531–540 of 629 posts
Presumably ads are so valuable because people click through them and go on to purchase. I realise I am in a minority, but I have never clicked on a digital ad and went through to buy something, and I never will. The minute I see ads on a webpage, I automatically associate that site with trash. (Please take note HN :)) It is as if humanity cannot be trusted with technology. This creates a certain "ceiling" for us in t…
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I’d say the vast majority of uBlock users care about user experience. The current ad experience sucks. Most local newspaper sites, for example, are unusable because of ads. But if it still preserved their privacy behind the scenes and didn’t significantly improve their experience, the install base on uBlock and other ad blockers would be near 0.
And I'd say the opposite. My grandfather just wanted ads gone; user experience isn't even on his radar. I've seen the thesis you've presented here before, and while it sounds plausible, I don't think it's as cut and dried as it seems. People really do hate ads. We're inundated with them, constantly. Low grade psychological assault, at all times. I don't blame people for wanting a respite.
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Just because a company has a policy does not mean that employees adhere to that policy.
Or that they start every comment with 'I'm an employee of X' They might just say, 'That seems silly!', 'You're a nut', 'Do you have a source other than yourself'. Or they might just downvote stories that have a negative effect on their income. You've got 100k people working at google and many of them are going to be active on this type of forum. The same goes for the other big guys that have a ton of employees
I'm glad this story was reported, and I'm thankful to the author for putting in the work required to report this story. But after the first five paragraphs, the author's shameless, repetitive self-promotion and insistence on referring to himself in the third person almost made this unreadable. The headline was enough to pique my curiosity to explore Brave's product offering. Unfortunately, actually reading the articl…
I didn't make it to the end, closed the tab and went over to HN comments for a summary.
I think the HN community, and most consumers, tend to look at things from only one angle. Imagine you start work at some small shop that manufacturers widgets for consumers. What would you do when you have to advertise your product? You'd have to turn to Google is a similar company. Are there any real alternatives? (I am asking because I really want to know) I say this because I am in this position now. I have to fig…
You advertise on a website for widget fans. That's how it successfully worked for a long time. The whole targeted advertising is to allow adtech companies to identify users of the "widget fans" site, and then advertise to the same people, but on another, cheaper site.
I think the HN community, and most consumers, tend to look at things from only one angle. Imagine you start work at some small shop that manufacturers widgets for consumers. What would you do when you have to advertise your product? You'd have to turn to Google is a similar company. Are there any real alternatives? (I am asking because I really want to know) I say this because I am in this position now. I have to fig…
For actual, physical widgets the traditional advertising markets still work: trade magazines and trade shows. Contacting vendors who specialize in your market of interest and running promotions with them also works. However, it's all a whole lot more expensive and effortful than running some Google ads.
This is exactly how marketing worked before and how people can go about it now, as you describe, through traditional advertising markets.
I'd personally prefer it that way in general, but legislation is necessary for them to optimize on those restrictions.
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"Faux sophisticated" my ass. EU was warning about Echelon since before 9/11. The Patriot act detailed everything Snowden "revealed" (we basically only learned the actual names of the programs). There was genuine shock in Europe that Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel were all spied on by NSA. Yes, we were naive conspiracy theorists when we were saying "you know, they gave them the right to do it, so they are probably…
> There was genuine shock in Europe that Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel were all spied on by NSA The USA (and all major powers) has spied on foreign diplomats and leaders since its inception. This should come as a surprise to nobody. You had earlier claimed that the NSA was spying on everybody , which clearly isn't happening.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/ve...
I can't believe we are having this conversation on this board, that is supposed to be populated by people who have read that kind of news a bit in depth...
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What's more likely: that Google's willing to risk being outed for employing shills or that there are people who actually hold the opposing viewpoint? Personally I tend to think of most people on HN as privacy nuts. Honestly of all the problems in the world to get worked up over, online advertising is pretty low on my list. There's nothing I can do about Google/FB/whatever, so why even think about it. If Google or who…
online advertising is pretty low on my list The threat that Google's tracking infrastructure represents is not limited to ads. If they stayed in their proverbial lane and used their panopticon exclusively to sell me things, many of us wouldn't mind as much as we do. But they lend the power and reach of their machine to governments, whether it's China looking to smoke out dissidents, or the NSA PRISM program, or even…
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Not that I support the ad-tech industry, but those consumers probably are interested in having their favorite websites being kept alive. Which implies that they might indeed be interested in "compromising" with ad-tech industry.
Why should we give ad-tech their one millionth chance to "do the right thing"? They've proven time and time again they cannot be trusted.