Why I Work on Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#821

Post by originalvichy » Fri, May 07, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

sophacles wrote: post #586

hermesfeet wrote: post #571

Thanks for laying out your logic. I work in the ads business at FB. I do so because I personally like ads and my biggest gripe is that ads are not relevant and personalized enough. I want better ads. Ultimately ads support a robust ecosystem of free software and content that keeps many creators going. Consumers can also choose to buy their software and content, or donate, but most don’t. Despite their whining, most p…

> I think people comparing ads to guns, plagues, and locusts need to check their own values. Ads support free stuff for the poor and middle classes. Until i can ACTUALLY opt out by paying money, you need to get off your high horse. My data is clearly more valuable to you than my dollars - otherwise I'd have a choice. > If you hate ads, lean into that. Don’t work for adtech, block all your ads, pay for everything. I s…

I think the displeasure you feel should be directed towards website developers. As far as I know the "no surveillance" option is there: the person who wrote the website can choose whether to inject a tracking program to the code or not.

People are misdirecting their hatred towards ad-tracking towards ad developers when in reality the people who decide to use ad trackers in their websites should be asked questions.

I understand some giant sites will always come with "we will track you" (Facebook is the easiest example) but even those Facebook spy buttons appear on websites because the developer of the site agreed to it and embedded it there.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#822

Post by originalvichy » Fri, May 07, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #582

hermesfeet wrote: post #571

Thanks for laying out your logic. I work in the ads business at FB. I do so because I personally like ads and my biggest gripe is that ads are not relevant and personalized enough. I want better ads. Ultimately ads support a robust ecosystem of free software and content that keeps many creators going. Consumers can also choose to buy their software and content, or donate, but most don’t. Despite their whining, most p…

Is it really conceivable that the Web would have been stillborn without ads, or with limits to the externalities of ads? Does "software will eat the world" only mean "software will eat the world if it can sell ads?" I'm pretty sure ads don't support the cell phone industry, or at least didn't support its exponential growth phase, yet the middle class and poor have cell phones.

Cellphone industry? No. The smartphone industry? Definitely. There are two major OSs for phones. One by a hardware-software company and the second from an adtech company. Guess which one is the cheap/free OS and which one is the more premium product of the two. :)

Android destroyed its competition by having excellent support for Google's "free" software and because of their huge ad income they can pay to develop it further.

So yeah I believe the modern phone industry has to thank the freemium adtech world for pushing Android into the world.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#823

Post by originalvichy » Fri, May 07, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

hermesfeet wrote: post #571

Thanks for laying out your logic. I work in the ads business at FB. I do so because I personally like ads and my biggest gripe is that ads are not relevant and personalized enough. I want better ads. Ultimately ads support a robust ecosystem of free software and content that keeps many creators going. Consumers can also choose to buy their software and content, or donate, but most don’t. Despite their whining, most p…

I would add one more thing to your arguments: people who don't like ads should simply ask web devs of their favourite sites not to serve ads at all. Even if ads and trackers exist it is still ultimately the developers choice to include ad code in their websites.

I sense A LOT of misdirected anger towards ad companies when the "enablers" of ad companies – the web developers willing to monetise traffic with ads – are not getting any blame directed at them.

As long as you guys at Facebook are transparent about what happens if you embed your like buttons or comment sections in blogs and forums etc. the onus is on the developers to serve their visitors with safe content.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#824

Post by DocTomoe » Fri, May 07, 2021, 11:48 AM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #680

meowface wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Getting the right message in front of the right user at the right time is a lot harder than people think it is. Guess that's why we need those brightest minds of our generation on the problem, as the saying goes, right? That sentence gives me extreme Matthew McConaughey-in- Wolf of Wall Street vibes. After seeing you wrote that, I immediately assumed you very likely work in advertising. Sure enough... I have no clue…

If the greatest minds of society are going for the easiest payday perhaps they are not really our greatest minds. Perhaps they are the smart ones by cashing in but the great minds with the great ideas they are not.

And then, there is a good chance our generation's Tesla or Einstein or Mozart currently herds livestock in the Mongolian desert and will for all their life.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#825

Post by SyzygistSix » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #145

ericmay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. Before digital advertising or Google reading emails to find out you're going on a fishing trip, how did people buy fishing equipment? Whatever we did then, we can probably go back to and be much better off. Like why do I need "relevant ads" on a blog about urban planning? What problem does that solve for me?

They saw ads for fishing equipment in fishing magazines, or in the newspaper.

Or catalogs. Reputation was by word of mouth.

We can use the web to bring those in the fishing community into wider contact with each other.

