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Why I Work on Ads

jefftk.com

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Re: Why I Work on Ads

#361

Post by dont__panic »

k__ wrote: post #163

"I give half of what I earn to the most effective charities I can find, and the more I earn the more I can give." It makes me sick to read this garbage. This charity bullshit is what too many rich people hide behind to rationalize the crap they do to humanity. Bezos and Gates destroyed so much good on their way up, they will never be able to buy themselves out with charity. Same goes for the author of that article. I…

I get really annoyed when folks like Gates, Bezos, Bloomberg, etc. trumpet all of the money they've donated to charity efforts (that conveniently often end up putting their name all over the place for extra mindshare/reputation). Of course it's amazing that these folks donate billions of dollars! But they also hoard tens of billions of dollars in investment accounts, stock, multiple homes... so is it really much of a sacrifice? There's actually an interesting Bible passage on this very subject:

  "20:45  While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples,
  'Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
  They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.'
  21:1  As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.
  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 
  'I tell you the truth,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others.
  All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.'" (Luke 20:45-21:4, NIV)

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#362

Post by Justsignedup »

jefftk wrote: post #252
Justsignedup wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally am of the opinion that "targeted advertising" _is_ the problem. Random generic advertising is fine. It isn't as profitable but it doesn't exploit a person's mental weaknesses. Targeted advertising is straight up exploitation. Kids being bombarded with ads for plastic surgery nonestop on TikTok, radicalized individuals being targeted with fear-based ads. This is super toxic. And while advertising is a tal…

I agree those are bad, but those don't seem to be unique to user targeting? You would have the same thing with contextual ads (since what page someone is on is still pretty correlated with generic demographics like "is a kid" or "is a radicalized individual")

That gets tricky. But at the least it would help me not see radicalized ads when I am generally searching. And that doesn't mean ads based on my search either.

Yes it doesn't drive as much engagement, but that's the point. Over-optimizing for engagement is a bad thing. We have seen repeated evidence of this.

There should be general overarching categories: News site, food site, movie site, game site. But not "news site for radical right-wingers who believe in tucker carlson and think gun control is communism" which doesn't really require user tracking, but I think still falls on the bad side of things.

"Is a kid" is interesting. There's literally laws to prevent children from receiving too much advertising on TV _for good reasons_ their brains aren't developed enough to counter it. But on the internet? ANYTHING GOES!

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#363

Post by aflag »

jefftk wrote: post #175
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…

> The ads. Aren't. The problem. The stalking is. My primary work is on https://github.com/WICG/turtledove (discussed in the post), which allows well-targeted advertising without sending your browsing history to advertisers

Hm, with that system, isn't it possible for the advertiser to ultimately know which users saw the ads and ultimately what their interests are?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#364

Post by discmonkey »

thrwaeasddsaf wrote: post #124

For me the first big disagreement begins with asking for what's the alternative. I don't think there needs to be an alternative. I think ads are largely responsible for the sorry state of the seo spammed web where finding what you want can be a complete nightmare. (It costs almost nothing to run a website, and if you spam enough ~zero cost sites loaded with ads and affiliate links, you can probably make a buck. This…

Just to add a little data from personal experience... About 4 years back I ran a small study in grad school where I was trying to find some alternative to ads. For a survey I basically asked "how much would you be willing to pay to view websites without ads".

I bucketed the responses to something along the lines of greater than $1, $.75, $.5, $.25, $.01 or nothing.

What I was (secretly) hoping was that people would be willing to pay something like a cent for a page view, since I was building a prototype for a more user friendly anti-adblocker, seeing that many websites started to deploy their own back then, and hating that there was no middle ground.

However, what I found was that people were unwilling to pay anything for a page view. I think the author actually mentions this as a failed alternative model.

Point being it really seems like people have decided/agreed that they prefer the ad model to anything else. Even if it means that the cost of serving ads is actually higher (in terms of bandwidth) than what it would cost to just pay a cent or two cents or whatever for pageviews.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#365

Post by noir_lord »

ExtraE wrote: post #258
noir_lord wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of ads make us feel inadequate to get us to buy something I know it's hard to disprove but I don't think adverts have that effect on me, partially it's because I don't see many adverts and partly because that kind of blatant manipulation is so hilariously blatant. I acknowledge that someone might be running a really effective advertising campaign on me but since I basically don't buy anything I don't a…

Do you have a new $gadget/$smartphone/$tablet/$whatever? What about your SO/father/niece? (You might not, but I bet a lot of people reading this and agreeing do buy a bunch of stuff they don't need without realizing it).

