insane targeted advertising is not.
Random generic advertising is fine. It isn't as profitable but it doesn't exploit a person's mental weaknesses. Targeted advertising is straight up exploitation.
Kids being bombarded with ads for plastic surgery nonestop on TikTok, radicalized individuals being targeted with fear-based ads. This is super toxic. And while advertising is a tale as old as human commerce, such insane targeted advertising is not.
Targeted advertising is great, so long as it targets "the viewer of pages like this" not "this person recently went to all these other web sites".
I think that's what ads should be - exactly like TV.
I think that's what ads should be - exactly like TV.
TV based advertising is also bad tbh. There used to be ads related to fairness cream which is effectively virtue signaling you should use this cream to look white and beautiful. And there are ads related to soft drinks claiming you will be strong etc.
Ads sucks and it is alive due to economic incentive from ads. And we know where there is economic incentive its hard to stop (eg. bitcoin mining economic incentive)
Ads sucks and it is alive due to economic incentive from ads. And we know where there is economic incentive its hard to stop (eg. bitcoin mining economic incentive)
I know this isn't your point, but how is fairness cream virtue signaling?
(If you said it was signaling race or wealth or something I would understand, but virtue?)
(If you said it was signaling race or wealth or something I would understand, but virtue?)
While it might be true that ads just suck. It's heavily ingrained in culture. There are a few cultures that do not use ads, even today (Amish?). However, I don't see a transition from where we are today to that. So instead of just saying, ads suck, what is the alternative?
Those parade of horribles raise an awkward question - couldn't the lack of targetting of advertising make it even worse in several senses? We had the "punch the monkey/click here for viruses" in the past instead to monetize general targets when it was more niche. People forget /why/ Google won web advertising like they did.
The "badness" of the ads results from the selecting function and what becomes sustainable and favored. Infamously with spam and phone calls it can include outright crime.
The "badness" of the ads results from the selecting function and what becomes sustainable and favored. Infamously with spam and phone calls it can include outright crime.
Oh totally. Google did win because of personalization. However I don't think that is necessarily a good thing.
I agree those are bad, but those don't seem to be unique to user targeting? You would have the same thing with contextual ads (since what page someone is on is still pretty correlated with generic demographics like "is a kid" or "is a radicalized individual")
Since you work at Google, and on ads:
The insanely annoying thing that I have seen for a long time is that despite the fact that you have more information on me than anyone else the ads have been either useless or even insulting for years.
I remember bothering to click through the microscopic x in tve corner and select not relevant or something on Thai mail order brides. What did I get next? Filipino mail orders brides. Out of curiosity I marked a number of them as not relevant and I think I also saw:
- Polish
- Ukrainian
- Chinese
- and possibly a couple of more nationalities
- later I got ads for older women near me
- and then gay cruises
This went on for years.
Last year I finally started seing ads for electronics etc but now I feel no remorse for blocking ads anymore.
I'm just fed up.
Meanwhile Facebook, for all their faults and despite me blocking them for far longer than Google actually has had interesting ads.
Edit: I've nothing against Filipino or Thais or gay people or anyone, but I have something against scantily clad women etc showing up on my monitor both at work and at home and I think it says something about Google that they think this was the most relevant ads they could show me for years.
The insanely annoying thing that I have seen for a long time is that despite the fact that you have more information on me than anyone else the ads have been either useless or even insulting for years.
I remember bothering to click through the microscopic x in tve corner and select not relevant or something on Thai mail order brides. What did I get next? Filipino mail orders brides. Out of curiosity I marked a number of them as not relevant and I think I also saw:
- Polish
- Ukrainian
- Chinese
- and possibly a couple of more nationalities
- later I got ads for older women near me
- and then gay cruises
This went on for years.
Last year I finally started seing ads for electronics etc but now I feel no remorse for blocking ads anymore.
I'm just fed up.
Meanwhile Facebook, for all their faults and despite me blocking them for far longer than Google actually has had interesting ads.
Edit: I've nothing against Filipino or Thais or gay people or anyone, but I have something against scantily clad women etc showing up on my monitor both at work and at home and I think it says something about Google that they think this was the most relevant ads they could show me for years.
That sounds a lot like a trojan installed in your browser, or perhaps someone who shares your computer has peculiar habits.
Across a number of machines, tablets and phones.
Work and personal.
Much more likely explanation IMO (someone please correct me if I am wrong):
Google get paid by the view these days and optimize for the most expensive views.
Work and personal.
Much more likely explanation IMO (someone please correct me if I am wrong):
Google get paid by the view these days and optimize for the most expensive views.
That gets tricky. But at the least it would help me not see radicalized ads when I am generally searching. And that doesn't mean ads based on my search either.
Yes it doesn't drive as much engagement, but that's the point. Over-optimizing for engagement is a bad thing. We have seen repeated evidence of this.
There should be general overarching categories: News site, food site, movie site, game site. But not "news site for radical right-wingers who believe in tucker carlson and think gun control is communism" which doesn't really require user tracking, but I think still falls on the bad side of things.
"Is a kid" is interesting. There's literally laws to prevent children from receiving too much advertising on TV _for good reasons_ their brains aren't developed enough to counter it. But on the internet? ANYTHING GOES!
Yes it doesn't drive as much engagement, but that's the point. Over-optimizing for engagement is a bad thing. We have seen repeated evidence of this.
There should be general overarching categories: News site, food site, movie site, game site. But not "news site for radical right-wingers who believe in tucker carlson and think gun control is communism" which doesn't really require user tracking, but I think still falls on the bad side of things.
"Is a kid" is interesting. There's literally laws to prevent children from receiving too much advertising on TV _for good reasons_ their brains aren't developed enough to counter it. But on the internet? ANYTHING GOES!
> news site for radical right-wingers who believe in tucker carlson and think gun control is communism"
This is "mainstream Republican" and it's about 1.5bits of information after "is UA resident".
Tucker is one of the most popular people in the USA.
This is "mainstream Republican" and it's about 1.5bits of information after "is UA resident".
Tucker is one of the most popular people in the USA.
> May be I am living in my bubble, but most of the site I visit, mostly mainstream media news in tech, along with most of the social media post, has a flat out dismissal of Ads in general.
I'd apply the same logic here: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Ad supported models on news paper websites have nearly killed publications like NYTimes. A lot of smaller news papers have died. Only after the paywall model really took off have they been able to survive and thrive.
So there's nothing you can say to the media that will convince them that there's value in ads.
To them, ads and big tech in general are evil entities and must be criticized at every possible turn.
I'd apply the same logic here: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Ad supported models on news paper websites have nearly killed publications like NYTimes. A lot of smaller news papers have died. Only after the paywall model really took off have they been able to survive and thrive.
So there's nothing you can say to the media that will convince them that there's value in ads.
To them, ads and big tech in general are evil entities and must be criticized at every possible turn.
NY Times also has inventory for digital advertising. If you read it on the app in your phone, you will see ads. If you view it in a browser, with ad blocker turned off, you will see ads. Their revenue also comes from a subscription model, but they also sells ads.
It seems like you didn't bother to read the entire article because the author does go into the ethical and privacy related concerns about ads. It is always interesting to read about people's opinions on topics such as this, and the fact that you dismissed it outright with such ignorance as to call it a bad-faith argument tells me you are not open to hearing opinions that differ from your own. As a result, a downvote of your comment feels appropriate (if I had the points to do so). But hey, at least you're probably a decent person (really!).
There is no mention of ethics, and the privacy discussion ends with "I don't think my work in advertising is something harmful to offset." The author seems to think there are some good ideas to increase privacy that he is working on, but the existing problems are not serious enough to be considered "harmful".
It is here:
> This model has some major drawbacks from a privacy perspective. Typically, the vendor doesn't just get that you are interested in cars, they get the full URL of the page you are on. This lets them build up a pretty thorough picture of all the pages you have visited around the web. Then they can link their database with other vendors databases, and get even more coverage.
> This model has some major drawbacks from a privacy perspective. Typically, the vendor doesn't just get that you are interested in cars, they get the full URL of the page you are on. This lets them build up a pretty thorough picture of all the pages you have visited around the web. Then they can link their database with other vendors databases, and get even more coverage.
Yes, I read that part. The article still ends with the claim that this drawback is not actually harmful.
In between that claim and the end of the article I describe how I'm working on https://github.com/WICG/turtledove etc to build well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers
I understand, and I'm glad you're thinking about it, but you could not have been more clear: "I don't think my work in advertising is something harmful to offset." Did you misspeak? Do you think it is harmful but turtledove might reduce the harm?
My work on advertising is on Turtledove
Oh, that was not clear from the essay, and honestly might change my opinion a little. Is your position "targeted ads cause harmful privacy violations, but my work is exclusively devoted to reducing the privacy impact, so I don't believe my work is harmful"? If so I would encourage you to edit the essay, because that's not at all how it comes across right now, at least to readers who aren't familiar with your work. I had assumed turtledove was one of many projects you're involved with.
> conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information)*
Ignores? That's what the entire second half of the post is about ;)
Starting at "But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads..."
Ignores? That's what the entire second half of the post is about ;)
Starting at "But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads..."
>Starting at "But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads..."
Yes, that's literally all you have to say on the subject.
The very next paragraph is about how this helps keep ads relevant...
Yes, that's literally all you have to say on the subject.
The very next paragraph is about how this helps keep ads relevant...
> that's literally all you have to say on the subject
Not at all! First I talk about the economic benefit of targeted ads ("Most products are a much better fit for some people than others..."), then how it works today ("Historically, ads like this have been built on top of third-party cookies..."), then how it can work without cross-site tracking ("build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies...")
Not at all! First I talk about the economic benefit of targeted ads ("Most products are a much better fit for some people than others..."), then how it works today ("Historically, ads like this have been built on top of third-party cookies..."), then how it can work without cross-site tracking ("build browser APIs that will allow this kind of well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers, and then get rid of third-party cookies...")
Sorry, that's still attempting to justify the unjustifiable. The only ethical way of targeting is content relevance, which allows inference of the audience interest without using any audience data other than what they're currently looking at.
> The only ethical way of targeting is content relevance
Why?
Why?
Targeting based on content fundemenally allows everyone access to ad content. It makes content providers more responsible for the Ads they carry. It allows me to avoid sites that show me bad Ads (such as mail order brides).
Targeting Ads based on anything else is invasive, discriminatory, and enables even higher levels of manipulation. If I get targeted by content independent targeted ads, it can be almsot impossible to avoid those Ads as they will follow you everywhere you go.
Targeting Ads based on anything else is invasive, discriminatory, and enables even higher levels of manipulation. If I get targeted by content independent targeted ads, it can be almsot impossible to avoid those Ads as they will follow you everywhere you go.
"Targeting based on content fundemenally allows everyone access to ad content."
Can you be more precise about what you mean and why the current system doesn't have it? You're saying that everyone should see ads, even ads they won't like? Forgive me if this isn't a hill I'm interested in dying on.
"It makes content providers more responsible for the Ads they carry. It allows me to avoid sites that show me bad Ads (such as mail order brides)."
Not in a meaningful way. If the ads are generated automatically based on the content, the site might not have much to do with it. Example: Suppose there's a wedding planning site, and a content-based targeting system notices the word "bride" on the site a lot and serves mail order bride ads. Yes, you could avoid the wedding planning site because of this, but is there any reason to punish them? It's not their fault.
"If I get targeted by content independent targeted ads, it can be almsot impossible to avoid those Ads as they will follow you everywhere you go."
Isn't there a menu that lets you select "I don't want to see this ad"?
Can you be more precise about what you mean and why the current system doesn't have it? You're saying that everyone should see ads, even ads they won't like? Forgive me if this isn't a hill I'm interested in dying on.
"It makes content providers more responsible for the Ads they carry. It allows me to avoid sites that show me bad Ads (such as mail order brides)."
Not in a meaningful way. If the ads are generated automatically based on the content, the site might not have much to do with it. Example: Suppose there's a wedding planning site, and a content-based targeting system notices the word "bride" on the site a lot and serves mail order bride ads. Yes, you could avoid the wedding planning site because of this, but is there any reason to punish them? It's not their fault.
"If I get targeted by content independent targeted ads, it can be almsot impossible to avoid those Ads as they will follow you everywhere you go."
Isn't there a menu that lets you select "I don't want to see this ad"?
You can't simulatously argue that Ads offer value to customers and that limiting access to those Ads to a certain subset of customers doesn't harm them. You have to pick one. There are specific areas (housing discrimination) where the harm is obvious enough that we have been able to gather sufficient support to make this illegal.
> Yes, you could avoid the wedding planning site because of this, but is there any reason to punish them? It's not their fault.
It is absolutely their fault. Content providers should face full responsibility for the Ads they allow to appear on their website.
One of the ways that the current Ad targeting system is awful is that it allows advertisers to pretend to foist this responsibility onto Ad companies that are much more insulated from consumer blow back.
> Isn't there a menu that lets you select "I don't want to see this ad"?
Those menus often don't stop other Ads of that type from being shown and there is no legal obligation to do so. All they really do is give the advertiser more information about you.
If the only recourse you have to abusive behavior is to politely ask them to stop, someone is going to keep abusing you to make money.
> Yes, you could avoid the wedding planning site because of this, but is there any reason to punish them? It's not their fault.
It is absolutely their fault. Content providers should face full responsibility for the Ads they allow to appear on their website.
One of the ways that the current Ad targeting system is awful is that it allows advertisers to pretend to foist this responsibility onto Ad companies that are much more insulated from consumer blow back.
> Isn't there a menu that lets you select "I don't want to see this ad"?
Those menus often don't stop other Ads of that type from being shown and there is no legal obligation to do so. All they really do is give the advertiser more information about you.
If the only recourse you have to abusive behavior is to politely ask them to stop, someone is going to keep abusing you to make money.
Speak for yourself.
Instagram gives me fantastically targeted ads, and I appreciate that.
Instagram gives me fantastically targeted ads, and I appreciate that.
I'm glad you aren't vulnerable to any of the above issues I raise. That doesn't mean there aren't vulnerable and powerless people who are being hurt by this system and your support o it.
Removing personal responsibility from people is in itself a source of many social ills.
For example think about how much better society could've been over the past decades if, instead of saying "people can't reasonably make decisions about [insert drug here] so we're going to illegalize all of them" we'd said "wow, adults can make decisions for themselves".
For example think about how much better society could've been over the past decades if, instead of saying "people can't reasonably make decisions about [insert drug here] so we're going to illegalize all of them" we'd said "wow, adults can make decisions for themselves".
Personal responsibility is not an excuse for disregarding the suffering of others.
The war on drugs was a fundementally bad approach to fixing the problem. If it had worked and drug use had dropped near zero over a decade or two, you wouldn't see the current level of support for ending it. There are other cases where removing personal choice is not controversial (such as seat belt laws, incarceration,
In fact, the failure of the war on drugs is an argument against relying purely on personal responsibility to solve the problem. Simply punishing people and expecting them to learn enough about the consequences of drug use to make the responsibile decision to stay away failed.
It turns out that sometimes to get people to a place where they can take full personal responsibility, it requires giving them some help.
We should strive to avoid removing personal responsibility and choice. The better job we do of providing the tools and support needed to make good decisions (i.e. ones the deciser will look back on without regret), the more respsibility we can easily allow.
For examole: If we do a good job of protecting amd treating gambling addicts, that facilitates opening up gambling to more people in more locations.
The war on drugs was a fundementally bad approach to fixing the problem. If it had worked and drug use had dropped near zero over a decade or two, you wouldn't see the current level of support for ending it. There are other cases where removing personal choice is not controversial (such as seat belt laws, incarceration,
In fact, the failure of the war on drugs is an argument against relying purely on personal responsibility to solve the problem. Simply punishing people and expecting them to learn enough about the consequences of drug use to make the responsibile decision to stay away failed.
It turns out that sometimes to get people to a place where they can take full personal responsibility, it requires giving them some help.
We should strive to avoid removing personal responsibility and choice. The better job we do of providing the tools and support needed to make good decisions (i.e. ones the deciser will look back on without regret), the more respsibility we can easily allow.
For examole: If we do a good job of protecting amd treating gambling addicts, that facilitates opening up gambling to more people in more locations.
> Not at all! First I talk about the economic benefit of targeted ads
I wish that my ads would be more relevant to what I like especially when it comes to music. What does youtube do? I search for a specific video because somebody told me it's there. I find it and sit through the whole length of 50+ mins and after I'm done navigate back to the YT frontpage. What do I see? A recommendation of the video I just watched. And it'll stay there for the next 6 weeks.
The other extreme for me is watching something from the other camp simply because I want to learn what they're being exposed to. In my bubble this means conservative stuff like videos of people debating Ayn Rand or a Jordan Peterson. And I swear I'll have to fight for the next 6 months to get similar shit off my timeline. In fact it's easier to throw myself into the rabbit hole of watching Foucault, Zizek, Philosophy genre and fighting my way into content that is dominated by the likes of Tucker Carlson (and what used to be Alex Jones, Brietbart and others) than it is to shed the conservative label that YT has filed me under. And with conservative I mean seriously questionable stuff like Q-anon, climate change denying, cray-cray type of things.
Because of this I now have different accounts for when I want to see the other side of the coin/polarization.
Not sure if I should be blaming YT/Google with this since society is so polarized that the algorithm just reflects that reality. But it's not like the algo hasn't played a major role in creating this dystopian reality in the first place.
I wish that my ads would be more relevant to what I like especially when it comes to music. What does youtube do? I search for a specific video because somebody told me it's there. I find it and sit through the whole length of 50+ mins and after I'm done navigate back to the YT frontpage. What do I see? A recommendation of the video I just watched. And it'll stay there for the next 6 weeks.
The other extreme for me is watching something from the other camp simply because I want to learn what they're being exposed to. In my bubble this means conservative stuff like videos of people debating Ayn Rand or a Jordan Peterson. And I swear I'll have to fight for the next 6 months to get similar shit off my timeline. In fact it's easier to throw myself into the rabbit hole of watching Foucault, Zizek, Philosophy genre and fighting my way into content that is dominated by the likes of Tucker Carlson (and what used to be Alex Jones, Brietbart and others) than it is to shed the conservative label that YT has filed me under. And with conservative I mean seriously questionable stuff like Q-anon, climate change denying, cray-cray type of things.
Because of this I now have different accounts for when I want to see the other side of the coin/polarization.
Not sure if I should be blaming YT/Google with this since society is so polarized that the algorithm just reflects that reality. But it's not like the algo hasn't played a major role in creating this dystopian reality in the first place.
It sounds like you would be happier to see the next sentence get into greater detail about how targets ads impact privacy today. But the article does in fact do so (look at the paragraph that starts "This model has some major drawbacks..."), and the next paragraph you refer to ("Most products are a much better fit...") builds to that point by explaining why targeted ads exist at all.
Evolution has bestowed on us the great gift of Cognitive Dissonance. When I look at what I do on a day-to-day basis, there are probably a hundred things that don't align with my own internal belief system. The only way I don't go mad is to find plausible justifications for what I do.
I work in a different industry with its own issues and impacts on the society and the environment. I try not to think about it and even look at the positive things to gloss over the bad impact.
I work in a different industry with its own issues and impacts on the society and the environment. I try not to think about it and even look at the positive things to gloss over the bad impact.
I think that advertising in general, pre-internet, was perhaps a pain. It was unsightly to have stuff plastered all over buses, trains, any available space someone was trying to show something in your face, to get their brands name in your eyeline.
Now they are still doing that, but they have compounded the awfulness, because now they track where you are visiting and push more of those ads in your eyeline. Switched device, tough, the ads do too. The advertiser now also knows who looked at the ad, where they came from to see the ad, where the left to after they saw the ad. And then what they did for the next 2 weeks, so now they can make sure their ad is in front of your eyes whenever they want because they tracked your browsing habits.
Advertising was bad before, now it is insidious tracking and monitoring of users, under the pretense of advertising. /rant
Now they are still doing that, but they have compounded the awfulness, because now they track where you are visiting and push more of those ads in your eyeline. Switched device, tough, the ads do too. The advertiser now also knows who looked at the ad, where they came from to see the ad, where the left to after they saw the ad. And then what they did for the next 2 weeks, so now they can make sure their ad is in front of your eyes whenever they want because they tracked your browsing habits.
Advertising was bad before, now it is insidious tracking and monitoring of users, under the pretense of advertising. /rant
I’m only 29, but the impression I have received from my youth, from parental and grandparental anecdotes, and from photographic records is that offline advertising in at least Melbourne, Australia is worse than it was, with a key tipping period being somewhere around 15 years ago. As the most significant example, public transport vehicles and locations had no-to-minimal advertising 20 years ago; now they have extensive advertising surfaces, inside and out, and the big posters at most of the train stations cycle between multiple ads and blah blah blah. Awful stuff.
My guess is that offline advertising has become cheaper and so they do more of it.
I live out in the country now. There are no outdoor ads here. I like it.
(The local weekly paper is called The Advertiser: an apt name, for it’s about ¾ ads. But I don’t look at it. My life is basically completely ad-free except when I go down to Melbourne.)
My guess is that offline advertising has become cheaper and so they do more of it.
I live out in the country now. There are no outdoor ads here. I like it.
(The local weekly paper is called The Advertiser: an apt name, for it’s about ¾ ads. But I don’t look at it. My life is basically completely ad-free except when I go down to Melbourne.)
It's funny but i actually like the ads on the trains in Japan and when I was visiting other countries who's transit systems had no ads I thought it was boring.
Some of the ads are hilarious. Some are for the services that are not common in the USA. Nintendo has some where they add in a trivia Q&A, the format being, Question->Ad->Answer and I usually find them interesting and I'm often happy to learn about whatever new Nintendo game they are showing off. Often there are ads for theater plays, concerts, museum events that I only find out about because I saw them on the train.
I also like some of the campaigns where they decorate an entire station or the entire train, the entire car.
Some of the ads are hilarious. Some are for the services that are not common in the USA. Nintendo has some where they add in a trivia Q&A, the format being, Question->Ad->Answer and I usually find them interesting and I'm often happy to learn about whatever new Nintendo game they are showing off. Often there are ads for theater plays, concerts, museum events that I only find out about because I saw them on the train.
I also like some of the campaigns where they decorate an entire station or the entire train, the entire car.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the pervasiveness of online advertising creeping in at the fringes of our attention normalized an increase in the amount of ads that do this in the physical world.
"conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information)."
Did you read the section starting from "This model has some major drawbacks from a privacy perspective"?
Did you read the section starting from "This model has some major drawbacks from a privacy perspective"?
I think it's harsh to call it a bad faith argument. Say you were having a conversation with jefftk, and he makes the points in the article. Wouldn't you just say they're the start of a conversation, with room to move? Also, do you normally downvote articles that don't have a fresh perspective? There's not that many things new under the sun.
Anyway one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet about ads is that it encourages the unrestrained growth of ad space itself. There are just a billion articles on the internet written for the sole purpose of grabbing your attention and selling it. A lot of these sites have no real value, one of each ("How do I do X") on the internet would be more than enough. A lot of them ought to just be headlines that I can skip ("Man Utd interested in a teenager" would in the old days just say the guy's name).
The real argument against the article is that the calculus of paywall vs ads is not quite as straightforward as proposed. Either mode of operation has reflexive influence on what the internet looks like, and that's maybe where to dig deeper for an argument. How do the different options encourage different interests to behave?
Anyway one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet about ads is that it encourages the unrestrained growth of ad space itself. There are just a billion articles on the internet written for the sole purpose of grabbing your attention and selling it. A lot of these sites have no real value, one of each ("How do I do X") on the internet would be more than enough. A lot of them ought to just be headlines that I can skip ("Man Utd interested in a teenager" would in the old days just say the guy's name).
The real argument against the article is that the calculus of paywall vs ads is not quite as straightforward as proposed. Either mode of operation has reflexive influence on what the internet looks like, and that's maybe where to dig deeper for an argument. How do the different options encourage different interests to behave?
>Speaking for myself, it's because his analysis focuses only on the benefits of ads, and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information).
Most people have no issue with the collection of personal information in itself. They only start caring when others start to make money off of it. If Google completely got rid of ads as a revenue source and still made the exact same services for free, they would still collect nearly as much sensitive data (e.g. location tracking for better routing). However, a lot fewer people would care. Privacy activists would still exist, but I doubt that regular people bother to listen to them.
Most people have no issue with the collection of personal information in itself. They only start caring when others start to make money off of it. If Google completely got rid of ads as a revenue source and still made the exact same services for free, they would still collect nearly as much sensitive data (e.g. location tracking for better routing). However, a lot fewer people would care. Privacy activists would still exist, but I doubt that regular people bother to listen to them.
There’s probably truth to that but I think it stems from what seems to be a quite commonly held opinion that ads are hostile to humans. They clutter our browsing and viewing experiences, not to mention our physical world. They use malicious tactics to steal our attention from what we would otherwise choose for ourselves. And the industry spends vast physical and intellectual resources which could almost certainly be spent in a more beneficial / less societally harmful way.
So it’s hardly a surprise to me that people see it as ok for Google to use their information to provide them a service like routing, but disapprove of their using that data to enable an industry they see as harmful. I don’t think the problem is exclusively that Google makes money but rather that they make money as the kingpin of an industry most people feel negatively impacts their lives.
So it’s hardly a surprise to me that people see it as ok for Google to use their information to provide them a service like routing, but disapprove of their using that data to enable an industry they see as harmful. I don’t think the problem is exclusively that Google makes money but rather that they make money as the kingpin of an industry most people feel negatively impacts their lives.
I think you are deep in a bubble if you believe that thinking ads are harmful is a common viewpoint in general instead of in niche. You won't see newspapers calling ads in general that way for one, they have to add targetted to not look like obvious flaming hypocrites.
The opposing view would call "harmful" downright hysterical in the same way teens would nigh universally roll eyes at Tipper Gore's claims of music as harmful or Jack Chick's anything.
As for claims that the effort and money at Google could be spent in less harmful ways? No it couldn't, not the money they received - except as operating as a take the money and run scam which hardly qualifies as less harm as an instant zeroing of account values. The "harm" is why they got the money in the first place. You have to give the people paying money what they want to keep receiving money to get what you need to fulfill the demands.
The opposing view would call "harmful" downright hysterical in the same way teens would nigh universally roll eyes at Tipper Gore's claims of music as harmful or Jack Chick's anything.
As for claims that the effort and money at Google could be spent in less harmful ways? No it couldn't, not the money they received - except as operating as a take the money and run scam which hardly qualifies as less harm as an instant zeroing of account values. The "harm" is why they got the money in the first place. You have to give the people paying money what they want to keep receiving money to get what you need to fulfill the demands.
I disagree, if Google stopped selling Ads and still offered free services, it would be blantantly obvious that they were selling our personal information.
Now, if Google spun off a non-profit foundation to offer those services for free without Ads, more people might accept trusting them with all that personal info.
Now, if Google spun off a non-profit foundation to offer those services for free without Ads, more people might accept trusting them with all that personal info.
I've never seen any evidence of anyone hurt by the large scale collection of personal data by Google and FB.
small data points from here compared to the big lot..
friend unsure about her marriage.. getting ads to sell her wedding ring via fbook.. they divorced 2 months later. Guess what the first thing she did was?
A friend's father.. gambling addiction and an android phone - sleeps on the streets and eats via dumpsters, still keeps that addictive android device running.
Google sending data on people to fusion centers.. maybe none of those people were ever hurt by that - or the sharing of info from location data dumps, or the vids from nest cams.. I would assume there is a probability that at least one person was hurt when actions via gun toting state came knocking on at least one door, maybe more - and that stuff 100% coming from collection of data.
Just because journalists aren't interviewing these people to see if they were hurt, does not mean it's not happening.
I have no way to opt people out of alcohol ads.. I've seen them so I know others have.. does a sale on the new pink-liqour at 10am lead someone to drink out of juice boxes before noon at a kid's soccer practice? I can't say for sure.. it's just a coincidence they are drinking the new advertised thing - maybe it was an ad on the liqour store window that did it - there won't be hard evidence there.
I can think of more, but I know these are small data points from here. I'm glad you have not witnessed such things.
friend unsure about her marriage.. getting ads to sell her wedding ring via fbook.. they divorced 2 months later. Guess what the first thing she did was?
A friend's father.. gambling addiction and an android phone - sleeps on the streets and eats via dumpsters, still keeps that addictive android device running.
Google sending data on people to fusion centers.. maybe none of those people were ever hurt by that - or the sharing of info from location data dumps, or the vids from nest cams.. I would assume there is a probability that at least one person was hurt when actions via gun toting state came knocking on at least one door, maybe more - and that stuff 100% coming from collection of data.
Just because journalists aren't interviewing these people to see if they were hurt, does not mean it's not happening.
I have no way to opt people out of alcohol ads.. I've seen them so I know others have.. does a sale on the new pink-liqour at 10am lead someone to drink out of juice boxes before noon at a kid's soccer practice? I can't say for sure.. it's just a coincidence they are drinking the new advertised thing - maybe it was an ad on the liqour store window that did it - there won't be hard evidence there.
I can think of more, but I know these are small data points from here. I'm glad you have not witnessed such things.
IMO these are weak examples.
- Are you suggesting that your friend got divorced so that she could sell her ring, because an ad told her she could sell her ring? I doubt that was the straw that broke the camels back.
- The android phone has utility beyond it's addictiveness. Yes homeless people need a phone.
- Re fusion centers: ads targeting data is a relatively shitty surveillance too, the three letter agencies have much better ways of collecting this data.
- Targeted alcohol advertising I'll agree is an issue, but if you're an alcoholic, you can't really escape the ubiquity of alcohol everywhere.
I think the adverse privacy impact of targeted advertising is pretty overblown, but it so happens that ad targeting is so effective it has the illusion of being surveillant. The actual data being collected is anonymized and not personal.
- Are you suggesting that your friend got divorced so that she could sell her ring, because an ad told her she could sell her ring? I doubt that was the straw that broke the camels back.
- The android phone has utility beyond it's addictiveness. Yes homeless people need a phone.
- Re fusion centers: ads targeting data is a relatively shitty surveillance too, the three letter agencies have much better ways of collecting this data.
- Targeted alcohol advertising I'll agree is an issue, but if you're an alcoholic, you can't really escape the ubiquity of alcohol everywhere.
I think the adverse privacy impact of targeted advertising is pretty overblown, but it so happens that ad targeting is so effective it has the illusion of being surveillant. The actual data being collected is anonymized and not personal.
Agreed on all of this, + Facebook and Google both ban images of alcohol on their ad networks. Even someone holding a glass of wine.
I'm pretty sure that's not correct. As a counter example I've seen ads for alcohol and bars in my Facebook feed.
Those two are not mutually exclusive. You an ban images of alcohol while allowing adds for alcohol and bars (as long as they don't have images of alcohol.)
I suspect there may different rules for different jurisdictions/markets which might explain differences in your experiences.
I suspect there may different rules for different jurisdictions/markets which might explain differences in your experiences.
The ads I saw included images of alcohol.
You can opt out of alcohol ads on Facebook at least. Its somewhere in your ad preferences
I am pretty sure I have some screenshots of google ads for alcohol when scrolling through my google news feed - I have not seen many - but it struck a nerve a time or two I am pretty sure - and I think I screenshotted them. I will check on this.
I would love it if they would ban such - I am not a prohibitionist, but also think people should be able to request a "non-alchohol ads on the table section", much like people once chose to sit in smoking / non-smoking..
when trying to cater to folks who struggled with such, indeed the options were limited for dining out.. IHop and waffle bouse two of the options I recall.
when trying to cater to folks who struggled with such, indeed the options were limited for dining out.. IHop and waffle bouse two of the options I recall.
I appreciate that these are weak examples, just trying to point out a couple off the top of my head - surely there are many more.
The ring thing - I think it was the straw that broke the camels back honestly.. and hey that might have been a good thing - it certainly wasn't the two-ton elephant on top - but I do think it was the thing that made an easy / quick escape possible - maybe that's a good thing - some religious folks may feel otherwise - I'm on the fence about it - but it does point to a weird thing that probably should not be happening with social network data imho.
the fusion centers / requests for locations / emails / search history - all other data.. I agree ads are shitty surveillance generally - however the mass amounts of data being collected to make the ads more valuable - the location data, the emails, the search history - all of that has been quite valuable in many cases from what I have seen on the news..
when it's a murderous ex lover people may cheer - but how much reporting is done on the requests for data that just pry into people's lives and cause them to lose time and money and threats of being shot - that don't go to trials / convictions / wrong person...
so this is more of a reply to the parent comment to consider about harm from mass surveillance they could not think of any.. well there are some - and really many.. certainly many more than my weak top of the head considerations. Not just specifically ads themselves.
I think there are some places where alcohol ads on billboards are banned - and part of me thinks that's a good thing, the free speech absolutist in me says it's not.. but if we ban nudes or gore or whatever on billboards cuz public safety - well sadly alcohol and tobacco probably should also be included there - and gambling.. and addictive technology.. I mean maybe not in Vegas.. I dunno. I hate the alcohol ads on the tables at restaurants and the immediate upsell by waiters/resses with great drink specials.. they should ask if you want a "dry" experience at the table imho.
I agree targeted ads are very good in many ways - I just think people should get more control to 'stop showing X ad cuz Y (already bought it / decided I hate it / have an addiction / whatever) - turn off all targeted cuz it's a shared device and fam is seeing presents.. whatever..
I must disagree about the data being collected though - sure a third party advertiser on yahoo may not be collecting a ton of info about someone - but google does collect a ton of personally identifiable info including emails, gps / locations traveled, search history and much more I am sure.
That data can be used to harm people, by the state, by divorce attorneys.. one could say the hernandez location data led to him being jailed and suicided - I think most would argue that catching him with tech was a good thing - but the demanding of data from big G is not always used for such things, and it can be abused or just used to fish expedition into lives.
There are many ways to harm using the data collected.. oh yeah - the insurance fraud people in new york demanding all stored info about people while they fished for people pretending to be disabled.. I mean, doing good was thier goal - but some people's privacy was slayed that were not doing fraud - is that harm? People seem to lean towards certain other pics of people being shared re-harms victims - so I dunno.
It's not just the ads - it's the other data collected to enable highly targeted ads that can and is used to harm.
How many arrests have been made using google data? How many investigations to peer into lives that did not lead to an arrest? How many give us all cell phones near location X during Y-Z time so we can look into them.. How many times has google taken info and sent it voluntarily to agencies with guns? I'd love to see that in a transparency report.
I know both F and G occasionally push back in requests from doj - but in the end - they give up data on a regular basis even if they ask to limit scope sometimes - and certainly there are times when harm comes to a target at least once I would guess.
Not trying to make a strong case for digital ad companies evil - just trying to point to parent commenter that there are examples in the news of harm done using the data - and suggesting many more examples exist - we just don't hear about them all. Admittedly - percentage wise - it's probably .0000002 percent or something, unless we get into addictions and shopping addictions - then higher - but it's not like the intent by the companies is to do evil always - it's just that the tools do enable it imho.
