Why I Work on Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#631

Post by xyst » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

Regardless of what this author thinks. Advertising is the bane of our existence. How many hours have we wasted watching advertisements (whether it's in the form of network television, billboards, radio ads, or intermittent ads in VOD sites like YT)?

If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise (take for example, Ferrari or Lamborghini). If companies focused on making their products better rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising a half baked product, it would make the world so much better.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#632

Post by genbit » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #631

Regardless of what this author thinks. Advertising is the bane of our existence. How many hours have we wasted watching advertisements (whether it's in the form of network television, billboards, radio ads, or intermittent ads in VOD sites like YT)? If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise (take for example, Ferrari or Lamborghini). If companies focused on making their products better rather than…

What if all products are good? How does one stand out?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#633

Post by bobsomers » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #422

bobsomers wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to come across as too forward or rude, and freely admit that I know nothing about you personally. Thank you for making such generous contributions to charity! The way I look at it is like so: I think most people want to bring a net positive value to society. One way of doing that is working on something whose intrinsic value to society is neutral or nebulous (or just not thinking about it too hard), and…

You are contributing 100% of the value to the person, but it is really the person and the situation. If I increase online sales by 0.1% through optimizing something, I am worth millions of dollars to Amazon and nearly nothing to Joe Schmoe with a small Shopify site.

> If I increase online sales by 0.1% through optimizing something, I am worth millions of dollars to Amazon and nearly nothing to Joe Schmoe with a small Shopify site.

Yes, but software skills are fairly fungible. Just because you currently work on ads doesn't mean that's all your skills are good for, or even that you need to work anywhere in ecommerce.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#634

Post by jonny_eh » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #593

jonny_eh wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes. Rich coastal elites can tell themselves they will pay for everything, and that’s great (most don’t). Why doesn't FB offer a "premium" tier for people to buy their way out of ads?

>Why doesn't FB offer a "premium" tier for people to buy their way out of ads? Warning: here goes my armchair theory. Because as soon as you put a price tag on it, people will instantly see that they can actually get that "premium" tier for free by using an adblocker, which will lead to more people using adblockers. If something is just free, most people don't really care for it. But if it is something that is free w…

That's only really true for Web. Mobile ad blockers can't work since their ads are served from the same hosts as the content. And most of their usage is on mobile.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#635

Post by ketamine__ » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:03 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…

Jeff is defending shareholders and not ads as a revenue model. Without shareholders Google would be free to pursue alternate strategies. Not as profitable but better for the user.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#636

Post by tester756 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #631

Regardless of what this author thinks. Advertising is the bane of our existence. How many hours have we wasted watching advertisements (whether it's in the form of network television, billboards, radio ads, or intermittent ads in VOD sites like YT)? If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise (take for example, Ferrari or Lamborghini). If companies focused on making their products better rather than…

>If your product is good, then you wouldn't need to advertise

I believe it is simplification.

Let's say that I want to get good standing desk or chair - how can I discover those smaller players that make good products?

I don't want to spend time on some ChairHackerNews for 2 months and read about this stuff

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#637

Post by the-pigeon » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

This analysis starts with a straw-man.

> So: why is advertising good? I mean, isn't it annoying when sites show you ads instead of whatever it is you want to read? The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:

> Paywalls. You pay with your money.

> Ads. You pay with your attention.

Anyone on the internet prior to 2000 knows people make content just to make content. I would strongly argue that the wave of "everything must be monetized" has been entirely negative. While it's made the quantity of content go way up, it's polluted everything with clickbait. Whereas before you used to get much higher quality content due to them being passion projects and not people trying to make money.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#638

Post by thundergolfer » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #22

redleggedfrog wrote: post #8

That sure sounds like appeasing guilt with charity donations.

I started on ads at Google in 2017, and have been donating since 2008: https://www.jefftk.com/donations

Appreciate seeing pages like this, and 50% is pretty great. I need to set one up for myself.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#639

Post by medium_burrito » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

djdjdjdjdj wrote: post #108

I invented 'antiad'. I see an annoying ad in public space? I might get in contact with them to complain about that ad. I think it is just fair to tell someone my honest opinion as soon as they take the time and effort to target me. I'm totally lost on why we support generic unrelevant ads in public spaces. It makes our cities ugly.

You should become Wanksy, but for advertisements. "Rate My Add, with totally coincidental Poo on it". Maybe there's a market for YTMND with split screen ads, poo or whatever and music for us to mock all these brands with.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#640

Post by mdpye » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

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've never clicked on an internet ad.

Me neither, but marketing is significantly about awareness, not just the clicks.

If you've seen it, it is at some level "in you", and the brand has (fractionally) been built.

I know this doesn't apply to all ads by any means, but it's important to remember that advertising also works this way.