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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

#561

Post by no_time »

awillen wrote: post #553
gonehome wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A complete collapse of the viability of targeted advertising would be totally fine with me. The business models that would become viable in that reality would be a better equilibrium and the incentives would be better aligned between software companies and their users.

I don't think you're right about this. Highly targeted advertising disproportionately benefits the little guy. I say this as a little guy, running a small dog treat e-commerce company. Almost all of my new customer acquisition is by way of Facebook ads. If you get rid of Facebook ads and go back to the non-targeted, TV commercial and newspaper type ads, my company might not survive. Purina, though? They'd be fine. Th…

The cancer of targted advertising has only been with us for like 20 years. Small companies have existed way before that. Blaming people who want to protect those who don't even know what a server or a company is from their data being harvested because you can't sell them dog food is just ridiculous.

That being said, if you are concerned about monopolies, there are better ways to fight them. Unfortunately they have been neglected in the last few decades. Perhaps channeling your money/influence towards that instead of ads would be better for everyone.

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

#562

Post by no_time »

flatiron wrote: post #510
ElFitz wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, true, forgot that one; it’s even better! Some also (used to?) connect to any open wifi nearby if you forgot to give it access to yours. How thoughtful… Pretty much the reason I scorned every single "smart tv"

My TV seriously wanted to put itself in some sort of demo mode if I didn’t connect it to wifi. That included restarting itself and redoing the settings every 30 minutes or whatever. It’s an insane ultimatum! So yeah it’s in a zone it can ping home base and nothing less. But for the 99% of people who can’t do that crap it sucks.

I always wanted to experiment with one of these but fortunately I managed to avoid them so far.

I wonder what would happen if you limited their bandwidth to a couple of kbps. Just enough to get the pings across but make any ad download excruciatingly slow. Or write some kind of DPI rule that drops packets to the internet above a certain size.

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

#563

Post by no_time »

air7 wrote: post #366

I dislike being tracked as much as the next guy, but I often wonder what "our" ideal end-game goal is? By "our" I mean the typical HN crowd that understands both the technological and the economical implications of this. If we want top-grade products to remain available without a direct monetary transaction (i.e "free"), it seems we must give something that the product providers can turn into monetary value indirectl…

>what "our" ideal end-game goal is?

A global ban on targeted advertising. Fines in % of global revenue instead of fixed sums. Bankruptcy of adtech companies and concerts in the ruins of their headquarters.

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

#564

Post by yarcob »

aerosmile wrote: post #536
pseudalopex wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call it a sound challenge to your fallacious argument from profitability. Your non sequitur derailed the conversation.

Would you mind to elaborate? I am genuinely wondering if you're a troll or if I am mistaken in my argument. To summarize, I responded to the claim below that Facebook's ad platform is ineffective: > All related studies are showing that the latter isn't working anyway. I pointed out that Facebook wouldn't be profitable if the ad platform is ineffective, and you called that argument fallacious. I am really curious to h…

The fallacy is that Facebook making a profit doesn't mean that invasive ad targeting is effective.

It just means that Facebook is good at selling ads, whether they are effective or not.

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

#565

Post by deepstack »

reader_mode wrote: post #394
villasv wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.

There are products out there that would increase my quality of life that I'm not aware of or not actively thinking about. In an ideal world ads are about informing the consumer, so absolutely ads can provide value to you as well. One of the recent life improving products I never thought about before an ad is an electric toothbrush - honestly I saw them but I considered it a silly gadget. Saw a plug in a random video,…

>That being said I dislike tracking not because I might get manipulated - I also prefer relevant ads. I dislike the fact that they can better target vulnerable groups - like depressed people with addictive personalities and gaming - this is the majority of app stores profit, I would bet it's a huge ad% as well - mobile gaming is basically milking people with low impulse control and nothing better to do with their time. It's just like those scamming telemarketing scum targeting old people

It is more push pull thing. - pull request for relavant ads, when I actively searching for something (and a search engine would be better). - push request for ads that is random. If I see something I like I'll click it.

