Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Work on Ads

jefftk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 882 posts

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#541

Post by falcolas »

fastball wrote: post #500
falcolas wrote: post #136

Unpopular opinion: Ads by themselves are unethical. Whether targeted, contextual, or just randomly applied. Ads are psychological warfare against a populace using their very nature against them. All in an effort to get them to change their behavior in a way that's going to be detrimental to them. Either they stop looking for alternatives, or they make purchases they don't need to (see: toothpaste consumption rates).…

I'm generally sympathetic to this stance, but the major drawback that has surfaced (when I've had this conversation in the past) is that discovery is a real thing that still needs to happen and ads can in fact help with that. First in the obvious way: there are products that I have found useful that I would not have known existed if not for ads. The idea that you should only ever purchase something because you were s…

Your argument boils down to "content creators need to make money, and the only expedient way for them to make money is to show ads".

And you know what? Perhaps it is.

Even if that's the case, I still think it's unethical, that a bit more brainpower should be put into a funding model that isn't ads. Even if it increases friction.

The most expedient way to expand a country's border is still war, and I believe that's unethical as well.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#542

Post by the8bit »

thrwaeasddsaf wrote: post #395
discmonkey wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> Point being it really seems like people have decided/agreed that they prefer the ad model to anything else. I'm not sure how you mean this but what you say comes dangerously close to implying that people want ads. That may be true if you force them into a false dichotomy (pay or have ads). I think it's more just that people don't want to pay. If it's on the web, they read it for free, period. If it's not on the web…

If you remove pay models, a vast majority of the internet will just disappear. (I think you) in a previous comment mention that it is 'cheap' to run a site, which is generally true on a per user basis for primarily text sites. But cheap != free.

I see it often, but it is honestly the most laughably selfish opinion to believe that one should be entitled to the internet as it exists today, but also not pay directly or indirectly to be able to use those services.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#543

Post by ajkjk »

Like others I don't buy this argument.

They wrote that the two choices are

> Paywalls. You pay with your money.

> Ads. You pay with your attention.

But that's not quite right. Ads have two options themselves:

> Ads. You pay with your money, because the ads get you to buy stuff.

> Ads. You pay with your attention, wasted on stuff you'll never buy.

Two negatives. Either you buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't (and therefore don't need, and were manipulated into buying), or you don't buy stuff and just have to suffer the attack on your attention in a world where your attention is already strained to its limits. No good outcomes here.

No argument for ads works if you believe, like I do, that buying things in general is bad -- bad for you, bad for the human race, and bad for the environment.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#544

Post by waltherg »

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.…

The value proof in the backend that convinces advertisers to throw more many at this? Mostly rule of thumb heuristics with a fair amount of overselling. So no, in most cases the telemetry just doesn't prove much.

I've seen the thesis that all this advertising revenue - even if poorly spent - subvents large portions of exciting research in deep learning etc. at the likes of Google and Facebook. So all that talent wouldn't entirely be lost to advertising.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#545

Post by soheil »

I think to address "why do you work on ads" and only addressing the positive points misses half of the question. The other half is what harms do ads cause. He addressed bandwidth concerns which they're working on mitigating with ad vendors, but biggest problem with ads is the number of wasted attention cycles by people who do not find ads relevant or otherwise be interested at all in buying anything displayed in ads. If you calculate life lost on the internet due to this factor alone that number may justify banning almost all types of ads immediately.

Additionally, opening with I give half of my money to charity so leave me alone, should be a red flag that what's to follow is not a strong argument for the point the author is trying to make.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#546

Post by gundmc »

ajkjk wrote: post #543

Like others I don't buy this argument. They wrote that the two choices are > Paywalls. You pay with your money. > Ads. You pay with your attention. But that's not quite right. Ads have two options themselves: > Ads. You pay with your money, because the ads get you to buy stuff. > Ads. You pay with your attention, wasted on stuff you'll never buy. Two negatives. Either you buy stuff you otherwise wouldn't (and therefo…

> buying things in general is bad -- bad for you, bad for the human race, and bad for the environment

Do you mean to qualify this in any way? This is quite the radical statement that I'm not sure how you can reconcile with human existence any time the last X thousand years.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#547

Post by k__ »

dang wrote: post #510
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…

You can't attack someone else like that on this site. Perhaps you don't feel that you owe $person better, but you do owe this community, which you're part of, better. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully in the future—without flamebait or name-calling. The underlying point about charity is a fine one, by the way—but personally attacking the autho…

I never attacked them personally.

I told my opinion about their work and writing.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#548

Post by blt »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #527
lapnitnelav wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the companies winning bidds on your 'views' are targeting you because of your apparent persona, i.e middle aged man/woman in tech -aka middle class ++ with disposable income, rather than what you are interested in. On top of that, plenty of marketers are absolutely clueless about how to go about their strategy, mostly because unlike previous generations (in online ads), they don't grok the underlying t…

They might was well simply tie it to the program content then. For instance, if I watch a Scott Kilmer video, it'll typically have an Autozone ad. If that's all there is to it, I expect there's a lot of needless work being done under the covers.

If you turn off personalized ads, that's basically what you'll see.

Although for me, it's a 50/50 split between topic-related and ads that appear to target a generic male audience, which is a very good guess for some topics.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#549

Post by anoncake »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #406
oulipo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that ads are not free. It's paid. And it's paid by you. When you say "I'm using Google for free because it's supported by ads", what it means is: - some companies are buying (expensive) ads on Google - they are therefore increasing their marketing budget - which mechanically increases the price of their services and products - which you ultimately have to pay so no, the "free ads" are not free for the…

Your line of argument rests on the assumption that buying ads has no positive effect on sales.

If it does, that's even worse. We're polluting more than we can afford to, making people want more stuff is the last thing we need.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#550

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

hijodelsol wrote: post #468
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.…

While I personally agree with you when it comes to YT advertising which at times could not be more irrelevant, Google search ads and Facebook/Instagram ads seem to be the place where most money is spend. And in case of Google search the whole thing is basically a prisoners dilemma. You and your competitors are probably among the first results for the relevant keywords anyway and could save a lot on advertising if non…

> You and your competitors are probably among the first results for the relevant keywords anyway and could save a lot on advertising if none of you advertised. But once a single competitor starts buying ads the whole sector has to move until the expense on Google ads is equal to the former profit margin. This in turn leads to monopolization as only the competitor with the highest profit margin at baseline will still be making a profit.

Granted, incumbents are likely to score high on organic search results. If somebody new comes up with a better product, which can deliver more value at a lower price, the page rank algorithm isn’t going to do much for them. But the newcomer’s superior unit economics mean they can afford to bid higher for an ad, which allows them to get market share from the incumbent. In that sense, ads can make the market more liquid, and speed adoption of improved products and more efficient manufacturing or business processes.

The ad publisher does end up capturing a big chunk of this value, and it’s valid to ask if that’s fair and if we as a society should allow it.

Post reply on HN