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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

#151
post #67

If people opt out of what you're doing to them as soon as they're made aware you're doing it, then perhaps that's a sign that you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I don't even believe that 25% of users actually wanted tracking. I think a lot of people just blindly tap buttons to make annoyances go away, and these guys just hit the wrong button.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

You are making a few assumptions:

1) People want the services more than they value their privacy. Maybe they'll just not use the service if they can't use it without tracking

2) That invasive tracking is required to sell ads. The media industry made billions (trillions?) of revenue from ads before tracking became a thing.

3) That platform ads are the only way to make services that are free for consumers. For example, Vimeo offers an ad free video delivery service that the content creator pays for. If Youtube was no longer free, maybe content creators would just pay for content delivery instead of having consumers indirectly pay for deliver with ads. Content creators have no issue selling ads / sponsorships without any tracking whatsoever. The result would be the same as now (content free for consumers) only that now non-targeted ads would pay for everything.

4) And finally, you are assuming that targeting via tracking actually works well enough to make it worthwhile. From what I've read, ad targeting is nowhere near as good as Facebook et al would have advertisers believe. Maybe invading your users privcy just doesn't make such a big difference in the end.

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

#152
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same way ads work in print media Do adds in print media not "monetize people's eyeballs" also? > The publisher doesn't have as detailed targeting info for the advertiser, and presumably would charge less. Okay but I was responding to a claim about adds not tracking.

Nothing about this change prevents Facebook from serving ads! Opting out doesn't remove ads, only tracking.

I agree, but I still don't understand what people who prefer not to have their eyeballs monetized are doing on Facebook.

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

#153
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not destroying the whole concept of ads, it is only pushing back against awful variants. It is definitely possible to have “nice” ads, like simple text or images, with no creepy or CPU-draining elements in them. Nothing is preventing those ads from supporting free services.

However, the reason companies looking to place ads, will choose modern-adtech-platform-X (Google, Facebook, etc.) over traditional advertising medium Y (billboards, TV, etc.) is that the former promises to be more targeted (using the ad”tech”) than the latter, such that there’s higher value-per-click or value-per-impression. Without that promise, there’s no reason to favor advertising on these platforms over other pl…

Many companies are prohibited from doing stuff that they would profit from. I am sure soda companies would love to be able to add heroin to their products etc. However, maximizing random companies profits isn’t societies only concern.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explanation I have heard previously is that people have bought an item are actually more likely to buy another: unhappy with the current purchase, or people who need multiple items. Sure, for most people it’s irrelevant as they are happy with their purchase, but most ads are ignored anyway.

at the same time it's very easy to run into anecdotes people have like "you bought the 5th edition of this college textbook? do you want to buy the 3rd edition in Spanish?"

Yeah, that sounds like a flaw in the methodology! And quite a funny one too.

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

#155
post #67

If people opt out of what you're doing to them as soon as they're made aware you're doing it, then perhaps that's a sign that you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I don't even believe that 25% of users actually wanted tracking. I think a lot of people just blindly tap buttons to make annoyances go away, and these guys just hit the wrong button.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

> As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds.

Or they'll just go outside and find better uses for their time.

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

#156
Alright HN, so what is the end game here?

I'm sure some of you have some experience working in the "ad supported" space, and obviously most of the internet and many of its services run on the ad model. So where are we going to end up if there is a full on public distrust of the current ad model?

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

#157
post #65

It’s almost as if, given information and a choice, people prefer not to have their eyeballs monetized. Of course, if this catches on (and I hope it does), we ultimately run up against “people prefer not to pay for things.” Will be fun to watch.

Well, of course. But there's a free-rider/tragedy-of-the-commons problem here: people might reasonably think the monetization of their eyeballs is an acceptable cost to be able to use something like Facebook, even if they choose not to be monetized when they get to use Facebook either way.

However, if nobody could be monetized, then Facebook couldn't exist, making those people (for whom monetization of their eyeballs is an acceptable cost in exchange for Facebook) to be worse off.

The only reason piracy and ad-blocking haven't totally killed for-profit media is because most people don't use them (either because they don't know how, for legal or ethical reasons, or because it's a hassle).

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

#158
post #67

If people opt out of what you're doing to them as soon as they're made aware you're doing it, then perhaps that's a sign that you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I don't even believe that 25% of users actually wanted tracking. I think a lot of people just blindly tap buttons to make annoyances go away, and these guys just hit the wrong button.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

Ads still exist. Advertising has existed for a long time, effectively, without personal tracking. This will weed out the players from the wannabes.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as ad supported free services start shutting down because of ad blocking and lowered clickthrough rates on ads because of targeting being blocked, most people will probably start changing their minds. (The alternative being maintaining 10-20+ paid subscriptions.) For now, all this change means is that users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't.

If subscriptions were always as easy to manage in one place like they are on an iPhone, I would have absolutely no problem with 20 subscriptions. Where’s the subscription management startup model?

Brave's BATs (Basic Attention Tokens) spring to mind.

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

#160
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Wi-Fi, you're going to have multiple people sharing one IP. On cellular... good luck.

yeah on wifi, but if your home, its only your household. i thought cellular you get a unique ip? or does the cell operator hide your ip. i'm not aware how routing on cellular works.

> i thought cellular you get a unique ip?

In the US at least, yes, because most cell providers switched to IPv6 long ago. In other places, carrier-grade NAT is widespread.

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