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.
Why I Work on Ads
11–20 of 882 posts
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#12This 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).
>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.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#13I'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.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#14The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models: Paywalls. You pay with your money. Ads. You pay with your attention. I guess That question seems good, but with ads, I don't feel like I'm paying with my attention, I'm paying with my personal data. I'm paying by sharing what I'm doing with a seemingly infinite number of companies who turn around and buy and sell all that data and build profiles…
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.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#15Very 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 payw…
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".
Is GPGPU feasible on WebGL? Cpu mining isn't really profitable even if you have a big network of "users".
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#16This 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).
* 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.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#17[deleted]
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#181. 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?
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#19This 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).
>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.
>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.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#20The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models: Paywalls. You pay with your money. Ads. You pay with your attention. I guess That question seems good, but with ads, I don't feel like I'm paying with my attention, I'm paying with my personal data. I'm paying by sharing what I'm doing with a seemingly infinite number of companies who turn around and buy and sell all that data and build profiles…
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?