Why I Work on Ads

Post by nl » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #581

cortesoft wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make similar arguments for almost all jobs. You make cars? You focus on good things like driving to a vacation, but what about all the cars used in drive by shootings? You sell cloud services? You talk about the great websites, but what about all the people who host scam sites on the cloud? You write monitoring software? What about all the people who monitor ad services?

Bullshit. Targeting depressed teenagers with self-esteem issues is not the same thing as selling a car. You cannot be in good-faith with these kinds of arguments.

Post by TchoBeer » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #607

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.…

I get the sense that it's mostly children and right wing PACs that keep the ad business afloat

Post by edmundsauto » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #570

DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a position on a better alternative business model, or do you feel that a service like YouTube shouldn't exist? It seems to me that YouTube and many of the ad-supported services out there provide broad benefits to people, and I am swayed by OPs point that a regressively priced business model which restricts these benefits to the global rich is a greater disservice.

> Do you have a position on a better alternative business model Sure! Thanks for asking. One idea I like is this: you pay a small, fixed subscription on top of your internet bill. This amount is then given proportionally to the services you visit. This is nice for several reasons: even a small amount (~3-5$) gives a similar or higher revenue for content creators than ads do (a very rough back-of-the-envelope estimate…

Post by imron » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #504

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.…

Generally yes but Instagram ads are somehow amazingly well-targeted towards me. Literally every ad I say to myself "wow, that is actually something I would consider buying" and in certain instances, I have. Outside of Instagram it is exceedingly rare that I would purchase something based on an ad.

Post by TchoBeer » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #579

dnissley wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's talk about the individual and collective consequences of mass data collection. Are you saying you know something about those? Do tell! Maybe I'm just terribly dense, but I seriously can't think of any reasonable objection to what google does. The best I personally can come up with is that most people don't understand what google is doing and if they did know some of them might object. When I google "the individ…

Are you being sarcastic? You cannot see consequences in the fact of a gigantic tech company having access to: searches, emails, attachments, photos, videos, location, messages, calls, apps installed and their usage, sleep schedules, driving styles, medical records, and about 1001 things I forgot to mention?