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Why I Work on Ads

jefftk.com

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Re: Why I Work on Ads

#21

Post by lupire »

yetihehe wrote: post #7
sdfhbdf wrote: post #2

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 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".

That "paying with money" but with extra steps.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#23

Post by secondcoming »

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.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#24

Post by jedimastert »

ForHackernews wrote: post #5

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).

> 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

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#25

Post by lupire »

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?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#26

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

coldtea wrote: post #3

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...

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#28

Post by omginternets »

jefftk wrote: post #9
czzr wrote: post #4

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-part…

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.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#29

Post by jasode »

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.

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