The ring thing - I think it was the straw that broke the camels back honestly.. and hey that might have been a good thing - it certainly wasn't the two-ton elephant on top - but I do think it was the thing that made an easy / quick escape possible - maybe that's a good thing - some religious folks may feel otherwise - I'm on the fence about it - but it does point to a weird thing that probably should not be happening with social network data imho.
the fusion centers / requests for locations / emails / search history - all other data.. I agree ads are shitty surveillance generally - however the mass amounts of data being collected to make the ads more valuable - the location data, the emails, the search history - all of that has been quite valuable in many cases from what I have seen on the news..
when it's a murderous ex lover people may cheer - but how much reporting is done on the requests for data that just pry into people's lives and cause them to lose time and money and threats of being shot - that don't go to trials / convictions / wrong person...
so this is more of a reply to the parent comment to consider about harm from mass surveillance they could not think of any.. well there are some - and really many.. certainly many more than my weak top of the head considerations. Not just specifically ads themselves.
I think there are some places where alcohol ads on billboards are banned - and part of me thinks that's a good thing, the free speech absolutist in me says it's not.. but if we ban nudes or gore or whatever on billboards cuz public safety - well sadly alcohol and tobacco probably should also be included there - and gambling.. and addictive technology.. I mean maybe not in Vegas.. I dunno. I hate the alcohol ads on the tables at restaurants and the immediate upsell by waiters/resses with great drink specials.. they should ask if you want a "dry" experience at the table imho.
I agree targeted ads are very good in many ways - I just think people should get more control to 'stop showing X ad cuz Y (already bought it / decided I hate it / have an addiction / whatever) - turn off all targeted cuz it's a shared device and fam is seeing presents.. whatever..
I must disagree about the data being collected though - sure a third party advertiser on yahoo may not be collecting a ton of info about someone - but google does collect a ton of personally identifiable info including emails, gps / locations traveled, search history and much more I am sure.
That data can be used to harm people, by the state, by divorce attorneys.. one could say the hernandez location data led to him being jailed and suicided - I think most would argue that catching him with tech was a good thing - but the demanding of data from big G is not always used for such things, and it can be abused or just used to fish expedition into lives.
There are many ways to harm using the data collected.. oh yeah - the insurance fraud people in new york demanding all stored info about people while they fished for people pretending to be disabled.. I mean, doing good was thier goal - but some people's privacy was slayed that were not doing fraud - is that harm? People seem to lean towards certain other pics of people being shared re-harms victims - so I dunno.
It's not just the ads - it's the other data collected to enable highly targeted ads that can and is used to harm.
How many arrests have been made using google data? How many investigations to peer into lives that did not lead to an arrest? How many give us all cell phones near location X during Y-Z time so we can look into them.. How many times has google taken info and sent it voluntarily to agencies with guns? I'd love to see that in a transparency report.
I know both F and G occasionally push back in requests from doj - but in the end - they give up data on a regular basis even if they ask to limit scope sometimes - and certainly there are times when harm comes to a target at least once I would guess.
Not trying to make a strong case for digital ad companies evil - just trying to point to parent commenter that there are examples in the news of harm done using the data - and suggesting many more examples exist - we just don't hear about them all. Admittedly - percentage wise - it's probably .0000002 percent or something, unless we get into addictions and shopping addictions - then higher - but it's not like the intent by the companies is to do evil always - it's just that the tools do enable it imho.
Facebook at least lets you opt out of alcohol advertisements, its buried somewhere in your ad preferences settings.
Targeted ads and analytics are not opt-in by default. This leads to shadow profiles and my data being handled by corporations I don't trust. I don't need facebook and all its stalkers to know where I live, for instance.
Not to mention targeted ads just don't work for me. They always show crap I'd never use, within my domain of knowledge, and never show interesting things outside my domain. Overall I'm more than glad to block ads because I gain nothing from them. They are a liability. Anonymization I don't believe in, what's the difference between my SSN and a MD5 of my SSN?
Not to mention targeted ads just don't work for me. They always show crap I'd never use, within my domain of knowledge, and never show interesting things outside my domain. Overall I'm more than glad to block ads because I gain nothing from them. They are a liability. Anonymization I don't believe in, what's the difference between my SSN and a MD5 of my SSN?
My Instagram ads seem to be laser-focused on my insecurities. I don’t buy the shit they’re selling by they definitely make me feel bad about myself, so mission half accomplished!
This is because you've never looked for the evidence. It is trivial to find with a 10 second search.
https://www.intomore.com/you/facebook-ads-outed-me/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/12/dear-tec...
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/4/9/21204425/targeted-ads...
https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers..., https://www.propublica.org/article/hud-sues-facebook-housing..., https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-disc...
https://themarkup.org/citizen-browser/2021/04/29/credit-card...
https://themarkup.org/news/2021/04/13/how-facebooks-ad-syste...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-27/ad-scamme...
etc. etc. etc.
https://www.intomore.com/you/facebook-ads-outed-me/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/12/dear-tec...
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/4/9/21204425/targeted-ads...
https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers..., https://www.propublica.org/article/hud-sues-facebook-housing..., https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-disc...
https://themarkup.org/citizen-browser/2021/04/29/credit-card...
https://themarkup.org/news/2021/04/13/how-facebooks-ad-syste...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-27/ad-scamme...
etc. etc. etc.
The first link is not a credible worry. Ad targeting is not even close to 100% accurate, no ad can out you. You can just brush it off.
Links 2 and 3 are concerning. The FB and Google do have a way to stop that though - you can click an ad and say it doesn't interest you or you don't like it, that signal is insanely strong and the platforms will turn off the spigot.
The rest is not actual harm to people, its people concerned about the idea of targeting being harmful. Cambridge Analytica was a laughable scandal btw, absolutely no one was actually impacted by it.
Links 2 and 3 are concerning. The FB and Google do have a way to stop that though - you can click an ad and say it doesn't interest you or you don't like it, that signal is insanely strong and the platforms will turn off the spigot.
The rest is not actual harm to people, its people concerned about the idea of targeting being harmful. Cambridge Analytica was a laughable scandal btw, absolutely no one was actually impacted by it.
Are you saying the Fair Housing Act is pointless? Violating it does not harm anyone and there's no reason to enforce it?
FB does enforce the fair housing act and other laws. The platform is actually quite strict nowadays and catches lots of innocent ads in their filters for protected categories. Ad platforms should follow the law, that's working as planned.
As a side note, it's funny how people say that ads are terrible, but also its terrible if certain groups of people don't get to see ads.
As a side note, it's funny how people say that ads are terrible, but also its terrible if certain groups of people don't get to see ads.
Same as saying that the draft is terrible, but having a gender-specific draft is even worse. We'd rather have no ads, but until that's possible, the least we can do is stop them from worsening social inequities.
I checked about of half of these out and I can't take any of the complaints seriously. The strongest argument against tracking remains the moral one.
A week later - and an HN discussion about ads on google that impersonate government web sites.. reminded me of a few more things where people get hurt by big surv-ad-capitalism -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27152524
via (Ads Are Impersonating Government Websites in Google Results, Despite Ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27150407 )
via (Ads Are Impersonating Government Websites in Google Results, Despite Ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27150407 )
If you are a woman have fun seeing ads for makeup and fashion all the time. There is a reason female users are hot commodity for any ad driven company, companies are willing to pay way more to advertise to women.
Targeted ads supports the status quo instead of exposing everyone to stuff they might want.
Targeted ads supports the status quo instead of exposing everyone to stuff they might want.
Targeted ads are much better at exposing people to new products they could want to try than non targeted ads, which appeal to the lowest common denominator. You're actually asking for better targeted ads for your gf
Should exposing thoughts without fresh insight be downvoted?
aaroninsf(1)
> ignores the actual ethical problems (e.g. large-scale collection of personal information)
I find it ironic to see this brought up as the first example of problems, when this is exactly what Google's FLoC intends to solve. The same FLoC that has so vocally been rejected by HN recently.
I find it ironic to see this brought up as the first example of problems, when this is exactly what Google's FLoC intends to solve. The same FLoC that has so vocally been rejected by HN recently.
People on HN usually aren’t fans of FLoC precisely because it doesn’t solve that problem, in addition to creating new ones (see https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-...).
I don’t see irony there!
I don’t see irony there!
Unfortunately, Doubleclick/Google doesn't get the benefit of the doubt when declaring their intention to respect privacy. They burned that bridge. Many, many times.
The criticism of FLoC is that it makes profiling a lot easier because a website can access the ID with javascript.
And there are also a lot of design questions remaining that Google hasn't answered or is not sure about.
Eg. How will ad bidding work with FLoC?
Finally, and most importantly as it relates to this post - Google pays an enormous amount of money to employees to spend their time and intelligence on building better profiling tools. Building profiling tools is something ethically questionable because of the damage that can be done.
And there are also a lot of design questions remaining that Google hasn't answered or is not sure about.
Eg. How will ad bidding work with FLoC?
Finally, and most importantly as it relates to this post - Google pays an enormous amount of money to employees to spend their time and intelligence on building better profiling tools. Building profiling tools is something ethically questionable because of the damage that can be done.
> How will ad bidding work with FLoC?
I don't work on FLoC, but why wouldn't bidding handle it just like any other signal? For example, here's where it is in the OpenRTB docs: https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/rtb/openrtb-... An advertiser could take it into account in considering whether they want to bid and how much.
I don't work on FLoC, but why wouldn't bidding handle it just like any other signal? For example, here's where it is in the OpenRTB docs: https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/rtb/openrtb-... An advertiser could take it into account in considering whether they want to bid and how much.
How would company A know you they wanna bid on the ad? How do they know this FLoC ID represents people with interest in their product?
I think I have an idea. So by visiting site A, A gets your cohort and now there is somewhere a "central store" or register. Using that A can now do ad bids for that entire cohort to reach others.
But where is that central store? Is Google running that?
Might also work fundamentally different.
I think I have an idea. So by visiting site A, A gets your cohort and now there is somewhere a "central store" or register. Using that A can now do ad bids for that entire cohort to reach others.
But where is that central store? Is Google running that?
Might also work fundamentally different.
One way an independent publisher could use FLoC is for "lookalike" targeting. For example, if your best customers often have IDs D4W1 or JQ82, you could choose to target ads at those IDs.
Some entity might choose to run a "store" like you're describing, but there's no reason there would only need to be one.
It looks to me like Chrome is proposing a low-level feature that anyone can build more sophisticated products on top of.
Some entity might choose to run a "store" like you're describing, but there's no reason there would only need to be one.
It looks to me like Chrome is proposing a low-level feature that anyone can build more sophisticated products on top of.
Many of us believe that targeted ads without prior opt-in are unethical regardless of how they're implemented. Creating new ways to track users without opt-in is just as unethical.
The classic: "make something extremely bad, then roll back some of that, and just make it worse, and people will praise it".
Same here:
- Google and Facebook have turned ads into 24/7 surveillance of everything people do
- Now Google roll backs some of it by saying, "with FLoC we can only surveil groups of people 24/7"
- we are expected to praise them for finding a "solution"
Same here:
- Google and Facebook have turned ads into 24/7 surveillance of everything people do
- Now Google roll backs some of it by saying, "with FLoC we can only surveil groups of people 24/7"
- we are expected to praise them for finding a "solution"
are all more user hostile for my use cases
Sure, your use cases. Not other people's though, and we don't get a choice.
Sure, your use cases. Not other people's though, and we don't get a choice.
Your idea about paying a yearly subscription vs having advertising presents a false dichotomy. Since the internet is a public good, search functionality could be reasonably delivered for cents on the dollar by a public utility.
So you don't use an ad blocker?
But this model is the reason something like Trump and Russian/Chinese medelling happens. Why not reject the advertising model and the payment model until something better comes along? Businesses aren't people. They'll just work out how to make money eventually.
> Why not reject the advertising model and the payment model until something better comes along?
The Internet Archive is a great example of this. A non-profit that relies neither on advertising revenue nor subscription revenue from individual users, and instead thrives on income for providing archival services and grants from organisations that recognise the public good it is providing.
The Internet Archive is a great example of this. A non-profit that relies neither on advertising revenue nor subscription revenue from individual users, and instead thrives on income for providing archival services and grants from organisations that recognise the public good it is providing.
I'd like for donation to be the predominant way to support digital work in the future. But paying with a card online is pretty hasslesome and micropayments will cause so many issues anyway that it kind of feels like a pipe dream. Stuff like Signal and Internet Archive are excellent tools that may not make all the money in the world do achieve their goals well whilst, at least for the time being, being financially stable.
Donors aren't always benevolent, especially if there are a few 'whales'.
> I've been using Google Search for over 20 years for free which is pretty amazing. Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No.
And that is the point, where I would say: "No, you have not been using Google for free. You have paid with something. That something is your personal data and privacy of others."
Why privacy of others? Well, because by using Google, you are actually supporting their business model, which is online stalking and selling info about you basically.
If no one was using their search (and other services), then what would be the point for businesses to throw money at them for placing ads there? Every user counts in the end. Many people keep thinking, that they alone will not make any difference, but that is, where people go wrong in many scenarios. The typical: "But if only I do x then it wont be so bad." or "If only I stop doing x, it wont change the big picture." If everyone thinks that way, then nothing ever will change of course. It is a feedback loop, or vicious cycle, or whatever it is called. The right idea is to start doing, what one can do oneself. And that is to stop using services such as Google search.
Personally, if I had the choice between paying money every year to have a non-stalker Internet search for the whole world, ensuring everyone's privacy when searching, I would rather choose that Internet. I would prefer it over an Internet, which we have today, where I need to arm up my browser to the teeth, to avoid being tracked everywhere, being unable to access a lot of content, because knowingly or unknowingly people put it behind stalker-walls and paywalls. I also think that your suggested numbers of 120 or even 2400$ are wildly exaggerated. It would probably be much more like an Internet tax, that everyone had to pay and that is lowered or increased based on your personal economical situation.
And that is the point, where I would say: "No, you have not been using Google for free. You have paid with something. That something is your personal data and privacy of others."
Why privacy of others? Well, because by using Google, you are actually supporting their business model, which is online stalking and selling info about you basically.
If no one was using their search (and other services), then what would be the point for businesses to throw money at them for placing ads there? Every user counts in the end. Many people keep thinking, that they alone will not make any difference, but that is, where people go wrong in many scenarios. The typical: "But if only I do x then it wont be so bad." or "If only I stop doing x, it wont change the big picture." If everyone thinks that way, then nothing ever will change of course. It is a feedback loop, or vicious cycle, or whatever it is called. The right idea is to start doing, what one can do oneself. And that is to stop using services such as Google search.
Personally, if I had the choice between paying money every year to have a non-stalker Internet search for the whole world, ensuring everyone's privacy when searching, I would rather choose that Internet. I would prefer it over an Internet, which we have today, where I need to arm up my browser to the teeth, to avoid being tracked everywhere, being unable to access a lot of content, because knowingly or unknowingly people put it behind stalker-walls and paywalls. I also think that your suggested numbers of 120 or even 2400$ are wildly exaggerated. It would probably be much more like an Internet tax, that everyone had to pay and that is lowered or increased based on your personal economical situation.
I’m sorry, but the reason he is getting voted isn’t “ads vs no-ads”, it’s the inability to acknowledge that ads are not the problem.
Ads are fine. Stalking people to “optimise” those ads isn’t.
Ads are fine. Stalking people to “optimise” those ads isn’t.
The problem with YouTube Premium is unnecessary and anticompetitive bundling.
They ask €11.99/month for Premium (no ads) + YouTube Music. Or €9.99/month just for YouTube Music. Given that I already pay for another service, I don't want either of these plans.
It's not possible to get only YouTube Premium (avoid ads), even if the marginal cost of ad-free YouTube experience is only €2/month, according to Google. I think €24/year is a very reasonable price to pay for YouTube, €144 is not.
They ask €11.99/month for Premium (no ads) + YouTube Music. Or €9.99/month just for YouTube Music. Given that I already pay for another service, I don't want either of these plans.
It's not possible to get only YouTube Premium (avoid ads), even if the marginal cost of ad-free YouTube experience is only €2/month, according to Google. I think €24/year is a very reasonable price to pay for YouTube, €144 is not.
You wouldn't pay $2400 for 20 years of a user-centric search engine that is actively trying to find you the best results, rather than try to consume your attention for as long as possible so that it can show you more ad impressions?
The other side of this is that someone has actively spent $2400 worth of ad-buy to show you ads for the last 20 years.
I don't think the other-side of the argument has been explored well enough; I'd love to see what is possible without these ulterior motives controlling what you see and hear.
The other side of this is that someone has actively spent $2400 worth of ad-buy to show you ads for the last 20 years.
I don't think the other-side of the argument has been explored well enough; I'd love to see what is possible without these ulterior motives controlling what you see and hear.
There are plenty of good ads. And Ads is also news in a sense, it is there to solve discovery problem. Just like your $10 ticket to see all the latest wares, which are all Ads.
We know what bad ads are, not in terms of ads quality but the amount of tracking and personal information gathered and sold across different companies.
We know what bad ads are, not in terms of ads quality but the amount of tracking and personal information gathered and sold across different companies.
> Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles? No.
But that's an outrageous sum. I'm sure you also wouldn't sacrifice your first-born son on Google's altar either. Meanwhile, would you pay $5-10/year ($100-$200 total)? That would probably cut Google's revenue by two-thirds - one-third, but still they would have plenty. I believe FB averaged under $10/year/active user in all the years I looked at (which ignores the most recent years).
Meanwhile, I guess I'll just leave my adblocker installed and take the subsidy.
But that's an outrageous sum. I'm sure you also wouldn't sacrifice your first-born son on Google's altar either. Meanwhile, would you pay $5-10/year ($100-$200 total)? That would probably cut Google's revenue by two-thirds - one-third, but still they would have plenty. I believe FB averaged under $10/year/active user in all the years I looked at (which ignores the most recent years).
Meanwhile, I guess I'll just leave my adblocker installed and take the subsidy.
> all more user hostile for my use cases
Why are these user-hostile? I see very little friction to any of them - $10/year YT subscription disappears into the background (that's, what, two moderately expensive coffee drinks? if you spend just a single day watching educational content, the obtained value will easily exceed $10), per-search microtransactions would be so cheap that you could just turn on the "always transparently pay for this" feature, and any YouTube video of reasonable size that is worth watching is definitely worth spending the few seconds of time to assess and then click the "donate to get access" button.
What, you're saying that these things don't exist? Then that's a problem with currently available implementations of microtransactions, not the concept of microtransactions itself.
It's easy, from a technical perspective, to design a low-friction microtransaction system.
> Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles?
That's a price problem, not a pricing model problem. Microtransactions/subscriptions are irrelevant - that price is so far above the actual cost of your Google searches that the equivalent in terms of the current model (you pay with your data) is that Google demands your SSN in order for you to search - and the results in both cases will be the same: users will use a different product.
Edit: Because this comment has gotten strawmanned in the same way repeatedly: I did not say that the ad-funded model should go away, nor do I believe that - my comment was purely a response to the idea that microtransactions are infeasible, and nobody carefully reading it would think otherwise.
Why are these user-hostile? I see very little friction to any of them - $10/year YT subscription disappears into the background (that's, what, two moderately expensive coffee drinks? if you spend just a single day watching educational content, the obtained value will easily exceed $10), per-search microtransactions would be so cheap that you could just turn on the "always transparently pay for this" feature, and any YouTube video of reasonable size that is worth watching is definitely worth spending the few seconds of time to assess and then click the "donate to get access" button.
What, you're saying that these things don't exist? Then that's a problem with currently available implementations of microtransactions, not the concept of microtransactions itself.
It's easy, from a technical perspective, to design a low-friction microtransaction system.
> Would I rather replay history and pay ~$120 every year (~$2400 ?) to search for web articles?
That's a price problem, not a pricing model problem. Microtransactions/subscriptions are irrelevant - that price is so far above the actual cost of your Google searches that the equivalent in terms of the current model (you pay with your data) is that Google demands your SSN in order for you to search - and the results in both cases will be the same: users will use a different product.
Edit: Because this comment has gotten strawmanned in the same way repeatedly: I did not say that the ad-funded model should go away, nor do I believe that - my comment was purely a response to the idea that microtransactions are infeasible, and nobody carefully reading it would think otherwise.
> I see very little friction to any of them - $10/year YT subscription disappears into the background
So there are several problems with this:
1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason. For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative;
2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you. That's a far more significant cost for the majority of Internet users who are in the developing world. Cost aside, there may be issues with even having the payment infrastructure to actually pay for that (eg due to sanctions or US foreign policy).
I agree with the post's author: there are significant benefits to an ad-supported model and high on that list is low friction (paying for any service is a huge point of friction) and that those in the developing world get highly-equivalent services to the developed world.
There are definitely problems with advertising. The over-collection of data is of course one. But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
So there are several problems with this:
1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason. For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative;
2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you. That's a far more significant cost for the majority of Internet users who are in the developing world. Cost aside, there may be issues with even having the payment infrastructure to actually pay for that (eg due to sanctions or US foreign policy).
I agree with the post's author: there are significant benefits to an ad-supported model and high on that list is low friction (paying for any service is a huge point of friction) and that those in the developing world get highly-equivalent services to the developed world.
There are definitely problems with advertising. The over-collection of data is of course one. But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
>You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason.
fyi... That was my fault because I later edited it without realizing others had quickly quoted it. I made a typo "$10/year" which was clearly a mistake because no mainstream service for videos/music/books charges 84 cents a month.
fyi... That was my fault because I later edited it without realizing others had quickly quoted it. I made a typo "$10/year" which was clearly a mistake because no mainstream service for videos/music/books charges 84 cents a month.
> 1. You restated the above commenter's cost from $10/month to $10/year for some reason.
Parent's comment originally read $10/year.
> For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative
I don't see how the first part of your statement at all supports the second. Google's revenue now, with many different services in wildly varying stages of profitability, has very little connection to the hypothetical subscription price that would be applied to a service that is now ad-funded - you seem to be engaging in wild speculation.
> 2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you.
First, YouTube is a luxury service. Second, I specifically addressed the problem of "it's too expensive" later on in my comment, with "That's a price problem, not a pricing model problem." - which still holds. Third, market segmentation is a thing. Fourth, those in the developing world will pay with their personal information - which can be far more devastating if e.g. they're a dissident living in an oppressive regime. Fifth, I never said the ad model should be removed.
You seem to be making the assumption that I am suggesting that the ad-funded model be replaced with the subscription/microtransaction models - I do not, and my comment was carefully worded to not make that claim. I specifically believe that models where payment is made in money should always be available, with ads as an option - not that the former should be completely removed.
> paying for any service is a huge point of friction
False. I can relatively easily design a microtransaction service that has very little friction for payment. Meanwhile, there already exist many extremely low-friction payment services. If you have a credit card in the US with the new contactless payment technology, it's extremely easy to pay for things - you just swipe your card. If you have a Google Play account, it's similarly easy to purchase a new app. If you have a subscription service with auto-renew, paying for another month/year is literally frictionless - there's absolutely no interaction necessary.
> But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
See previous statement about your mistaken assumption that I said that advertising should be eliminated. Attacking a strawman does nobody any good.
Parent's comment originally read $10/year.
> For context, Google's annual revenue seems to be $180B. That makes $10/month far closer to the likely alternative
I don't see how the first part of your statement at all supports the second. Google's revenue now, with many different services in wildly varying stages of profitability, has very little connection to the hypothetical subscription price that would be applied to a service that is now ad-funded - you seem to be engaging in wild speculation.
> 2. That $10/year or $10/month "disappears into the background" for you.
First, YouTube is a luxury service. Second, I specifically addressed the problem of "it's too expensive" later on in my comment, with "That's a price problem, not a pricing model problem." - which still holds. Third, market segmentation is a thing. Fourth, those in the developing world will pay with their personal information - which can be far more devastating if e.g. they're a dissident living in an oppressive regime. Fifth, I never said the ad model should be removed.
You seem to be making the assumption that I am suggesting that the ad-funded model be replaced with the subscription/microtransaction models - I do not, and my comment was carefully worded to not make that claim. I specifically believe that models where payment is made in money should always be available, with ads as an option - not that the former should be completely removed.
> paying for any service is a huge point of friction
False. I can relatively easily design a microtransaction service that has very little friction for payment. Meanwhile, there already exist many extremely low-friction payment services. If you have a credit card in the US with the new contactless payment technology, it's extremely easy to pay for things - you just swipe your card. If you have a Google Play account, it's similarly easy to purchase a new app. If you have a subscription service with auto-renew, paying for another month/year is literally frictionless - there's absolutely no interaction necessary.
> But it seems convenient and disingenuous to overlook the benefits as they're inconvenient to a shallow anti-advertising diatribe.
See previous statement about your mistaken assumption that I said that advertising should be eliminated. Attacking a strawman does nobody any good.
> $10/year YT subscription disappears into the background
I used to live off of $7,000 a year. $10/year is something I'd seriously think about.
I'd be careful about generalizing a fixed cost subscription's impact. Typically, it will hit poorer communities harder than wealthy communities.
I used to live off of $7,000 a year. $10/year is something I'd seriously think about.
I'd be careful about generalizing a fixed cost subscription's impact. Typically, it will hit poorer communities harder than wealthy communities.
Those who need the $10/year can decide to instead give up their personal data using the ad-funded model, which I explicitly did not say should be abolished, because I don't believe that. I was making an argument against the idea that microtransactions are themselves somehow infeasible/bad - nothing more.
> It's easy, from a technical perspective, to design a low-friction microtransaction system.
Oh? People have been trying since at least https://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/Papers/246/ (1995)
Oh? People have been trying since at least https://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/Papers/246/ (1995)
You seem to be implying that solutions to problems succeed on their technical merit alone. This is trivially false. I used the phrasing "from a technical perspective" very intentionally, for a reason.
And, in the specific case of microtransactions, it's well-known that consumers like cheap and free things - which causes them to flock to ad-funded services because said services make it as difficult as possible to see what data you're paying for those services with.
The reason why microservices have failed is largely due to the negative externalities (e.g. massive personal information harvesting and sale) being concealed from users. If you showed users how much of their data was being harvested, and who it was being sold to (transitively), how many do you think would continue to use an ad-supported product if a reasonably-priced paid alternative was available?
Edit: to provide a specific example of a somewhat-low-friction microtransaction system (that could easily be scaled to "extremely low friction" with non-architectural UI tweaks) that I've had experience with, I present to you Blendle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle
These are not hard technical problems.
And, in the specific case of microtransactions, it's well-known that consumers like cheap and free things - which causes them to flock to ad-funded services because said services make it as difficult as possible to see what data you're paying for those services with.
The reason why microservices have failed is largely due to the negative externalities (e.g. massive personal information harvesting and sale) being concealed from users. If you showed users how much of their data was being harvested, and who it was being sold to (transitively), how many do you think would continue to use an ad-supported product if a reasonably-priced paid alternative was available?
Edit: to provide a specific example of a somewhat-low-friction microtransaction system (that could easily be scaled to "extremely low friction" with non-architectural UI tweaks) that I've had experience with, I present to you Blendle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle
These are not hard technical problems.
A big issue with micropayments is taxes.
If we are using micropayments to let users directly pay a site for views of that site's articles or for skipping ads on those articles, then the jurisdiction that the user is in is likely to consider that a sale in their jurisdiction and want the site to collect VAT or sales tax. If people from 50 different countries purchase articles, you might end up having to deal with taxes in 50 different countries! (Even countries that have thresholds of the form "no tax unless total sales in the country are above $X" might require you to register there and fill out a form each quarter saying you didn't meet the threshold).
The site doesn't have that problem if instead they sell ads and get their money from the advertisers or from the ad network. That money is taxed, but it is taxed as income in the location of the site, not as a sale where the users are. Having people visit your site from 50 different countries doesn't increase the complexity of your tax situation.
Assuming we can't get widespread adoption of more micropayment friendly rules for online purchased of content access and/or ad skipping, there is a way to use micropayments for that while avoiding the tax jurisdiction explosion.
That is the imposition of a middleman service. It sounds like Blendle might be such a middleman.
You buy articles from the middleman, making your micropayment to the middleman. The middleman license the content for resale from the publishers and pays a royalty based on volume.
If you arrange this right when the user buys an article the middleman is the seller for VAT or sales tax purposes and so it is the middleman that has to deal with all the different jurisdictions. The publishers only have to deal with their own jurisdiction and perhaps the jurisdiction of the middleman.
But then you have the issue of who will be the middleman? I don't think we want it to end up like streaming movies, where we've got Netflix and Disney+ and Peacock and Hulu and Prime and Google and HBO Max and a whole bunch of others and you need to use more than one of them to see all the content you want.
We probably need at most 3 or 4 big middlemen that are easy enough for publishers to use that most sites that want to offer a pay per article option are signed up with all of those middlemen.
My guess is that it might end up being the same companies that provide "sign on with" services that end up providing micropayment middlemen services and/or companies that already provide big online stores that sell internationally.
That would be Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
If we are using micropayments to let users directly pay a site for views of that site's articles or for skipping ads on those articles, then the jurisdiction that the user is in is likely to consider that a sale in their jurisdiction and want the site to collect VAT or sales tax. If people from 50 different countries purchase articles, you might end up having to deal with taxes in 50 different countries! (Even countries that have thresholds of the form "no tax unless total sales in the country are above $X" might require you to register there and fill out a form each quarter saying you didn't meet the threshold).
The site doesn't have that problem if instead they sell ads and get their money from the advertisers or from the ad network. That money is taxed, but it is taxed as income in the location of the site, not as a sale where the users are. Having people visit your site from 50 different countries doesn't increase the complexity of your tax situation.
Assuming we can't get widespread adoption of more micropayment friendly rules for online purchased of content access and/or ad skipping, there is a way to use micropayments for that while avoiding the tax jurisdiction explosion.
That is the imposition of a middleman service. It sounds like Blendle might be such a middleman.
You buy articles from the middleman, making your micropayment to the middleman. The middleman license the content for resale from the publishers and pays a royalty based on volume.
If you arrange this right when the user buys an article the middleman is the seller for VAT or sales tax purposes and so it is the middleman that has to deal with all the different jurisdictions. The publishers only have to deal with their own jurisdiction and perhaps the jurisdiction of the middleman.
But then you have the issue of who will be the middleman? I don't think we want it to end up like streaming movies, where we've got Netflix and Disney+ and Peacock and Hulu and Prime and Google and HBO Max and a whole bunch of others and you need to use more than one of them to see all the content you want.
We probably need at most 3 or 4 big middlemen that are easy enough for publishers to use that most sites that want to offer a pay per article option are signed up with all of those middlemen.
My guess is that it might end up being the same companies that provide "sign on with" services that end up providing micropayment middlemen services and/or companies that already provide big online stores that sell internationally.
That would be Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
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A lot of this comes down to preferences, and my preference ordering would be:
Ads that attempt to take me all the way from browsing-->discovery-->potential purchase-->purchase I view as always bad. Leave me alone while I'm browsing. Ads that attempt to take me from discovery-->potential purchase I view as ok but ineffective. At least throw a promo code in that ad next time, please and thank you. Ads that successfully take me from discovery-->potential purchase-->purchase I view as ok since my utility is higher having purchased the product given the payload of the ad (and I wouldn't have purchased the product having not gotten the ad).
One thing then from my (not necessarily everyones) preferences is that displaying an ad to me should only potentially be done if the conditional probability of me being in discovery mode is higher than the conditional probability of me being in browsing mode. And then it comes down to what of me is in that conditioning set. Some very fuzzy anonymous slice of me, well ok. But better not be PI in there...
But these are just my preferences, and they may not be representative. So there's an aggregation problem also. In general I'd also prefer if brands shifted the marginal marketing dollar towards channels where the disutility of showing me an ad when they estimate I'm in discovery mode but I'm actually in browsing mode is lowest - so (in my mind) when possible put more in influencer marketing versus google display network for instance. Ideally this preference is evident in brand's roi calcs so it's internalized.
Ads that attempt to take me all the way from browsing-->discovery-->potential purchase-->purchase I view as always bad. Leave me alone while I'm browsing. Ads that attempt to take me from discovery-->potential purchase I view as ok but ineffective. At least throw a promo code in that ad next time, please and thank you. Ads that successfully take me from discovery-->potential purchase-->purchase I view as ok since my utility is higher having purchased the product given the payload of the ad (and I wouldn't have purchased the product having not gotten the ad).
One thing then from my (not necessarily everyones) preferences is that displaying an ad to me should only potentially be done if the conditional probability of me being in discovery mode is higher than the conditional probability of me being in browsing mode. And then it comes down to what of me is in that conditioning set. Some very fuzzy anonymous slice of me, well ok. But better not be PI in there...
But these are just my preferences, and they may not be representative. So there's an aggregation problem also. In general I'd also prefer if brands shifted the marginal marketing dollar towards channels where the disutility of showing me an ad when they estimate I'm in discovery mode but I'm actually in browsing mode is lowest - so (in my mind) when possible put more in influencer marketing versus google display network for instance. Ideally this preference is evident in brand's roi calcs so it's internalized.
Once again (I'm getting hoarse from shouting this): Ads are fine. Having ads where I am looking at something because I am interested in it is fine.
Tracking me is not.
Are we talking ad-tech, or tracking-tech?
Tracking me is not.
Are we talking ad-tech, or tracking-tech?
I don't think ads fund open internet, it does fund the huge valuation of internet companies though. Why internet company's valuation is so much higher than the shops on high-streets? it does not have to be.
I don't hate ads, they are useful. I use Instagram for ads, I follow restaurants and hotels. They are just some information. But I don't want to be targeted.
I don't hate ads, they are useful. I use Instagram for ads, I follow restaurants and hotels. They are just some information. But I don't want to be targeted.
The late great Bill Hicks perfectly summarized my feelings towards advertisers/marketers.
There is nothing wrong with ads per-say, it is the real time bidding and targeted ads that I have problems with.
And of course malvertising such as the one which compromised my sisters laptop with a fileless rootkit a few years back.
Ads and analytics are not allowed on my home network.
There is nothing wrong with ads per-say, it is the real time bidding and targeted ads that I have problems with.
And of course malvertising such as the one which compromised my sisters laptop with a fileless rootkit a few years back.
Ads and analytics are not allowed on my home network.
It's not because it's funded by advertising that it's cheaper for the user, in the end, the consumer pays for the advertising when they purchase something
I came here to say this. I don't think that advertising is inherently unethical, but profit makes unethical behavior in advertising inevitable. The article talks about the scenario where I have a product that I think people will want but don't know about, so I'm giving them information about it. Win/win/win -- the site gets some money for the work they put into the content that they care about, I get (net positive) money from my customer, the customer gets a product that they wanted anyway, and access to the site they were interested in reading. But it's almost always more like I have some money and want more, and it's much more profitable to use shady means to manipulate people who don't really want my product that they do, so I will pay site owners to facilitate the manipulation, both by giving me user data and optimizing for their attention instead of the content that they care about (more manipulation), and the user/customer loses many times over, because they have a product that they didn't want, paid more for it than it was worth, had degraded browsing experience of the content they were interested in, and have sacrificed privacy in the process.
Unless publicity created by advertising enables economies of scale lowering unit cost.
