How we fought bad ads in 2015 • Hacker News Board

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#131

Post by dhimes » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

mahranch wrote: post #130

mike-cardwell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without ads we would have developed alternative revenue streams or different styles of architecture which don't place all of the costs and power in the lap of centralised organisations. Ads have crippled innovation on the Internet, not promoted it.

> Ads have crippled innovation on the Internet, not promoted it. The internet itself wouldn't even exist without ads. So your premise is wrong. Ads are the biggest driver of innovation on the internet right now. Inherently so. Because people want to get paid so they get more and more creative. Everything from youtube videos to web content, to science articles. They all flourish and exist because of ads, not because o…

The internet itself wouldn't even exist without ads.

I hope you are joking, or knowingly exaggerating. The internet was around waaaayyyyy before ads. Even when hte internet became a conduit for commerce, the first ads were just banners that advertisers bought on a (usually) related web page. Kind of like newspapers.

Then Google decided that they would show ads based on what people were looking for. Rather than guessing my interests because I'm on the West Marine web page, they will show me ads related to my search inquiry. Starts to get a little creepy, but as long as they don't save my queries it's probably ok.

And now we are where we are today.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#132

Post by mohsinr » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #127

nl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on mobile so I get Yahoo ads(!), but that icon looks like the IAB AdChoices icon to me: http://rocketfuel.com/wp-content/uploads/adchoicediagram.jpg

That's really strange because clicking on that icon does send me to a Google page. You can see the website here: http://download.cnet.com/Google-Chrome/3000-2356_4-75205983.... The website even claims the symbol is Google's: http://imgur.com/tWV4ROd

Yes adchoices symbols are used by Google Adsense ads. See this official post http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-in-ads-notice-label-...

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#133

Post by marssaxman » Fri, Jan 22, 2016, 9:23 PM UTC

mahranch wrote: post #129

marssaxman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be totally OK with all that subsidy going away if it meant we didn't have to deal with ads anymore. We'll figure it out. People would put more effort into peer-to-peer sharing networks if it weren't for the fact that ad-subsidized "free" services based on giant datacenters are so good at undercutting them.

You're missing the point, perhaps missing the scale. You don't understand just how vital ads are to the internet. Content itself wouldn't exist for you to view. There would be very little (nothing at all) for you to P2P. The internet would essentially be the IRC. People don't write in-depth articles for the hell of it. They expect to get paid.

Most of what I'm interested in using the internet for worked just fine before ads came along: better, in some cases, because volunteer efforts didn't have to compete with advertising budgets.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#134

Post by assocguilt » Sun, Jan 24, 2016, 10:32 AM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #16

starshadowx2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I want something, I will get it And what are all the ways you can discover things you want? I'd say the top two for most people are word-of-mouth and advertising.

If you shove it in my face, it's not me discovering what I want, it's you telling me what I want and hoping I go along with it. Gets really fucking old when hundreds of people do it to me every day. Advertisers: please piss off and let me discover the world on my own.

No comment on Turing then?

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#135

Post by Sir_Substance » Sun, Jan 24, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

assocguilt wrote: post #134

Sir_Substance wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shove it in my face, it's not me discovering what I want, it's you telling me what I want and hoping I go along with it. Gets really fucking old when hundreds of people do it to me every day. Advertisers: please piss off and let me discover the world on my own.

No comment on Turing then?

Wow, I have never seen this bad a case of internet-mad. Upvote for persistence!

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#136

Post by mike-cardwell » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 10:55 AM UTC

mahranch wrote: post #130

mike-cardwell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without ads we would have developed alternative revenue streams or different styles of architecture which don't place all of the costs and power in the lap of centralised organisations. Ads have crippled innovation on the Internet, not promoted it.

> Ads have crippled innovation on the Internet, not promoted it. The internet itself wouldn't even exist without ads. So your premise is wrong. Ads are the biggest driver of innovation on the internet right now. Inherently so. Because people want to get paid so they get more and more creative. Everything from youtube videos to web content, to science articles. They all flourish and exist because of ads, not because o…

"The internet itself wouldn't even exist without ads. So your premise is wrong"

This statement is so laughably and obviously wrong to anyone that is aware of the history of the Internet, or has the abilitiy to think logically.

"Ads are the biggest driver of innovation on the internet right now. Inherently so"

That is completely irrelevant to whether or not the Internet would exist and be good if Ads didn't exist.

"Because people want to get paid so they get more and more creative"

You don't seem to be aware of the difference between "getting paid" and "getting paid by using ads"

"Everything from youtube videos to web content, to science articles. They all flourish and exist because of ads"

Again, this is laughably wrong to anyone with the capability of thinking.

"your make believe hypothetical solution" - You mean, "pay for content". Yay, I know that's crazy! The reason that we don't have good ways to pay for content, is because Ads have made that incredibly difficult, because Ads give the illusion that you're getting something for free. How do you compete with that? You can't. Because Ads are here, and they're ruining the Internet, and they're ruining any innovation that would occur in non-Ad payment methods.