71–78 of 78 posts
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I just have missed that, reading the piece. I wonder how well that’s working out though. I work in the public sector of Scandinavia, and we’re doing various tests on ML and it’s honestly turning out to be really bad at predicting anything. It doesn’t always fail, but it fails more than rolling a die.
Ironically 'machine learning' has tremendous marketing.
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Then I stumbled upon Budweiser in Prague and had a brew from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_Budvar_Brewery . We were desperate for a real Czech beer and some food, saw that Budweiser logo in the window and were dismayed. Yet the food menu looked good, so we went in, read about the 800+ yr old Budweiser so ordered one. It was a wonderful, dark, malty brew. Loved it! My expectation of Budweiser in Europe…
Czech Budvar is fantastic. I don’t think it’s broadly available across Europe though. Similarly, Heineken is very much worth trying in the Netherlands. I’d never drink it here in the US.
>In 2016, Facebook in effect charged the Trump campaign lower rates than the Clinton campaign, because Trump’s ads made people angrier and thus generated more clicks. Nobody took a decision to charge Trump less. It was the logical outcome of the ad business’s core principle: the more attention you win, the more you get paid. Since negative emotions are more likely to win and hold attention than positive emotions, the…
Then there is this: " [In a recent article for the New York Times, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci] found the same pattern on non-political topics: videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism; videos about jogging led to videos about ultra-marathons. The stakes were always being upped. YouTube, she concluded, was a “radicalising instrument”. That isn’t, she says, because YouTube’s engineers are zealots. It…
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Then there is this: " [In a recent article for the New York Times, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci] found the same pattern on non-political topics: videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism; videos about jogging led to videos about ultra-marathons. The stakes were always being upped. YouTube, she concluded, was a “radicalising instrument”. That isn’t, she says, because YouTube’s engineers are zealots. It…
I think it would take some active design changes to improve that but it could be done.
Outright advertising in the old school sense is dead and has been for a long time. Marketing is not. I think this author is deeply confused. Now, more than ever, the perceived value of cheap products is being inflated by brand. Look how much people pay for a can of Red Bull, which offers less volume than a soda and less caffeine than a coffee. Look at how much people pay for Starbucks coffee and Hermès purses. It’s a…
It seems important to you to prove that certain products are objectively bad, and the people who like them are somehow wrong to do so. Why? Tastes differ.
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On the other hand, it's now easier than ever to avoid all marketing in media. In the analog world you couldn't install an adblocker to your newspaper, or purchase a tv subscription without ads, or choose a radio station without ads in between. Now it's all available, and at least my world is almost completely advertisement-free -- except for those paid reviews you mentioned.
what about product placement, PR in print media, "native" or content ads. to say nothing of social media "influencers"
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It seems important to you to prove that certain products are objectively bad, and the people who like them are somehow wrong to do so. Why? Tastes differ.
Why? Because I’m backing up the opinion that I presented. Or would you rather everyone makes statements without saying how they came to those conclusions? That said, I never claimed anyone was wrong - just taken advantage of. Your comment has me wondering if you own or commonly purchase one of the products I mentioned. You seem hurt.
I agree that people don't pick products based on their objective goodness. However, this doesn't mean they're picking objectively bad products or being "taken advantage of" either. Or at least not in these examples.
Do you really want to say that one flavor or brand of beverage is objectively tastier than another, or that people shouldn't care about what it tastes like? Or maybe they just like the shape of the bottle. Is that wrong?
Or take cars. There are a lot of objective measurements you can make, but no objective way to decide on how much these features should matter or whether they are worth the cost. Some people care about having better-than-usual acceleration or a more luxurious interior, and others don't. Some people care about fuel efficiency only to save money, others want to do their part to help save the environment even if it costs more. Some people buy cars based on the image they want to project. None of these things are objectively wrong.
I'd reserve "being taken advantage of" for cases where people thought they were buying one thing and got another, not where they're making choices based on different goals.
(No, I don't drink Red Bull or drive a Tesla.)
"The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla. `What’s different about them? No advertising. Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV ad. It’s about building a better battery.`" Advertising has changed. It's no longer on a billboard in your face, but now a virus and fabric of influence in your mind that permeates and multiplies subtly through every medium you consume.…
I despise AT&T coming onto my property to tell me how great it is.
If it was so great, I'd be praying for it (google fibre) and ZERO advertising would be required.
Spend that money on great products, Build a better mousetrap.