I think to address "why do you work on ads" and only addressing the positive points misses half of the question. The other half is what harms do ads cause. He addressed bandwidth concerns which they're working on mitigating with ad vendors, but biggest problem with ads is the number of wasted attention cycles by people who do not find ads relevant or otherwise be interested at all in buying anything displayed in ads. If you calculate life lost on the internet due to this factor alone that number may justify banning almost all types of ads immediately.
Additionally, opening with I give half of my money to charity so leave me alone, should be a red flag that what's to follow is not a strong argument for the point the author is trying to make.
Additionally, opening with I give half of my money to charity so leave me alone, should be a red flag that what's to follow is not a strong argument for the point the author is trying to make.
Aren't effective ads good for society? Don't they make us prosperous? Jobs are created, people get cheaper goods, many small businesses emerge?
You're begging the question. Are they a net good? Do they make us prosperous? Do they create jobs, etc?
Because there's a strong case to be made that they:
- exploit the credulous, mentally-deficient and emotionally unstable
- carry significant externalities in the form of personal data collection & malware
- contribute to psychological distress (anxiety, degraded sense of self-worth, poor body image, etc)
- cause financial distress by encouraging unnecessary spending
- act as a vector for selling harmful products (tobacco, predatory loans, etc.)
etc.
If you want to take the consequentialist approach, you have to contend with these questions as well. You'll also have to admit that the net balance is unclear at best.
Because there's a strong case to be made that they:
- exploit the credulous, mentally-deficient and emotionally unstable
- carry significant externalities in the form of personal data collection & malware
- contribute to psychological distress (anxiety, degraded sense of self-worth, poor body image, etc)
- cause financial distress by encouraging unnecessary spending
- act as a vector for selling harmful products (tobacco, predatory loans, etc.)
etc.
If you want to take the consequentialist approach, you have to contend with these questions as well. You'll also have to admit that the net balance is unclear at best.
Yeah, there are people who overshop, I'm sorry, but so what? What's the alternative? Ban ads? Let the government decide what should be sold / not sold? I believe it should be left to the individual what they consume and buy with their own earned money. No one has the right to say that they can't buy tobacco, or take a predatory loan.
"personal data collection & malware" - you agree to those conditions. In return you get amazing free products. Don't want that? There are many alternatives (Linux, Chromium / Firefox, duckduckgo, telegram and other alternative open-source products).
"personal data collection & malware" - you agree to those conditions. In return you get amazing free products. Don't want that? There are many alternatives (Linux, Chromium / Firefox, duckduckgo, telegram and other alternative open-source products).
The point, which you (deliberately?) miss, is that you have simply declared ads to be worthwhile, and are now working backwards to argue your conclusion. You are begging the question.
I gave the reasons why I think ads are good.
Jobs are not necessarily good for society, nor are cheaper goods. We could have dirt cheap asbestos and cigarettes, that's not good for society. We can have billions of jobs making and filling dirt holes, that's also not good for society.
That aside, the effectiveness of ads are orthogonal to the quality or "good"-ness of jobs and products. They just seem, to me, like more of an amoral thing that can be used to sell something else, good or bad.
That aside, the effectiveness of ads are orthogonal to the quality or "good"-ness of jobs and products. They just seem, to me, like more of an amoral thing that can be used to sell something else, good or bad.
Free markets don't work like that. We would only be having billions of jobs filling dirt holes if it produced more value to the society than it extracted it from.
I'm mainly responding to the part of your comment noting jobs created and cheaper goods as an intrinsically net positive ("good") for society. I agree that the free market does not tend to create completely useless jobs, but such jobs can and do exist in a society. Most economies are not simply free markets, many are partly directed or interfered with (depending on your perspective) by governments. This can result in some pointless jobs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make-work_job) or mis-allocation of resources toward less productive work (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra).
Or, let's say the jobs created are for producing more cigarettes and asbestos. Do you think that producing more cigarettes and asbestos, which requires more jobs, is "good" for society?
Or, let's say the jobs created are for producing more cigarettes and asbestos. Do you think that producing more cigarettes and asbestos, which requires more jobs, is "good" for society?
No, we would have those jobs if they produced more value to whoever is asking for those holes to be dug.
And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in.
And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in.
> No, we would have those jobs if they produced more value to whoever is asking for those holes to be dug.
Can you provide example of businesses where employees produce value just for the owners of the business but not the society in general?
> And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in.
What are you proposing? That some entity tells what to read, what to buy, what to do? Why not just leave it to individuals to figure it out?
Can you provide example of businesses where employees produce value just for the owners of the business but not the society in general?
> And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in.
What are you proposing? That some entity tells what to read, what to buy, what to do? Why not just leave it to individuals to figure it out?
> Can you provide example of businesses where employees produce value just for the owners of the business but not the society in general?
Much of the financial sector. M&A firms. Lobbying. SEO. Fake web traffic generators. App/game companies that only clone others. Content mills. Collection agencies. Old growth loggers. Ticket scalpers.
It's a little tricky because the most common scenario provides benefit to somebody, even if the overall social cost is far higher than that benefit. The customers of drug dealers want the product. Sleazy personal injury lawyers' clients gain from their services. Crypto miners.
>> And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in. > What are you proposing? That some entity tells what to read, what to buy, what to do? Why not just leave it to individuals to figure it out?
Uh, I'm not sure how you got there from what I said. I could make an argument for regulation, but I didn't.
We live an existence of partial information, and that's very exploitable. "Clickbait" is pejorative because it works but the expected payoff is not there. We are where the "free" market put us, though the market is not very free -- there's regulatory capture, information inequalities, and massive externalities that would not exist without the previous two.
I don't need to propose a guaranteed-effective fix in order to make the point that much economic activity provides zero or negative value.
If I had to point in the direction of a solution, I'd say that antitrust laws are vaguely the right idea, except they are based on very outdated notions of harm to consumers, and are also subject to regulatory capture. We need to make serious attempts at capturing more externalities. Even something as straightforward as a carbon tax is hard to define and implement, but it's the right idea; we need something similar for the massive damage done to people's time and attention, to civil society, to the commons. Capitalism got us here; it won't get us out. Although it's one of the tools that can and should be used.
Much of the financial sector. M&A firms. Lobbying. SEO. Fake web traffic generators. App/game companies that only clone others. Content mills. Collection agencies. Old growth loggers. Ticket scalpers.
It's a little tricky because the most common scenario provides benefit to somebody, even if the overall social cost is far higher than that benefit. The customers of drug dealers want the product. Sleazy personal injury lawyers' clients gain from their services. Crypto miners.
>> And that's the reality we presently live in. It's not holes, it's watching ads and reading things that aren't worth our time and buying things that don't provide us value. Click on a link, dig a hole. Read the mindless alarm-inducing article, fill the hole in. > What are you proposing? That some entity tells what to read, what to buy, what to do? Why not just leave it to individuals to figure it out?
Uh, I'm not sure how you got there from what I said. I could make an argument for regulation, but I didn't.
We live an existence of partial information, and that's very exploitable. "Clickbait" is pejorative because it works but the expected payoff is not there. We are where the "free" market put us, though the market is not very free -- there's regulatory capture, information inequalities, and massive externalities that would not exist without the previous two.
I don't need to propose a guaranteed-effective fix in order to make the point that much economic activity provides zero or negative value.
If I had to point in the direction of a solution, I'd say that antitrust laws are vaguely the right idea, except they are based on very outdated notions of harm to consumers, and are also subject to regulatory capture. We need to make serious attempts at capturing more externalities. Even something as straightforward as a carbon tax is hard to define and implement, but it's the right idea; we need something similar for the massive damage done to people's time and attention, to civil society, to the commons. Capitalism got us here; it won't get us out. Although it's one of the tools that can and should be used.
How did you come to the conclusion that people get cheaper goods? Cost of ads has to be included in the product pricing.
Effective ads lead to better margins and easier to conduct mass production.
It's a zero sum game. Effective ads steal leads from technically better products.
This whole post assumes the only options which can conceivably exist for monetising content are: (1) ads, or (2) paying for single pageviews (and (3) doing it for free). Obviously this is a fallacy: there are numerous alternative ways to do things.
Maybe you could list ones you think could work...? I've heard several proposed, none of them make a lot of sense to me. Patreon? Government grants? Or what?
Sure! One idea I like is this: you pay a small, fixed subscription on top of your internet bill. This amount is then given proportionally to the websites/services you visit.
This is nice for several reasons: even a small amount (~3-5$) gives a similar or higher revenue for content creators than ads do (a very rough back-of-the-envelope estimate based on youtube CPM). Plus, there's no problem with the friction of paying for things: you pay the same, regardless of watching 1 or 1000 videos (the netflix model, the cable tv model, heck any subscription model). Plus of course: no ads :)
This is nice for several reasons: even a small amount (~3-5$) gives a similar or higher revenue for content creators than ads do (a very rough back-of-the-envelope estimate based on youtube CPM). Plus, there's no problem with the friction of paying for things: you pay the same, regardless of watching 1 or 1000 videos (the netflix model, the cable tv model, heck any subscription model). Plus of course: no ads :)
Proportionally? How does that work? Is it based on time of usage? So sites will now have an incentive to keep you on the site as long as possible? Not sure I like that.
Also, do people who use the internet for half an hour a week pay the same as those that spend all day online? Not sure I like that either.
I do like the general idea, I suppose, but trying to make it reward people who actually add value, proportional to that value, is not an easy problem.
Also, do people who use the internet for half an hour a week pay the same as those that spend all day online? Not sure I like that either.
I do like the general idea, I suppose, but trying to make it reward people who actually add value, proportional to that value, is not an easy problem.
The article states the two options:
Paywalls vs. ads.
Now it's not that those are the only two conceivable options, it's that those are the only two options that are reasonably successful at scale.
I'm sure you could think up a donation system, or do something similar to what the Brave browser does, but those do not scale. Of course if you have some alternative approaches that work and produce viable business models, it would be great to hear them.
Paywalls vs. ads.
Now it's not that those are the only two conceivable options, it's that those are the only two options that are reasonably successful at scale.
I'm sure you could think up a donation system, or do something similar to what the Brave browser does, but those do not scale. Of course if you have some alternative approaches that work and produce viable business models, it would be great to hear them.
What do you mean by "scale" in this context? I fail to see how, having not tried alternative approaches, you conclude that they do not "scale".
This could be the same as "Why I work on Healthcare".
There's a wide range from honest honorable work to complete scumbag devil.
There's a wide range from honest honorable work to complete scumbag devil.
I didnt see anything about what I consider to be the major drawback of an ad- driven internet: the content you get skews heavily toward attention grabbing crap instead of anything with deeper value. There are exceptions, but advertising incentives clicks and views, and perverts what could be a great information sharing medium, making it all about outrage, escalation, yelling the loudest or framing things in the most provocative way possible.
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I want to make an interesting meta-comment here:
One of the common criticisms of ads is how they impact privacy. I'm not going to pick any particular comment there, because I agree with some and disagree with others and find some to be incoherent. But the core issue is that ads (and the associated tracking and data collection) are an unethical privacy intrusion.
I think that some of the arguments (especially the ones I find incoherent) are because some people value privacy for privacy's sake. That is, I usually try to look at my privacy from the perspective of threats I care about. Some people don't do that, they want privacy for the sake of privacy. Privacy as a goal, not as a means to an end of avoiding specific attacks. When I ask these kinds fo people what kinds of privacy "attacks" they're afraid of, I get things that sounds to me like conspiracy theories.
This isn't wrong, it's just fundamentally different than how I approach things. I expect (given that Jeff publishes his salary every year and is super transparent about many things) he's similarly not worried about privacy as a goal, and instead cares about "circumstantial" privacy.
I wonder if this difference in values is part of the disconnect.
I think another part of the disconnect is that once you have insight into an organization, is much easier to see how it actually works. It's very easy to presume bad things as an outsider than an insider. But by the same token, it's somewhat rational for an outsider to not believe an insider who says "no just trust me, we aren't doing that". And so this too isn't an easy thing to fix without some sort of radical transparency on the part of the company (and even then).
One of the common criticisms of ads is how they impact privacy. I'm not going to pick any particular comment there, because I agree with some and disagree with others and find some to be incoherent. But the core issue is that ads (and the associated tracking and data collection) are an unethical privacy intrusion.
I think that some of the arguments (especially the ones I find incoherent) are because some people value privacy for privacy's sake. That is, I usually try to look at my privacy from the perspective of threats I care about. Some people don't do that, they want privacy for the sake of privacy. Privacy as a goal, not as a means to an end of avoiding specific attacks. When I ask these kinds fo people what kinds of privacy "attacks" they're afraid of, I get things that sounds to me like conspiracy theories.
This isn't wrong, it's just fundamentally different than how I approach things. I expect (given that Jeff publishes his salary every year and is super transparent about many things) he's similarly not worried about privacy as a goal, and instead cares about "circumstantial" privacy.
I wonder if this difference in values is part of the disconnect.
I think another part of the disconnect is that once you have insight into an organization, is much easier to see how it actually works. It's very easy to presume bad things as an outsider than an insider. But by the same token, it's somewhat rational for an outsider to not believe an insider who says "no just trust me, we aren't doing that". And so this too isn't an easy thing to fix without some sort of radical transparency on the part of the company (and even then).
Advertisement is mostly a zero-sum game, competing for a limited amount of spending. If one player in a market advertises, they gain while the other players lose roughly the same amount. If the advertising world kept operating as normal, but the ads never displayed anywhere—blank sidebars, blank sponsored content, blank billboards—it would be more pleasant for consumers, and the market as a whole would not be any worse off for it.
Then why stop there? No one needs to make the ads. Everyone employed to design, shoot, and display the ad can serve others instead of working to manipulate them. As long as the transactions keep going as normal, it's a huge win for everybody.
Of course, this is business. Corporations wouldn't spend that money just to subsidize newspapers, television, and page views. In a world without advertisement, tons of content would suddenly lose its revenue stream, without an easy way to monetize attention. Attention would not be profitable on its own.
That's a negative thing on the face, but I believe content which cannot survive by donation or by subscription deserves to die. Netflix survives already without (third-party) advertisement; Facebook, on the other hand, would collapse. But a social network does not need as many engineers as Facebook does. Without competing against ad-based sites, a less bloated, less attention-sucking social network could replace Facebook. And so on for other sites. SEO blogspam would die, whereas useful and interesting newsletters would survive (as demonstrated by Substack). High-quality TV could survive, but game shows and reality TV would be forced to greatly pare down their offerings. Valuable, accurate subscription news would survive, whereas clickbait news would have no more reason to bait clicks.
The alternative to the status quo is that many forms of content would become unprofitable, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Then why stop there? No one needs to make the ads. Everyone employed to design, shoot, and display the ad can serve others instead of working to manipulate them. As long as the transactions keep going as normal, it's a huge win for everybody.
Of course, this is business. Corporations wouldn't spend that money just to subsidize newspapers, television, and page views. In a world without advertisement, tons of content would suddenly lose its revenue stream, without an easy way to monetize attention. Attention would not be profitable on its own.
That's a negative thing on the face, but I believe content which cannot survive by donation or by subscription deserves to die. Netflix survives already without (third-party) advertisement; Facebook, on the other hand, would collapse. But a social network does not need as many engineers as Facebook does. Without competing against ad-based sites, a less bloated, less attention-sucking social network could replace Facebook. And so on for other sites. SEO blogspam would die, whereas useful and interesting newsletters would survive (as demonstrated by Substack). High-quality TV could survive, but game shows and reality TV would be forced to greatly pare down their offerings. Valuable, accurate subscription news would survive, whereas clickbait news would have no more reason to bait clicks.
The alternative to the status quo is that many forms of content would become unprofitable, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
The problem of scattered attention is one that philosophers have been pointing to since thousands of years. Most practices like mindfulness, meditation, yoga help primarily with more conscious attention management. That attention is scattered/captured is not new. What it gets captured by probably changes every decade.
I dislike seeing ads, especially when they are poorly or intentionally designed to block you from doing what you came to site for. And I do have a concern about the amount of detail these companies end up accruing about a user and its implications. I also get distracted by them - but only when I don't have an intention or strong need to focus on the task at hand.
This does not make me think that ads themselves or the model itself is fundamentally bad. A model, ultimately is, as good or bad as its implementation. GMail, Google Maps, Android are some of the things that have changed the landscape in significant and positive ways, and all of them were made possible by ad tech.
I dislike seeing ads, especially when they are poorly or intentionally designed to block you from doing what you came to site for. And I do have a concern about the amount of detail these companies end up accruing about a user and its implications. I also get distracted by them - but only when I don't have an intention or strong need to focus on the task at hand.
This does not make me think that ads themselves or the model itself is fundamentally bad. A model, ultimately is, as good or bad as its implementation. GMail, Google Maps, Android are some of the things that have changed the landscape in significant and positive ways, and all of them were made possible by ad tech.
I find it interesting how ethics seems to play a large part in the discussion about ads and big tech in general on HN.
Putting aside the privacy and PII concerns, it seems like there is a large contingent of HN'ers who are uncomfortable with the idea that websites/apps are addictive or manipulative or otherwise take advantage of flaws in human nature. For instance: we like shiny things with lots of colors/movement, we generally leave things on default, we engage with hate/dissent more readily than other things, etc.
Many HN'ers seem to be uncomfortable with this even if the people using these websites/apps are adults.
This seems to fly directly in the face of another seemingly wide-held opinion: that the rights of an individual to make their own choices should not be abridged, regardless of what those choices are, who they are, what they believe in, etc. as long as they are adults.
I wonder how these two beliefs coexist although perhaps I've misread the room.
Putting aside the privacy and PII concerns, it seems like there is a large contingent of HN'ers who are uncomfortable with the idea that websites/apps are addictive or manipulative or otherwise take advantage of flaws in human nature. For instance: we like shiny things with lots of colors/movement, we generally leave things on default, we engage with hate/dissent more readily than other things, etc.
Many HN'ers seem to be uncomfortable with this even if the people using these websites/apps are adults.
This seems to fly directly in the face of another seemingly wide-held opinion: that the rights of an individual to make their own choices should not be abridged, regardless of what those choices are, who they are, what they believe in, etc. as long as they are adults.
I wonder how these two beliefs coexist although perhaps I've misread the room.
Individuals absolutely have rights to do what they want, but only as far as those things don't have a negative impact on others. Pretty much the central kernel of libertarian philosophy, which, as we all know, HN loves.
But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to that page. Doesn't that erode my autonomy to decide when I want to delete my account?
Similarly, software like Windows 10, my LinkedIn profile, Firefox settings, macOS/iOS options, and plenty of others that decide to conveniently forget my explicitly chosen opt-out settings when an update comes in. Hiding behind the veil of "it's hard to test every possible option during an update!" to justify pushing folks back to the happy path where those companies get to collect more data.
So I ask you: do dark patterns actually let you make "your own choices"? If I give you a multiple choice test, and you have the option to submit an "other" option on any question, but you have to mail in your text for the "other" option, jump through hoops, and I might forget to actually count your option... do you really have the choice?
But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to that page. Doesn't that erode my autonomy to decide when I want to delete my account?
Similarly, software like Windows 10, my LinkedIn profile, Firefox settings, macOS/iOS options, and plenty of others that decide to conveniently forget my explicitly chosen opt-out settings when an update comes in. Hiding behind the veil of "it's hard to test every possible option during an update!" to justify pushing folks back to the happy path where those companies get to collect more data.
So I ask you: do dark patterns actually let you make "your own choices"? If I give you a multiple choice test, and you have the option to submit an "other" option on any question, but you have to mail in your text for the "other" option, jump through hoops, and I might forget to actually count your option... do you really have the choice?
Good points.
> But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to that page. Doesn't that erode my autonomy to decide when I want to delete my account?
>Similarly, software like Windows 10, my LinkedIn profile, Firefox settings, macOS/iOS options, and plenty of others that decide to conveniently forget my explicitly chosen opt-out settings when an update comes in. Hiding behind the veil of "it's hard to test every possible option during an update!" to justify pushing folks back to the happy path where those companies get to collect more data.
One response may be: you are not required to use any of the above services, so the choice is perhaps better described as between using (or leaving/disabling) a service with attendant friction, or not at all. If you don't like the service, don't use it.
I completely understand not being happy with a service. There are more than a few that I don't like, so I don't use them.
Now, if a company is going to such extreme measures that the activity can well be described as fraud, that's a different matter. That should be stopped and I think most would agree.
> If I give you a multiple choice test, and you have the option to submit an "other" option on any question, but you have to mail in your text for the "other" option, jump through hoops, and I might forget to actually count your option... do you really have the choice?
I think this may be a false comparison. I'm not required to take your test, so if I don't want to, I'll just throw it out. If I think the potential benefits outweigh the friction imposed by mailing it, then I may do it.
> But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to that page. Doesn't that erode my autonomy to decide when I want to delete my account?
>Similarly, software like Windows 10, my LinkedIn profile, Firefox settings, macOS/iOS options, and plenty of others that decide to conveniently forget my explicitly chosen opt-out settings when an update comes in. Hiding behind the veil of "it's hard to test every possible option during an update!" to justify pushing folks back to the happy path where those companies get to collect more data.
One response may be: you are not required to use any of the above services, so the choice is perhaps better described as between using (or leaving/disabling) a service with attendant friction, or not at all. If you don't like the service, don't use it.
I completely understand not being happy with a service. There are more than a few that I don't like, so I don't use them.
Now, if a company is going to such extreme measures that the activity can well be described as fraud, that's a different matter. That should be stopped and I think most would agree.
> If I give you a multiple choice test, and you have the option to submit an "other" option on any question, but you have to mail in your text for the "other" option, jump through hoops, and I might forget to actually count your option... do you really have the choice?
I think this may be a false comparison. I'm not required to take your test, so if I don't want to, I'll just throw it out. If I think the potential benefits outweigh the friction imposed by mailing it, then I may do it.
I think I (mostly) agree with you on this, with one caveat: network effects. If my friends and family and local businesses and community groups all use Facebook to organize events, plan socialization, announce things... I'm sort of trapped into using Facebook, because there's no alternate way to get that information! Now, I've done the cost/benefit analysis myself and actually ditched Facebook a couple of years ago. But that gives me even more insight into just how many things I can't do because I don't use Facebook.
Perhaps a better comparison would be a multiple choice test that's a requirement to do something you really want to do -- scuba diving, or renting a bike to ride around a national park, something like that. Sure, it's not essential. But it sounds fun, and you could question the necessity of the test in the first place. But the test needs you to submit your name, birthdate, address, and answer a bunch of personal questions about your interests before you can do the fun thing. At some point, you feel like you're being taken advantage of.
Perhaps a better comparison would be a multiple choice test that's a requirement to do something you really want to do -- scuba diving, or renting a bike to ride around a national park, something like that. Sure, it's not essential. But it sounds fun, and you could question the necessity of the test in the first place. But the test needs you to submit your name, birthdate, address, and answer a bunch of personal questions about your interests before you can do the fun thing. At some point, you feel like you're being taken advantage of.
I totally agree with you on the potential abuse of network effects.
However, if the problem is a network effect like you describe, I would say that the it is grounded in monopoly/oligopoly exploitation. I think it is separate from the discussion of advertising and manipulative content.
However, if the problem is a network effect like you describe, I would say that the it is grounded in monopoly/oligopoly exploitation. I think it is separate from the discussion of advertising and manipulative content.
Unpopular opinion: Ads by themselves are unethical. Whether targeted, contextual, or just randomly applied.
Ads are psychological warfare against a populace using their very nature against them. All in an effort to get them to change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them. Either they stop looking for alternatives, or they make purchases they don't need to (see: toothpaste consumption rates).
Ads are unethical, and are only considered acceptable because they have been around for so long, and because they're "easy" to use and supposedly ignore. Anyone working in the ad industry is directly supporting this unethical behavior. This isn't an "NTP is also used in cyber warfare" style of engagement, this is writing missile guidance systems levels of engagement.
Ads are psychological warfare against a populace using their very nature against them. All in an effort to get them to change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them. Either they stop looking for alternatives, or they make purchases they don't need to (see: toothpaste consumption rates).
Ads are unethical, and are only considered acceptable because they have been around for so long, and because they're "easy" to use and supposedly ignore. Anyone working in the ad industry is directly supporting this unethical behavior. This isn't an "NTP is also used in cyber warfare" style of engagement, this is writing missile guidance systems levels of engagement.
Not having ads is also unethical. Imagine trying to spread a novel idea / product to a society or an oligopoly that wants to oppress you
If society, or "the oligopoly," wants to suppress you, the ad industry isn't going to help you. They wouldn't want to run afoul of these big movers and shakers for a couple of hundreds of dollars.
Try running ads now for the KKK's new "hoods and cloaks" business if you'd like a practical example.
Try running ads now for the KKK's new "hoods and cloaks" business if you'd like a practical example.
>Imagine trying to spread a novel idea / product to a society
If society actually wants it then they can learn about it from places that aggregate such ideas. Moreover if our lives weren't inundated with ads 24/7 then those aggregators would be in much more demand. Very very few advertisements are for novel ideas that are actually a net positive for society.
If society actually wants it then they can learn about it from places that aggregate such ideas. Moreover if our lives weren't inundated with ads 24/7 then those aggregators would be in much more demand. Very very few advertisements are for novel ideas that are actually a net positive for society.
Would you say that Ads are still unethical if they're not paid for?
As just an anecdote, I'm always shocked by the amount of advertising at Burning Man. There's always people trying to get you to come to their event or join in their activity. Signs and street barkers are everywhere. There's no money and no bartering allowed, but advertising is everywhere, since ultimately attention is what is in limited supply.
If they aren't unethical in this scenario, it seems like what you're saying is that it's the underlying socio-economic system that's unethical, which would explain why all of the alternatives to ads also appear to be unethical.
As just an anecdote, I'm always shocked by the amount of advertising at Burning Man. There's always people trying to get you to come to their event or join in their activity. Signs and street barkers are everywhere. There's no money and no bartering allowed, but advertising is everywhere, since ultimately attention is what is in limited supply.
If they aren't unethical in this scenario, it seems like what you're saying is that it's the underlying socio-economic system that's unethical, which would explain why all of the alternatives to ads also appear to be unethical.
What's unethical is taking advantage of an average person's psychological blind spots or weaknesses with the ultimate goal of making a profit.
In your ethical framework, are all attempts at persuading someone to change their behavior unethical? What advocacy/awareness increasing behaviors are ethically acceptable?
What if an ad is for a product that someone wants, and is beneficial to them by helping them find a product they were not aware of?
What if an ad is for a product that someone wants, and is beneficial to them by helping them find a product they were not aware of?
> are all attempts at persuading someone to change their behavior unethical
Same answer as a sibling comment. It's unethical to take advantage of a person's psychological blind spots or weaknesses to turn a profit.
> What if an ad is for a product that someone wants
Do they want it prior to viewing the ad? If not, the ad is creating a psychological desire for something not previously needed or wanted.
Or did they pull a trick like a sibling commenter called out - searching for "good USB drive" and providing an ad. The ad takes advantage of being shown in response to a keywords that implies a level of quality of the product that isn't substantiated. There's no technical reviews that demonstrate that it's good, or even suitable to the task at hand. The only thing that actually sets it apart is how much was paid to put it in front of the searcher's eyes.
Same answer as a sibling comment. It's unethical to take advantage of a person's psychological blind spots or weaknesses to turn a profit.
> What if an ad is for a product that someone wants
Do they want it prior to viewing the ad? If not, the ad is creating a psychological desire for something not previously needed or wanted.
Or did they pull a trick like a sibling commenter called out - searching for "good USB drive" and providing an ad. The ad takes advantage of being shown in response to a keywords that implies a level of quality of the product that isn't substantiated. There's no technical reviews that demonstrate that it's good, or even suitable to the task at hand. The only thing that actually sets it apart is how much was paid to put it in front of the searcher's eyes.
I'm generally sympathetic to this stance, but the major drawback that has surfaced (when I've had this conversation in the past) is that discovery is a real thing that still needs to happen and ads can in fact help with that.
First in the obvious way: there are products that I have found useful that I would not have known existed if not for ads. The idea that you should only ever purchase something because you were specifically looking for it seems a bit silly, because that's not how it has played out in my life. Have I purchased stuff I didn't need, influenced by ads? Of course. But I've also purchased things which objectively made my life better, which I would not have even known existed without ads.
We are lucky to live at a point in time where most of the world's information is at our fingertips (via the internet) and we can quickly, easily, and freely find information about anything we could want. But this is ignoring the fact that a lot of this is in turn funded by ads.
e.g. when I'm trying to find something, I google it, which is free because their business model is ads. There are a lot of people who are reviewing products with high levels of trust on sites like YouTube (tech reviewers like MKBHD), but they are able to produce those videos (which I watch for free) because they too are funded by ads.
Sure, we could pay subscriptions for all those things, but as pointed out in the OP, that is a regressive funding model – it becomes harder for a poor person to find the best products if all the best product reviews are locked behind paywalls.
First in the obvious way: there are products that I have found useful that I would not have known existed if not for ads. The idea that you should only ever purchase something because you were specifically looking for it seems a bit silly, because that's not how it has played out in my life. Have I purchased stuff I didn't need, influenced by ads? Of course. But I've also purchased things which objectively made my life better, which I would not have even known existed without ads.
We are lucky to live at a point in time where most of the world's information is at our fingertips (via the internet) and we can quickly, easily, and freely find information about anything we could want. But this is ignoring the fact that a lot of this is in turn funded by ads.
e.g. when I'm trying to find something, I google it, which is free because their business model is ads. There are a lot of people who are reviewing products with high levels of trust on sites like YouTube (tech reviewers like MKBHD), but they are able to produce those videos (which I watch for free) because they too are funded by ads.
Sure, we could pay subscriptions for all those things, but as pointed out in the OP, that is a regressive funding model – it becomes harder for a poor person to find the best products if all the best product reviews are locked behind paywalls.
Your argument boils down to "content creators need to make money, and the only expedient way for them to make money is to show ads".
And you know what? Perhaps it is.
Even if that's the case, I still think it's unethical, that a bit more brainpower should be put into a funding model that isn't ads. Even if it increases friction.
The most expedient way to expand a country's border is still war, and I believe that's unethical as well.
And you know what? Perhaps it is.
Even if that's the case, I still think it's unethical, that a bit more brainpower should be put into a funding model that isn't ads. Even if it increases friction.
The most expedient way to expand a country's border is still war, and I believe that's unethical as well.
Well you missed the first part of the argument, which is that ads can be intrinsically useful for discovery of things you didn't know you needed but would actually be useful in your life.
With regards to the second part, which you addressed, it's one thing to say "this is bad we should replace it with X". It is an entirely different thing to say "this is bad I have no idea what we should replace it with". Because nothing is black and white, so it doesn't matter how bad ads are if the thing that replaces them is then worse.
With regards to the second part, which you addressed, it's one thing to say "this is bad we should replace it with X". It is an entirely different thing to say "this is bad I have no idea what we should replace it with". Because nothing is black and white, so it doesn't matter how bad ads are if the thing that replaces them is then worse.
Are people hardwired out of the womb to know that your services are available and that they want them?
How do you draw the difference between an ad and not an ad?
Is a doctor telling you to brush 2x a day an ad for toothpaste? What about their suggestion that you floss more? Those are aligned with your well being, but will increase your consumption.
> change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them.
This seems obviously wrong. The implication here is that anything advertised must be bad for the target. From an econ perspective this means that you reject the idea of comparative advantage.
Is a doctor telling you to brush 2x a day an ad for toothpaste? What about their suggestion that you floss more? Those are aligned with your well being, but will increase your consumption.
> change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them.
This seems obviously wrong. The implication here is that anything advertised must be bad for the target. From an econ perspective this means that you reject the idea of comparative advantage.
> How do you draw the difference between an ad and not an ad?
If it's paid promotion, it's an ad. If the doctor's doing this only because they think it's in my best interest, it's not. The FTC already has some pretty clear guidelines on this because ads are required to be clearly marked as such in many cases.
If it's paid promotion, it's an ad. If the doctor's doing this only because they think it's in my best interest, it's not. The FTC already has some pretty clear guidelines on this because ads are required to be clearly marked as such in many cases.
I guess I should clarify in the context of this discussion, we're defining ads as
>psychological warfare against a populace using their very nature against them. All in an effort to get them to change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them. Either they stop looking for alternatives, or they make purchases they don't need to
In this context, a doctor making a recommendation to use a particular brand (paid or unpaid) is an ad. Even a doctor generally recommending you change your behavior to consume more toothpaste is an ad.
So in this framing, how do you determine the difference between an ad and not?
>psychological warfare against a populace using their very nature against them. All in an effort to get them to change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them. Either they stop looking for alternatives, or they make purchases they don't need to
In this context, a doctor making a recommendation to use a particular brand (paid or unpaid) is an ad. Even a doctor generally recommending you change your behavior to consume more toothpaste is an ad.
So in this framing, how do you determine the difference between an ad and not?
Even with the narrow definition, you missed:
> in a way that's going to be detrimental to them.
A dentist recommending that I use more toothpaste may change my behavior, but not in a detrimental way. If the dentist is paid to make the same recommendation, it's more difficult to say whether they made the recommendation purely out of my best interest, so the definition begins to apply again.
> in a way that's going to be detrimental to them.
A dentist recommending that I use more toothpaste may change my behavior, but not in a detrimental way. If the dentist is paid to make the same recommendation, it's more difficult to say whether they made the recommendation purely out of my best interest, so the definition begins to apply again.
This gets back to what I said about comparative advantage. The monetary transfer is only bad if you assume the company can only gain if you lose and the situation is zero sum. If you using toothpaste is good for you, and good for the company, what's the issue?
To use a more current example: would Pfizer marketing in a way that intentionally appeals to anti-vax people be mind control to their detriment?
Taking a step back, there are at least (but really I think only) two reasons for an advertisement: to raise awareness or to convince. The first clearly isn't unethical. Saying "we exist" isn't really mind control, and results in a more informed consumer. I admit that most ads that appear to do that don't just do that, but an advertisement that simply points out that Colgate is a Toothpaste brand that you can buy Is ethical. Its exactly the same as putting your logo on your box (which is a form of advertisement!) and having your box at eye level on the shelf (which is also a form of advertisement!!).
The second type convinces people that one act may be better than another (our brand > their brand, or brushing > not). These can be ethical or not, but GP stated that, essentially, advertising is always going to be detrimental to the consumer, which implies that everyone is already acting in a globally optimal way. That seems immediately suspicious, does it not?
To use a more current example: would Pfizer marketing in a way that intentionally appeals to anti-vax people be mind control to their detriment?
Taking a step back, there are at least (but really I think only) two reasons for an advertisement: to raise awareness or to convince. The first clearly isn't unethical. Saying "we exist" isn't really mind control, and results in a more informed consumer. I admit that most ads that appear to do that don't just do that, but an advertisement that simply points out that Colgate is a Toothpaste brand that you can buy Is ethical. Its exactly the same as putting your logo on your box (which is a form of advertisement!) and having your box at eye level on the shelf (which is also a form of advertisement!!).