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

#566

Post by fuzxi »

tobr wrote: post #471
sturza wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you sell bras for women over 50?

First of all, what makes a bra only suitable if you are over 50, other than discrimination? You can always find an example of a product that is easier to sell to a specific niche group of people. That doesn’t give the advertiser the right to know that fact about everyone. For the specific case of bras - how would you sell bras for women with large breasts if you don’t know who has large breasts? Do you think that sli…

>First of all, what makes a bra only suitable if you are over 50, other than discrimination?

Breasts tend to sag with age. As natural elasticity declines, a woman may require additional support.

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

#567

Post by fuzxi »

waste_monk wrote: post #547
flatiron wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My TV seriously wanted to put itself in some sort of demo mode if I didn’t connect it to wifi. That included restarting itself and redoing the settings every 30 minutes or whatever. It’s an insane ultimatum! So yeah it’s in a zone it can ping home base and nothing less. But for the 99% of people who can’t do that crap it sucks.

I haven't had a TV in years, but if I had to get a large display for some reason I'd go for a dedicated large monitor + a set top box or some media centre appliance to actually play the media/tune in to TV. You pay a lot more (I was looking at a Dell 55" monitor for around $5k AUD, where an equivalent size TV is $1K from a name brand manufacturer), but IMHO it's worth it. Or maybe skip straight to an LED projector, I…

Look into digital signage displays. They're just big dumb monitors, but tend to be cheaper than similarly-sized displays that are marketed as monitors.

Just glancing at Amazon, I see a 65-inch 4k digital signage display for under $1200 USD.

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

#568

Post by fuzxi »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #541
Agenttin wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have shown to be willing to give direct payment. Twitch subscriptions, Patreon, Kickstarter, even OnlyFans. People will invest in the people and the projects they like. I don't want anything that's advertising supported. Anything. There is no media I want to consume so badly that I'll tolerate ads to watch it. There's no product so interesting I'll view ads to use it. No website contains information I…

On the one hand I want something like a "Donation Feed" similar to an RSS feed. Something that I can put money into, set rules for, and over a period of time dispense cents/fractions of a bitcoin/whatever as per rules. The rules - and default rules in particular! - would be important. Maybe you like the author so much you donate on the regular just anyway. Maybe a plugin in my browser can see when I visit a site and…

Are you thinking of something like Flattr?

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

#569

Post by alephu5 »

NoPicklez wrote: post #557
villasv wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.

For me when I say relevant ads, I truly mean ads that are based on the things I do, the things I buy and the interests I have. If I bought a new 4wd car, I wouldn't mind seeing ads for bull bars or tow bars because these are things I'd potentially be searching for anyway. If I had random ads as you say (truly random), I don't want/or need to see tampon ads in my feed as a male. Which is what you might end up with. Co…

I don't use social media and aggressively block all ads, but my wife does so I've seen how it works. While scrolling through she sometimes she's clothing or jewellery that matches her style and will engage with them to see what's available and how much it costs. Nevertheless she hardly ever converts.

The ads themselves aren't a problem from what I've seen, rather it is the incessant stream of memes and emotive content that keeps you scrolling through the feed.

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

#570

Post by hnra »

milofeynman wrote: post #440
air7 wrote: post #366

I dislike being tracked as much as the next guy, but I often wonder what "our" ideal end-game goal is? By "our" I mean the typical HN crowd that understands both the technological and the economical implications of this. If we want top-grade products to remain available without a direct monetary transaction (i.e "free"), it seems we must give something that the product providers can turn into monetary value indirectl…

My end game would be knowing who has my data and being able to say no to 3rd parties getting my data. Fine, Facebook knows which hobbies I'm looking at on Instagram and has incredible ads and suggested posts. Ok that's fine. But random 3rd party I don't know getting that data... No thanks.

Neither Facebook or google sells user data though. So you are fine with the current situation?
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