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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

#191
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.

It's hard to know what the Web, social media, and tech generally might look like if the spyvertising money-spigot gets shut off. Paid and fully-free-and-open alternatives to spying-paid "free" services & content are nearly impossible in the former case, and discouraging to participate or work on in the latter, in the current environment. There may be other models, too, that are in some sense better or preferable, or at least acceptable or sufficient, but currently not viable.

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

#192

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.

How about tracking back to content related advertising rather than tracking based advertising? All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway. And, as these metrics (and ethics) suggest, it has been an illegitimate invasion, right from the beginning. The fancy "conversion rate" dashboards are just not worth it. Bonus: Maybe this will be an opportunity for content providers to reset the decline o…

Still not sure why that didn't become predominant. Dynamic content based ads seemed to be the new fad in late 00's, then it kinda disappeared, with user tracking becoming the norm.

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

#193
post #78
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this even be theoretically possible? I mean, if you know someone’s personal details, they per definition has lost that privacy towards you.

At least theoretically, you could have the whole logic deciding which ad to show you running locally on your device, without the need to send any private data to Facebook?

That just makes your device the spy. Sure, it's an increase in the amount of privacy, but it's not actual privacy.

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

#194

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?

Hopefully purely ad supported services cease to exist.

I never understood why these companies don't offer paid options with no ads or tracking, at least in adddition to the ad supported "free" version.

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

#195

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.

How about tracking back to content related advertising rather than tracking based advertising? All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway. And, as these metrics (and ethics) suggest, it has been an illegitimate invasion, right from the beginning. The fancy "conversion rate" dashboards are just not worth it. Bonus: Maybe this will be an opportunity for content providers to reset the decline o…

Tracking is necessary for the advertising economy to control bad behavior on the part of publishers and advertisers, not just to serve targeted ads.

No matter what there would be discrepancies in the numbers (publisher says it sent 75 clicks, advertiser says it got 70) and that breeds mistrust. Participants have a reason to lie. Having multiple third party watch the whole thing helps them trust each other.

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

#196
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.

Mark my words: as soon as the world starts to turn their back on advertisement, there will be several micropayement unicorns flourishing in the next 6 months.

20+ paid subscriptions make no sense, but checking a box with your ISP to get a 2 USD monthly credit to use on the articles you click on, could work.

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

#197
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.

At another point the author mentioned that the iOS new version uptake is currently 75% so maybe 100% of people who have seen the prompt hit no… (obviously the numbers are not exactly representing that)

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

#199

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 sites can’t fund their content with ads based information I’m willing to give up, then they can beg me for money, or charge for the content, or beg me to look at ads or whatever. But I want that transaction to be transparent and deliberate. And I don’t care if 90% of content online just disappears because we click the privacy button. Then it was never a viable business model to begin with.

Yes, if Facebook goes away due to lack of ads and no paid subscribers it means it simply was not worth paying for in enough people's minds.

Imagine that your entire business is only appealing to people if it is free.

I mean a lot of crappy 70's sitcoms would not exist if people had to buy tickets to watch. Honestly, I would not mind that world. :-)

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

#200

A lot of apps started to prime users before iOS asks to allow tracking by showing an innocuous screen that describes some "feature". It says something like hey, do you want us to enhance your experience by x, y, z? Or it's written like hey, just agree to the terms so you can use the app. It would be great if apps didn't have an option to show anything before this prompt.

Facebook is probably clever enough to have optimized the layout and button placement of their initial alert to generate maximum mis-clicks on the “Allow app to track” button
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