The second type convinces people that one act may be better than another (our brand > their brand, or brushing > not). These can be ethical or not, but GP stated that, essentially, advertising is always going to be detrimental to the consumer, which implies that everyone is already acting in a globally optimal way. That seems immediately suspicious, does it not?
Thanks for expanding. I agree with your delineation between raising awareness or convincing, I think. I don't think it's the most helpful way to understand ads and their potential for harm. There's another way to categorize ads - maybe orthogonal - based on whether they are presented as part of an advertising network or not. There's a fundamental difference between showing a box on a shelf and buying ads on a billboard. Or perhaps the line should be drawn at targeted ads. It's of course possible to show benign "we exist" ads via Facebook ads, or political disinformation ads in a newspaper, but it seems to me that certain methods of advertising are obviously more conducive to harmful, manipulative ads.
Also (and this is more radical), I do think it's a legitimate to want to unsubscribe, even from "we exist" ads. Attention is valuable, it shouldn't be considered an inalienable right to sneak anything you want into my consciousness for the purposes of selling. Even if you accept that it's not a zero-sum game. I recognize that this is not the status quo at all currently, but it's the feeling behind comments like the above.
Also (and this is more radical), I do think it's a legitimate to want to unsubscribe, even from "we exist" ads. Attention is valuable, it shouldn't be considered an inalienable right to sneak anything you want into my consciousness for the purposes of selling. Even if you accept that it's not a zero-sum game. I recognize that this is not the status quo at all currently, but it's the feeling behind comments like the above.
"ads are good" is a red herring. i don't object to ads, but i find google's chokehold on the ad market abhorrent, becuase it becomes excusionary, both for publishers and advertisers. Google is thus able to impose e.g. moral codes on what is allowed to be advertised and what content is allowed to be monetized. The solution is indeed micropayments and they exist, like brave.
Another drawback of the ad-supported model is that it has created a very pervasive culture of unaccountability. Google has terrible user support because they truly don't care about users - they 'll keep making money regardless of what their users think and there's no way for users to vote with their feet (practically -- after all google gatekeeps all their address bars).
Another drawback of the ad-supported model is that it has created a very pervasive culture of unaccountability. Google has terrible user support because they truly don't care about users - they 'll keep making money regardless of what their users think and there's no way for users to vote with their feet (practically -- after all google gatekeeps all their address bars).
This is kind of crazy thought experiment, but would the Internet be really different today if there's no ads? (e.g. somehow it's been considered extremely uncool from the beginning so it's naturally shunned.) Many ad-supporters spread a doomsday scenario like "without ads, the vast majority of the good Internet will die". Is that really true?
I dunno. Maybe it's different. But I still put up my contents (writings and source codes) for free with no ads. And it's not so strange to imagine that there are many people like me. Maybe a newspaper would put up a part of their articles for promotion. In that case, the contents themselves are ads. That's not such a bad world either!
I dunno. Maybe it's different. But I still put up my contents (writings and source codes) for free with no ads. And it's not so strange to imagine that there are many people like me. Maybe a newspaper would put up a part of their articles for promotion. In that case, the contents themselves are ads. That's not such a bad world either!
Its hard to see the problem when your livelihood depends on ignoring it.
I don't think anyone is arguing that serving ads for consumer products and services is evil. Definitely annoying, but not morally wrong.
However that is not what is happening. Some of the largest companies in the history of the world are actively building and profiting from platforms that allow political parties and governments to distribute targeted propaganda and digest huge amounts of personal information collected under intentionally obfuscated terms of service.
If you are working at google / facebook / twitter you are just as responsible as the scientists and engineers who worked on the Manhattan project. You are the destroyer of worlds.
I don't think anyone is arguing that serving ads for consumer products and services is evil. Definitely annoying, but not morally wrong.
However that is not what is happening. Some of the largest companies in the history of the world are actively building and profiting from platforms that allow political parties and governments to distribute targeted propaganda and digest huge amounts of personal information collected under intentionally obfuscated terms of service.
If you are working at google / facebook / twitter you are just as responsible as the scientists and engineers who worked on the Manhattan project. You are the destroyer of worlds.
I have a 1 man shop start up ( marketplace) and i charge an upfront fee to list. The very fist thing an interested party asks me is, what isn't free to list? The big boys platform in this space make it free to list and they make money from ads. A small time guy like me in a niche market has to charge an upfront fee to pay to put food on the table for my family and i don't run ads on my site and i don't use cookies. Most people are so USED to free that it's a shock to them i charge a fee to list on my site. Advertising has SHAPED their behavior. Thats my 2 cents. I have been in business since 2016. Never ran third party ads on my site.
Because of the salary?
I'd work on advertisements for high six figures. That being said, I'd also be a terrible culture fit in an advertising shop. I can't stand ads and a hobby of mine is criticising the ads, and companies, forcing me through them for the duration thereof.
>I must be fun at parties
Parties with ads, or any paid "guests" are not fun...
>I must be fun at parties
Parties with ads, or any paid "guests" are not fun...
What are your most frequently recurring points of criticism and what type of ads you find elicit the least criticism?
That's a question I want to get paid six figures to answer.
What makes you think your criticism is worth paying six figures for? :)
The quality of the advertisements I see hocking the wares of blue chip and f500 companies. :D
If jefftk wanted to stop working on ads, he could transfer within weeks to any of hundreds of open positions on Google's internal recruitment platform, keeping the same compensation, benefits, etc. It's stupidly easy (doesn't even require your current manager's approval!) and the only "cost" is usually that it can set you back slightly in your career due to abandoning your current projects and having to ramp up on new stuff.
So no, "because of the salary" doesn't explain any of it, and you should read the blog post before posting insulting comments like these.
So no, "because of the salary" doesn't explain any of it, and you should read the blog post before posting insulting comments like these.
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Saying so with your real name and blog? Good luck.
The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main
funding models:
Paywalls. You pay with your money.
Ads. You pay with your attention.
It's also important to realize that with ads, you also pay with your money, when you later buy some product (whether due to the ad or not). Your attention and personal data are only valuable in this context as a way to access your money. The amount of money you pay with is unclear and varies from person to person, but you still do pay.
You might be interested in the second half of the post, starting with "But the biggest issue I see people raising is the privacy impact of targeted ads..."? Browsers are getting rid of third-party cookies, and Safari, Edge, and Chrome all have proposals for how ads can do many of the same things they do today without cross-site tracking.
Will be be getting a refund of all the personal data collected in the past?
I'd rather get a nickel for every bit of data that I did not give explicitly consent to be collected, and a nickel for anytime that bits cross referenced, sold, shared, lost, transferred, or otherwise handled in a way that was not explicitly defined in the eula..
I wonder if something like the radio/royalty model wouldn't work as a replacement for ads. You pay ISP, they are the "radio station" playing what you want to hear, they pay micropayments to all the sites you visited proportionally.
I can immediately see significant issues (user data, managing payments, admin, biggest sites get bigger etc.) but if there's a market demand for a new model, it wouldn't even have to be regulated initially. It could be a feature offered by an innovative ISP. A sort of patron model for general browsing.
My 2 cents fwiw.
I can immediately see significant issues (user data, managing payments, admin, biggest sites get bigger etc.) but if there's a market demand for a new model, it wouldn't even have to be regulated initially. It could be a feature offered by an innovative ISP. A sort of patron model for general browsing.
My 2 cents fwiw.
It is common for people to only have one option for a fast ISP. I would be scared about a world in which monopoly ISPs had that kind of power.
People will say anything to feel like they're not doing a dirty job...
> And so: ads. Funding the open web.
Nope. Ads are not funding the open web.
The vast majority of ad revenue and spending goes into the pockets of Facebook (openly hostile to the idea of an open web) and Google (sneakily hostile to the open web, and busy working on replacing the web with all things Google).
Actual open web partially supported by advertisement? I don't think it ever existed. And when it did, it sure as hell didn't require pervasive 24/7 surveillance of everyone.
Nope. Ads are not funding the open web.
The vast majority of ad revenue and spending goes into the pockets of Facebook (openly hostile to the idea of an open web) and Google (sneakily hostile to the open web, and busy working on replacing the web with all things Google).
Actual open web partially supported by advertisement? I don't think it ever existed. And when it did, it sure as hell didn't require pervasive 24/7 surveillance of everyone.
That one annoyed me as well, but for a different reason. The open web doesn't require funding, the commercial web does.
Advertising on the net doesn't bother me as much as it once did, but I also see less of it. I don't really visit news sites, mostly the ones already funded by my tax money or the subscription I pay for.
The best blogs rarely have ads. 20 years ago any random blog would have ads, not so any more. Search engines, at least DDG have a reasonable ad policy, even though I have reported a large number of questionable ads. Google is a little useless, because actual result drown in ads for some searches.
I think contextual ads should be preferred over those based on a users past behaviour online. It's really only news sites and social media that needs the ads based on tracking users.
Advertising on the net doesn't bother me as much as it once did, but I also see less of it. I don't really visit news sites, mostly the ones already funded by my tax money or the subscription I pay for.
The best blogs rarely have ads. 20 years ago any random blog would have ads, not so any more. Search engines, at least DDG have a reasonable ad policy, even though I have reported a large number of questionable ads. Google is a little useless, because actual result drown in ads for some searches.
I think contextual ads should be preferred over those based on a users past behaviour online. It's really only news sites and social media that needs the ads based on tracking users.
It's one of those things people will look back in 10 years at and wonder how we thought that was ok. Driving one of the most important innovations of our time with data driven praying of people's weakest spots. Says something about how many decades behind our financial system is compared to everything else. Haven't clicked on an ad in 20 years but apparently others do, just install an add blocker.
This is good skills: https://www.jefftk.com/donations
The author seems to have fallen into the classic trap of conflating media/medium and content. Content can be free (or not) but getting it to eyeballs requires additional effort that is rarely free/gratis (your ISP charges you).
The author seems to have fallen into the classic trap of conflating media/medium and content. Content can be free (or not) but getting it to eyeballs requires additional effort that is rarely free/gratis (your ISP charges you).
Just in case I didn't point it out. They donate 30% of their income to charity.
I've been using scroll.com. It removes ads on many sites for $5 per month (Vox, The Atlantic, USA Today, Kotaku, ...). Apparently sites make more from scroll subscribers on average than they do from folks seeing ads. Twitter just announced they bought scroll.
As for this article, I think it is good to find a way to have targeted ads while preserving privacy.
As for this article, I think it is good to find a way to have targeted ads while preserving privacy.
Fair enough argument.
I do note that this chap has put his actual salary numbers on the internet. This definitely places him in the minority in terms of willingness to share private data. Most people don't have this level of comfort I would guess. This should probably be taken into account when considering his opinions on targeted advertising.
I do note that this chap has put his actual salary numbers on the internet. This definitely places him in the minority in terms of willingness to share private data. Most people don't have this level of comfort I would guess. This should probably be taken into account when considering his opinions on targeted advertising.
ads don't fund the open internet, rather it funds the huge valuation of the internet company. Why internet companies valuation is so much higher than the grocery store around the corner? it does not need to be.
I don't hate ads, I don't mind it at all to be honest. I use Instagram just for ads :) Restaurants, hotels, we need
I don't hate ads, I don't mind it at all to be honest. I use Instagram just for ads :) Restaurants, hotels, we need
I understand many of the problems with targeted ads, because humans’ “idea immune systems” are not great and easily manipulated. However I’ve gotten some targeted ads that I really really loved. One was for a baby plate that can’t be flung on the ground and has saved me at least 50 hours in cleaning through two children.
Of course ads are not inherently evil in a black-and-white manner. Like knifes. Or guns. Still need to be regulated though, as left unchecked can cause great harm. And currently we see more harm than good from this model.
I think the author is simply vieweing this as a binary issue due to cognitive dissonance / moral disengagement.
I think the author is simply vieweing this as a binary issue due to cognitive dissonance / moral disengagement.
Its a trope at this point, but a major point missed by the author is opportunity cost. Haven't we reached a point where optimizing that many basis points of incremental sales isn't worth what new solutions we could build with all these engineers' time?
Advertising is not inherently bad.
The concentration of power in a few handful gigantic corporations is.
The concentration of power in a few handful gigantic corporations is.
According to the sec disclosures the 3 highest paying tech companies are Google, Splunk, and Facebook. They all happen to be among the 10 best paying public companies in America. 2 of the 3 are almost completely funded by ad money.
I'm surprised that I've never heard of Splunk. I tried to understand the company's core business model, but I couldn't get past all the buzz words on their website.
I'm all for content-only based ads that take a reasonable amount/location of screen space, minimal/no distracting motions, very low computational expenditure.
How about making ad containers on a page that enforces these?
How about making ad containers on a page that enforces these?
Agree with all. Reposting an old comment of mine:
Solving world hunger is obviously better than ads, but I'd say in the scheme of things tech people spend their time on, ad improvements is middling in importance? It's not the bottom. Good ad targeting means:
1) New small businesses (like Shopify stores) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB.
2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job).
3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
Solving world hunger is obviously better than ads, but I'd say in the scheme of things tech people spend their time on, ad improvements is middling in importance? It's not the bottom. Good ad targeting means:
1) New small businesses (like Shopify stores) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB.
2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job).
3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
> the basic problem that some people have much more disposable income than others
That's the basic problem? We tried communism. It doesn't work.
> And so: ads. Funding the open web.
Or to put it another way: Ads waste human life and productivity.
If you waste 10 seconds of Elon Musk's time, yes actually the world just lost more than if you waste 10 seconds of my time.
And if you let me pay $1 instead of wasting my time, then I can spend that time being productive for more than $1, adding more to the collective value of the world.
Wasting everyone's time equally is actually hurting everyone, because it means taking away the positive-sum value produced by exchange of values.
I'm not saying inequality isn't a problem, but man, you say that ANY difference in equality of disposable income is a PROBLEM? That's just a race to the bottom of caring or doing anything at all for other people.
That's the basic problem? We tried communism. It doesn't work.
> And so: ads. Funding the open web.
Or to put it another way: Ads waste human life and productivity.
If you waste 10 seconds of Elon Musk's time, yes actually the world just lost more than if you waste 10 seconds of my time.
And if you let me pay $1 instead of wasting my time, then I can spend that time being productive for more than $1, adding more to the collective value of the world.
Wasting everyone's time equally is actually hurting everyone, because it means taking away the positive-sum value produced by exchange of values.
I'm not saying inequality isn't a problem, but man, you say that ANY difference in equality of disposable income is a PROBLEM? That's just a race to the bottom of caring or doing anything at all for other people.
I don't think ads are bad per se, people don't like them because they don't like paying.
No-one is forcing you to see ads and often you have the option to buy your way out of ads. More in general if people preferred to pay we see a paid alternative emerge, thanks to the nature of the market. The reality is that the majority of people are not privacy conscious and don't care as much as people in tech do.
Overall, I'd be prouder to work on Google Ads, which provides services on a voluntary basis, than to work for the IRS or HMRC which impose their government's decisions on people under threat of fines and eventually incarceration.
No-one is forcing you to see ads and often you have the option to buy your way out of ads. More in general if people preferred to pay we see a paid alternative emerge, thanks to the nature of the market. The reality is that the majority of people are not privacy conscious and don't care as much as people in tech do.
Overall, I'd be prouder to work on Google Ads, which provides services on a voluntary basis, than to work for the IRS or HMRC which impose their government's decisions on people under threat of fines and eventually incarceration.
>No-one is forcing you to see ads
Uh? Where do you live? Where do you browse?
I'm a paid subscriber to newspapers and they keep tracking me and emailing/notifying/displaying ads. They even share my data to their "partners". I can't get out of my apartment without seeing ad everywhere (subway, buildings, billboards...). You cannot escape advertising unless you completely isolate yourself from society.
Uh? Where do you live? Where do you browse?
I'm a paid subscriber to newspapers and they keep tracking me and emailing/notifying/displaying ads. They even share my data to their "partners". I can't get out of my apartment without seeing ad everywhere (subway, buildings, billboards...). You cannot escape advertising unless you completely isolate yourself from society.
My point is that if people were that bothered by ads, they would be willing to pay ad-free alternatives and we wouldn't have ads.
For some things you can actually choose between free ad-supported or paid without ads.
Besides, I really don't see ads in my life - but that's because I use adblock and similar software. I don't live in a big city anymore so I don't see physical ads as well.
Besides, I really don't see ads in my life - but that's because I use adblock and similar software. I don't live in a big city anymore so I don't see physical ads as well.
I'm not OP, but I've stopped using Google products as much as possible, and browse the internet with Firefox and uMatrix. There are very few physical world ads where I live, due to local restrictions. The only ads I see these days are sponsored posts when I open Instagram, and I'm doing that less and less because in my experience 80% of the content on Instagram is either a sponsored post or cheap low-quality recommended posts, and only 20% are the friends that I follow.
My point is, it's not impossible to avoid ads these days.
My point is, it's not impossible to avoid ads these days.
Most people I know work on ads...to get paid. I feel like the author is really working hard to justify his work to himself and falling far short of the bar.
Regardless of what this author thinks. Advertising is the bane of our existence. How many hours have we wasted watching advertisements (whether it's in the form of network television, billboards, radio ads, or intermittent ads in VOD sites like YT)?
If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise (take for example, Ferrari or Lamborghini). If companies focused on making their products better rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising a half baked product, it would make the world so much better.
If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise (take for example, Ferrari or Lamborghini). If companies focused on making their products better rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising a half baked product, it would make the world so much better.
>If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise
I believe it is simplification.
Let's say that I want to get good standing desk or chair - how can I discover those smaller players that make good products?
I don't want to spend time on some ChairHackerNews for 2 months and read about this stuff
I believe it is simplification.
Let's say that I want to get good standing desk or chair - how can I discover those smaller players that make good products?
I don't want to spend time on some ChairHackerNews for 2 months and read about this stuff
Imagine if Google wasn’t full of BS ads and SEO link farms and you could easily find the blog posts and reviews of products from smaller players that make good products?
As much as search used to suck, I kind of long for the days where I could organically find products by searching.
As much as search used to suck, I kind of long for the days where I could organically find products by searching.
I hate a lot of things about advertising, but "If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise" is a very naive take. In spite of my aversion to ads, I see some concrete benefits:
- new and upcoming products - think Tesla in 2010, or Signal messenger in 2020/21
- making things accessible for those who can't afford them - I know a lot of folks who'd rather watch YT ads than fork over 15$ to Google every month. They simply don't have that much money
- letting me know about stuff I was not thinking about but am happy to know now - eg. interesting summer camps for my kids
- new and upcoming products - think Tesla in 2010, or Signal messenger in 2020/21
- making things accessible for those who can't afford them - I know a lot of folks who'd rather watch YT ads than fork over 15$ to Google every month. They simply don't have that much money
- letting me know about stuff I was not thinking about but am happy to know now - eg. interesting summer camps for my kids
If I'm trying to read, watch, or listen to something of a thoughtful nature, something that requires my utmost attention to grasp or process, and reflect upon it, ads are destructive. They destroy the experience and slow or limit the learning process. If everything we do is interrupted, it's an attack on our thoughts and disrespectful of our time.
Our Internet experiences are becoming Ray Bradbury's worst nightmare, interspersed with its "Denham's Dentifrice" ads and Facebook Mildreds everywhere.
Our Internet experiences are becoming Ray Bradbury's worst nightmare, interspersed with its "Denham's Dentifrice" ads and Facebook Mildreds everywhere.
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Most people here seem to hate ads and/or find them unethical.
So I was wondering if those people either not watch YouTube or pay for premium?
So I was wondering if those people either not watch YouTube or pay for premium?
It's curious that neither the OP nor the comments address the incentives funding via advertising creates. While I strongly agree about issues surrounding the data collection and tracking systems used to target ads, I'm thinking about the publisher's side.
For a subscription service (paywalled), users are making an up-front decision to pay for the content an outlet publishes because they believe in some sense that the writing is worth it. This is a pretty intellectual thing to do, since you have to actually enter payment details and select a plan. It's fundamentally a premeditated act.
The advertising-based model is closer to the lizard-brain, I think. To a first approximation, it seems that ad-based funding created the whole world of "click bait": low quality articles with catchy headlines designed to increase ad views by tapping into peoples' curiosity. This model is the opposite of premeditated: it's almost subconscious and driven by moment-to-moment impulse. And I think web-based advertising incentivizes this greatly, to the point that the low-quality content designed to be engaged with impulsively is driving who gets elected.
I don't have high conviction that my thinking here is correct, but the dots do seem to connect, and I don't see it discussed much. I raise it here because while I abhor the data gathering associated with ad targeting, if I'm honest with myself, I think the harm coming from click-bait content online is more tangible today than the harm from the data collection.
For a subscription service (paywalled), users are making an up-front decision to pay for the content an outlet publishes because they believe in some sense that the writing is worth it. This is a pretty intellectual thing to do, since you have to actually enter payment details and select a plan. It's fundamentally a premeditated act.
The advertising-based model is closer to the lizard-brain, I think. To a first approximation, it seems that ad-based funding created the whole world of "click bait": low quality articles with catchy headlines designed to increase ad views by tapping into peoples' curiosity. This model is the opposite of premeditated: it's almost subconscious and driven by moment-to-moment impulse. And I think web-based advertising incentivizes this greatly, to the point that the low-quality content designed to be engaged with impulsively is driving who gets elected.
I don't have high conviction that my thinking here is correct, but the dots do seem to connect, and I don't see it discussed much. I raise it here because while I abhor the data gathering associated with ad targeting, if I'm honest with myself, I think the harm coming from click-bait content online is more tangible today than the harm from the data collection.
The author writes "One answer is that I'm earning to give: I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give."
If I walked into your neighbor's home, robbed $3,000 from them and then gave half of what I stole to some charity would you consider me to be a good guy?
Am I the only one that finds the first answer to be mad logic?
If I walked into your neighbor's home, robbed $3,000 from them and then gave half of what I stole to some charity would you consider me to be a good guy?
Am I the only one that finds the first answer to be mad logic?
> Typically, the vendor doesn't just get that you are interested in cars, they get the full URL of the page you are on.
I'd say that knowing you're interested in cars is also a violation of your privacy. Knowing that people that are in car festivals may be interested in cars is ok, but knowing that a person attended to a car festival is not ok.
I'd say that knowing you're interested in cars is also a violation of your privacy. Knowing that people that are in car festivals may be interested in cars is ok, but knowing that a person attended to a car festival is not ok.
The problem I see is that the advertising business enables free services such as Google and Youtube, Facebook, Twitter to dominate. It's even more difficult for a potential competitor to gain users when competing against a free service. Another is the spying and tracking, which are apparently vital for these big companies to grow.
Yeah I'd imagine it's pretty hard to compete for high quality free services which are used by billions of people. Is this supposed to be a bad thing?
Let's get one thing straight, we the users don't like ads that are intrusive, manipulating and data generating when it doesn't have to be. This guy makes it look like (or want to make it look like) we are complaining about ads. No, we just don't want to be tracked. Simple.
He is also just normalising the whole surveillance part by not bringing it up, ever! All he is doing is talking about the top layer of what an ad is and what it is for and how the users are interacting with them etc. This doesn't talk about tracking your ip address, your location across services, your search history, your video watching history and everything else that you have interacted with. Then using it to manipulate you.
And I actually think it has been extremely smart and cunning to play the mind game of "look, it is not for you, it is for the smaller and poor people who can't afford it. THE POOR PEOPLE!". This works I am sure.
Facebook literally did this by displaying ads on big news papers on behalf of "small businesses" when they were threatened by Apple's privacy features which actually protected the end users.
Ad businesses like Ad Sense etc in it's current form doesn't do anything else than being intrusive and eventually become used against you by businesses to manipulate you or govts to oppress you.
I will give a simple example. The ads that comes as sponsored in youtube channels where the youtube creator gives a shout out to some services / products, or ads in podcasts that are directly related to the content of the creator things definitely have more impact on the creators monetary department. You would've heard a lot of youtube creators admitting the same.
SO YES, ADS WORK. SURVEILLANCE, MANIPULATING AD BUSINESS LIKE AD SENSE DOESN'T!
I would suggest people to keep questioning these kind of smart people to work on something worth while than tracking and not to mention shadow tracking people to just create data which can be sold to third parties which the end users are unaware of, among soo many other things. In all sense, jeezz! Get a life!!
PS: This would be my one and probably only "cut the bulshit honey comment" when I know these people are smart enough to understand the consequences but want to virtue signal by saying, I donate to good causes blah blah blah. This is a very common and well put consistent messaging we/I have been hearing over and over. So yeah, I don't want to give a benefit of the doubt.
He is also just normalising the whole surveillance part by not bringing it up, ever! All he is doing is talking about the top layer of what an ad is and what it is for and how the users are interacting with them etc. This doesn't talk about tracking your ip address, your location across services, your search history, your video watching history and everything else that you have interacted with. Then using it to manipulate you.
And I actually think it has been extremely smart and cunning to play the mind game of "look, it is not for you, it is for the smaller and poor people who can't afford it. THE POOR PEOPLE!". This works I am sure.
Facebook literally did this by displaying ads on big news papers on behalf of "small businesses" when they were threatened by Apple's privacy features which actually protected the end users.
Ad businesses like Ad Sense etc in it's current form doesn't do anything else than being intrusive and eventually become used against you by businesses to manipulate you or govts to oppress you.
I will give a simple example. The ads that comes as sponsored in youtube channels where the youtube creator gives a shout out to some services / products, or ads in podcasts that are directly related to the content of the creator things definitely have more impact on the creators monetary department. You would've heard a lot of youtube creators admitting the same.
SO YES, ADS WORK. SURVEILLANCE, MANIPULATING AD BUSINESS LIKE AD SENSE DOESN'T!
I would suggest people to keep questioning these kind of smart people to work on something worth while than tracking and not to mention shadow tracking people to just create data which can be sold to third parties which the end users are unaware of, among soo many other things. In all sense, jeezz! Get a life!!
PS: This would be my one and probably only "cut the bulshit honey comment" when I know these people are smart enough to understand the consequences but want to virtue signal by saying, I donate to good causes blah blah blah. This is a very common and well put consistent messaging we/I have been hearing over and over. So yeah, I don't want to give a benefit of the doubt.
If ads were simply “paying with attention” like in the 90s, generally people wouldn’t mind as much.
But when ads bring a ton of privacy violating, subtly manipulating, resource hogging baggage, people get angry.
So I find His arguments disingenuous at best.
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
Pretty disingenuous. Ads: You pay with your attention, and, ultimately, either your money or the money of someone who trusts you. This is only not the case to the extent that advertising doesn't actually work, in which case the ethical problems have not stopped for this person.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
Pretty disingenuous. Ads: You pay with your attention, and, ultimately, either your money or the money of someone who trusts you. This is only not the case to the extent that advertising doesn't actually work, in which case the ethical problems have not stopped for this person.
The article completely misses it. I used to work at Google, too, in Ads (the organization), but not on Ads. Most of the people I know were pretty focused on building their little corner of tech to accomplish a particular technical feat (implement a datastore, find bad ads, etc). None of the people I met were evil money-grubber types.
But there was a certain reality-distortion field that only becomes apparent when stepping out of it.
Ads exist in order to sell your attention to the highest bidder. Ads exist to support an exponentially growing tech giant's goals of infinite growth. Ads exist to keep a snowball snowballing. There is no ads business on Earth today that is focused on "just keeping the lights on". So the amount of ads that are out there just keeps increasing. Ads are creeping into every corner of life.
Just take Google search. If you look at the amount of computational resources that it takes Google to run search for today's internet, it takes X dollars. But Google's revenues are literally 5 X, if not 10 or 20. Google is sucking down a huge ton of money that is going to growth and funding zillions of other things...that will also eventually get ads, like Maps, reviews, YouTube, etc. Second, this "X dollars to run search" we are talking about is probably somewhere between 10 and 100 times what was required just a few short years ago. So we are talking about throwing 100 or 200 times--maybe even 1000, just look at the racks of Google made from legos from 1999!--the amount of computational power at a problem than it really needs, and that's to support the advertising market that Google has created in order to support search.
If Google websearch were a non-profit, I think it would require less than a billion dollars to run every year. For perspective, the United States Federal Government spent over $85 billion on the SNAP (food stamps) program last year.
So, instead of spending pocket change on a public utility that gives everyone access to "organized, universally accessible" (to borrow Google's mission statement) information, we have this behemoth focused on generating hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that just accidentally happens to have a massive influence over everything we see.
You work on ads, Jeff? You've clearly done a lot of thinking as to why that's great. Me? I bowed out of the entity trying to attach a tacky flyer for Ovaltine to every book, magazine, news article, and video clip I see. I bowed out of an entity whose main existence is apparently to mediate every interaction I have with a computer--or another person--and insert advertising into.
I'm actually really sick of ads!
But there was a certain reality-distortion field that only becomes apparent when stepping out of it.
Ads exist in order to sell your attention to the highest bidder. Ads exist to support an exponentially growing tech giant's goals of infinite growth. Ads exist to keep a snowball snowballing. There is no ads business on Earth today that is focused on "just keeping the lights on". So the amount of ads that are out there just keeps increasing. Ads are creeping into every corner of life.
Just take Google search. If you look at the amount of computational resources that it takes Google to run search for today's internet, it takes X dollars. But Google's revenues are literally 5 X, if not 10 or 20. Google is sucking down a huge ton of money that is going to growth and funding zillions of other things...that will also eventually get ads, like Maps, reviews, YouTube, etc. Second, this "X dollars to run search" we are talking about is probably somewhere between 10 and 100 times what was required just a few short years ago. So we are talking about throwing 100 or 200 times--maybe even 1000, just look at the racks of Google made from legos from 1999!--the amount of computational power at a problem than it really needs, and that's to support the advertising market that Google has created in order to support search.
If Google websearch were a non-profit, I think it would require less than a billion dollars to run every year. For perspective, the United States Federal Government spent over $85 billion on the SNAP (food stamps) program last year.
So, instead of spending pocket change on a public utility that gives everyone access to "organized, universally accessible" (to borrow Google's mission statement) information, we have this behemoth focused on generating hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that just accidentally happens to have a massive influence over everything we see.
You work on ads, Jeff? You've clearly done a lot of thinking as to why that's great. Me? I bowed out of the entity trying to attach a tacky flyer for Ovaltine to every book, magazine, news article, and video clip I see. I bowed out of an entity whose main existence is apparently to mediate every interaction I have with a computer--or another person--and insert advertising into.
I'm actually really sick of ads!
This guy works in ad tech and this is the extent of their moral reasoning on the issue? This is about one argument and 90% history. Better to say you don't want to think about how the sausage is made.
Many have commented on the inherently harmful nature of advertisement, so I would like to address the one argument I see in there, it goes something like must "ads must exist or else we would have to pay for content". But even this seems to me largely unfounded. By excluding "donations and hobbies", what the author is really saying is "ads must exist or else the content we get would be different (read: worse)".
I see no reason to believe this. The sources of information I find reliable are ones based on consensus, eg Wikipedia. If anything, I find getting information from traditional media less reliable than getting it directly from random people, as the latter don't have a financial interest to present only certain types of information or present the information in certain biased ways. The bigger a news corporation is, the more interest it has in 1) relying on fearmongering and 2) conforming to a "current government" bias (as we have seen to horrible effect when Trump was president). As for entertainment, it is doubtful that anyone could become a millionaire with daily vlogs or let's plays as they can today, but I personally know of many that would be glad to just make a living. It's also improbable that a single big website such as YouTube would totally dominate the video sharing landscape, as they wouldn't be able to rely on ads to do so. Incidentally, getting rid of ads would solve the "advertiser friendly" problem that plagues mass media, small content creators and consumers alike.
In short, saying "ads are the only way" seems to me the same as saying "the web is have is the best version of the web" or even "it's the only web we can have". I disagree on both counts, and I for one can't wait until the house of cards crumbles.
Many have commented on the inherently harmful nature of advertisement, so I would like to address the one argument I see in there, it goes something like must "ads must exist or else we would have to pay for content". But even this seems to me largely unfounded. By excluding "donations and hobbies", what the author is really saying is "ads must exist or else the content we get would be different (read: worse)".
I see no reason to believe this. The sources of information I find reliable are ones based on consensus, eg Wikipedia. If anything, I find getting information from traditional media less reliable than getting it directly from random people, as the latter don't have a financial interest to present only certain types of information or present the information in certain biased ways. The bigger a news corporation is, the more interest it has in 1) relying on fearmongering and 2) conforming to a "current government" bias (as we have seen to horrible effect when Trump was president). As for entertainment, it is doubtful that anyone could become a millionaire with daily vlogs or let's plays as they can today, but I personally know of many that would be glad to just make a living. It's also improbable that a single big website such as YouTube would totally dominate the video sharing landscape, as they wouldn't be able to rely on ads to do so. Incidentally, getting rid of ads would solve the "advertiser friendly" problem that plagues mass media, small content creators and consumers alike.
In short, saying "ads are the only way" seems to me the same as saying "the web is have is the best version of the web" or even "it's the only web we can have". I disagree on both counts, and I for one can't wait until the house of cards crumbles.
I'll probably get downvoted for this. Why does OP need to justify his/her job in adtech? He/she loves the job and probably pays well. That's it. Period. Why go about convincing strangers!
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Ads are bad because of their implementation, not as a concept.
The “alternatives” are not paywalls vs. ads, the alternative is to be a less awful ad provider.
Unintrusive text is fine. Static images without flashy animations are fine. Even watching something like a funny TV commercial is great because it seems worth the time.
Yet somewhere along the line, somebody decided it was “fine” to shove overlays in my face, stubbornly keep things in place during scrolling, auto-playing sound, etc. And all that crap is before even factoring in the gigabytes of bandwidth stolen from me to download and run JavaScript that ultimately serves to be a creepy stalker around the Internet.
So feel free to work on ads without shame as long as the ads you work on aren’t shameless.
The “alternatives” are not paywalls vs. ads, the alternative is to be a less awful ad provider.
Unintrusive text is fine. Static images without flashy animations are fine. Even watching something like a funny TV commercial is great because it seems worth the time.
Yet somewhere along the line, somebody decided it was “fine” to shove overlays in my face, stubbornly keep things in place during scrolling, auto-playing sound, etc. And all that crap is before even factoring in the gigabytes of bandwidth stolen from me to download and run JavaScript that ultimately serves to be a creepy stalker around the Internet.
So feel free to work on ads without shame as long as the ads you work on aren’t shameless.
This analysis starts with a straw-man.
> So: why is advertising good? I mean, isn't it annoying when sites show you ads instead of whatever it is you want to read? The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
Anyone on the internet prior to 2000 knows people make content just to make content. I would strongly argue that the wave of "everything must be monetized" has been entirely negative. While it's made the quantity of content go way up, it's polluted everything with clickbait. Whereas before you used to get much higher quality content due to them being passion projects and not people trying to make money.
> So: why is advertising good? I mean, isn't it annoying when sites show you ads instead of whatever it is you want to read? The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
Anyone on the internet prior to 2000 knows people make content just to make content. I would strongly argue that the wave of "everything must be monetized" has been entirely negative. While it's made the quantity of content go way up, it's polluted everything with clickbait. Whereas before you used to get much higher quality content due to them being passion projects and not people trying to make money.
