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Why I Work on Ads

jefftk.com

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Re: Why I Work on Ads

#311

Post by dado3212 »

anchpop wrote: post #214
stevenicr wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "The alternative of paying $9.99/year for Youtube" was really an option - I would buy it for at least 4 kids I know, and two adults that need it, to remove the horrible ads, especially on mobile. Get me started on the ads that come with play store apps and "free games". however at $12/month that would be $864 per year to help them. I would jump at $60 / year for 6 people.. heck that would save me on comcast overag…

My family pays for youtube premium ( https://www.youtube.com/premium/family ), it's $18/month for 5 people. They also get access to "youtube music premium", which is basically a spotify clone (so unlimited music with no ads). It's quite a good deal imo

Yeah, this option exists and most people don’t take it. Pretty clear argument against this model.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#312

Post by ashtonbaker »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #61

The online ad business generally mystifies me. While an awful lot of the internet, especially the surveillance advertising part, looks to be the greatest misallocation of engineering (and other) talent in the history of the world, ya gotta ask about the efficacy. The only reasonably accurate targeting I've ever run into is the occasional ad for something I just browsed on Amazon. I've never clicked on an internet ad.…

> No doubt there's some sort of backend telemetry that proves the value of all this trouble.

And it seems like unless you go to a lot of trouble, you're essentially relying on the ad network's own metrics for efficacy... Which when you consider the sheer quantity of money at stake, seems like it will end in a massive fraud at least once. I could be wrong about the perverse incentive though, it seems almost too obvious so I would assume that people who know the ad industry better than me would have a response to it.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#313

Post by jdbernard »

ExtraE wrote: post #253
elliekelly wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the "ads are useful" argument frustratingly disingenuous. It's a transparent and deliberate attempt to move the discussion away from what people actually take issue with in modern internet advertising - tracking and data collection - and instead tries to frame it as something far more benign. The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is. Ads can be useful. But no one is saying they aren't! So why is it consta…

> it won't make them nearly as much money. Yes. That's the problem. Make less money from ads --> make less content/riskier to make content (same thing). The more money ads make, the fewer of them you have to see to fund the same amount of content (or, alternatively, you get more/higher quality content for a given (fixed) quantity of ads).

That's not how it plays out though. More effective/profitable ads does not lead to less ads being shown. In fact, it's the opposite. As ads have become more targeted, and theoretically more profitable according to this argument, we have more of them.

There is no set "amount of effectiveness," so to speak. If ads are more profitable, advertisers are still going to spend just as much or more on them, precisely because they have a higher ROI.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#314

Post by Nimitz14 »

burkaman wrote: post #302
cm2012 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen any evidence of anyone hurt by the large scale collection of personal data by Google and FB.

This is because you've never looked for the evidence. It is trivial to find with a 10 second search. https://www.intomore.com/you/facebook-ads-outed-me/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/12/dear-tec... https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/4/9/21204425/targeted-ads... https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers... , https://www.propublica.org/article/hud-sues-facebook-housing... , https:/…

I checked about of half of these out and I can't take any of the complaints seriously. The strongest argument against tracking remains the moral one.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#315

Post by Smaug123 »

fxleach wrote: post #195
the_snooze wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is. Exactly. If you want online ads done right, look no further than how podcasts do it. The medium doesn't allow for stalking. Podcast producers often stake their own reputation by voicing the ads themselves. That editorial freedom lets them be creative and respectful of their audiences. And advertisers can use podcast-specific coupon codes to attribute ad campaigns to sal…

The issue is that you cannot have good online advertising without a little bit of the stalking. Do you listen to podcasts? Their ads are shite. I don't want to hear another ad about "Coroner" on Netflix. The only reason they are making money is because podcasts are "hot" right now and everyone is throwing money at them. That money pile will slowly deplete in due time and they'll find a way to introduce ads that are m…

Well, Slate Star Codex and its sidebar of ads was a good counterexample. I would routinely click through to find out more, because its ads were a) aesthetically pleasing (they had a consistent style, for example) and b) highly relevant to my interests (because a very consistent type of person is interested in the ads on that particular site). To a lesser extent, I think the human-delivered ads given by the presenters of The Magnus Archives podcast were decent enough, though the algorithmic ones were predictably useless.

It's possible to target ads to a specific audience by exploiting the selection effect that led to your audience existing. This doesn't favour general-audience communities, sure, but I'd honestly be happy with the answer "general-audience things just aren't how the future looks".

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#316

Post by burkaman »

jefftk wrote: post #309
burkaman wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand, and I'm glad you're thinking about it, but you could not have been more clear: "I don't think my work in advertising is something harmful to offset." Did you misspeak? Do you think it is harmful but turtledove might reduce the harm?