Or use it to create communities vulnerable to ads. I know which one I prefer.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#826

Post by SyzygistSix » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:11 PM UTC

rpicard wrote: post #44

Just wanted to mention I appreciate seeing a different perspective here. I know there's a lot of negative reaction to it, and I can empathize with that because there's a long history of negative behavior by the advertising industry. But there's no doubt that there are benefits too, and seeing some nuance on HN is always a win.

>But there's no doubt that there are benefits too

There most certainly are doubts that there are any benefits. Online ads aren't any more beneficial than billboards.

I think we would do well to follow the example of Sao Paulo.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#827

Post by danny_kre » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:22 PM UTC

The author writes "One answer is that I'm earning to give: 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."

If I walked into your neighbor's home, robbed $3,000 from them and then gave half of what I stole to some charity would you consider me to be a good guy?

Am I the only one that finds the first answer to be mad logic?

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#828

Post by SyzygistSix » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:26 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.

Sao Paulo banned billboards and advertisements. I see no reason why other cities and states cannot do the same.

Some of the states that care a lot about their communities have done so, like Maine and Vermont.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#829

Post by analog31 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

originalvichy wrote: post #822

analog31 wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really conceivable that the Web would have been stillborn without ads, or with limits to the externalities of ads? Does "software will eat the world" only mean "software will eat the world if it can sell ads?" I'm pretty sure ads don't support the cell phone industry, or at least didn't support its exponential growth phase, yet the middle class and poor have cell phones.

Cellphone industry? No. The smartphone industry? Definitely. There are two major OSs for phones. One by a hardware-software company and the second from an adtech company. Guess which one is the cheap/free OS and which one is the more premium product of the two. :) Android destroyed its competition by having excellent support for Google's "free" software and because of their huge ad income they can pay to develop it f…

Indeed, it's arguable that things that cost money will tend to come from an industry that's flush with money. So I can't really dispute your point. Before Android, smart phones were evolving, but outside of iOS, a phone came with a bespoke OS and a handful of apps.

I'm still not convinced that even smartphones would have been stillborn. The apps might have been more klunky, but I'm not sure that's important. For instance, I would be happy to receive my daily news in a giant flat text file, and don't need the features that generate "engagement" or tell me what other people are reading. People who are "in the know" about computing tend to use less flashy interfaces, and more of the terminal window.

But of course the ultimate answer is... I don't know.

It's interesting that the freemium model kind of contradicts that idea that we benefit from ads, since we are willing to pay money to get rid of them, rather than the other way around. Maybe the industry could be funded by making ads available to those who want them, for a price.

Re: Why I Work on Ads

#830

Post by unsungNovelty » Fri, May 07, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

Let's get one thing straight, we the users don't like ads that are intrusive, manipulating and data generating when it doesn't have to be. This guy makes it look like (or want to make it look like) we are complaining about ads. No, we just don't want to be tracked. Simple.

He is also just normalising the whole surveillance part by not bringing it up, ever! All he is doing is talking about the top layer of what an ad is and what it is for and how the users are interacting with them etc. This doesn't talk about tracking your ip address, your location across services, your search history, your video watching history and everything else that you have interacted with. Then using it to manipulate you.

And I actually think it has been extremely smart and cunning to play the mind game of "look, it is not for you, it is for the smaller and poor people who can't afford it. THE POOR PEOPLE!". This works I am sure.

Facebook literally did this by displaying ads on big news papers on behalf of "small businesses" when they were threatened by Apple's privacy features which actually protected the end users.

Ad businesses like Ad Sense etc in it's current form doesn't do anything else than being intrusive and eventually become used against you by businesses to manipulate you or govts to oppress you.

I will give a simple example. The ads that comes as sponsored in youtube channels where the youtube creator gives a shout out to some services / products, or ads in podcasts that are directly related to the content of the creator things definitely have more impact on the creators monetary department. You would've heard a lot of youtube creators admitting the same.

SO YES, ADS WORK. SURVEILLANCE, MANIPULATING AD BUSINESS LIKE AD SENSE DOESN'T!

I would suggest people to keep questioning these kind of smart people to work on something worth while than tracking and not to mention shadow tracking people to just create data which can be sold to third parties which the end users are unaware of, among soo many other things. In all sense, jeezz! Get a life!!

PS: This would be my one and probably only "cut the bulshit honey comment" when I know these people are smart enough to understand the consequences but want to virtue signal by saying, I donate to good causes blah blah blah. This is a very common and well put consistent messaging we/I have been hearing over and over. So yeah, I don't want to give a benefit of the doubt.