This is an ad to make AI advertisers look positive.
> I see ads as a force for good
> I feel OK about working on it because I give half my salary to charity
Cognitive dissonance that occurs between sentences is particularly hilarious.
> I feel OK about working on it because I give half my salary to charity
Cognitive dissonance that occurs between sentences is particularly hilarious.
I’ll never know since I block them all
Sorry but this is a bunch of BS, why work on ads? Because you get a big fat check at the end of the month, and that perfectly fine.
Speaking as someone from the developing world - ads have been excellent way for 1st-world eyeballs to subsidize access to information for the rest of the world - which is a net-positive from my selfish POV. Money from ads allows people who live on less than a dollar a day to have access to the same content as someone in a sea-side villa. Mostly.
Paywalls, subscriptions and micropayment are regressive, unless they are indexed by cost of living.
Paywalls, subscriptions and micropayment are regressive, unless they are indexed by cost of living.
The google content marketing division are really going hard trying to foist this flock-of-sheep stuff.
Why I Work on Ads:
money.
money.
Someone who works on ads!? Thank goodness.
recent experience:
Friend needs to google ads for new location in another state. I say call google and get setup - your web site is good - and they will actually answer the phone when you call for this.
Couple months later - zero calls for new clients.
I take a peek into his campaign - it's set on some new fangled 'smart ads' - there is like almost no data on keyword clicks and such.
I mention that it's odd for ads for a specific niche (rolfing) to burn through a few thousand dollas in ads and not being a single new customer. (he laughs 'there is no way it's been thousands of dollars' - I did not laugh and said yes you have spent thousands already I can see THAT in your stats - he had no idea)
He reaches out for support via phone and help forms. Eventually I do the same.
The pain one must go through filling out these long forms with lots of entries to get support - omg.
No one can figure out where the money went, which search phrases, etc. I start to work on negative keywords lists and location radius.. it burns another 2 grand - with no stats.
Support is delayed - even India is delaying things with covid at that point.. messaging is sparse - basic answer is we took your money, you agreed, sorry you got zero business.
His bank account wiped out and he did not even know it was happening. I think he panicked with his bank and they cancelled his debit card about that time.
I tried to create a new campaign for him that would be exact match and have good negative keywords at that point that would actually get clients and not waste clicks.. but his account was frozen.
More support attempts.. weeks later - a message saying similar to - pay us another $1800 - smart ads don't do good stats - sorry about your luck.
I had paused the smart ads campaign that google set up and created a better one - but at that point my friend was so soured on the google experience, and the ripoff that he did not want to pay the additional $1800 that could not be charged to his cancelled card.
Short story long.. this campaign was not setup and run by an ad agency - google set it up. It was a complete waste of money and time and it has hurt the brand not just wit the two of us, but others we share details on this.
I suggested they refund 1800 and let him start fresh with the new setup I created.. more long forms to fill out.. eventually no dice.
There was a time when I helped businesses with google ads and it made several places successful for some time. What google has become with their lack of customer support and transparency is mind boggling to me.
If the yellow pages helped customers make ads and charged 3 grand a month to run them and in turn zero new customers called - I would imagine there would be less ads in those sections next year.
Anyhow your google ad folks essentially took advantage of a 70 year old and wiped his bank account - and returned zero benefits.
Might be time for some changes with how all that works - maybe just stop the retail side of doing ads for small folks and make them go through an agency so you can place the blame elsewhere - or/and maybe an agency would do a better job making sure there were proper stats and return on investment in order to keep paying clients in business.
Right now the metrics and reports of taking money from small businesses while paying folks in India to sell and support it - it's really not working as well as it might look in those quarterly spreadsheets.
imho - ymmv.
recent experience:
Friend needs to google ads for new location in another state. I say call google and get setup - your web site is good - and they will actually answer the phone when you call for this.
Couple months later - zero calls for new clients.
I take a peek into his campaign - it's set on some new fangled 'smart ads' - there is like almost no data on keyword clicks and such.
I mention that it's odd for ads for a specific niche (rolfing) to burn through a few thousand dollas in ads and not being a single new customer. (he laughs 'there is no way it's been thousands of dollars' - I did not laugh and said yes you have spent thousands already I can see THAT in your stats - he had no idea)
He reaches out for support via phone and help forms. Eventually I do the same.
The pain one must go through filling out these long forms with lots of entries to get support - omg.
No one can figure out where the money went, which search phrases, etc. I start to work on negative keywords lists and location radius.. it burns another 2 grand - with no stats.
Support is delayed - even India is delaying things with covid at that point.. messaging is sparse - basic answer is we took your money, you agreed, sorry you got zero business.
His bank account wiped out and he did not even know it was happening. I think he panicked with his bank and they cancelled his debit card about that time.
I tried to create a new campaign for him that would be exact match and have good negative keywords at that point that would actually get clients and not waste clicks.. but his account was frozen.
More support attempts.. weeks later - a message saying similar to - pay us another $1800 - smart ads don't do good stats - sorry about your luck.
I had paused the smart ads campaign that google set up and created a better one - but at that point my friend was so soured on the google experience, and the ripoff that he did not want to pay the additional $1800 that could not be charged to his cancelled card.
Short story long.. this campaign was not setup and run by an ad agency - google set it up. It was a complete waste of money and time and it has hurt the brand not just wit the two of us, but others we share details on this.
I suggested they refund 1800 and let him start fresh with the new setup I created.. more long forms to fill out.. eventually no dice.
There was a time when I helped businesses with google ads and it made several places successful for some time. What google has become with their lack of customer support and transparency is mind boggling to me.
If the yellow pages helped customers make ads and charged 3 grand a month to run them and in turn zero new customers called - I would imagine there would be less ads in those sections next year.
Anyhow your google ad folks essentially took advantage of a 70 year old and wiped his bank account - and returned zero benefits.
Might be time for some changes with how all that works - maybe just stop the retail side of doing ads for small folks and make them go through an agency so you can place the blame elsewhere - or/and maybe an agency would do a better job making sure there were proper stats and return on investment in order to keep paying clients in business.
Right now the metrics and reports of taking money from small businesses while paying folks in India to sell and support it - it's really not working as well as it might look in those quarterly spreadsheets.
imho - ymmv.
Ads are fine. I don't like them, but they are fine. Targeted ads are fine too. I don't like them either, but they are fine.
The privacy invading tactics used to drive those targeted ads are not fine. They are abusive, manipulative, and covert. I am not in Europe, so perhaps I'm bias, but I also don't see regulation of the data collection industry via the GDPR as improving the situation much. It seems to have just moved the goal posts for being more manipulative to gain permission. From my totally outsider point-of-view it seems the only way to effectively limit this privacy-invading data collection is to regulate how the data can be used vs. the collection itself. Heavily regulating the ad targeting itself vs. the data collection would mean even if you did collect the data, it loses its value to the advertisers. This also allows more legitimate data collection such as error reporting to continue as-is without the burden of extra regulation.
Anyways, that is my point of view on it. I would be interested to hear other's opinions on it, perhaps from those in industry.
The privacy invading tactics used to drive those targeted ads are not fine. They are abusive, manipulative, and covert. I am not in Europe, so perhaps I'm bias, but I also don't see regulation of the data collection industry via the GDPR as improving the situation much. It seems to have just moved the goal posts for being more manipulative to gain permission. From my totally outsider point-of-view it seems the only way to effectively limit this privacy-invading data collection is to regulate how the data can be used vs. the collection itself. Heavily regulating the ad targeting itself vs. the data collection would mean even if you did collect the data, it loses its value to the advertisers. This also allows more legitimate data collection such as error reporting to continue as-is without the burden of extra regulation.
Anyways, that is my point of view on it. I would be interested to hear other's opinions on it, perhaps from those in industry.
The problem is not Ads themselves, it's the fact that they inject perverse incentives into the entire tech ecosystem.
To maximize your advertising revenue, you need to track your users as effectively as possible. This:
a) Reduces user privacy. Even recent developments like FLoC, which appear to be pro-privacy on the surface, are really just yet another datapoint with which to violate the privacy of users.
b) Reduces performance. It's easy to blame trendy bloated tech stacks for the state of the web, but the reality is that a big chunk of the slowness comes from ad-related tracking and delivery technologies (install privacy extensions on a low-end system and see the difference!). This reduced performance disproportionately affects those with lower system and network resources, further reinforcing global inequality.
Although some will disagree, I do think that it's possible to advertise ethically, but no large corporation operating in a capitalist society is going to be doing that voluntarily - unless strict regulation comes down from above (Spoiler Alert: It won't).
All that said, I don't blame the author for working in adtech, but perhaps only due to my rather bleak perspective that we're all just cogs in the capitalist machine whether we like it or not.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
P.S: Cynically, I think the author's announcement of their charitable donations counts against them. It makes it seem like he's trying to "offset" the harm caused by his work, even if he won't openly admit that such harm exists. Charitable donations may make you a net-virtuous individual, but they do nothing to address the harm of adtech itself - which is orthogonal to the author's original claim that they believe that advertising is a good thing.
To maximize your advertising revenue, you need to track your users as effectively as possible. This:
a) Reduces user privacy. Even recent developments like FLoC, which appear to be pro-privacy on the surface, are really just yet another datapoint with which to violate the privacy of users.
b) Reduces performance. It's easy to blame trendy bloated tech stacks for the state of the web, but the reality is that a big chunk of the slowness comes from ad-related tracking and delivery technologies (install privacy extensions on a low-end system and see the difference!). This reduced performance disproportionately affects those with lower system and network resources, further reinforcing global inequality.
Although some will disagree, I do think that it's possible to advertise ethically, but no large corporation operating in a capitalist society is going to be doing that voluntarily - unless strict regulation comes down from above (Spoiler Alert: It won't).
All that said, I don't blame the author for working in adtech, but perhaps only due to my rather bleak perspective that we're all just cogs in the capitalist machine whether we like it or not.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
P.S: Cynically, I think the author's announcement of their charitable donations counts against them. It makes it seem like he's trying to "offset" the harm caused by his work, even if he won't openly admit that such harm exists. Charitable donations may make you a net-virtuous individual, but they do nothing to address the harm of adtech itself - which is orthogonal to the author's original claim that they believe that advertising is a good thing.
Working in adtech and trying to convince yourself (and others) you are doing the world a favor is a real equilibrium exercise.
The false dichotomy between ads/paywall is not really useful, when the reality is that you often get a paywall and ads after you agree to pay. The advertisement industry is a cancerous blight of our societies, its sole purpose is to sell us stuff we do not need to increase a company’s profit. The fact that this is done on the web by plundering our personal data with no regard for our privacy is just the cherry on top. Ads business is unhinged capitalism and a social and ecological disaster, and advocating in its favor today is short-sighted at best.
It’s fine to work a job you like in an unethical industry, but it is not necessary to try to sell it to other people.
The false dichotomy between ads/paywall is not really useful, when the reality is that you often get a paywall and ads after you agree to pay. The advertisement industry is a cancerous blight of our societies, its sole purpose is to sell us stuff we do not need to increase a company’s profit. The fact that this is done on the web by plundering our personal data with no regard for our privacy is just the cherry on top. Ads business is unhinged capitalism and a social and ecological disaster, and advocating in its favor today is short-sighted at best.
It’s fine to work a job you like in an unethical industry, but it is not necessary to try to sell it to other people.
Like others I don't buy this argument.
They wrote that the two choices are
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
But that's not quite right. Ads have two options themselves:
> Ads. You pay with your money, because the ads get you to buy stuff.
> Ads. You pay with your attention, wasted on stuff you'll never buy.
Two negatives. Either you buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't (and therefore don't need, and were manipulated into buying), or you don't buy stuff and just have to suffer the attack on your attention in a world where your attention is already strained to its limits. No good outcomes here.
No argument for ads works if you believe, like I do, that buying things in general is bad -- bad for you, bad for the human race, and bad for the environment.
They wrote that the two choices are
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
But that's not quite right. Ads have two options themselves:
> Ads. You pay with your money, because the ads get you to buy stuff.
> Ads. You pay with your attention, wasted on stuff you'll never buy.
Two negatives. Either you buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't (and therefore don't need, and were manipulated into buying), or you don't buy stuff and just have to suffer the attack on your attention in a world where your attention is already strained to its limits. No good outcomes here.
No argument for ads works if you believe, like I do, that buying things in general is bad -- bad for you, bad for the human race, and bad for the environment.
> buying things in general is bad -- bad for you, bad for the human race, and bad for the environment
Do you mean to qualify this in any way? This is quite the radical statement that I'm not sure how you can reconcile with human existence any time the last X thousand years.
Do you mean to qualify this in any way? This is quite the radical statement that I'm not sure how you can reconcile with human existence any time the last X thousand years.
Not so radical. See the minimalist movement and related themes.
Specifically, there's the prevalence & overabundance of low-quality manufactured products made possible through economies of scale and mispriced environmental externalities.
In fact I think it's a good thing for one to question once in a while if they really need to buy that new thing.
Specifically, there's the prevalence & overabundance of low-quality manufactured products made possible through economies of scale and mispriced environmental externalities.
In fact I think it's a good thing for one to question once in a while if they really need to buy that new thing.
Not really. I think we should operate such that consumption is slightly negative to begin with.
imo, buying something you need is good, but then you don't need an ad to tell you to do it. Buying something you want is good. Buying something you neither need nor want is bad. Allowing something to manipulate you to want more stuff seems bad compared to it not happening.
imo, buying something you need is good, but then you don't need an ad to tell you to do it. Buying something you want is good. Buying something you neither need nor want is bad. Allowing something to manipulate you to want more stuff seems bad compared to it not happening.
> Buying something you neither need nor want is bad. Allowing something to manipulate you to want more stuff seems bad compared to it not happening.
Okay, those are the qualifiers I was looking for. That makes sense. It sounded like you were taking a stance against all purchases and not just excesses.
Okay, those are the qualifiers I was looking for. That makes sense. It sounded like you were taking a stance against all purchases and not just excesses.
I sort-of am: I'd say it seems most reasonable to assign a negative reaction to any purchases, so the positive reasons need to be enough to justify it.
Because money.
> Paywalls. You pay with your money.
> Ads. You pay with your attention
If you work on ads that only take my attention then you work on good ads, and I completely support that. If, however, you feel that your ads must try to pinpoint my identity by harvesting personal information in the name of "targeting" or "fraud prevention", then that's no longer me paying with my attention, it's me paying with my privacy and integrity.
If you work on ads that only take my attention then you work on good ads, and I completely support that. If, however, you feel that your ads must try to pinpoint my identity by harvesting personal information in the name of "targeting" or "fraud prevention", then that's no longer me paying with my attention, it's me paying with my privacy and integrity.
I think what HN community is missing is that tech jobs can allow you to pay for all these services if possible, but most of the world especially the developing world, is not capable of paying for the content.
If everything was behind paywalls, internet would be for the rich guys who can afford paying for these services. To make it free and equal for all, ads are the necessarily evil, according to me.
> The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models: / Paywalls. You pay with your money. / Ads. You pay with your attention.
There's also the alternative-which-must-not-be-named, which is non-regressive and frictionless: socialism. You pay with money, through taxes.
There's also the alternative-which-must-not-be-named, which is non-regressive and frictionless: socialism. You pay with money, through taxes.
I'm always surprised that someone would go through the trouble of justifying their involvement in something prima facie unethical -- in writing, no less -- and fail to address the actual ethical issue. As other have noted in comments, the problem is not with advertising in general, but with the specific way in which Google advertises.
I have a hard time believing the author is unaware of this, so I'm left wondering: why? What was the point of this exercise? The result is closer to a self-indictment than an apology.
I have a hard time believing the author is unaware of this, so I'm left wondering: why? What was the point of this exercise? The result is closer to a self-indictment than an apology.
> the problem is not with advertising in general
I disagree. Advertising is intrusive and designed to convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do. It's large scale psychological manipulation that's only considered ethical because we've been doing it for so long.
I disagree. Advertising is intrusive and designed to convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do. It's large scale psychological manipulation that's only considered ethical because we've been doing it for so long.
But so is essentially all interaction with your environment. Every interaction you have with essentially everyone might change your behavior. The only difference is the scale.
The problem is that the power of targeted advertising has been democratized (irony intended) to allow everyone to do it. It is capable enough that it can end peaceful democracies.
The problem is that the power of targeted advertising has been democratized (irony intended) to allow everyone to do it. It is capable enough that it can end peaceful democracies.
> But so is essentially all interaction with your environment
My every interaction with my environment doesn't involve millions of trained professionals bent to the sole purpose of influencing my actions.
Outside of ads, that is.
My every interaction with my environment doesn't involve millions of trained professionals bent to the sole purpose of influencing my actions.
Outside of ads, that is.
Might be a difference of opinion, but what do you propose as an alternative to funding free things like news sites, videos on the internet, and even cable television channels.
I'm not saying that ads are particularly ethical, but I struggle to think of a replacement that isn't more paywalls. This is an easy decision to make for people that have the money, but is much harder for the majority of Americans. A Vox article [1] estimates that this would add an average of $35 a month, assuming every US adult paid this cost (which is a bold assumption).
[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/24/18715421/internet-free-...
I'm not saying that ads are particularly ethical, but I struggle to think of a replacement that isn't more paywalls. This is an easy decision to make for people that have the money, but is much harder for the majority of Americans. A Vox article [1] estimates that this would add an average of $35 a month, assuming every US adult paid this cost (which is a bold assumption).
[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/24/18715421/internet-free-...
This insidious equivocating between friends recommending things to each-other and companies buying themselves a piece of your attention for profit by advertising apologists is pretty gross.
I saw a Facebook ad for a intro course on FPGA programming. I clicked on it; I paid the guy some money to watch his videos.
It was something I was interested in; I wouldn't have know about it without the advertising. We had an exchange of services for money.
How is this wrong?
Sure there are deceitful practices in advertising, but you're painting everyone with the same broad brush. IMHO, it is best to address the negative aspects of advertising instead of restricting communication from vendors to potential consumers.
It was something I was interested in; I wouldn't have know about it without the advertising. We had an exchange of services for money.
How is this wrong?
Sure there are deceitful practices in advertising, but you're painting everyone with the same broad brush. IMHO, it is best to address the negative aspects of advertising instead of restricting communication from vendors to potential consumers.
Only if you think everyone around you is trying to deceive you.
Ads are designed to push you into taking unreasonable and uninformed decisions by showing advantages only and amplifying them and deliberately hiding the cons.
Many people are trying to deceive you. Sometimes consciously and sometimes not. Every interaction, whether you realize it or not, is a sales process.
> designed to convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do.
When I search "good USB charger" in Google and get an ad, click the ad and make a purchase for a USB charger, how was that nothing something I normally would do?
There's absolutely deceptive advertising, but to pretend all advertising is "intrusive" and "convincing you to do things you wouldn't normally do" is disingenuous.
When I search "good USB charger" in Google and get an ad, click the ad and make a purchase for a USB charger, how was that nothing something I normally would do?
There's absolutely deceptive advertising, but to pretend all advertising is "intrusive" and "convincing you to do things you wouldn't normally do" is disingenuous.
How much toothpaste do you use on your toothbrush? Something the size of a pea, or the whole length of your toothbrush? 'Cause all you need is the first, but most people do the second. Why? Ads.
Why do people have such a great impression of John Deere tractors? To the point where there's a whole culture of "green iron" and other companies had huge trouble breaking into the market? Ads. Ads going back to childhood in the form of toys.
Why do folks trust some brands, and not others? Why is brand recognition such an influential thing when it comes to making purchasing decisions? Why do children beg their parents for certain toys? Why do adults pick TGI Friday's over the diner next door?
Ads.
EDIT: I think it's worth flipping the question a bit as well. Why would companies pay for ads if they had no value, if they did not change our behavior? If we'd do something naturally, there would be no need for ads in the first place.
Why do people have such a great impression of John Deere tractors? To the point where there's a whole culture of "green iron" and other companies had huge trouble breaking into the market? Ads. Ads going back to childhood in the form of toys.
Why do folks trust some brands, and not others? Why is brand recognition such an influential thing when it comes to making purchasing decisions? Why do children beg their parents for certain toys? Why do adults pick TGI Friday's over the diner next door?
Ads.
EDIT: I think it's worth flipping the question a bit as well. Why would companies pay for ads if they had no value, if they did not change our behavior? If we'd do something naturally, there would be no need for ads in the first place.
If a company has a service or product they want to sell and no one knows about it, no one will purchase it.
The minimum advertisement is essentially: "we sell ____."
I guess that could be called manipulative but without it, I'm not sure the economy could exist.
The minimum advertisement is essentially: "we sell ____."
I guess that could be called manipulative but without it, I'm not sure the economy could exist.
> if they did not change our behavior? If we'd do something naturally, there would be no need for ads in the first place.
How would you find a USB charger brand if you were unaware of any to begin with?
> Why do folks trust some brands, and not others?
So then why even have a brand to begin with? Are you suggesting we just ban all advertising altogether? When you start a new company, new market, new idea, then what would you suggest that isn't advertising for a company to do to explain to customers what it is you do and how you may help them?
How would you find a USB charger brand if you were unaware of any to begin with?
> Why do folks trust some brands, and not others?
So then why even have a brand to begin with? Are you suggesting we just ban all advertising altogether? When you start a new company, new market, new idea, then what would you suggest that isn't advertising for a company to do to explain to customers what it is you do and how you may help them?
There is a vast world of difference between putting out to the public "I sell X" and following you around the internet to auctioning a consumer's eyeballs to the highest ad bidder. Or intentionally changing your behavior with their ads (the toothpaste one being the simplest to understand).
Trying to conflate the two as equivalent when someone says "ads are toxic" in the context of the online ad industry is doing the argument no good.
> How would you find a USB charger brand if you were unaware of any to begin with?
Why search for a brand, and not a high quality, well reviewed USB charger? To use the original example, googling for "good USB charger" and then buying one via an ad will not give you any guarantees that the USB charger is good. All it guarantees is that they paid the most to get your eyeballs on that particular search.
Trying to conflate the two as equivalent when someone says "ads are toxic" in the context of the online ad industry is doing the argument no good.
> How would you find a USB charger brand if you were unaware of any to begin with?
Why search for a brand, and not a high quality, well reviewed USB charger? To use the original example, googling for "good USB charger" and then buying one via an ad will not give you any guarantees that the USB charger is good. All it guarantees is that they paid the most to get your eyeballs on that particular search.
> Why search for a brand, and not a high quality, well reviewed USB charger?
This is where you lost me. You assume:
1. There is a free service that allows you to search products. PS - it's called Google/Amazon.
2. There is a free service that allows you to read product reviews. PS - it's called Google/Amazon.
> To use the original example, googling for "good USB charger" and then buying one via an ad will not give you any guarantees that the USB charger is good.
And please do tell me, where does this perfect search capability exist in the world that allows one to search for goods and services free from all advertising.
Even a Turkish Bazaar merchant will tell you that the tube of toothpaste they're selling you last only a month.
This is where you lost me. You assume:
1. There is a free service that allows you to search products. PS - it's called Google/Amazon.
2. There is a free service that allows you to read product reviews. PS - it's called Google/Amazon.
> To use the original example, googling for "good USB charger" and then buying one via an ad will not give you any guarantees that the USB charger is good.
And please do tell me, where does this perfect search capability exist in the world that allows one to search for goods and services free from all advertising.
Even a Turkish Bazaar merchant will tell you that the tube of toothpaste they're selling you last only a month.
> where does this perfect search capability exist in the world that allows one to search for goods and services free from all advertising.
That an alternative is not easily available, does not somehow make the existing services ethical.
That said, and the mystical service is called your friends/family/neighbors/colleagues/etc. It ain't perfect, but it's remarkably effective. In the 2-300 people in your first and second degree networks, there's probably a few anecdotes to help you find a good product.
It even has a neat name: word of mouth.
That an alternative is not easily available, does not somehow make the existing services ethical.
That said, and the mystical service is called your friends/family/neighbors/colleagues/etc. It ain't perfect, but it's remarkably effective. In the 2-300 people in your first and second degree networks, there's probably a few anecdotes to help you find a good product.
It even has a neat name: word of mouth.
> Why search for a brand, and not a high quality, well reviewed USB charger?
Tangent, but damn I wish reviews were reliable nowadays. They've fallen to deceitful practices like fake reviews, and are no better than advertising nowadays.
Tangent, but damn I wish reviews were reliable nowadays. They've fallen to deceitful practices like fake reviews, and are no better than advertising nowadays.
I have similar issues with advertising, but i'd also ask for the following question, because it's a sincere one and I don't have a good answer for it.
I work at a company that is trying to introduce a new kind of product, one that I sincerely believe is intended to help people rather than _just_ make money (this is unusual for me, because i'm usually extremely cynical about motivations). The problem is that most potential customers we could help aren't even aware that what we're offering exists, they may not even think to find out if such a thing exists. How do we create awareness of this thing without advertising?
I work at a company that is trying to introduce a new kind of product, one that I sincerely believe is intended to help people rather than _just_ make money (this is unusual for me, because i'm usually extremely cynical about motivations). The problem is that most potential customers we could help aren't even aware that what we're offering exists, they may not even think to find out if such a thing exists. How do we create awareness of this thing without advertising?
A sign outside a gas station is advertising, but it’s hardly going to convince someone to buy a car just to buy gas from them or drove dramatically more.
Unfortunately, more widespread and effective advertising has real costs that end up raising prices. Coke’s premium over sugar water is backed up by their advertising spend.
Tracking, manipulation, etc are major downsides to advertising. But, even purely informative adds on TV aren’t free.
Unfortunately, more widespread and effective advertising has real costs that end up raising prices. Coke’s premium over sugar water is backed up by their advertising spend.
Tracking, manipulation, etc are major downsides to advertising. But, even purely informative adds on TV aren’t free.
"Last gas station for N miles!"
Whether true or not, it will convince you to top off your tank, and potentially purchase some things from the shop.
Whether true or not, it will convince you to top off your tank, and potentially purchase some things from the shop.
Yet, they don’t convince you to wildly increase your driving or top up a nearly full tank.
To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive. On the other hand T-Shirt advertising can convince you to buy significantly more clothes in a lifetime.
It’s a qualitative difference even if I didn’t express it well.
To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive. On the other hand T-Shirt advertising can convince you to buy significantly more clothes in a lifetime.
It’s a qualitative difference even if I didn’t express it well.
If you're going past a gas station, you're already driving - they want you to come to stop at their gas station.
> To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive.
City/state/national tourism bureaus are taking care of that part. With help from the automobile industry's marketing arm.
> To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive.
City/state/national tourism bureaus are taking care of that part. With help from the automobile industry's marketing arm.
You’re trying to lump different advertising together. I am specifically talking about gas station signs. People in EV’s don’t suddenly buy gas because they saw a large BP logo. That choice was made when you bought the car.
It’s little different than a hospital sign. People don’t think hey there’s a hospital maybe I should have this gaping chest wound taken care of. Which is why they end up as H’s with a simple arrow rather than list out which specific hospital etc.
It’s little different than a hospital sign. People don’t think hey there’s a hospital maybe I should have this gaping chest wound taken care of. Which is why they end up as H’s with a simple arrow rather than list out which specific hospital etc.
> only considered ethical because we've been doing it for so long.
my take on this is to call advertisements/marketing as "lies" on regular conversations. "I watched a lie from nike the other day..."
my take on this is to call advertisements/marketing as "lies" on regular conversations. "I watched a lie from nike the other day..."
> I have a hard time believing the author is unaware of this, so I'm left wondering: why? What was the point of this exercise?
I reckon it was mostly a brag about (1) how he earns over half a million dollars a year for inflicting this upon us all and (2) how much more charitable he is than most of the rest of us.
I reckon it was mostly a brag about (1) how he earns over half a million dollars a year for inflicting this upon us all and (2) how much more charitable he is than most of the rest of us.
I have a more charitable interpretation. My impression is that the author is dealing with an ethical dilemma that most of us have not had to contend with, and that this essay is an attempt to resolve it.
The problem is that its selectively truthful, of course, which renders the whole exercise moot. Even though the author landed on a position in which he is not at fault, it's not going to buy him any peace of mind.
The problem is that its selectively truthful, of course, which renders the whole exercise moot. Even though the author landed on a position in which he is not at fault, it's not going to buy him any peace of mind.
> I have a more charitable interpretation. My impression is that the author is dealing with an ethical dilemma that most of us have not had to contend with, and that this essay is an attempt to resolve it.
That's a good point and I agree that the essay does attempt this. But with opening his piece by letting us all know about his huge income and hefty charitable donations, I felt rather overshadowed the rest of his arguments.
That's a good point and I agree that the essay does attempt this. But with opening his piece by letting us all know about his huge income and hefty charitable donations, I felt rather overshadowed the rest of his arguments.
> he earns over half a million dollars a year
nit: that's my family's joint income. My individual income is at https://www.jefftk.com/money
(I've been putting my income online since 2008 when my salary was $65k. https://www.jefftk.com/p/salary-publicy for why I think more people should share their incomes.)
nit: that's my family's joint income. My individual income is at https://www.jefftk.com/money
(I've been putting my income online since 2008 when my salary was $65k. https://www.jefftk.com/p/salary-publicy for why I think more people should share their incomes.)
I found it interesting that the first thing he says to defend his work with ads is that he gives money to charity. If you feel like you need to donate to charity to justify your actions, maybe your actions are evil? There has to be some level of guilt involved in that decision, at the very least.
Which is to say, I don't blame him for what he does. If someone dangled all that money in my face I can't say I wouldn't be tempted to take it, even if people call me evil.
However, the mental gymnastics to write an article like this does bother me. It's the same stuff probably everyone else in ads and other evil industries does to justify their actions. Reading something non-satirical like this makes me feel less good about the world.
Which is to say, I don't blame him for what he does. If someone dangled all that money in my face I can't say I wouldn't be tempted to take it, even if people call me evil.
However, the mental gymnastics to write an article like this does bother me. It's the same stuff probably everyone else in ads and other evil industries does to justify their actions. Reading something non-satirical like this makes me feel less good about the world.
> If you feel like you need to donate to charity to justify your actions, maybe your actions are evil?
You’re way off base here. The author links to the Effective Altruism page on “giving to earn” one link deep in: https://www.jefftk.com/donations
This is a well established concept, the idea is that in many life situations you can maximize your positive impact by taking a well-paying job and putting that money into charity.
So the arrow of causation is the opposite to what you are claiming; starting with the desire to give to charity, what job optimizes the amount that can be given?
It’s disheartening to see the cynicism that is being directed towards someone that is transparently advocating for making the world a better place, and taking the time to put their thinking in public to seek feedback on it.
You’re way off base here. The author links to the Effective Altruism page on “giving to earn” one link deep in: https://www.jefftk.com/donations
This is a well established concept, the idea is that in many life situations you can maximize your positive impact by taking a well-paying job and putting that money into charity.
So the arrow of causation is the opposite to what you are claiming; starting with the desire to give to charity, what job optimizes the amount that can be given?
It’s disheartening to see the cynicism that is being directed towards someone that is transparently advocating for making the world a better place, and taking the time to put their thinking in public to seek feedback on it.
> the first thing he says to defend his work with ads is that he gives money to charity
The reason that I work (as opposed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement) is so I can donate, which is why I start with that piece of the explanation.
The reason that I work (as opposed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRE_movement) is so I can donate, which is why I start with that piece of the explanation.
I don't mean to come across as too forward or rude, and freely admit that I know nothing about you personally. Thank you for making such generous contributions to charity!
The way I look at it is like so:
I think most people want to bring a net positive value to society. One way of doing that is working on something whose intrinsic value to society is neutral or nebulous (or just not thinking about it too hard), and compensating for that giving the money we make to other organizations that are definitely contributing positively. While this is better than not doing so, I think it misses out on the leverage that exists in what we build vs. the money we're paid for it.
For example, despite making over $500k last year, we know your employer thinks you are producing more value than that, because otherwise they wouldn't pay you that much. You would be a drag on their income statement otherwise. What this means is that even if you donated 100% of your salary to charity, you still aren't taking advantage of the leverage of what you can build, vs. the fixed amount you can earn.
If instead, you choose to work on something which is inherently good for society, society at large benefits from that leverage. You might be paid less, say $200k instead of $500k. But since the positive value you produce is leveraged you could be contributing, let's say, $1M of positive value for society - $200k to pay you to live in the bay area ($800k net positive value).
Just something to think about.
The way I look at it is like so:
I think most people want to bring a net positive value to society. One way of doing that is working on something whose intrinsic value to society is neutral or nebulous (or just not thinking about it too hard), and compensating for that giving the money we make to other organizations that are definitely contributing positively. While this is better than not doing so, I think it misses out on the leverage that exists in what we build vs. the money we're paid for it.
For example, despite making over $500k last year, we know your employer thinks you are producing more value than that, because otherwise they wouldn't pay you that much. You would be a drag on their income statement otherwise. What this means is that even if you donated 100% of your salary to charity, you still aren't taking advantage of the leverage of what you can build, vs. the fixed amount you can earn.
If instead, you choose to work on something which is inherently good for society, society at large benefits from that leverage. You might be paid less, say $200k instead of $500k. But since the positive value you produce is leveraged you could be contributing, let's say, $1M of positive value for society - $200k to pay you to live in the bay area ($800k net positive value).
Just something to think about.
You are contributing 100% of the value to the person, but it is really the person and the situation.
If I increase online sales by 0.1% through optimizing something, I am worth millions of dollars to Amazon and nearly nothing to Joe Schmoe with a small Shopify site.
If I increase online sales by 0.1% through optimizing something, I am worth millions of dollars to Amazon and nearly nothing to Joe Schmoe with a small Shopify site.
> If I increase online sales by 0.1% through optimizing something, I am worth millions of dollars to Amazon and nearly nothing to Joe Schmoe with a small Shopify site.
Yes, but software skills are fairly fungible. Just because you currently work on ads doesn't mean that's all your skills are good for, or even that you need to work anywhere in ecommerce.
Yes, but software skills are fairly fungible. Just because you currently work on ads doesn't mean that's all your skills are good for, or even that you need to work anywhere in ecommerce.
Minor aside: I don't live in the Bay Area and I'm really glad not to!
People aren't asking you "why do you choose to work on ads rather than not work at all", they're asking "why do you work on ads rather than a different area". In that context, the fact that you work to donate is not relevant, since you could switch to a different area and continue to donate.
Few areas pay as well, and someone's gonna do it. This is a rational way to maximize his capacity to influence his world as much as possible.
Let's not blame engineers for what is effectively a political issue. If ads are an issue, let's get the law to handle it.
Let's not blame engineers for what is effectively a political issue. If ads are an issue, let's get the law to handle it.
Engineers are not somehow separate from society. When you say "let's get the law to handle it", that "us" includes engineers. Politics is just people, including engineers, figuring out how to organize society.
If you think something is wrong, the first step is to not do it. If you think it's so wrong it should be illegal, you can take the optional second step of trying to change the law.
