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Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

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Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#41
> Losing the ability to re-target products to customers after they viewed them online but didn’t buy hurts businesses trying to sell more expensive products, advertisers say

How is this the case?

If I have an online shop using any of the major tools and platforms out there, they all have the ability to tell when someone puts something into their carts and did or didn't buy it. They can all send an email to say "oi there, you forgot to buy . Here's a 10% discount if you buy it". In addition, I do know that there are addons in Shopify that will re-target stuff along the lines of "customers who bought X bought Y".

It sounds like advertisers are the ones losing out and crying here, not the shop owners!

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#42
post #39
post #3

That sense of entitlement makes me sick. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we would have to spend way too much on ads. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise my small business can not survive. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not understand who our customers are. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not identify new customers. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not evaluate the e…

Now do software users who believe they’re entitled to the labor of other people for free…

What are you referring to, pirated software in general? Or are you talking about ad supported software?

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#43
> [Disruptive Digita] is also looking into technology that would let Facebook deliver personalized ads based on targeting data stored on the user’s device, meaning Facebook wouldn’t need to access it.

Anyone know how this would work? My spidey-sense is tingling here at the thought of apps scanning data on my phone!

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#44
post #3

That sense of entitlement makes me sick. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we would have to spend way too much on ads. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise my small business can not survive. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not understand who our customers are. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not identify new customers. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not evaluate the e…

I love the personal entitlement people have when using free email, free social media, free search engines and everything else to the point they are offended if they try to make ends meet by making profit.

Do you think Y Combinator investments don't use tracking? You would get laughed out of a room if you said you track nothing and have a solid product. A phone call to ask about your product is tracking because it all gets recorded and noted.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#45
post #3

That sense of entitlement makes me sick. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we would have to spend way too much on ads. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise my small business can not survive. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not understand who our customers are. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not identify new customers. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not evaluate the e…

There's an argument to be made that "tracking" has had less real world harm to humanity than the push to get rid of it. Real harm will come to people/business through loss of income due to the clamp down on tracking. Not to mention that ads are the foundation of all the content we get for "free" that we've come to rely on.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would personally not agree to tracking, but who should be and shouldn't be in business based on tracking is not for you (or me, or anyone) to decide. If there are people who are fine with tracking in exchange for services, then they should be able to make that exchange.

> but who should be and shouldn't be in business based on tracking is not for you (or me, or anyone) to decide I generally agree with the poster. A majority of "modern" companies that pop up have one of two strategies nowadays: 1. No sustainable business model, nothing to sell to users. Grow as fast as possible, get bought by one of the established megacorps. 2. The product is kind of there, but it is only an excuse…

i agree, nicely put. just a small addendum to your two points: having very little product for users to sell only works if the product is free-as-in-beer for them - and the way to get there is to sell data about users to paying customers. these are fundamentals of engagement economy: get users kind of addicted to something which has barely any value and they wouldn't pay for it if they had to and sell everything they tell about themselves in the process of using it to people willing to buy the data. due to network effects user data value grows super-linearly, so you can perceive your own data as 'worthless', but it becomes worth much more once you get data about others.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#47

Even with all the tracking, the generated ads still suck, showing things already purchased. This reminds me of the overhyped lead generation tools out there, they do not work as expected. Someone's financial interest is the root cause here, someone is making good money with ads. The ones who sell ads? For sure. The ones who buy adds? Not many success stories out there.

they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. i'm not in the business but i think these kinds of ads work quite well if you return the thing you just bought.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#48
post #44
post #3

That sense of entitlement makes me sick. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we would have to spend way too much on ads. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise my small business can not survive. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not understand who our customers are. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not identify new customers. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not evaluate the e…

I love the personal entitlement people have when using free email, free social media, free search engines and everything else to the point they are offended if they try to make ends meet by making profit. Do you think Y Combinator investments don't use tracking? You would get laughed out of a room if you said you track nothing and have a solid product. A phone call to ask about your product is tracking because it all…

The irony you manufacture doesn't hold. Yes, these products are cheap (currently free) no small part due to the market aberration caused by the tracking and advertising. But it's not certain that they would go away if advertising had to revert to a model less driven by privacy intrusion.

I welcome the day such intrusions are rendered illegal or impractical, so that the market can price these offerings appropriately. Until then, why not use what exists?

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#49
post #44
post #3

That sense of entitlement makes me sick. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we would have to spend way too much on ads. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise my small business can not survive. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not understand who our customers are. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not identify new customers. Tracking users is necessary, otherwise we can not evaluate the e…

I love the personal entitlement people have when using free email, free social media, free search engines and everything else to the point they are offended if they try to make ends meet by making profit. Do you think Y Combinator investments don't use tracking? You would get laughed out of a room if you said you track nothing and have a solid product. A phone call to ask about your product is tracking because it all…

There is a huge difference between the tracking Facebook does and "a phone call yo ask about your product". Having no tracking at all forced onto you might be the idealistic end goal for users, but it sure is unrealistic. Of course that doesn't prevent you from criticizing the intrusive, overboarding tracking of some social networks or advertisers.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#50
post #35
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sense of entitlement for…privacy? What a world we live in.

That sense of entitlement that you can get stuff for free without having to pay for it in some way. You use facebook for free, it seems to provide you some value, why do you think you are entitled to get this for free?

We pay for internet access. When I first used the web in 1993, the internet fee was covered by the tuition I paid, as only universities, government and a relatively small number of corporations were connected. Later, ISPs were formed and we began paying for home access. The "entitlement" we pay for, IMO, is access to a network free from surveillance and advertising, or at least one where we can navigate around that. The 1993 web was full of free content. Few web users paid for anything. (As remains true today.) The beauty of the web is that anyone can set up a website. However no one is entitled to traffic. There used to be this idea of "netiquette". I think it is fair to say that these enormous websites like Facebook with massive traffic are playing by their own rules. They do come across as having a sense of entitlement. It is not their network. It is our network. Most if not all of the "content" they use to draw the traffic they get is user-generated. You pay your fee and you are entitled to access the network but (arguably) that does not include conducting mass surveillance and sustaining a massive advertising campaign that targets people personally.

Tha value of Facebook is in its users, not the people who write the website's PHP and run the servers. It is commonly agreed that writing a Facebook clone is not a difficult task. That value is the users. There is a reason Facebook will never charge a usage fee to anyone.

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