Why I Work on Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#31

Post by the_af » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #12

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 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.

I agree, this is a common (and justified) sentiment.

I had a high school teacher give us a book about print advertising (this was way before the internet was a common thing) and how it deceives. How they sell cars with sexy women, how instead of selling a product they sell an unrelated image of success (which is not really tied to the product). It was a nice book, with lots of photos and examples, and all about how advertisement is designed to deceive and encourage a "need" that wasn't there before.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#32

Post by bilal4hmed » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

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…

So I often hear that argument about other ways to make money. Other than a paywall what is the other way ?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#33

Post by jedimastert » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

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…

> free trial model

tbh kinda seems like a paywall with extra steps for buy in

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#34

Post by bluefirebrand » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

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…

> n this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites.

It's bad for the consumer because their privacy is being violated and their metadata is being sold, in order for advertisers to track them everywhere they go online, so businesses can try and extract all of their spending money as efficiently as possible.

It also is bad for the consumer because it's bad for the collective whole: instead of quality content online everything is being driven by outrage and clickbait in order to serve as many targeted ads as possible.

Personally I don't even want to support that ecosystem or those sites.

It's also bad for the fishing site because now their niche targeted ad slots that used to pay decently in order to target people with an interest in fishing are pushed into the same race to the bottom low return ads that are being automatically targeted. So they lose too.

Only winners are huge publishers that don't have any niche audience to target because now they effectively target every niche. And Google of course. Basically the two groups who I want to win the least.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#35

Post by ericmay » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

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…

> The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites.

Before digital advertising or Google reading emails to find out you're going on a fishing trip, how did people buy fishing equipment?

Whatever we did then, we can probably go back to and be much better off.

Like why do I need "relevant ads" on a blog about urban planning? What problem does that solve for me?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#36

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #20

jefftk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'd rather get a nickel for every bit of data that I did not give explicitly consent to be collected, and a nickel for anytime that bits cross referenced, sold, shared, lost, transferred, or otherwise handled in a way that was not explicitly defined in the eula..

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#37

Post by fraktl » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

I hate ads. I always hated them.

It doesn't mean I hate people who work on ads / ad software. It doesn't mean I want to cancel them. You, and the others in that field, don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to donate to charity to feel better about what you're doing (it doesn't mean "stop donating NOW", it's just.. do what you feel is good, like you are doing now).

There's a lot of bad going on in the world. Ads are shady-grey area. I know how to fight it and have my internet ad-free. You're ok, don't let negative comments get to you. Cheers!

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#38

Post by qsort » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #25

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?

I find all ads reprehensible regardless of tracking and yes, I believe adtech engineers aren't responsible for that. Specifically, author of OP doesn't have to justify himself. He enjoys his job and I'm happy for him.

Blaming technicians for the negative externalities of their industries is a dark path. Are we going to blame lawyers who defend rapists? General Motors assembly-line workers? Engineers who work for oil companies?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#39

Post by ipaddr » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #29

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 alternati…

The outcry would be huge if everything went to a pay model.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#40

Post by FriedrichN » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

Yeah, I still don't like it. I used to not mind ads because they were just images, but then came the ones that moved, then the ones that made sound, then the ones that injected malicious JavaScript. Then I installed an adblocker, then I installed a script blocker, then I installed a proxy. Now most websites won't work and I'm fine with that.