There are some circumstances where you think something is wrong, but not doing it would be impossible or require really drastic life changes. For example, maybe you think driving a gas-powered car is wrong because it contributes to climate change, but you can't afford to buy an electric car or move somewhere that doesn't require a car. This is not one of those cases. The author has 10 years of experience at Google and could easily find a very well paying job either at another department inside Google, or at another company.
If you think something is wrong, the first step is to not do it. If you think it's so wrong it should be illegal, you can take the optional second step of trying to change the law.
There are some circumstances where you think something is wrong, but not doing it would be impossible or require really drastic life changes. For example, maybe you think driving a gas-powered car is wrong because it contributes to climate change, but you can't afford to buy an electric car or move somewhere that doesn't require a car. This is not one of those cases. The author has 10 years of experience at Google and could easily find a very well paying job either at another department inside Google, or at another company.
> The author has 10 years of experience at Google and could easily find a very well paying job either at another department inside Google, or at another company.
My point is that quitting or getting a different job accomplishes nothing. With a multinational corporation like Google, they will never struggle to fill roles. If you work in these positions, you at least have influence on product growth, and you can use the massive amount of money earned to lobby against harmful behavior. If you quit, you have no internal influence and have less money to take political action with, meaning the only way you could change things is through legislation.
My point is that quitting or getting a different job accomplishes nothing. With a multinational corporation like Google, they will never struggle to fill roles. If you work in these positions, you at least have influence on product growth, and you can use the massive amount of money earned to lobby against harmful behavior. If you quit, you have no internal influence and have less money to take political action with, meaning the only way you could change things is through legislation.
I tend to agree with Bill Hicks on the subject of advertising and those who work in the industry:
https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a...
https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a...
Very ironic that I had to scroll through an ad midway through that article.
>If you feel like you need to donate to charity to justify your actions...
He specifically said he doesn't do that. Did you finish the article?
He specifically said he doesn't do that. Did you finish the article?
This comes across as incredibly salty. If the arguments are bad, explain why. Or don't.
The second paragraph begins with how much the author gives to charity. So I'm assuming that the author is very aware about ethic questions, and the whole piece is about painting the whole privacy intruding industry that dominates the entire world in pinkish colors.
Sounded like buying indulgences to me.
"My sins are forgiven as long as I tithe some of my profits". Buys your way out of the issue, doesn't change the lifestyle.
"My sins are forgiven as long as I tithe some of my profits". Buys your way out of the issue, doesn't change the lifestyle.
He'd have more take-home income if he worked outside of ad-tech and didn't give 50% of income to charity. So from a utilitarian perspective, I think I'm basically fine with this? Even if ads are "evil" (I am skeptical), they are very much a first-world problem compared with major global problems like malaria, clean drinking water, and hygienic bathrooms.
The trick to the utilitarian calculation is to include the externalities of all the work he's putting in -- an engineer's salary is only a subset of the value they create for the company.
The question is really how do you count all that excess "value", and is it good-value or evil-value. Once upon a time, the culture over there explicitly stated that they didn't want it to be evil... the bikeshedding going on here is opinions about the current implications of it all.
The question is really how do you count all that excess "value", and is it good-value or evil-value. Once upon a time, the culture over there explicitly stated that they didn't want it to be evil... the bikeshedding going on here is opinions about the current implications of it all.
The advertising industry is bad enough that it's not necessary to exaggerate by saying things like "dominates the entire world". Unless you do indeed mean that, in which case, how do you define it?
Yes, and in this he contradicts himself because that statement is a tacit admission of the ethical problems, yet the rest is basically a justification of all of it.
Have you considered that people might have different world views?
Some might find
1. all advertising unethical
2. targeted advertising unethical
3. not consider advertising unethical
4. consider the product that is being advertised
Some might find
1. all advertising unethical
2. targeted advertising unethical
3. not consider advertising unethical
4. consider the product that is being advertised
It's written more for the benefit of the author than anyone else.
> fail to address the actual ethical issue
Could you be more specific about what you think the ethical issue is? I've seen many comments describing very different ethical objections, from several perspectives, and I'm not sure which one is yours?
Could you be more specific about what you think the ethical issue is? I've seen many comments describing very different ethical objections, from several perspectives, and I'm not sure which one is yours?
Spying on users. Running code they didn’t ask for on their computers to spy on them.
Did you not read the second half of the article?
I read it. It’s great that he’s working on something that is alleged to be a little less horrible. Doesn’t make it good, or even acceptable.
Well until you have a better alternative...
Ad blockers and legislation.
I kinda mean a better alternative to funding all this stuff. As pointed out in the OP, ads are actually a progressive model while the oft-cited alternative ("just charge people for what they use") is fairly regressive.
The is actually what I like about Brave's solution, which is:
- no ads by default.
- if you have money and want to pay for the content you consume, you can load money into the browser and have it automatically dispense to publishers/creators based on which content you consume for how long, determined locally on your machine so no privacy leakage there.
- or if you don't have enough to justify paying all those creators directly you can turn on (again) privacy focused ads, where analysis for targeting only happens locally in the browser.
But from what I've seen, HN really hates Brave so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
The is actually what I like about Brave's solution, which is:
- no ads by default.
- if you have money and want to pay for the content you consume, you can load money into the browser and have it automatically dispense to publishers/creators based on which content you consume for how long, determined locally on your machine so no privacy leakage there.
- or if you don't have enough to justify paying all those creators directly you can turn on (again) privacy focused ads, where analysis for targeting only happens locally in the browser.
But from what I've seen, HN really hates Brave so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Brave seems interesting, although I haven't tried it. Why does HN hate it?
> I kinda mean a better alternative to funding all this stuff.
I tend to think we'd be just fine without this "stuff." The internet still worked when the only advertising was banner ads that didn't run code on my machine. In a lot of ways, it worked better.
> I kinda mean a better alternative to funding all this stuff.
I tend to think we'd be just fine without this "stuff." The internet still worked when the only advertising was banner ads that didn't run code on my machine. In a lot of ways, it worked better.
Ok, what is the actual ethical issue? Who are Google and Facebook hurting with their ad targeting and data collection?
> something prima facie unethical
Citation needed.
You're criticizing the author for not addressing the "actual ethical issue", yet you yourself are failing to even state what you think it is.
There is absolutely zero societal consensus that advertising is unethical, in the way there is a consensus that fraud or murder are.
To the contrary -- there is vast disagreement around the ethics of online advertising, delicately balancing concerns around societal good, access to information, funding, factuality, bias, tracking, privacy, and consent. The incredible complexity of the issues involved is pretty much proof that there is nothing merely "prima facie" at all.
Citation needed.
You're criticizing the author for not addressing the "actual ethical issue", yet you yourself are failing to even state what you think it is.
There is absolutely zero societal consensus that advertising is unethical, in the way there is a consensus that fraud or murder are.
To the contrary -- there is vast disagreement around the ethics of online advertising, delicately balancing concerns around societal good, access to information, funding, factuality, bias, tracking, privacy, and consent. The incredible complexity of the issues involved is pretty much proof that there is nothing merely "prima facie" at all.
To be fair it's not that ads are making anyone physically suffer. It might be an annoyance for some people or even considered a privacy threat. But it's not undisputed. That said, when I was a kid with no credit card ads were the only possibility to register a domain, host a website or for that matter even receive a fax. ;)
I think the problem probably lies with the difference between your point of view versus his.
Advertising is not 'prima facie' unethical. It's actually a societal good. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but if you can set aside your emotions with regards to the discussion, and view it from a distance, it's not too hard to show.
To start off, I've never actually met anyone who doesn't want advertising at all (despite their claims). They just use the term advertising to refer to those kinds of advertisements they don't like, or find too intrusive.
Advertising is, at it's base, finding a way to deliver a message to someone who is doing something else. Thus, getting rid of advertising means no more signs on buildings (yes, being forced to read the name of a store as you walk down the street is a form of advertising). Even if you were willing to accept how difficult this would make it to discover businesses (life harder for the end user), this would make it nigh impossible for new entrants to any market. That means that pretty much all commerce would be funneled into a few catch-all stores, and not only would the economy suffer, but consumer power would be greatly diminished.
Advertising indirectly improves the quality of life of people who have more time than money. (Generally the less money you have in total, the more advertising benefits you.) This is because advertising as a source of revenue is a useful tool to amortize the cost of a product over many users. Free-to-watch TV would be mostly non-existent without advertising, not to mention all of the internet services like search and news; also consider free newspapers like the Metro or 20 Minutes.
That doesn't mean that I don't understand what people really get worked up about. Let's forget spam and obnoxious blinking signs, or having to punch the monkey. It's like how knives are great in the hands of chefs, but not murderers. Crime is crime, and someone like the poster of this article is not trying to defend those kinds of practices.
Let's get into what people tend to get really worked up about: customized advertising. However, it's not the customized advertising that really bothers people, it's the fear of abuse of tracking. In a world where customized advertising was perfected, you would see 95% less ads. Why? Every ad you see that isn't a match is a waste for everyone involved. The business doesn't want to pay, because you aren't interested, and the user doesn't want to see it, because it's distracting and wastes your time.
But still, tracking, that bothers you, right? You don't want an advertiser to know your kink, right?
Well, what if the advertiser is the store that happens to serve whatever your kink is? People shop in adult stores, and they have no problem letting the store know that they're interested in their wares, so clearly it's not just the stores learning that is the problem. The problem is the abuse. People want to choose who they trust to share information with, and don't wish to risk. But... if you're clicking on an ad from some store that delivers your own brand of kink, you're okay sharing that with them, so what's the problem?
Well, as an example, maybe if you're a teacher you don't want your community to know that you like buying purple teddy bears because it might cost you your job. You're okay shopping in a purple teddy bear store... but if the purple teddy bear store had advertising that only targeted teachers, suddenly someone knows that you're a teacher that likes purple teddy bears, and you consider that dangerous.
So yes, abuse is a problem. This is why advertisers actively engage in trying to solve the abuse problem. This is why the advertising industry is looking for ways to move forward.
Yes, they also fight the change, because in their own eyes, they're trustworthy (to at least their own standards), and change is hard and expensive. But that doesn't make advertising unethical, 'prima facie' or otherwise.
Advertising is not 'prima facie' unethical. It's actually a societal good. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but if you can set aside your emotions with regards to the discussion, and view it from a distance, it's not too hard to show.
To start off, I've never actually met anyone who doesn't want advertising at all (despite their claims). They just use the term advertising to refer to those kinds of advertisements they don't like, or find too intrusive.
Advertising is, at it's base, finding a way to deliver a message to someone who is doing something else. Thus, getting rid of advertising means no more signs on buildings (yes, being forced to read the name of a store as you walk down the street is a form of advertising). Even if you were willing to accept how difficult this would make it to discover businesses (life harder for the end user), this would make it nigh impossible for new entrants to any market. That means that pretty much all commerce would be funneled into a few catch-all stores, and not only would the economy suffer, but consumer power would be greatly diminished.
Advertising indirectly improves the quality of life of people who have more time than money. (Generally the less money you have in total, the more advertising benefits you.) This is because advertising as a source of revenue is a useful tool to amortize the cost of a product over many users. Free-to-watch TV would be mostly non-existent without advertising, not to mention all of the internet services like search and news; also consider free newspapers like the Metro or 20 Minutes.
That doesn't mean that I don't understand what people really get worked up about. Let's forget spam and obnoxious blinking signs, or having to punch the monkey. It's like how knives are great in the hands of chefs, but not murderers. Crime is crime, and someone like the poster of this article is not trying to defend those kinds of practices.
Let's get into what people tend to get really worked up about: customized advertising. However, it's not the customized advertising that really bothers people, it's the fear of abuse of tracking. In a world where customized advertising was perfected, you would see 95% less ads. Why? Every ad you see that isn't a match is a waste for everyone involved. The business doesn't want to pay, because you aren't interested, and the user doesn't want to see it, because it's distracting and wastes your time.
But still, tracking, that bothers you, right? You don't want an advertiser to know your kink, right?
Well, what if the advertiser is the store that happens to serve whatever your kink is? People shop in adult stores, and they have no problem letting the store know that they're interested in their wares, so clearly it's not just the stores learning that is the problem. The problem is the abuse. People want to choose who they trust to share information with, and don't wish to risk. But... if you're clicking on an ad from some store that delivers your own brand of kink, you're okay sharing that with them, so what's the problem?
Well, as an example, maybe if you're a teacher you don't want your community to know that you like buying purple teddy bears because it might cost you your job. You're okay shopping in a purple teddy bear store... but if the purple teddy bear store had advertising that only targeted teachers, suddenly someone knows that you're a teacher that likes purple teddy bears, and you consider that dangerous.
So yes, abuse is a problem. This is why advertisers actively engage in trying to solve the abuse problem. This is why the advertising industry is looking for ways to move forward.
Yes, they also fight the change, because in their own eyes, they're trustworthy (to at least their own standards), and change is hard and expensive. But that doesn't make advertising unethical, 'prima facie' or otherwise.
"involvement in something prima facie unethical" - except that it's not.
Ads are the consumers choice. Given a choice between paying for something or ads, they will chose the ads. So they get ads. That's mostly why we are where we are.
Many of the negative externalisatons are a matter of application, moreover, there are a variety of opinions on what is appropriate and not. For example, I don't care if Facebook uses my behaviour on Facebook to decide what ads to run, as long as that is otherwise anonymous, private and protected. Others will have differing opinions but I think most regular Americans, Europeans etc. have a variety of views but mostly not centred around the notion that ads are inherently evil.
Ads are the consumers choice. Given a choice between paying for something or ads, they will chose the ads. So they get ads. That's mostly why we are where we are.
Many of the negative externalisatons are a matter of application, moreover, there are a variety of opinions on what is appropriate and not. For example, I don't care if Facebook uses my behaviour on Facebook to decide what ads to run, as long as that is otherwise anonymous, private and protected. Others will have differing opinions but I think most regular Americans, Europeans etc. have a variety of views but mostly not centred around the notion that ads are inherently evil.
<deleted for being dumb>
Huh? The prima facie part means "at first glance". I deliberately chose that turn of phrase to suggest that it might prove not to be unethical, on closer inspection.
The problem, of course, is that this closer inspection didn't happen.
The problem, of course, is that this closer inspection didn't happen.
This would be an appropriate place to disclose your glaring conflict of interest.
Exactly. The greatest problem with ads isn’t the horrible code or even the resource consuming stalking. Those are just symptoms of something long decayed and separated from reality.
The biggest problem is that you are shipping and forcing something users, in most cases, don’t want. It’s like pornography and illicit drugs in that yes eventually there are some beneficial edge case side effects, but almost universally it is bad. In order to increase market penetration you must become more bad and simultaneously sell it as a positive.
This isn’t a universal truth. Users are willing to accept advertising as a payment in exchange for media or something similar. This isn’t evil so long as it isn’t violating privacy, is immediately apparent without deception, and is voluntarily accepted by the audience.
The biggest problem is that you are shipping and forcing something users, in most cases, don’t want. It’s like pornography and illicit drugs in that yes eventually there are some beneficial edge case side effects, but almost universally it is bad. In order to increase market penetration you must become more bad and simultaneously sell it as a positive.
This isn’t a universal truth. Users are willing to accept advertising as a payment in exchange for media or something similar. This isn’t evil so long as it isn’t violating privacy, is immediately apparent without deception, and is voluntarily accepted by the audience.
The online ad business generally mystifies me. While an awful lot of the internet, especially the surveillance advertising part, looks to be the greatest misallocation of engineering (and other) talent in the history of the world, ya gotta ask about the efficacy.
The only reasonably accurate targeting I've ever run into is the occasional ad for something I just browsed on Amazon. I've never clicked on an internet ad. Youtube advertising might as well be targeted to an alien race. What in the hell keeps this whole business afloat at it's current level? Am I being programmed to buy that mechanic's vise because they threw up an after-the-browse ad?
No doubt there's some sort of backend telemetry that proves the value of all this trouble, but I just don't see it. Maybe the emperor really is nekkid.
edit: It may well be that the real marketing genius in the advertising industry is not it's value in increasing sales, whether it's old school print media/OTA/tradeshows or the newfangled spying-on-you internet variety, but in convincing it's customers of advertising's value. Anything beyond pushing you up a search engine's ranking strikes me as a sketchy proposition.
The only reasonably accurate targeting I've ever run into is the occasional ad for something I just browsed on Amazon. I've never clicked on an internet ad. Youtube advertising might as well be targeted to an alien race. What in the hell keeps this whole business afloat at it's current level? Am I being programmed to buy that mechanic's vise because they threw up an after-the-browse ad?
No doubt there's some sort of backend telemetry that proves the value of all this trouble, but I just don't see it. Maybe the emperor really is nekkid.
edit: It may well be that the real marketing genius in the advertising industry is not it's value in increasing sales, whether it's old school print media/OTA/tradeshows or the newfangled spying-on-you internet variety, but in convincing it's customers of advertising's value. Anything beyond pushing you up a search engine's ranking strikes me as a sketchy proposition.
One of the interesting things about advertising is that nobody really knows if it works, and there's a growing body of evidence that it largely doesn't work.
We are sold on the idea that they work, because someone clicks this ad, we track them, they buy the product, and we attribute the sale to that ad.
But we don't know whether the customer would have bought anyway. And some research suggests that, for the most part, they would have.
Steve Tadelis at Berkeley wrote a paper in 2013 demonstrating little to no efficacy of nine figures of ad spend at eBay.
http://conference.nber.org/confer/2013/EoDs13/Tadelis.pdf
This may not be true of all ads - ads for little-known brands, for example, may reach people who would have never heard of it. But the bulk of advertising bought by large brands may largely be a waste.
Advertisers still spend money because almost nobody is getting paid to rain on the parade. There's an endless stream of ad agencies, paid search marketers, marketing department staff themselves, CMOs, media properties, ad nauseam who are all invested in continuing marketing spend. A CMO will almost never declare that his department is useless. So they continue to make the case for their continued relevance.
We are sold on the idea that they work, because someone clicks this ad, we track them, they buy the product, and we attribute the sale to that ad.
But we don't know whether the customer would have bought anyway. And some research suggests that, for the most part, they would have.
Steve Tadelis at Berkeley wrote a paper in 2013 demonstrating little to no efficacy of nine figures of ad spend at eBay.
http://conference.nber.org/confer/2013/EoDs13/Tadelis.pdf
This may not be true of all ads - ads for little-known brands, for example, may reach people who would have never heard of it. But the bulk of advertising bought by large brands may largely be a waste.
Advertisers still spend money because almost nobody is getting paid to rain on the parade. There's an endless stream of ad agencies, paid search marketers, marketing department staff themselves, CMOs, media properties, ad nauseam who are all invested in continuing marketing spend. A CMO will almost never declare that his department is useless. So they continue to make the case for their continued relevance.
Organic mentions are the best ads; aside from that dedicated niche review sites which I’ll hit to look at the review and the comments.
On the other hand, brand recognition I do believe has value but is hard to quantify.
I also never click on an internet ad EXCEPT if it links to a price -not to buy.
On the other hand, brand recognition I do believe has value but is hard to quantify.
I also never click on an internet ad EXCEPT if it links to a price -not to buy.
I partially disagree: fake (paid) "organic" mentions and fake reviews are the most effective form of marketing. And, obviously, they're much easier for a company to achieve than the real thing. How unsurprising is it that the most effective class of ad spend is the most scummy? The reason (fake) organic marketing is effective is exactly because it fools people into thinking that it isn't marketing.
Take paid Amazon reviews for example. This is advertising, just one of the most scummy possible forms of it. It's effective because people like me look to reviews to provide a third-party take on whether or not a product is any good. If I have a choice between two otherwise equivalent products, I'll pick the one with better reviews. But usually this just means rewarding the company that paid more to "advertise" on Amazon.
I realize you're probably talking about "real" organic mentions, but those are growing increasingly harder to find. A good example is the last time I bought headphones. I got suckered by a bunch of small review sites that had either been paid or gotten free samples in exchange for reviews. I bought two pairs, and when they arrived the sound from both was distorted. One pair broke within a few months. It was clearly trash that had been pumped using fake organic marketing. When I went back to find the sites that had provided the reviews in the first place, a few of them did mention (in very tiny print) that the reviews were paid. Me, suckered by advertising?! More likely than you'd think.
Back in the day, Johnny Carson reading an ad was convincing to the median consumer because they could be led to believe that the ad really was an endorsement of the product. That doesn't work any more, or not nearly as much at any rate. The basic strategy hasn't changed: it's still an attempt to find someone the consumer will trust. This is why, in my opinion, ads have always been and always will be bad, an attempt to subvert human rationality. Johnny Carson endorsing a product didn't mean that the product was good, it meant he was paid to endorse it. A review site endorsing a product nowadays doesn't mean that the product is good, it means they're paid to endorse it. In both cases the breakdown between what the consumer believes is happening and what is actually happening is the very thing advertising is trying to create, its raison d'être.
Take paid Amazon reviews for example. This is advertising, just one of the most scummy possible forms of it. It's effective because people like me look to reviews to provide a third-party take on whether or not a product is any good. If I have a choice between two otherwise equivalent products, I'll pick the one with better reviews. But usually this just means rewarding the company that paid more to "advertise" on Amazon.
I realize you're probably talking about "real" organic mentions, but those are growing increasingly harder to find. A good example is the last time I bought headphones. I got suckered by a bunch of small review sites that had either been paid or gotten free samples in exchange for reviews. I bought two pairs, and when they arrived the sound from both was distorted. One pair broke within a few months. It was clearly trash that had been pumped using fake organic marketing. When I went back to find the sites that had provided the reviews in the first place, a few of them did mention (in very tiny print) that the reviews were paid. Me, suckered by advertising?! More likely than you'd think.
Back in the day, Johnny Carson reading an ad was convincing to the median consumer because they could be led to believe that the ad really was an endorsement of the product. That doesn't work any more, or not nearly as much at any rate. The basic strategy hasn't changed: it's still an attempt to find someone the consumer will trust. This is why, in my opinion, ads have always been and always will be bad, an attempt to subvert human rationality. Johnny Carson endorsing a product didn't mean that the product was good, it meant he was paid to endorse it. A review site endorsing a product nowadays doesn't mean that the product is good, it means they're paid to endorse it. In both cases the breakdown between what the consumer believes is happening and what is actually happening is the very thing advertising is trying to create, its raison d'être.
I generally agree with your gist; however, I would point out that there are niche review sites run by enthusiasts (whether computer parts, cameras, tools, gadgets, clothing, and so on.) and there are the SEO types that are near-worthless. Enthusiast sites have a range of community-only and not ads, some have affiliate links and some have paid reviews and so on. So you have to know how the site operates and take that into account.
The niche ones have mods which allow genuine dissent as well as other recommendations from competing solutions.
The niche ones have mods which allow genuine dissent as well as other recommendations from competing solutions.
So you happen to have a list of these niche sites or a link to a site that reviews the review sites?
I am thinking about the car enthusiast sites/forums (where you can search for information how to fix minor issues), also places like cpubenchmark, tomshardware, anadtech, dpreview, shoptoolreview and so on. You have to get to know the forum and how they make money, whether it's a labor of love or main source of income, how transparent they are about sponsorship, etc.
Genuine social proof is always the best.
Smart marketers don't try to get you to buy from an ad click. They want to move you one step down the funnel, which is usually getting your email/contact info if it's the type of product that has a longer nurturing process and sales cycle.
Smart marketers don't try to get you to buy from an ad click. They want to move you one step down the funnel, which is usually getting your email/contact info if it's the type of product that has a longer nurturing process and sales cycle.
Digital marketing performance is increasingly measurable and there's more data than ever proving that it can be extremely effective.
You can certainly waste a lot of money doing it too. Getting the right message in front of the right user at the right time is a lot harder than people think it is.
The above is where there's a lot of smoke and mirrors in ad tech. But for advertising as a whole, it's not a massive industry because it doesn't work.
You can certainly waste a lot of money doing it too. Getting the right message in front of the right user at the right time is a lot harder than people think it is.
The above is where there's a lot of smoke and mirrors in ad tech. But for advertising as a whole, it's not a massive industry because it doesn't work.
Yeah, it's incredibly easy to prove it works. Incrementally can get hard at scale but that's a different question.
>Getting the right message in front of the right user at the right time is a lot harder than people think it is.
Guess that's why we need those brightest minds of our generation on the problem, as the saying goes, right?
That sentence gives me extreme Matthew McConaughey-in-Wolf of Wall Street vibes. After seeing you wrote that, I immediately assumed you very likely work in advertising. Sure enough...
I have no clue whether anything you've written there is accurate or not. Either way, this whole thing and this whole industry just looks, sounds, and feels gross and intrinsically empty. I get a much better and more wholesome feeling from the cryptocurrency industry, even.
Guess that's why we need those brightest minds of our generation on the problem, as the saying goes, right?
That sentence gives me extreme Matthew McConaughey-in-Wolf of Wall Street vibes. After seeing you wrote that, I immediately assumed you very likely work in advertising. Sure enough...
I have no clue whether anything you've written there is accurate or not. Either way, this whole thing and this whole industry just looks, sounds, and feels gross and intrinsically empty. I get a much better and more wholesome feeling from the cryptocurrency industry, even.
If the greatest minds of society are going for the easiest payday perhaps they are not really our greatest minds. Perhaps they are the smart ones by cashing in but the great minds with the great ideas they are not.
And then, there is a good chance our generation's Tesla or Einstein or Mozart currently herds livestock in the Mongolian desert and will for all their life.
Ad-tech involves big data, lots of volume, and tons of innovation and interesting challenges. There's usually a good paycheck too, because there are lots of companies that need smart people to work on the above.
Greatest minds? Maybe there are some, you'll find them everywhere. But I'd worry that the greatest minds are toiling away in academia chasing grants or working on things that they don't want to work on.
In the paraphrased words of Don Draper (Mad Men character), nobody grows up wanting to be in advertising. It just kind of happens.
Greatest minds? Maybe there are some, you'll find them everywhere. But I'd worry that the greatest minds are toiling away in academia chasing grants or working on things that they don't want to work on.
In the paraphrased words of Don Draper (Mad Men character), nobody grows up wanting to be in advertising. It just kind of happens.
There are hucksters in every industry, and if you ask me, crypto has some next-level hucksterism.
The core of advertising is just getting some message about your product or service to a relevant audience.
A lot of companies offer that service, some more effective than others.
But yes, I started an ad-tech company that supports indie news publishers. Before that, I was offered a great gig at Yahoo (when it was still kind of cool) where I got into it. I honestly didn't seek it out but I guess I liked it enough to stick with it.
The core of advertising is just getting some message about your product or service to a relevant audience.
A lot of companies offer that service, some more effective than others.
But yes, I started an ad-tech company that supports indie news publishers. Before that, I was offered a great gig at Yahoo (when it was still kind of cool) where I got into it. I honestly didn't seek it out but I guess I liked it enough to stick with it.
>There are hucksters in every industry, and if you ask me, crypto has some next-level hucksterism.
It's certainly hard to compare entire industries apples-to-apples. The worst parts of the cryptocurrency industry are definitely worse than the worst parts of the advertising industry. However, I personally feel like in an "average", "net", or "expected value" sense, advertising may be worse. But maybe it isn't; either way, all I was trying to say is I really just don't like advertising or ad tech, and I wanted to use a rather extreme comparison to viscerally convey that. (Perhaps a little like a kind of "bullshit-industry" analogue of Godwin's law - my comparison was somewhat tongue-in-cheek and bad faith, basically, but also kind of not, because I do like some aspects of cryptocurrencies while I like zero aspects of advertising.)
>that supports indie news publishers
Sure, and maybe someone else could've started one that supports starving children. (The originally posted article similarly mentions that one of their reasons for working on ads is "I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give".)
These all feel like cop-outs to me. I could significantly support independent creators or starving children by running a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, but it still doesn't make it positive on net. The difference is that you and the article author simultaneously say that you feel like the work is inherently positive, too, which in my book just makes it delusional rather than dissonant or contradictory.
So I absolutely don't think you're at all behaving knowingly unethically; just unknowingly. I think part of the issue here is that it's generally only a tiny bit unethical, so it takes a lot for it to add up to being a-lot-unethical, and humans (including myself) usually aren't so good at perceiving these potential cumulative effects when they're upstream of it all.
>The core of advertising is just getting some message about your product or service to a relevant audience.
At the same time, I can't not acknowledge this. How can I fault a small business owner for wanting people to know they exist? There's some cognitive dissonance of my own, here. And at the moment I'm resolving the dissonance by disliking the advertising and ad tech industries rather than disliking businesses who place ads. (As long as the ads they place aren't annoying, deceptive, or malicious in any way.)
Maybe my opinion on all this will eventually shift a bit, though, because a lot of it's certainly more emotional than logical. At a very deep, subjective level, I just strongly dislike advertising and everything about it. It gives me nothing but negative feelings. Most of the cryptocurrency industry gives me negative feelings, too - but the industry as a whole doesn't give me nothing but negative feelings. Some part of it gives me neutral or positive feelings.
It's certainly hard to compare entire industries apples-to-apples. The worst parts of the cryptocurrency industry are definitely worse than the worst parts of the advertising industry. However, I personally feel like in an "average", "net", or "expected value" sense, advertising may be worse. But maybe it isn't; either way, all I was trying to say is I really just don't like advertising or ad tech, and I wanted to use a rather extreme comparison to viscerally convey that. (Perhaps a little like a kind of "bullshit-industry" analogue of Godwin's law - my comparison was somewhat tongue-in-cheek and bad faith, basically, but also kind of not, because I do like some aspects of cryptocurrencies while I like zero aspects of advertising.)
>that supports indie news publishers
Sure, and maybe someone else could've started one that supports starving children. (The originally posted article similarly mentions that one of their reasons for working on ads is "I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give".)
These all feel like cop-outs to me. I could significantly support independent creators or starving children by running a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, but it still doesn't make it positive on net. The difference is that you and the article author simultaneously say that you feel like the work is inherently positive, too, which in my book just makes it delusional rather than dissonant or contradictory.
So I absolutely don't think you're at all behaving knowingly unethically; just unknowingly. I think part of the issue here is that it's generally only a tiny bit unethical, so it takes a lot for it to add up to being a-lot-unethical, and humans (including myself) usually aren't so good at perceiving these potential cumulative effects when they're upstream of it all.
>The core of advertising is just getting some message about your product or service to a relevant audience.
At the same time, I can't not acknowledge this. How can I fault a small business owner for wanting people to know they exist? There's some cognitive dissonance of my own, here. And at the moment I'm resolving the dissonance by disliking the advertising and ad tech industries rather than disliking businesses who place ads. (As long as the ads they place aren't annoying, deceptive, or malicious in any way.)
Maybe my opinion on all this will eventually shift a bit, though, because a lot of it's certainly more emotional than logical. At a very deep, subjective level, I just strongly dislike advertising and everything about it. It gives me nothing but negative feelings. Most of the cryptocurrency industry gives me negative feelings, too - but the industry as a whole doesn't give me nothing but negative feelings. Some part of it gives me neutral or positive feelings.
> which in my book just makes it delusional rather than dissonant or contradictory.
Not to get off track, but ultimately it's a subjective position. I could easily take the view that anyone working for Facebook is actively helping erode the privacy of internet users. Or, that anyone working for Google is furthering its anticompetitive agenda and stifling innovation on the open web.
Without my platform, there are some towns and cities across the US that wouldn't have a local news outlet or reporter to follow local government and uncover corruption. I have case studies on my website where the publishers say it themselves.
From someone else's point of view I could be deluded, but from my standpoint, I'm doing something very positive. I don't think someone has to actively seek out the most cynical perspective on their line of work.
Not to get off track, but ultimately it's a subjective position. I could easily take the view that anyone working for Facebook is actively helping erode the privacy of internet users. Or, that anyone working for Google is furthering its anticompetitive agenda and stifling innovation on the open web.
Without my platform, there are some towns and cities across the US that wouldn't have a local news outlet or reporter to follow local government and uncover corruption. I have case studies on my website where the publishers say it themselves.
From someone else's point of view I could be deluded, but from my standpoint, I'm doing something very positive. I don't think someone has to actively seek out the most cynical perspective on their line of work.
> there's more data than ever proving that it can be extremely effective
Can you provide some pointers to that data (as the parent did for the contrary position)? Forgive me, but it seems you work in advertising, so I'm not sure if you're the most unbiased person to assert something like this without evidence.
Can you provide some pointers to that data (as the parent did for the contrary position)? Forgive me, but it seems you work in advertising, so I'm not sure if you're the most unbiased person to assert something like this without evidence.
With most advertising mediums, you can only show correlation.
But with many parts of digital, you can show certain pages of your website exclusively to those who have clicked on ads (ie. hide those pages from regular browsers).
In this way you can directly measure the direct effects of the advertising spend.
There are many businesses, including three that I own, that have grown as a sole consequence of social media advertising. We have not promoted these businesses in any other way (no SEO, no trade shows, nothing).
I'm not going to share my advertising accounts with you; I'm just going to ask you to trust that when I get my laptop out and show my results to my 'marketing skeptical' friends, they stop being skeptical.
Actual words, from one of these friends: "wow. That is like a money printing machine."
Consider for a second: how many advertisers that are actually succeeding are going to publicly call attention to their success? Would you?
The only hint is Facebook and Google's revenues. They go up, and I am one of the people who makes their revenues go up.
But with many parts of digital, you can show certain pages of your website exclusively to those who have clicked on ads (ie. hide those pages from regular browsers).
In this way you can directly measure the direct effects of the advertising spend.
There are many businesses, including three that I own, that have grown as a sole consequence of social media advertising. We have not promoted these businesses in any other way (no SEO, no trade shows, nothing).
I'm not going to share my advertising accounts with you; I'm just going to ask you to trust that when I get my laptop out and show my results to my 'marketing skeptical' friends, they stop being skeptical.
Actual words, from one of these friends: "wow. That is like a money printing machine."
Consider for a second: how many advertisers that are actually succeeding are going to publicly call attention to their success? Would you?
The only hint is Facebook and Google's revenues. They go up, and I am one of the people who makes their revenues go up.
"I'm not going to share my advertising accounts with you; I'm just going to ask you to trust that when I get my laptop out and show my results to my 'marketing skeptical' friends, they stop being skeptical."
spoken like a true used car salesman
spoken like a true used car salesman
I'm not publishing a paper in the comments. This is HN. Regardless, you cherry picked one aspect of my comment, and it's very hard from my perspective to see that it was done in good faith.
I'd like to be proven otherwise, so, here are my key points, which you didn't contend with:
-> It's possible to completely isolate the effect of advertising spend, thereby making the effectiveness (or not) measurable.
-> I pointed to growing revenues on Google/FB's platforms, two platforms which make isolated measurement feasible.
In terms of _externally_ verifiable facts, that's the best I'll be able to give you.
The rest, you (and others) have to take on a/ good faith b/ using basic logic, that I'm telling the truth.
I'd like to be proven otherwise, so, here are my key points, which you didn't contend with:
-> It's possible to completely isolate the effect of advertising spend, thereby making the effectiveness (or not) measurable.
-> I pointed to growing revenues on Google/FB's platforms, two platforms which make isolated measurement feasible.