My work on advertising is on Turtledove

Oh, that was not clear from the essay, and honestly might change my opinion a little. Is your position "targeted ads cause harmful privacy violations, but my work is exclusively devoted to reducing the privacy impact, so I don't believe my work is harmful"? If so I would encourage you to edit the essay, because that's not at all how it comes across right now, at least to readers who aren't familiar with your work. I had assumed turtledove was one of many projects you're involved with.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#317

Post by safog »

ksec wrote: post #96
omginternets wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 don't think that's why people are downvoting. Speaking for myself, it's because his analysis focuses only on the benefits of ads, and conveniently ignores the actual ethical problems ( e.g. large-scale collect…

>In other words, I see no fresh insight and perspective in jefftk's writing, May be I am living in my bubble, but most of the site I visit, mostly mainstream media news in tech, along with most of the social media post, has a flat out dismissal of Ads in general. So while ads works to pay for X isn't a "fresh" insight, it was never really pointed out ( enough ) in most of the discussions. If the discussion in general…

> May be I am living in my bubble, but most of the site I visit, mostly mainstream media news in tech, along with most of the social media post, has a flat out dismissal of Ads in general.

I'd apply the same logic here: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Ad supported models on news paper websites have nearly killed publications like NYTimes. A lot of smaller news papers have died. Only after the paywall model really took off have they been able to survive and thrive.

So there's nothing you can say to the media that will convince them that there's value in ads.

To them, ads and big tech in general are evil entities and must be criticized at every possible turn.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#318

Post by Retric »

falcolas wrote: post #303
Retric wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, they don’t convince you to wildly increase your driving or top up a nearly full tank. To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive. On the other hand T-Shirt advertising can convince you to buy significantly more clothes in a lifetime. It’s a qualitative difference even if I didn’t express it well.

If you're going past a gas station, you're already driving - they want you to come to stop at their gas station. > To change how much gas you’re buying in a lifetime it would need to change how far you drive. City/state/national tourism bureaus are taking care of that part. With help from the automobile industry's marketing arm.

You’re trying to lump different advertising together. I am specifically talking about gas station signs. People in EV’s don’t suddenly buy gas because they saw a large BP logo. That choice was made when you bought the car.

It’s little different than a hospital sign. People don’t think hey there’s a hospital maybe I should have this gaping chest wound taken care of. Which is why they end up as H’s with a simple arrow rather than list out which specific hospital etc.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#319

Post by mbesto »

falcolas wrote: post #291
mbesto wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> designed to convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do. When I search "good USB charger" in Google and get an ad, click the ad and make a purchase for a USB charger, how was that nothing something I normally would do? There's absolutely deceptive advertising, but to pretend all advertising is "intrusive" and "convincing you to do things you wouldn't normally do" is disingenuous.

How much toothpaste do you use on your toothbrush? Something the size of a pea, or the whole length of your toothbrush? 'Cause all you need is the first, but most people do the second. Why? Ads. Why do people have such a great impression of John Deere tractors? To the point where there's a whole culture of "green iron" and other companies had huge trouble breaking into the market? Ads. Ads going back to childhood in…

> if they did not change our behavior? If we'd do something naturally, there would be no need for ads in the first place.

How would you find a USB charger brand if you were unaware of any to begin with?

> Why do folks trust some brands, and not others?

So then why even have a brand to begin with? Are you suggesting we just ban all advertising altogether? When you start a new company, new market, new idea, then what would you suggest that isn't advertising for a company to do to explain to customers what it is you do and how you may help them?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#320

Post by amoorthy »

xtracto wrote: post #114
ipaddr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I already hate it with Music and Video content: With music, I pay Youtube Music, but they don't have all the artists I like. I would have to pay for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube Music to get close to it. This means paying $30 USD per month With video... I pay $70 USD for my cable company (HBO+Star+misc-crap) plus $13 USD for Netflix, plus $12 for disney plus (wife likes a couple shows there), plus $13 Amazon Prime, plu…

Your point is a good one but let me offer some tweaks that make paying for stuff not look as bleak.

1. Bundling multiple subscriptions is a long-time practice and if more services were paid offerings we'd likely all buy some bundle that gave us most of what we wanted at a reasonable price.

2. Paying for services will reduce the number of services around... which may be a good thing when so many offerings are sub-par.

3. With more paid offerings, we will be more deliberate about how we spend our time, which is what advertising-based models make us forget we are really spending. And as you age you realize that the time you spent watching ad-supported drivel was more expensive than if you had just paid directly for the things you really needed and spent the rest of your time on things that matter - friends, family, experiences, learning etc.

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