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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

#571

Post by Hermitian909 »

deepstack wrote: post #565
reader_mode wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tim…

This is why, of all the ad based companies, I like Pinterest best. It's basically a digital magazine. You show up and say, "I'd like to see pictures of cute wicker baskets, and mid-century modern couches please!" and they deliver.

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

#573

Post by NoPicklez »

alephu5 wrote: post #569
NoPicklez wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conten…

Agreed, memes and crap content that has filled our feeds completely lowers the quality of information we're obtaining from these applications.

But content is another story altogether.

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

#574

Post by corford »

bllguo wrote: post #492
corford wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the answer is a lot of these services are less vital and desired as their MAU figures lead everyone to believe. If someone really wants or needs something, they'll find a way to pay for it (directly or indirectly) if access cannot be had any other way. Everything else is "nice to have" until the cost or friction gets a little higher than zero. The fact that people are increasingly unwilling to "pay for" thing…

nobody pays (directly) for Google search but surely most would agree search engines are vital. clearly the advertising business model has enabled certain products in a way that direct purchases could not; to reject the model wholesale seems like luddite conservatism

Not what I'm implying. Google has kept the friction & effort minimal (by it's very nature, their search engine advertising is a lot less creepy & personally invasive than FBs). The utility of google search is also high enough that I'm quite sure a decent chunk of people would pay a small monthly sub for it if needed (or offered as an alternative option).

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

#575

Post by cout »

janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

In the early years of ads on facebook they had targeted ads in the sidebar, but the news feed was left untouched. One change that happened is that Likes started giving pages access to space in your feed. Eventually pages that I didn't explicitly like started gaining access there. After that the algorithm for ordering the feed changed (probably more than once).

I was okay with the targeted ads in the sidebar, when that's all it was. I opted not to block ads on facebook with adblock plus. I learned of all sorts of products that I probably never would have heard of had I been getting random ads, or ads intended to appeal to a wide audience. I never felt manipulated.

The tweaking of the news feed feels wrong though even without ads. Maybe it was an inevitable result of the quest for profits, but if I could go back to targeted ads the way they used to be, I would do it in a heartbeat.

The reality is that I've been fed targeted ads all my life, but the targeting wasn't was optimized. Automotive magazines are more likely to have ads for spark plugs than hair products. A cooking website is more likely to have ads for spatulas than tractors. At least, that's how it used to be. With ads fed from Google, ads are likely to be related to what I've recently searched for with their search engine. The result is often comical: I no longer see ads relevant to what I'm interested in at the time, but to what I was interested in 30 minutes ago. I'm not clicking any of those ads; I've already moved on.

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

#576

Post by cout »

NoPicklez wrote: post #573
alephu5 wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conten…

Agreed, memes and crap content that has filled our feeds completely lowers the quality of information we're obtaining from these applications. But content is another story altogether.

Content was a different story, until ads started showing up in the same place on the page as content. Now ads aren't something on the side you can passively ignore; they are sponsored content.

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

#577

Post by yosito »

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…

> If we want top-grade products to remain available without a direct monetary transaction

I don't think the typical HN user insists on not paying for the software we use. I don't understand people who insist they want unpaid software.

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

#578

Post by herbst »

villasv wrote: post #265
janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

> 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.

I have yet to see a relevant ad that is actually relevant to me. 99% of the time I just get things recommended that I either just bought or have generally no interest in. I get better results from random ads, sometimes I find interesting links in those.

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

#579

Post by herbst »

sturza wrote: post #386
tobr wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers Region, sure, that makes sense for a local business. But targeting gender or age is discrimination.

how would you sell bras for women over 50?

Like we did before Facebook. Find sites that are relevant to my target audience and target those.

At least that way, if done right, you won't be simply invisible to half of the internet users.

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

#580

Post by herbst »

axaxs wrote: post #356
janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

Do people really prefer relevant ads? I just disregard them, and it doesn't matter to me whether they are relevant or off the wall. The only ads I specifically don't like are the ones Youtube have randomly showed my wife and I. It's only happened twice to each of us, but they were a bit adult themed. Having a child in the house, I was pretty peeved.

My favourite (in terms of how can this even happen) was an 43 minute ad of someone reading the Koran between 2 maybe 10 minute videos.
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