In terms of _externally_ verifiable facts, that's the best I'll be able to give you.
The rest, you (and others) have to take on a/ good faith b/ using basic logic, that I'm telling the truth.
What about the rest of the post? Is it too much to ask you to engage constructively?
if you mean make claims with no evidence to back them up, yes I can engage more with you.
> But for advertising as a whole, it's not a massive industry because it doesn't work.
Though I don't doubt that you are right on the whole, this is a poor argument; homeopathy and other snake-oil are a massive industry as well.
Though I don't doubt that you are right on the whole, this is a poor argument; homeopathy and other snake-oil are a massive industry as well.
> Digital marketing performance is increasingly measurable
Yes, I believe this is true. But also, I've heard that payouts per impression are going down precipitously. Desperate news sites are chock full of heavy ads because each impression pays less and less. Popular Youtube channels increasingly run their own integrated promotional content instead of depending on youtube ad revenue which keeps falling, even as viewership rises.
It's reasonable to suspect that as ad performance becomes perfectly measurable, payouts to content creators will asymptotically approach zero, because most ads don't work. Consumers spend most of their time looking at ads that don't work at all. That the occasional well crafted and placed ad does work isn't much consolation.
Yes, I believe this is true. But also, I've heard that payouts per impression are going down precipitously. Desperate news sites are chock full of heavy ads because each impression pays less and less. Popular Youtube channels increasingly run their own integrated promotional content instead of depending on youtube ad revenue which keeps falling, even as viewership rises.
It's reasonable to suspect that as ad performance becomes perfectly measurable, payouts to content creators will asymptotically approach zero, because most ads don't work. Consumers spend most of their time looking at ads that don't work at all. That the occasional well crafted and placed ad does work isn't much consolation.
Ad network CPMs are seasonal, but I agree that it's a race to the bottom there. Ad networks (including Google's) are designed to maximize profit for ad-tech, not the publisher. The publisher/creator is always the last on line to get paid.
Direct sold digital advertising (OG, cutting ad networks out) is a different story.
Imagine, for example, that HN said they would auction off a single ad slot beneath the navbar to the highest bidder for the year.
How much do you think that would command? Do you think there could be sincere branding value (and actual performance) for the advertiser? I think it could be worth north of 1MM just to promote open jobs at a company.
If it was a clean, tasteful ad, and it was simply to support the cost of running HN, I'm pretty sure most of the audience would put up with it.
The common perception of digital advertising is network advertising. But the type of advertising that is the least annoying and most beneficial to both the advertiser and publisher is direct sold.
Direct sold digital advertising (OG, cutting ad networks out) is a different story.
Imagine, for example, that HN said they would auction off a single ad slot beneath the navbar to the highest bidder for the year.
How much do you think that would command? Do you think there could be sincere branding value (and actual performance) for the advertiser? I think it could be worth north of 1MM just to promote open jobs at a company.
If it was a clean, tasteful ad, and it was simply to support the cost of running HN, I'm pretty sure most of the audience would put up with it.
The common perception of digital advertising is network advertising. But the type of advertising that is the least annoying and most beneficial to both the advertiser and publisher is direct sold.
For user acquisition you are completely right, however for the incrementality of purchases and sales, this is highly questionable and needs to be measured on case by case basis.
We definitely know that it works. We generate petabytes everyday proving it does.
That being said there’s plenty of waste due to politics, bureaucracy, bad tech and general mismanagement. It’s important to separate the concept from the implementation.
That being said there’s plenty of waste due to politics, bureaucracy, bad tech and general mismanagement. It’s important to separate the concept from the implementation.
As a consumer, why does it very strongly feel like in my case, it never, ever works, then? And why does pretty much everyone else I've ever heard talk about this say the exact same thing?
Are we being 5D-chess'd and it's working on all of us subliminally and subconsciously and we just think we're immune? Or is there some other huge population of people out there it's working on who actually somehow are real manifestations of the unfathomably-cringeworthy-to-utter "sheeple" / "NPC" trope or something?
One area I can see is more subtle word-of-mouth kinds of influence (organic or astroturfed), where someone may see a lot of their friends or people they admire using and recommending something. I can definitely be influenced in that way in some cases - that's kind of how interest in almost anything works, isn't it? (For a non-profit example, would I have become interested in Rust if I didn't see it positively mentioned thousands of times on websites I use for the past decade? Probably not.) But for traditional ads like banners and commercials and billboards, I perceive zero efficacy in my own case.
Are we being 5D-chess'd and it's working on all of us subliminally and subconsciously and we just think we're immune? Or is there some other huge population of people out there it's working on who actually somehow are real manifestations of the unfathomably-cringeworthy-to-utter "sheeple" / "NPC" trope or something?
One area I can see is more subtle word-of-mouth kinds of influence (organic or astroturfed), where someone may see a lot of their friends or people they admire using and recommending something. I can definitely be influenced in that way in some cases - that's kind of how interest in almost anything works, isn't it? (For a non-profit example, would I have become interested in Rust if I didn't see it positively mentioned thousands of times on websites I use for the past decade? Probably not.) But for traditional ads like banners and commercials and billboards, I perceive zero efficacy in my own case.
I used to think like you, but now I think it's 5D chess. Marketing is like air, so ever present you can't even see it. If you don't buy anything and live off your homesteading, then marketing probably doesn't have any effect on you. If you live a life anything like the average westerner, you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on things you had to be taught to desire. It's in your TV shows, your news articles, your Instagram feed, your word of mouth, your everything unless you are in the forest (but not looking at anyone else's hiking gear brands). Our economy is based on you consuming many many times more goods and services than your great grandparents, and it wasn't cheap to train you to do that.
It's certainly quite possible. However
>It's in your TV shows, your news articles, your Instagram feed, your word of mouth, your everything unless you are in the forest
I think I, and some decent percentage of HN readers, may kind of be "in the forest". I don't watch TV, I don't read news articles, I've never had an Instagram account or any kind of social media account (besides more "pseudonymous" social media like HN and reddit), I have comprehensive ad blockers, etc.
I also don't really buy products. I buy food, maybe I'll upgrade to a new laptop or phone every 4 - 5 years, but otherwise I don't think I really "consume" new things.
The only thing I can think of that ads have consciously made me do is pay to get rid of them. For example, I pay for YouTube Premium so I can never see ads. (Ad blocking gets tough for mobile devices and casting to other screens.) They got me there, because I watch a lot of YouTube (which I acknowledge is kind of "the new TV") and in some ways it's the best $12/month I've ever spent. It doesn't cover video makers including sponsored content, but I use crowdsourced browser extensions to identify and skip those.
>It's in your TV shows, your news articles, your Instagram feed, your word of mouth, your everything unless you are in the forest
I think I, and some decent percentage of HN readers, may kind of be "in the forest". I don't watch TV, I don't read news articles, I've never had an Instagram account or any kind of social media account (besides more "pseudonymous" social media like HN and reddit), I have comprehensive ad blockers, etc.
I also don't really buy products. I buy food, maybe I'll upgrade to a new laptop or phone every 4 - 5 years, but otherwise I don't think I really "consume" new things.
The only thing I can think of that ads have consciously made me do is pay to get rid of them. For example, I pay for YouTube Premium so I can never see ads. (Ad blocking gets tough for mobile devices and casting to other screens.) They got me there, because I watch a lot of YouTube (which I acknowledge is kind of "the new TV") and in some ways it's the best $12/month I've ever spent. It doesn't cover video makers including sponsored content, but I use crowdsourced browser extensions to identify and skip those.
Do you buy your clothes at the thrift store or at the mall? If you buy them at the mall, how did you choose those stores? Did you buy those clothes to make sure you were meeting other people's expectations? Were those people's expectations shaped by advertising, marketing and branding? If you wear flour sacks, then my humble apologies and sincere congratulations.
It's kind of close to the equivalent of flour sacks for me; I don't shop in either thrift stores or malls or think about expectations, and I buy new clothes very rarely. When I do, I order the same cheap generic solid-color clothes off of Amazon, and sometimes one or two other low-cost generic brands (based simply on what's cheapest when I sort by price, as long as the ratings aren't way below the rest). I admit I'm probably being influenced by Amazon's brand and the prioritizing of their "Amazon Basics" items in search results, though.
You would admit, then, that you're not the norm, and that your experience - while interesting, certainly - does not appear to extrapolate very well to others?
For sure.
It is difficult to reflect on how we’re influenced, but yes, you are almost certainly being impacted to nudge you to purchase one thing or another. Unless you’re using solely cash payments and also do not own a cell phone, then you’re in the data ecosystem. In your case, it is probably likely that you don’t get advertisements or emails for luxury items, even if your income would allow such a purchase.
The great misunderstanding of this industry is that what ads you see are just as important as the ads you don’t see, which allows for profit maximization.
In your circumstance, it may be true that bank transactions are farmed and analyzed to be additive to data gathering on the web, which in turn is additive to the offline data gathering offered by various companies. Every transaction made is analyzed for location, merchant, purchase category, amount, date & time, and more.
Most of the other commenters who are claiming and linking to articles that ads don’t work aren’t in the industry. This is an important distinction because what we’re talking about here are the machines that crunch all this data are considered trade secrets and/or intellectual property. Also, slightly off topic, but it’s important to understand that ads != marketing. Ads are a child component of marketing. When you look at the overall function of marketing (of which product management is a discipline, no matter how desperately some attempt to align it to technology), then consider how much of a factor data analysis and operationalization of data is a driver of success for Fortune 500 companies. Almost any company in consumer technology (e.g. FAANG), consumer healthcare (CVS), telecommunications (AT&T), FMCG or retail (Walmart, Costco), and retail banking (Chase, Wells Fargo) are using these techniques to build better products, sharpen communications, and win new customers.
The great misunderstanding of this industry is that what ads you see are just as important as the ads you don’t see, which allows for profit maximization.
In your circumstance, it may be true that bank transactions are farmed and analyzed to be additive to data gathering on the web, which in turn is additive to the offline data gathering offered by various companies. Every transaction made is analyzed for location, merchant, purchase category, amount, date & time, and more.
Most of the other commenters who are claiming and linking to articles that ads don’t work aren’t in the industry. This is an important distinction because what we’re talking about here are the machines that crunch all this data are considered trade secrets and/or intellectual property. Also, slightly off topic, but it’s important to understand that ads != marketing. Ads are a child component of marketing. When you look at the overall function of marketing (of which product management is a discipline, no matter how desperately some attempt to align it to technology), then consider how much of a factor data analysis and operationalization of data is a driver of success for Fortune 500 companies. Almost any company in consumer technology (e.g. FAANG), consumer healthcare (CVS), telecommunications (AT&T), FMCG or retail (Walmart, Costco), and retail banking (Chase, Wells Fargo) are using these techniques to build better products, sharpen communications, and win new customers.
Because you only notice the bad ones.
It’s like CGI graphics in movies. If it looks good then it just looks good and you definitely notice when it looks bad. Your average TV show probably has half the stuff on the screen being CG in some way but millions of watchers never know.
It’s like CGI graphics in movies. If it looks good then it just looks good and you definitely notice when it looks bad. Your average TV show probably has half the stuff on the screen being CG in some way but millions of watchers never know.
Most advertising spend on Facebook or IG is actually tracked on click and conversion based performance, it's not subtle at all.
oh my god discussions about advertising on hackernews are like a bunch of plumbers talking about software engineering. these threads should honestly just be used as Dunning-Kruger honeypots. we should post about advertising once a week and then just ban everyone who says "there is no evidence that advertising works."
I have a pixel on my thank-you page. I manually delete placements and optimize creatives and angles and funnels and demographic targeting until it goes from making no sales to ludicrously profitable. This is an entire industry you know nothing about.
Big brands can be dumb but they do mostly have the tools to not be.
I have a pixel on my thank-you page. I manually delete placements and optimize creatives and angles and funnels and demographic targeting until it goes from making no sales to ludicrously profitable. This is an entire industry you know nothing about.
Big brands can be dumb but they do mostly have the tools to not be.
Not really correct. Advertising incrementality is pretty easy to determine by in-market tests and statistical modeling or causal inference techniques. Feature Engineering for effective model construction does require a body of significant domain knowledge and so your average academic Post-Doc or FAANG data science type tends to struggle in this space unless they learn quickly (I've hired from both before). The space is dominated by large research vendors, specialist consultancies or in-house teams with accumulated institutional knowledge. All this costs though and pays out only if your marketing budgets are in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars zone.
In a lot of Tech industry firms, the in-house expertise just isn't there to do this stuff and that possibly breeds skepticism. I've had fairly junior members of my teams head out to FAANG who've been shocked at how limited the depth of knowledge is.
In a lot of Tech industry firms, the in-house expertise just isn't there to do this stuff and that possibly breeds skepticism. I've had fairly junior members of my teams head out to FAANG who've been shocked at how limited the depth of knowledge is.
There's an extremely well defined industry surrounding conversion lift. Which is exactly what you're talking about. Advertisers use holdout groups to test what % lift was correlated to an ad. Using large enough datasets, it's possible to have strong statistical confidence in the effects of ads on user behavior.
Generally yes but Instagram ads are somehow amazingly well-targeted towards me.
Literally every ad I say to myself "wow, that is actually something I would consider buying" and in certain instances, I have. Outside of Instagram it is exceedingly rare that I would purchase something based on an ad.
Literally every ad I say to myself "wow, that is actually something I would consider buying" and in certain instances, I have. Outside of Instagram it is exceedingly rare that I would purchase something based on an ad.
I'm in the same boat, and think it's just that I don't see any typical big advertiser ads like FMCG companies, whereas the traditional media is full of them.
On the other side there are Google Play ads with mouth open guys - I'm never going to play one of those vile games, ever.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/cv4ezs/mouth...
On the other side there are Google Play ads with mouth open guys - I'm never going to play one of those vile games, ever.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/cv4ezs/mouth...
From what I keep reading on HN, Facebook ad network ads (which includes Instagram) are by far the best and most precise in terms of targeting, it doesn't even get close.
And from my anecdotal experiences, I have to agree with both you and what I see on HN in that regard. Not only they get the advertisers right up my alley, they even get the exact products I want to click on.
For a specific example: I don't get easily baited by random no-name "hip" clothing startups (that are mostly just alibaba dropship sort of places), so instagram keeps giving me ads for Adidas products as well. And the thing is, not only does it get correctly that I am likely to be interested in Adidas products, the specific products from Adidas that get suggested to me in those ads are the exact kind of products from Adidas that I would be interested in. Which is very impressive and surprising, given how wide the range of Adidas products is, and how most of their general stuff isn't super appealing to me. It is hard to describe to the point where I am struggling myself to define what exactly I am looking for if I am navigating Adidas website. But somehow Instagram ads get it right on target most of the time.
The only time when those ads let me down big time was when I saw an Adidas tracksuit advertised with the design I just liked a ton. Without looking at the details, I ordered it, only to realize a bit later that it was in "kids" section of their website, and I have no kids (and neither do I fall under the typical "people who might have kids" demographic by any metric; e.g., I don't search for any items even tangentially related to children, not a part of any FB groups that are heavily populated by parents or children, etc.). But damn, I would be lying if I said that Instagram didn't get the exact idea of what I wanted perfectly correct, sizing issues aside lol.
And from my anecdotal experiences, I have to agree with both you and what I see on HN in that regard. Not only they get the advertisers right up my alley, they even get the exact products I want to click on.
For a specific example: I don't get easily baited by random no-name "hip" clothing startups (that are mostly just alibaba dropship sort of places), so instagram keeps giving me ads for Adidas products as well. And the thing is, not only does it get correctly that I am likely to be interested in Adidas products, the specific products from Adidas that get suggested to me in those ads are the exact kind of products from Adidas that I would be interested in. Which is very impressive and surprising, given how wide the range of Adidas products is, and how most of their general stuff isn't super appealing to me. It is hard to describe to the point where I am struggling myself to define what exactly I am looking for if I am navigating Adidas website. But somehow Instagram ads get it right on target most of the time.
The only time when those ads let me down big time was when I saw an Adidas tracksuit advertised with the design I just liked a ton. Without looking at the details, I ordered it, only to realize a bit later that it was in "kids" section of their website, and I have no kids (and neither do I fall under the typical "people who might have kids" demographic by any metric; e.g., I don't search for any items even tangentially related to children, not a part of any FB groups that are heavily populated by parents or children, etc.). But damn, I would be lying if I said that Instagram didn't get the exact idea of what I wanted perfectly correct, sizing issues aside lol.
> and I have no kids
According to their algorithm, you do now.
According to their algorithm, you do now.
With the story of Target figuring out daughter was pregnant before the daughters father, it gives rise to all kinds of "Movie plot" plausible sounding scenarios.
Movie plot: Two people meet up, have fun, then go their separate ways. 9 months later she has a kid, dad doesn't know. But FAANG knows...
The problem with "plausible movie plots" is they are often overrated in terms of % chance of happening.
With linked graphs and relationship trees, it doesn't seem impossible "The Algorithm" could figure out you have kids before you do, or at least base it's Advertising results on a % chance guess.
Movie plot: Two people meet up, have fun, then go their separate ways. 9 months later she has a kid, dad doesn't know. But FAANG knows...
The problem with "plausible movie plots" is they are often overrated in terms of % chance of happening.
With linked graphs and relationship trees, it doesn't seem impossible "The Algorithm" could figure out you have kids before you do, or at least base it's Advertising results on a % chance guess.
Which is crazy, but often does happen. I have a nephew and niece, so I've bought baby / small-child stuff, but mainly just around major holidays and their birthdays. And yet I still get plenty of random product suggestions on Amazon for kid-related products, even during the 95% of the year that I'm not looking for that stuff.
be aware of the conversations you have in a 24hr to 48hr period, see if "targeted" ads appear in your feed, which relate to things shared in those conversations.
I've seen things go from saying things in a conversation to targeted advert on Twitter, for example, in under 1hr routinely (although not always). Many of my peers have reported the same. While I've reproduced this on multiple devices (Android + iPhone) over many tests, I've been unable to isolate the app(s) doing this and how it works.
It's baffling how it's done and at scale, but somehow a few organizations seem to have extremely advanced adtech in production.
I've seen things go from saying things in a conversation to targeted advert on Twitter, for example, in under 1hr routinely (although not always). Many of my peers have reported the same. While I've reproduced this on multiple devices (Android + iPhone) over many tests, I've been unable to isolate the app(s) doing this and how it works.
It's baffling how it's done and at scale, but somehow a few organizations seem to have extremely advanced adtech in production.
I still don’t believe audio surveillance exists at this scale, and I still haven’t seen any evidence that these events are anything but coincidence.
It seems to me that Facebook is extremely good at targeting me with ads (via Instagram) for products I might be interested in. I’m also much more likely to talk about products I’m interested in. I’m also much more likely to notice the spooky scenarios where the ads match what I was talking about, but not so likely to notice the ads unrelated to my conversations.
There are so many ways we could detect such surveillance. Power consumption, network usage, mic activity indicators, etc. but I still have seen no such evidence.
What do you think could be going on?
It seems to me that Facebook is extremely good at targeting me with ads (via Instagram) for products I might be interested in. I’m also much more likely to talk about products I’m interested in. I’m also much more likely to notice the spooky scenarios where the ads match what I was talking about, but not so likely to notice the ads unrelated to my conversations.
There are so many ways we could detect such surveillance. Power consumption, network usage, mic activity indicators, etc. but I still have seen no such evidence.
What do you think could be going on?
I had a hard time believing it myself and came to terms with it after reproducing it consistently over many months, despite using everything from pihole to on-device firewalls running as root.
Unfortunately, this topic tends to be routinely brushed off as coincidence and I believe it's partially because the level of surveillance underway would cause panic and outrage, if it becomes widely known. Although I have have exposure to adtech and ML, it's difficult to grasp how this sort of activity is being done at scale.
My current theory is audio may be heavily compressed prior to occasional uploads to a trusted domain, which could be obfuscated by cloudfront or similar service. It's also possible some on-device speech to text is happening, which would make the files trivial to upload. That said, on device ML itself would be a quite a feat, especially to be running on mobile devices with high degree of accuracy to isolate keywords to be used in prod, for ad targeting.
Unfortunately, this topic tends to be routinely brushed off as coincidence and I believe it's partially because the level of surveillance underway would cause panic and outrage, if it becomes widely known. Although I have have exposure to adtech and ML, it's difficult to grasp how this sort of activity is being done at scale.
My current theory is audio may be heavily compressed prior to occasional uploads to a trusted domain, which could be obfuscated by cloudfront or similar service. It's also possible some on-device speech to text is happening, which would make the files trivial to upload. That said, on device ML itself would be a quite a feat, especially to be running on mobile devices with high degree of accuracy to isolate keywords to be used in prod, for ad targeting.
yet not even one whistleblower has stepped forward? Not one person has been able to detect something which would be so obviously detectable? Come on, man.
The compression could be quite extensive, it wouldn't even have to be convertible back to speech if all that was parsing it on the other side was ML.
> I still haven’t seen any evidence that these events are anything but coincidence
My feeling here is that it's just like when someone in your family buys a particular make/model of car, you start noticing the same car on the road and are surprised that you never noticed how many of them there are.
That same ad for a set of Bose headphones might show up in your feed once a week, but one of those days you just happen to have a conversation about headphones with a friend, and it feels weird.
The paranoia in me sometimes wants to believe that my phone is listening to me all the time and is extracting ad keywords from everything I say, but I have a hard time figuring out how it would work.
Uploading voice clips, even using a good compressor like Opus, would still be noticeable. Maybe not by me, personally, but someone would have noticed that by now. Doing on-device voice recognition is possible (uploads of compressed text might not be noticeable), but my intuition is that would be a huge drain on the battery if it was running all day, processing everything it hears.
But who knows. Maybe it is possible, and there's a novel, but secret technology that enables it. It's a little far-fetched, though, I think.
My feeling here is that it's just like when someone in your family buys a particular make/model of car, you start noticing the same car on the road and are surprised that you never noticed how many of them there are.
That same ad for a set of Bose headphones might show up in your feed once a week, but one of those days you just happen to have a conversation about headphones with a friend, and it feels weird.
The paranoia in me sometimes wants to believe that my phone is listening to me all the time and is extracting ad keywords from everything I say, but I have a hard time figuring out how it would work.
Uploading voice clips, even using a good compressor like Opus, would still be noticeable. Maybe not by me, personally, but someone would have noticed that by now. Doing on-device voice recognition is possible (uploads of compressed text might not be noticeable), but my intuition is that would be a huge drain on the battery if it was running all day, processing everything it hears.
But who knows. Maybe it is possible, and there's a novel, but secret technology that enables it. It's a little far-fetched, though, I think.
Just my anecdote, but when I used Instagram (stopped probably 2 years ago), the ad targeting was pretty terrible for me. Occasionally they would get something completely on the nose (to the point that it was a little creepy), but most of the time (>90% probably), the ads were completely irrelevant to me, either for things I already have and have no need to replace, or for things I don't think I'd ever conceivably buy.
You’ve made some really good points.
Possible explanations that I have seen for inaccurate targeting:
1. Some folks have a ton of money in their budget to spend on marketing, and they frankly don’t care about optimizing their targeting. In some cases, this is a shrewd decision, since the benefits of marginal optimization don’t really justify the cost of optimization. That said, in most cases, it’s just sloth or ignorance combined with the knowledge that they better spend their ad budget or else “bad things” will happen.
2. Lots of people call themselves digital marketers. Most of them who are employees suck, and I mean suck really bad. The reason is that if you are really good at digital marketing, it’s pretty easy to roll your own small business that, at a minimum, makes enough money while still having a lot of latitude in terms of free time or financial upside. Most companies are not willing or are not able to pay highly competent digital marketers what they are worth. Regardless, these employee marketers who suck tend not to do well at optimizing targeting.
3. Most digital marketing agencies suck at targeting. This is largely a byproduct of #2 above. The owner of an agency or the lead marketer might be really good, but they often delegate to people who are not. Streamlining the work of the underlings turns out not to be that important for most of these agencies.
That’s my 2 cents. I would love to hear other opinions.
Possible explanations that I have seen for inaccurate targeting:
1. Some folks have a ton of money in their budget to spend on marketing, and they frankly don’t care about optimizing their targeting. In some cases, this is a shrewd decision, since the benefits of marginal optimization don’t really justify the cost of optimization. That said, in most cases, it’s just sloth or ignorance combined with the knowledge that they better spend their ad budget or else “bad things” will happen.
2. Lots of people call themselves digital marketers. Most of them who are employees suck, and I mean suck really bad. The reason is that if you are really good at digital marketing, it’s pretty easy to roll your own small business that, at a minimum, makes enough money while still having a lot of latitude in terms of free time or financial upside. Most companies are not willing or are not able to pay highly competent digital marketers what they are worth. Regardless, these employee marketers who suck tend not to do well at optimizing targeting.
3. Most digital marketing agencies suck at targeting. This is largely a byproduct of #2 above. The owner of an agency or the lead marketer might be really good, but they often delegate to people who are not. Streamlining the work of the underlings turns out not to be that important for most of these agencies.
That’s my 2 cents. I would love to hear other opinions.
While I personally agree with you when it comes to YT advertising which at times could not be more irrelevant, Google search ads and Facebook/Instagram ads seem to be the place where most money is spend. And in case of Google search the whole thing is basically a prisoners dilemma. You and your competitors are probably among the first results for the relevant keywords anyway and could save a lot on advertising if none of you advertised. But once a single competitor starts buying ads the whole sector has to move until the expense on Google ads is equal to the former profit margin. This in turn leads to monopolization as only the competitor with the highest profit margin at baseline will still be making a profit. It’s hard to believe that Google pushing its apps and a single search/navigation bar on users is but an attempt to get businesses to pay for results they would already rank pretty well for, thereby diverting the profit of entire industries to Google and not offering any benefits to users.
> You and your competitors are probably among the first results for the relevant keywords anyway and could save a lot on advertising if none of you advertised. But once a single competitor starts buying ads the whole sector has to move until the expense on Google ads is equal to the former profit margin. This in turn leads to monopolization as only the competitor with the highest profit margin at baseline will still be making a profit.
Granted, incumbents are likely to score high on organic search results. If somebody new comes up with a better product, which can deliver more value at a lower price, the page rank algorithm isn’t going to do much for them. But the newcomer’s superior unit economics mean they can afford to bid higher for an ad, which allows them to get market share from the incumbent. In that sense, ads can make the market more liquid, and speed adoption of improved products and more efficient manufacturing or business processes.
The ad publisher does end up capturing a big chunk of this value, and it’s valid to ask if that’s fair and if we as a society should allow it.
Granted, incumbents are likely to score high on organic search results. If somebody new comes up with a better product, which can deliver more value at a lower price, the page rank algorithm isn’t going to do much for them. But the newcomer’s superior unit economics mean they can afford to bid higher for an ad, which allows them to get market share from the incumbent. In that sense, ads can make the market more liquid, and speed adoption of improved products and more efficient manufacturing or business processes.
The ad publisher does end up capturing a big chunk of this value, and it’s valid to ask if that’s fair and if we as a society should allow it.
I have tracking blockers set up all over, so I rarely get ads targeted at me.
Instead I get ads targeted at people who share my IP. I can often tell what my girlfriend has been browsing for from the ads I'm hit with, for instance, which is somewhat creepy.
Instead I get ads targeted at people who share my IP. I can often tell what my girlfriend has been browsing for from the ads I'm hit with, for instance, which is somewhat creepy.
> I can often tell what my girlfriend has been browsing for from the ads I'm hit with, for instance, which is somewhat creepy.
I've had ads for medication that I'm prescribed, or could be prescribed, play on other people's devices when they use my network. It's likely targeted because I don't get ads for other types of prescriptions at all at home.
I'm also pretty sure of some of the medical conditions my friends and family have based on the ads I consistently see in their homes.
I've had ads for medication that I'm prescribed, or could be prescribed, play on other people's devices when they use my network. It's likely targeted because I don't get ads for other types of prescriptions at all at home.
I'm also pretty sure of some of the medical conditions my friends and family have based on the ads I consistently see in their homes.
I totally agree about the YouTube advertising. YouTube literally has hundreds of hours of my video history to work with, yet the vast majority of the ads I see are completely unrelated to my interests. What's the point of all the tracking if they can't even show me relevant ads on YouTube of all places? Podcast ads tend to be much more relevant, and I can even recall purchases I've made due to them. AFAIK my podcast player isn't tracking me or using targeted ads.
That's because the companies winning bidds on your 'views' are targeting you because of your apparent persona, i.e middle aged man/woman in tech -aka middle class ++ with disposable income, rather than what you are interested in.
On top of that, plenty of marketers are absolutely clueless about how to go about their strategy, mostly because unlike previous generations (in online ads), they don't grok the underlying tech at all.
On top of that, plenty of marketers are absolutely clueless about how to go about their strategy, mostly because unlike previous generations (in online ads), they don't grok the underlying tech at all.
They might was well simply tie it to the program content then. For instance, if I watch a Scott Kilmer video, it'll typically have an Autozone ad.
If that's all there is to it, I expect there's a lot of needless work being done under the covers.
If that's all there is to it, I expect there's a lot of needless work being done under the covers.
If you turn off personalized ads, that's basically what you'll see.
Although for me, it's a 50/50 split between topic-related and ads that appear to target a generic male audience, which is a very good guess for some topics.
Although for me, it's a 50/50 split between topic-related and ads that appear to target a generic male audience, which is a very good guess for some topics.
No, actually you can do both (and more).
Advertising is throwing darts at the board with your eyes closed, whenever it lands somewhere on the board and nets you point is good enough for most.
Typical conversion rates are under the 1% threshold so you accept that a lot of your spend is not efficient but when it is, you make your money back and some, if you are any good at it.
Advertising is throwing darts at the board with your eyes closed, whenever it lands somewhere on the board and nets you point is good enough for most.
Typical conversion rates are under the 1% threshold so you accept that a lot of your spend is not efficient but when it is, you make your money back and some, if you are any good at it.
> AFAIK my podcast player isn't tracking me or using targeted ads.
Some podcasts use "dynamic ad insertion", where the ads are inserted when you download the podcast rather than when the podcast file is created and uploaded. [0] Discovered my podcasts were tracking me when I traveled and then heard ads for an out-of-state regional chain after I returned home, clearly because I had downloaded the episodes while traveling. Overcast added privacy & tracking info, to show whether each podcast uses dynamic ad insertion or (possibly) tracks IP etc. [1].
[0] https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2020/10/08/podcast-priv... [1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/03/podcast-privacy-alerts/
Some podcasts use "dynamic ad insertion", where the ads are inserted when you download the podcast rather than when the podcast file is created and uploaded. [0] Discovered my podcasts were tracking me when I traveled and then heard ads for an out-of-state regional chain after I returned home, clearly because I had downloaded the episodes while traveling. Overcast added privacy & tracking info, to show whether each podcast uses dynamic ad insertion or (possibly) tracks IP etc. [1].
[0] https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2020/10/08/podcast-priv... [1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/03/podcast-privacy-alerts/
Perhaps it is not so much a question of whether online ads work nor how profitable the business is (or the costs to society of all the surveillance), but instead the question is why the author cannot or will not work on something else. Is the work he does truly valuable in a general sense. This question might help us gauge the veracity of his statements.
If the web were 100% ad-free, it would still exist. It would still be growing. People would still spend countless hours working on computer programming. People would still be endlessly tinkering with the internet. This is reality, I saw it in the 80's and 90's. However, they would not be, as the author is today, asking for forgiveness, pledging to donate half their "earnings" to charity. Online ads may be an efficient way to make money but it also may be the only efficient way to make money from such "work" (experimentation, fun). The folks who are profiting from online ads will say anything to avoid that reality check.
The emperor may indeed be naked, but the amount of money and infrastructure these companies have to bury the truth is enormous. They will not allow the world to ever again experience a web without pervasive advertising. The person who started the web already had a real job. He did not try to make money with online ads. That world was fun while it lasted. There were so many possibilities.
Thanks to this author's "work", the possibilities now appear to be mostly dystopian. Compare this post "Why I work on Ads" to the original paper from Brin and Page that described the influence of advertising on web search as undesirable and a primary motivation for creating Google.
http://research.google.com/pubs/archive/334.pdf
If the web were 100% ad-free, it would still exist. It would still be growing. People would still spend countless hours working on computer programming. People would still be endlessly tinkering with the internet. This is reality, I saw it in the 80's and 90's. However, they would not be, as the author is today, asking for forgiveness, pledging to donate half their "earnings" to charity. Online ads may be an efficient way to make money but it also may be the only efficient way to make money from such "work" (experimentation, fun). The folks who are profiting from online ads will say anything to avoid that reality check.
The emperor may indeed be naked, but the amount of money and infrastructure these companies have to bury the truth is enormous. They will not allow the world to ever again experience a web without pervasive advertising. The person who started the web already had a real job. He did not try to make money with online ads. That world was fun while it lasted. There were so many possibilities.
Thanks to this author's "work", the possibilities now appear to be mostly dystopian. Compare this post "Why I work on Ads" to the original paper from Brin and Page that described the influence of advertising on web search as undesirable and a primary motivation for creating Google.
http://research.google.com/pubs/archive/334.pdf
I wouldn't be surprised if Adwords is a net loss for the majority of Google's customers. The whole thing is full of dark patterns. Personally I got so fed up with the abusive nature of it that I abandoned it several years ago.
I like to think of google ads the IRS of the internet. I pay my ad agency to minimize my google ads tax, not to grow business, same instructions I give to my tax accountant. Google will argue that everyone wins if you grow and pay more google tax, but many have tested this and proved it not to be true. Said another way, how good of a job your tax accountant is doing is orthogonal to growing your business.
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There's a famous quote from John Wanamaker that goes something like:
"Half of my advertising budget is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half."
"Half of my advertising budget is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half."
> I've never clicked on an internet ad.
Me neither, but marketing is significantly about awareness, not just the clicks.
If you've seen it, it is at some level "in you", and the brand has (fractionally) been built.
I know this doesn't apply to all ads by any means, but it's important to remember that advertising also works this way.
Me neither, but marketing is significantly about awareness, not just the clicks.
If you've seen it, it is at some level "in you", and the brand has (fractionally) been built.
I know this doesn't apply to all ads by any means, but it's important to remember that advertising also works this way.
It's amazing to see the amount of people in this post that don't click ads. I really try to avoid to click them, I quite often open an incognito window to search for product I've just seen in an ad (I'm sure Google will find a way to figure out that an incognito user with the same IP as me is... me, but it feels better to try).
But I do click ads in my work, if the top (ad) link on Google is something relevant I might click it if I don't care for the company. I try to avoid clicking links for companies I really like since I work in a very ad heavy industry and know how much CPC can cost.
But I do click ads in my work, if the top (ad) link on Google is something relevant I might click it if I don't care for the company. I try to avoid clicking links for companies I really like since I work in a very ad heavy industry and know how much CPC can cost.
Which do you think is more likely?
a. A $300 billion dollar industry is based entirely on a delusion.
b. You are an outlier.
a. A $300 billion dollar industry is based entirely on a delusion.
b. You are an outlier.
c. a portion of the industry is based on a delusion
Given that some industries (or movements, ideologies, etc.) could credibly be based on delusions, what do you think is the upper limit for how big such an industry could get?