Nope, mobile is three years old, desktop is nearly three, ThinkPad is nearly four.

Haven't bought anything techie for about 18mths and when I do mostly shop on specs, reviews from sources I trust.

I viscerally loathe advertising, I don't like been manipulated in any context so I run a background process mentally watching for it :).

I'm an advertisers nightmare, I'll not only ignore your advertising I'll go to significant technical lengths to block it for myself and everyone in my family.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#366

Post by noir_lord »

jjj1232 wrote: post #336
noir_lord wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of ads make us feel inadequate to get us to buy something I know it's hard to disprove but I don't think adverts have that effect on me, partially it's because I don't see many adverts and partly because that kind of blatant manipulation is so hilariously blatant. I acknowledge that someone might be running a really effective advertising campaign on me but since I basically don't buy anything I don't a…

I’m going to conflate packaging with advertising here but I think it’s the same idea and a little easier to visualize: Our cogniitive biases act as shortcuts to save energy when making decisions, and advertisers exploit those shortcuts. If you’re on high alert while shopping, catching and recalibrating for your biases at every step of the way then yeah you can probably escape most marketing but for most people that d…

Fair points, as I mentioned elsewhere I have a pathological loathing of been manipulated so I do pay attention to everything u buy - the missus however likes brands and does most of the food ordering.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#367

Post by djoldman »

dont__panic wrote: post #356
djoldman wrote: post #339

I find it interesting how ethics seems to play a large part in the discussion about ads and big tech in general on HN. Putting aside the privacy and PII concerns , it seems like there is a large contingent of HN'ers who are uncomfortable with the idea that websites/apps are addictive or manipulative or otherwise take advantage of flaws in human nature. For instance: we like shiny things with lots of colors/movement,…

Individuals absolutely have rights to do what they want, but only as far as those things don't have a negative impact on others. Pretty much the central kernel of libertarian philosophy, which, as we all know, HN loves. But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to…

Good points.

> But dark patterns undermine that kind of personal choice. Think of Facebook hiding the "delete my account" page so that you literally cannot navigate to it through the UI -- you need to have a link to that page. Doesn't that erode my autonomy to decide when I want to delete my account?

>Similarly, software like Windows 10, my LinkedIn profile, Firefox settings, macOS/iOS options, and plenty of others that decide to conveniently forget my explicitly chosen opt-out settings when an update comes in. Hiding behind the veil of "it's hard to test every possible option during an update!" to justify pushing folks back to the happy path where those companies get to collect more data.

One response may be: you are not required to use any of the above services, so the choice is perhaps better described as between using (or leaving/disabling) a service with attendant friction, or not at all. If you don't like the service, don't use it.

I completely understand not being happy with a service. There are more than a few that I don't like, so I don't use them.

Now, if a company is going to such extreme measures that the activity can well be described as fraud, that's a different matter. That should be stopped and I think most would agree.

> If I give you a multiple choice test, and you have the option to submit an "other" option on any question, but you have to mail in your text for the "other" option, jump through hoops, and I might forget to actually count your option... do you really have the choice?

I think this may be a false comparison. I'm not required to take your test, so if I don't want to, I'll just throw it out. If I think the potential benefits outweigh the friction imposed by mailing it, then I may do it.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#368

Post by HWR_14 »

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…

What's strange is that podcasts and baked into video ads are far more effective on me. I'll block any alternative ad source I can, so if it's not baked into the content I don't see it.

But I have no clue what would distinguish (to me) a non-shit ad? Is it saving me money on something I was already going to buy?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#370

Post by summerlight »

smsm42 wrote: post #344
UncleMeat wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the span of just a few comments in the thread below, I've seen people claim that the ethical problem is: 1. All ads in general. 2. Targeted advertisement, regardless of the privacy implications. 3. Data collection for targeted advertisement. 4. Data collection for anything. 5. Whether or not users consent to all of the above. So I don't really think it is fair for anybody to insist that there is a single agreed up…

Why it has to be a single ethical problem? The industry is quite capable of having multiple ethical problems in parallel.

Because it's much easier to have constructive outputs when you focus on a single problem with a clear definition. But people usually conflate multiple topics into single and take advantages from this intentional ambiguity, irrespective of whether you're a proponent or a critic.
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