Given that some industries (or movements, ideologies, etc.) could credibly be based on delusions, what do you think is the upper limit for how big such an industry could get?
The ad industry is an easily verifiable one, just go ask any of your small business running friends to see if they have generated more profit than they've spent on ads.
My business has generated more profit than it has spent on ads. ;-)
The value proof in the backend that convinces advertisers to throw more many at this? Mostly rule of thumb heuristics with a fair amount of overselling. So no, in most cases the telemetry just doesn't prove much.
I've seen the thesis that all this advertising revenue - even if poorly spent - subvents large portions of exciting research in deep learning etc. at the likes of Google and Facebook. So all that talent wouldn't entirely be lost to advertising.
I've seen the thesis that all this advertising revenue - even if poorly spent - subvents large portions of exciting research in deep learning etc. at the likes of Google and Facebook. So all that talent wouldn't entirely be lost to advertising.
One of the craziest parts is the total lack of accountability.
Google / FB just say they show your ad to a XXXX million people. You owe them $XXXX.
Google / FB just say they show your ad to a XXXX million people. You owe them $XXXX.
Wouldn't traditional "offline" advertising be even worse?
"We suspect X million people watch this TV show (based on highly inaccurate Nielsen ratings) and then stayed around for the ad break, pay XX dollars."
"XXX people passed by your billboard, XX saw it, X people visited your website and made a purchase, pay XX dollars."
"We suspect X million people watch this TV show (based on highly inaccurate Nielsen ratings) and then stayed around for the ad break, pay XX dollars."
"XXX people passed by your billboard, XX saw it, X people visited your website and made a purchase, pay XX dollars."
At least that's an independent ranking (I presume?)
Plus you can go watch TV and see that it's actually been on there. Or walk down the street, or pick up a newspaper.
Plus you can go watch TV and see that it's actually been on there. Or walk down the street, or pick up a newspaper.
People track conversions - click through URLs contain tracking query params which track the source. If you convert (download a resource, request a demo, start a trial, buy a product) it gets reported back to Facebook.
There's definitely accountability. The problem is that you can't always blame FB or Google because maybe your targeting is off, your ad copy sucks, you dumped the user off the front page of your website and they bailed, etc. There's a lot more to performance and accountability.
There's definitely accountability. The problem is that you can't always blame FB or Google because maybe your targeting is off, your ad copy sucks, you dumped the user off the front page of your website and they bailed, etc. There's a lot more to performance and accountability.
If you're only paying for conversions then you should be OK, but paying for clicks is still very common no?
I've always thought that the value provided was in comparison to old-school advertising techniques, such as through physical media or broadcast-style presentation formats. Nowadays, even if some Youtube ads seem like a crapshoot, it's still much more focused than television.
This, its not that the new digital approaches are photos in absolute terms but compared to old media they are substantially better
> No doubt there's some sort of backend telemetry that proves the value of all this trouble.
And it seems like unless you go to a lot of trouble, you're essentially relying on the ad network's own metrics for efficacy... Which when you consider the sheer quantity of money at stake, seems like it will end in a massive fraud at least once. I could be wrong about the perverse incentive though, it seems almost too obvious so I would assume that people who know the ad industry better than me would have a response to it.
And it seems like unless you go to a lot of trouble, you're essentially relying on the ad network's own metrics for efficacy... Which when you consider the sheer quantity of money at stake, seems like it will end in a massive fraud at least once. I could be wrong about the perverse incentive though, it seems almost too obvious so I would assume that people who know the ad industry better than me would have a response to it.
> unless you go to a lot of trouble, you're essentially relying on the ad network's own metrics for efficacy
There's a whole ecosystem of "buyside verification vendors" that advertisers contract with to validate that they're getting what they paid for. Buyers don't just take the seller's word for it, or at least enough of them don't that shady sellers are kept in check.
There's a whole ecosystem of "buyside verification vendors" that advertisers contract with to validate that they're getting what they paid for. Buyers don't just take the seller's word for it, or at least enough of them don't that shady sellers are kept in check.
>I've never clicked on an internet ad.
The most successful ads looks very similar to the organic content and tend to have very similar targeting mechanisms. Search ads that look like search results. Product ads on amazon that look like product search results. Facebook ads that look like Facebook posts. In my experience all those ads are quiet close to content I'd like and I've clicked on quiet a few without realizing it's an ad.
The most successful ads looks very similar to the organic content and tend to have very similar targeting mechanisms. Search ads that look like search results. Product ads on amazon that look like product search results. Facebook ads that look like Facebook posts. In my experience all those ads are quiet close to content I'd like and I've clicked on quiet a few without realizing it's an ad.
I'd argue further that the most successful are not at all distinguishable as adds. They masquerade as content but are paid placements or placed just for the sake of advertising.
First of not every ad is targeted to you. A large majority will just be lightly targeted or remnant inventory where it’s better to show you something than waste an impression. You probably don’t notice the ones that are well targeted because they just work.
We should not call them Ads. Ads used to be passive, one-way means to turn ones attention to something.
Now-days "Ads" are a watching you.
Now-days "Ads" are a watching you.
I get your point, but this is inaccurate. Advertizing has always been targeted based on the demographic most likely to see them - deciding to air a TV ad during Saturday morning cartoons, during a football match, or during a soap opera has very meaningful differences. The only change now is that the granularity of information available for targeting has increased.
It used to be surveys few could voluntarily filled out that were interpolated onto similar demographics, or based on purchases.
Now advertisers can track you directly where/when you go, without your permission. Your search and purchase history forever remembered, your location verified, your friends identified.
With such level detail we will soon have custom pricing to maximize profits.
Now advertisers can track you directly where/when you go, without your permission. Your search and purchase history forever remembered, your location verified, your friends identified.
With such level detail we will soon have custom pricing to maximize profits.
Here here. As an exercise, does anyone remember an add they saw today on the web? One they clicked on? I rarely do.
A "successful" ad has a CTR (click through rate) of over 0.2%. Almost no one is clicking on ads.
People wo believe that "tool makers aren't responsible for how the tool is misused" (for example, with cryptocurrency), do you feel the same way about adtech?
I find all ads reprehensible regardless of tracking and yes, I believe adtech engineers aren't responsible for that. Specifically, author of OP doesn't have to justify himself. He enjoys his job and I'm happy for him.
Blaming technicians for the negative externalities of their industries is a dark path. Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists? General Motors assembly-line workers? Engineers who work for oil companies?
Blaming technicians for the negative externalities of their industries is a dark path. Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists? General Motors assembly-line workers? Engineers who work for oil companies?
> Blaming technicians for the negative externalities of their industries is a dark path.
Disagree.
> Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists?
No, because I want there to be someone who defends that rapist's rights. In contrast, it's easy for me to blame a software engineer who's developing bad technology X, because I want the job of developing X to not exist.
> General Motors assembly-line workers? Engineers who work for oil companies?
Yes, but only if they have better options for earning a living: I can't blame anyone for not wanting to starve. Assembly-line workers often don't have better options, but software engineers usually do.
This path looks pretty well-lit to me.
Disagree.
> Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists?
No, because I want there to be someone who defends that rapist's rights. In contrast, it's easy for me to blame a software engineer who's developing bad technology X, because I want the job of developing X to not exist.
> General Motors assembly-line workers? Engineers who work for oil companies?
Yes, but only if they have better options for earning a living: I can't blame anyone for not wanting to starve. Assembly-line workers often don't have better options, but software engineers usually do.
This path looks pretty well-lit to me.
Engineers building unethical things is wildly different than lawyers defending rapists, because a lawyer defending a rapist is behaving ethically according to their career path.
Software engineers agreeing to build awful shit is more like mechanical engineers building weapons. They should know what they are doing is going to cause harm and if they choose to do it anyways I have no issue calling them unethical.
Software engineers agreeing to build awful shit is more like mechanical engineers building weapons. They should know what they are doing is going to cause harm and if they choose to do it anyways I have no issue calling them unethical.
The lawyer's defense is "by playing devil's advocate, I make the protection of the law more robust for everyone". A closer equivalent would be a system where every organization had white-hat hackers.
The lawyer's defense is that, in any decent justice system, people have a right to a legal council and are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Even if they have been declared guilty of a crime in the past they might be innocent of this one and still have a right to council.
Even if they have been declared guilty of a crime in the past they might be innocent of this one and still have a right to council.
I heard a lawyer in an interview talking about defending a rapist/murdered in a small town. While eating lunch at the town diner a few people approached to ask how he could defend someone so vile.
He told them about how it is important that defendants are presumed innocent, and that everyone gets a strong defense, in order to make sure that those who are wrongfully accused do not get wrongfully convicted.
They talked about it for something like an hour, and the people were only sort of convinced. And his lunch got cold.
Later, he found himself in another small town, defending another rapist/murdered, eating lunch in a diner and being asked by the people there the same question.
This time he said "his family paid me $100000 to defend him". The crowd accepted that right away as a perfectly fine reason to defend some totally vile criminal, and went back to their lunches.
He told them about how it is important that defendants are presumed innocent, and that everyone gets a strong defense, in order to make sure that those who are wrongfully accused do not get wrongfully convicted.
They talked about it for something like an hour, and the people were only sort of convinced. And his lunch got cold.
Later, he found himself in another small town, defending another rapist/murdered, eating lunch in a diner and being asked by the people there the same question.
This time he said "his family paid me $100000 to defend him". The crowd accepted that right away as a perfectly fine reason to defend some totally vile criminal, and went back to their lunches.
I think that amounts to the same thing; the lawyer thinks "This $#@& is guilty as sin, but the court has to prove it." Few professions have a regular test of that kind.
A lawyer can have their whole career ruined if they are found throwing cases. The justice system itself finds it unethical if they don't prosecute or defend to the best of their ability.
Suggesting that software somehow has that same kind of standard where engineers are required to build anything and everything they are asked to the best of their ability or they can lose their accreditation (as if we even have that in software) is absolutely absurd.
Suggesting that software somehow has that same kind of standard where engineers are required to build anything and everything they are asked to the best of their ability or they can lose their accreditation (as if we even have that in software) is absolutely absurd.
Software isn't fundamentally adversarial in the same way that criminal law is, but that's a fair point.
An engineer building effective adtech is similarly behaving ethically according to their own career path.
Lawyers effectively defending awful clients, for example, managing to get them off the hook on a technicality, are likewise generating massive negative externalities for society at large.
It's either both or neither, and I'm not comfortable going down that path.
Lawyers effectively defending awful clients, for example, managing to get them off the hook on a technicality, are likewise generating massive negative externalities for society at large.
It's either both or neither, and I'm not comfortable going down that path.
> An engineer building effective adtech is similarly behaving ethically according to their own career path
The phrase "Effective adtech" is really downplaying the amount of unethical shit involved in building it.
It could be effective without turning the internet into a race to the bottom. It could be effective without third party tracking, it could be effective without vacuuming every bit of data possible from every source imaginable. It could be effective without turning every device we own into an ad platform.
> It's either both or neither, and I'm not comfortable going down that path.
No, its not both or neither. That's absurdly reductive to suggest. It is possible for lawyers to behave unethically in their duties, but just defending the guilty (or prosecuting the innocent) is not unethical on it's own.
Similarly, it's possible for engineers to behave unethically in their duties. Just building software isn't unethical.
Building platforms that are deliberately and systematically eroding our privacy in every corner of our lives in order to make money absolutely is unethical. Turning society into a corporate-controlled panopticon is absolutely unethical. Absolutely scumbags
The phrase "Effective adtech" is really downplaying the amount of unethical shit involved in building it.
It could be effective without turning the internet into a race to the bottom. It could be effective without third party tracking, it could be effective without vacuuming every bit of data possible from every source imaginable. It could be effective without turning every device we own into an ad platform.
> It's either both or neither, and I'm not comfortable going down that path.
No, its not both or neither. That's absurdly reductive to suggest. It is possible for lawyers to behave unethically in their duties, but just defending the guilty (or prosecuting the innocent) is not unethical on it's own.
Similarly, it's possible for engineers to behave unethically in their duties. Just building software isn't unethical.
Building platforms that are deliberately and systematically eroding our privacy in every corner of our lives in order to make money absolutely is unethical. Turning society into a corporate-controlled panopticon is absolutely unethical. Absolutely scumbags
The core of my argument is that an engineer building the product is performing their duty. You don't have to sell me on the fact that ads are bad. I hate all ads.
I'm a developer myself and I've never faced the dilemma, but I don't feel like blaming others for not wanting to become judges of good and evil. Like in the case of a lawyer, doing your job and doing it well is in and of itself ethical.
I really can't draw a line in the sand where adtech is unacceptable but $something_else is, just because I have such an hatred for advertisement.
I'm a developer myself and I've never faced the dilemma, but I don't feel like blaming others for not wanting to become judges of good and evil. Like in the case of a lawyer, doing your job and doing it well is in and of itself ethical.
I really can't draw a line in the sand where adtech is unacceptable but $something_else is, just because I have such an hatred for advertisement.
> The core of my argument is that an engineer building the product is performing their duty
This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to justify doing war crimes. It is absolutely not a defense of unethical behavior.
This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to justify doing war crimes. It is absolutely not a defense of unethical behavior.
> Lawyers effectively defending awful clients, for example, managing to get them off the hook on a technicality, are likewise generating massive negative externalities for society at large.
This is a harmful misunderstanding of how the legal system works. Subjecting laws and procedures to scrutiny, and exposing "loopholes" is exactly the role of a vigorous defence. The fact that the consequences for the state (and society) of miswriting or misapplying the law can be so severe is exactly what keeps the system honest.
This is a harmful misunderstanding of how the legal system works. Subjecting laws and procedures to scrutiny, and exposing "loopholes" is exactly the role of a vigorous defence. The fact that the consequences for the state (and society) of miswriting or misapplying the law can be so severe is exactly what keeps the system honest.
I completely agree with that. My argument rests on the fact that I agree that lawyers should do that, consequences be damned.
Sorry for the low signal answer, but you're the second to raise this objection and I wanted to clarify I don't actually think that.
Sorry for the low signal answer, but you're the second to raise this objection and I wanted to clarify I don't actually think that.
> Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists?
Only if such lawyers are unethical in how they go about doing this.
Lawyers who defend accused rapists are a necessity for a well-functioning justice system. The alternative is a process where the accused isn't permitted a legal defence, if they're taken to trial for serious crimes like rape.
Software engineers who spend their days forcing increasingly invasive advertising technology upon us all are not necessary. For the most part, we'd all be better off if they all downed tools.
Only if such lawyers are unethical in how they go about doing this.
Lawyers who defend accused rapists are a necessity for a well-functioning justice system. The alternative is a process where the accused isn't permitted a legal defence, if they're taken to trial for serious crimes like rape.
Software engineers who spend their days forcing increasingly invasive advertising technology upon us all are not necessary. For the most part, we'd all be better off if they all downed tools.
Are you going out of your way to give the most uncharitable possible interpretation of what I said? I struggle to see how any reasonable reader could infer that I believe what you wrote.
The structure of the argument is: because A is equivalent to B and I'm not comfortable with B, then I'm not comfortable with A either. Resolving the let binding in the variables A and B is left as an exercise to the reader.
EDIT: parent has been edited since this comment was written. Please disregard the belligerent tone, reply to parent no longer applies.
The structure of the argument is: because A is equivalent to B and I'm not comfortable with B, then I'm not comfortable with A either. Resolving the let binding in the variables A and B is left as an exercise to the reader.
EDIT: parent has been edited since this comment was written. Please disregard the belligerent tone, reply to parent no longer applies.
Lawyers are essential for people accused of rape. Some will be accused incorrectly.
Legally it makes a big difference whether a tool is designed with the specific purpose of being abused or whether it is incidental.
I think morally that's correct as well.
Cryptocurrency is a weird one you bring up coz I don't think anybody is proposing hunting down and jailing Satoshi even if they think Bitcoin ought to be banned.
I think morally that's correct as well.
Cryptocurrency is a weird one you bring up coz I don't think anybody is proposing hunting down and jailing Satoshi even if they think Bitcoin ought to be banned.
As much as I hate to defend adtech, I think it's unfair to generalize a whole industry.
A company I worked for was more in the business of improving targeting. Of course people will argue if targeting demographics is bad per se, or better or worse than other parts, but I personally don't care if I get generic ads or ones tailored to me. So for one of our main product, we were reselling and integrating some data for a bigger player, as in, we were 1 of many data points determining if the ad would be interesting for the person who would see the ad or if they'd give them another one.
Yes, it kind of gets into this angle of privacy and user tracking... but I'm ok with the scope we did it in and I thought hard about if I can accept this without a guilty conscience - but for example I'd never knowingly work on trying to bombard the user with even more ads, or popups, or whatever - but just saying "ads shouldn't exist" is maybe aspirational but sadly I don't see it as a valid version of reality in the foreseeable future.
A company I worked for was more in the business of improving targeting. Of course people will argue if targeting demographics is bad per se, or better or worse than other parts, but I personally don't care if I get generic ads or ones tailored to me. So for one of our main product, we were reselling and integrating some data for a bigger player, as in, we were 1 of many data points determining if the ad would be interesting for the person who would see the ad or if they'd give them another one.
Yes, it kind of gets into this angle of privacy and user tracking... but I'm ok with the scope we did it in and I thought hard about if I can accept this without a guilty conscience - but for example I'd never knowingly work on trying to bombard the user with even more ads, or popups, or whatever - but just saying "ads shouldn't exist" is maybe aspirational but sadly I don't see it as a valid version of reality in the foreseeable future.
k__(6)
> Ads. You pay with your attention.
What? No. You pay with your data. You pay with your privacy.
And the ads additionally destroy legitimate paid services. Ads have destroyed the entire internet economy, and brought upon a surveillance state.
This blog post is more detached from reality than the Q board on 8kun.
What? No. You pay with your data. You pay with your privacy.
And the ads additionally destroy legitimate paid services. Ads have destroyed the entire internet economy, and brought upon a surveillance state.
This blog post is more detached from reality than the Q board on 8kun.
Not only do you spend your day job helping to clutter our web experience, suck up our personal data, and track us across the web, but you want to spend your free time whoring out your blog to us to try to justify the career choice you feel guilty about?
Just stop. We get one chance on earth, do something of value.
Just stop. We get one chance on earth, do something of value.
Please don't post denunciatory rhetoric to HN. It's the most tedious thing on the internet, and we're trying for something at least a little bit better here.
Lord knows there are loads of problems to worry about, but damaging the community you're participating in is counterproductive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Lord knows there are loads of problems to worry about, but damaging the community you're participating in is counterproductive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This comment seems much more venomous than it needs to be?
I mean look, my goal is to communicate to the engineers involved in this business that they are responsible for the product they work on, and the monster they've created. People working for G and fb have options. If they choose to continue to work for these companies for great personal gain, at the cost of exploiting and tracking their own users (basically half of the world population?), they are not our friends and I think should not be treated as such. I don't want to play nice and read your blog and validate you, I want you to stop making the world a worse place.
Why do we grant them such a generous separation of work/personal life? They spend their day screwing us over, in the evening we all sing kumbaya? There's been no accountability.
Yes, my message is not going to bathe them in the positivity sunshine they've likely grown accustomed to in their work environment echo chamber. I am okay with that. Others might be more successful getting through to them with their slider closer to the carrot. I truly respect that ability, I just keep thinking appeasement is a failed strategy.
...I shouldn't have gone with "whoring" I suppose, sorry about that. I like the idea of serving your argument from your own site, decentralization and individuality and all that. But for some it's just another way to pad their resume to facilitate becoming more of the problem.
Why do we grant them such a generous separation of work/personal life? They spend their day screwing us over, in the evening we all sing kumbaya? There's been no accountability.
Yes, my message is not going to bathe them in the positivity sunshine they've likely grown accustomed to in their work environment echo chamber. I am okay with that. Others might be more successful getting through to them with their slider closer to the carrot. I truly respect that ability, I just keep thinking appeasement is a failed strategy.
...I shouldn't have gone with "whoring" I suppose, sorry about that. I like the idea of serving your argument from your own site, decentralization and individuality and all that. But for some it's just another way to pad their resume to facilitate becoming more of the problem.
> Others might be more successful getting through to them with their slider closer to the carrot. I truly respect that ability, I just keep thinking appeasement is a failed strategy.
Fair enough. I prefer to engage with both sides on this issue, but I suppose there are other issues where my feelings are strong enough, and my faith in one side of the issue low enough, that I would not bother engaging.
Fair enough. I prefer to engage with both sides on this issue, but I suppose there are other issues where my feelings are strong enough, and my faith in one side of the issue low enough, that I would not bother engaging.
If you read about the heyday of RJ Reynolds tobacco and all the money they had and all the good they did for Winston-Salem, I think there is a big parallel. If someone wrote a "Why I work in big tobacco" post, talking about their charitable work, I don't think they'd make any friends. But I think order of magnitude wise, the impact on quality of life, mental health, public discourse, etc etc of internet advertising (and specifically the attention economy it gives rise to) will be shown to be (a) just as addictive and (b) as harmful as tobacco was.
So I agree with you, there is no moral high ground for the people involved. They should be looked on no differently than anyone else exploiting addiction for profit.
So I agree with you, there is no moral high ground for the people involved. They should be looked on no differently than anyone else exploiting addiction for profit.
The alternative is to pay 20ct a year not $10 a month
Very interesting point of view. My main takeaway from this is "Better ads than paywalls" which entails that the only alternative to ads is a paywall which I don't agree with. I think that there is a middleground with freemium, free trial model.
Also there was a comment somewhere I can't find right now "There are 2 ways to make money in the internet - bundling and unbundling" with this I think there is value of a paywall that bundles, see Apple News. In the end I don't like the way AdTech works right now, I am not sure about what's next. I don't think explicit regulation is the way, especially since Internet is international and law is as a rule local. But either we will sell our data to monopolies or we will die in bills for selfhosting everything and even though involuntarily our internet histories will be sold.
Also there was a comment somewhere I can't find right now "There are 2 ways to make money in the internet - bundling and unbundling" with this I think there is value of a paywall that bundles, see Apple News. In the end I don't like the way AdTech works right now, I am not sure about what's next. I don't think explicit regulation is the way, especially since Internet is international and law is as a rule local. But either we will sell our data to monopolies or we will die in bills for selfhosting everything and even though involuntarily our internet histories will be sold.
So I often hear that argument about other ways to make money. Other than a paywall what is the other way ?
> free trial model
tbh kinda seems like a paywall with extra steps for buy in
tbh kinda seems like a paywall with extra steps for buy in
There is third way - crypto mining on user computers. I would prefer to mine some crypto for someone instead of seeing ads. Biggest problem: mobile users would be much less "valuable".
That "paying with money" but with extra steps.
Is GPGPU feasible on WebGL? Cpu mining isn't really profitable even if you have a big network of "users".
I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find
That's not at all justification for practices that harm society, especially when that harm takes fewer resources to achieve than charity donations can make up for. It's like saying "I'm willing to work for a company with massive pollution because I donate some of my salary to Greenpeace."
Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but the fact that the author put this justification first is an implicit admission that they feel what they do is wrong in some way and try to offset it with donations.
The thing is, I think advertising is positive
It is difficult to think otherwise about something attached to your paycheck
I think advertising is positive... if I'm causing harm through my work I would like to know about it.
One really great example of harm is propaganda delivered via political attack ads that polarize the population by provoking anger, fear, and hatred.
Ads. You pay with your attention.
You aren't given a choice in most cases to choose attention or $$. You also pay with more than attention: your privacy, personal data, and tracking of online actions. Many off-line actions can also be tracked by purchasing data from other sources and matching to the data collected online.
Non-regressive
This would be a better point if many media outlets didn't still use paywalls and ads together
That's not at all justification for practices that harm society, especially when that harm takes fewer resources to achieve than charity donations can make up for. It's like saying "I'm willing to work for a company with massive pollution because I donate some of my salary to Greenpeace."
Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but the fact that the author put this justification first is an implicit admission that they feel what they do is wrong in some way and try to offset it with donations.
The thing is, I think advertising is positive
It is difficult to think otherwise about something attached to your paycheck
I think advertising is positive... if I'm causing harm through my work I would like to know about it.
One really great example of harm is propaganda delivered via political attack ads that polarize the population by provoking anger, fear, and hatred.
Ads. You pay with your attention.
You aren't given a choice in most cases to choose attention or $$. You also pay with more than attention: your privacy, personal data, and tracking of online actions. Many off-line actions can also be tracked by purchasing data from other sources and matching to the data collected online.
Non-regressive
This would be a better point if many media outlets didn't still use paywalls and ads together
This article is really attacking a straw man. I don't know many people who think advertising per se is morally objectionable (annoying, yes).
What many people find reprehensible is all the invasive spyware and tracking that comes with modern ad tech (largely pioneered by Google).
What many people find reprehensible is all the invasive spyware and tracking that comes with modern ad tech (largely pioneered by Google).
>I don't know many people who think advertising per se is morally objectionable
Lots of people do. E.g. the first user feedback comment in that article: "Advertising is bad because it’s fundamentally about influencing people to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. [...]"
And every HN thread about advertising also has a variation of that sentiment.
Lots of people do. E.g. the first user feedback comment in that article: "Advertising is bad because it’s fundamentally about influencing people to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. [...]"
And every HN thread about advertising also has a variation of that sentiment.
I agree, this is a common (and justified) sentiment.
I had a high school teacher give us a book about print advertising (this was way before the internet was a common thing) and how it deceives. How they sell cars with sexy women, how instead of selling a product they sell an unrelated image of success (which is not really tied to the product). It was a nice book, with lots of photos and examples, and all about how advertisement is designed to deceive and encourage a "need" that wasn't there before.
I had a high school teacher give us a book about print advertising (this was way before the internet was a common thing) and how it deceives. How they sell cars with sexy women, how instead of selling a product they sell an unrelated image of success (which is not really tied to the product). It was a nice book, with lots of photos and examples, and all about how advertisement is designed to deceive and encourage a "need" that wasn't there before.
Actually advertising works best when it exploits the needs and desires you already feel. The farther away it gets from those, the more expensive it gets. That said, ever since the sixties it does sell things based on people's need to project their status and image, as a way of defining oneself to the outside world. People buy things for what the thing does, plus what owning and using the thing says about your personality. And people seem to be prone to accept these symbolic identifications less critically then they do performance claims about what the product does. Bob Dylan said it best:
Advertising signs that con you\
Into thinking you're the one\
That can do what's never been done\
That can win what's never been won\
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
I agree. The point is that many people, including Bob Dylan, my high school teacher and many others seem to think advertisement purposefully misleads (or exploits) in order to sell. I tend to (partially) side with this opinion myself, but that's not the main point of my comment.
I'm supporting jasode's comment that lots of people do consider advertising morally objectionable. I believe this assertion is not controversial regardless of what one personally thinks about ads.
I'm supporting jasode's comment that lots of people do consider advertising morally objectionable. I believe this assertion is not controversial regardless of what one personally thinks about ads.
I think that's a relatively small group compared to the group that thinks advertising is fine, while tracking isn't.
Arguing that advertising is somehow inappropriate manipulation isn't consistent with a market economy. Like it or not, efficient markets require marketing. Now, you could be against the market economy of course, but I don't see a lot of the people claiming ads are manipulation also claiming that the market economy is bad (which imo would be more intellectually honest).
I'd say disregard the "all ads are bad" crowd. It's a completely uninteresting discussion. The interesting discussion is the line to be drawn between advertising (which is good, or at least acceptable) and the shady side of adtech with trading in personal information.
Arguing that advertising is somehow inappropriate manipulation isn't consistent with a market economy. Like it or not, efficient markets require marketing. Now, you could be against the market economy of course, but I don't see a lot of the people claiming ads are manipulation also claiming that the market economy is bad (which imo would be more intellectually honest).
I'd say disregard the "all ads are bad" crowd. It's a completely uninteresting discussion. The interesting discussion is the line to be drawn between advertising (which is good, or at least acceptable) and the shady side of adtech with trading in personal information.
One can believe things to be bad or to have negative externalities without calling for a wholesale ban. I find all ads reprehensible but I completely agree that banning ads would be impractical and probably effectively impossible. I don't see a contradiction.
> efficient markets require marketing
The problem with ads is that they fundamentally violate consent. I can't avoid seeing an ad, even if I'm not interested. Ads are not the equivalent of a salesman who's pitching his script to me, they are like an unsolicited robocall.
> efficient markets require marketing
The problem with ads is that they fundamentally violate consent. I can't avoid seeing an ad, even if I'm not interested. Ads are not the equivalent of a salesman who's pitching his script to me, they are like an unsolicited robocall.
>This article is really attacking a straw man.
I wish that was the case, but it is not.
>And every HN thread about advertising also has a variation of that sentiment.
And it is not just on HN, but across the Internet. Reddit, Forum, Twitter.
Their voice are crystal clear, All ads are bad. And any objection will.... well you know the internet.
It is the same with tracking. Somehow all tracking are bad on the internet.
Another recent example on the Internet. All VCs are bad. ( Although that didn't gain much traction )
Edit: See, Instant downvoting. And if you disagree, go on to read all the comments on HN on the subject and count for yourself how many comments were there to support resonable "ads", and how many were flat out dismissal.
I wish that was the case, but it is not.
>And every HN thread about advertising also has a variation of that sentiment.
And it is not just on HN, but across the Internet. Reddit, Forum, Twitter.
Their voice are crystal clear, All ads are bad. And any objection will.... well you know the internet.
It is the same with tracking. Somehow all tracking are bad on the internet.
Another recent example on the Internet. All VCs are bad. ( Although that didn't gain much traction )
Edit: See, Instant downvoting. And if you disagree, go on to read all the comments on HN on the subject and count for yourself how many comments were there to support resonable "ads", and how many were flat out dismissal.
You're dismissing the reasoned arguments against the fundamental value proposition of advertisements without argument against the reasons themselves, which is essentially flamebait.
* Tracking without consent
* Wasting large amounts of resources
* Potential security risks (js ads with malware is a thing)
* Potentially gathers a lot of data that could be abused by others
Contextual ads aren't _that_ bad, assuming they're simple enough to not run actual code on the client devices, and the clients can spare the bandwidth/resources in their end. Until that's universally true ads are a nuisance at best and actively hostile at worst.
* Wasting large amounts of resources
* Potential security risks (js ads with malware is a thing)
* Potentially gathers a lot of data that could be abused by others
Contextual ads aren't _that_ bad, assuming they're simple enough to not run actual code on the client devices, and the clients can spare the bandwidth/resources in their end. Until that's universally true ads are a nuisance at best and actively hostile at worst.
Lots of people do. When I joined Facebook, I received several death threats from someone in my circle and routinely get called morally bankrupt on the internet. I’ve also had encounters with individuals where they shun me after learning I worked there.
Surprisingly it doesn’t bother me, they are overgeneralizing and don’t know me.. but certainly they find it morally objectionable.
> I don't know many people who think advertising per se is morally objectionable (annoying, yes).
Tbh, that kinda seems like a minority opinion (that I share, but still) around these parts
Tbh, that kinda seems like a minority opinion (that I share, but still) around these parts
[deleted]
I work in adtech. The actual ads themselves aside, the backend part of it ticks all the tech boxes:
- high QPS feeds
- massive volumes of data
- interesting problems to solve everyday
It's an industry that doesn't stand still.
- high QPS feeds
- massive volumes of data
- interesting problems to solve everyday
It's an industry that doesn't stand still.
Sell your soul XD
I work in ads, not particularly because I like the domain, but because it's a great tech challenge. I got the chance to work in large scale systems and solve hard problems using fun technologies. As an engineer, it's my favourite job so far.
Beyond that, people who ask such things are just taking the moral high ground.
Beyond that, people who ask such things are just taking the moral high ground.
Perhaps they are. Or perhaps they’re just taking a moral position at all.
The humblebrag about this individual's income and charitable giving at the top of this article is quite terrible. The depth of detail linked is irrelevant to his point (a simple, "I give a lot of my income to charity; the more I earn, the more I give" suffices) and, aside from that, isn't an argument in support of working on ads. He could earn a similar amount of money working at a business that doesn't have ads as a business model (I know this because I work at such a company).
You don't address the issues that most ads are scams and it is possible to accidentally click ads. I recently asked google for directions to a new (to me) dentist while on vacation in Hawaii. As I started driving to the other side of the island I realized maps not taking me to the right town. Turns out apparently another dentist somehow made a scam ad so if you search for directions to the correct dentist it takes you to the scammer dentist instead. This is just one example of many. Screw ads and those who enable them.
I don't even need to read the article, it's money right, it's always money.
Sure he probably goes into paragraphs about other reasons or what he does with the money, but it boils down to money. The author chose to sell his/her time to an advertising company. Thats OK, we all need to work. But I dont need a blog post from them to justify their choice, they arent making me think more of them. They might make themselves feel better but it boils down to they chose to do something not great for more money, than choosing something more worthwhile for less money.
The sad bit is the amount they would earn not in advertising probably would not be much below what they currently earn. But they still made that choice and they have to live with it.
Sure he probably goes into paragraphs about other reasons or what he does with the money, but it boils down to money. The author chose to sell his/her time to an advertising company. Thats OK, we all need to work. But I dont need a blog post from them to justify their choice, they arent making me think more of them. They might make themselves feel better but it boils down to they chose to do something not great for more money, than choosing something more worthwhile for less money.
The sad bit is the amount they would earn not in advertising probably would not be much below what they currently earn. But they still made that choice and they have to live with it.
I do not believe Ads are inherently evil. However there are some problems with the _current_ ad industry.
The extreme tracking based on the mental state and identity of ads make them more than annoying. It is annoying to watch stupid ads on TV. But it is way worse when the ads are targeting my mental weaknesses directed directly at me. Example being how the Cambridge Analytica was able to make ad campaigns targeting _individuals_.
Generalized, non-targeted ads are fine. Though I do have problems with ads assaulting me wherever I go. I am fine with visiting a website that is ad supported and getting ads on the side, but I am not fine with walking home and seeing ads everywhere I glance at. And worse when ads are formatted so much like the actual content to trick you into thinking you're consuming content and not ads. Or even worse, sponsored pushes when you don't even know this is an advertisement.
Point is: Things cost money. Yes. But I don't think the current ad industry is anything other than toxic as hell.
The extreme tracking based on the mental state and identity of ads make them more than annoying. It is annoying to watch stupid ads on TV. But it is way worse when the ads are targeting my mental weaknesses directed directly at me. Example being how the Cambridge Analytica was able to make ad campaigns targeting _individuals_.
Generalized, non-targeted ads are fine. Though I do have problems with ads assaulting me wherever I go. I am fine with visiting a website that is ad supported and getting ads on the side, but I am not fine with walking home and seeing ads everywhere I glance at. And worse when ads are formatted so much like the actual content to trick you into thinking you're consuming content and not ads. Or even worse, sponsored pushes when you don't even know this is an advertisement.
Point is: Things cost money. Yes. But I don't think the current ad industry is anything other than toxic as hell.