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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

#601

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

"Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue."

Why is it that the only the first page of search results in a search engine "matter". (Some search engines are now showing a total of 5 (!) results. Brave's new search engine does not even have a page 2!)

Why is it that an "app store" has limited search discoverability but instead provides "Top 10" or "Top 20" lists. And more recently, "recommended apps".

Why is it that a video hosting service has "recomendations" enabled by default, recommended videos show up in search results and the top "recommended videos" always have the highest view counts.

"Tech" has no viable "business model" except advertising. (Time will tell if this "model" is actually sustainable.) This is because they are nothing more than middlemen. They do not produce content and offer nothing of value that they in fact own. Whatever they offer can be obtained directly from its true owners, provided there is motivation (e.g., avoiding payment to a middleman). If "tech" did have something of value they own, it stands to reason they would charge for it. This would provide others with the motivation to cut out the middleman. Hence, "tech" cannot charge "users" money for middleman services.

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

#602

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#603

Post by jimkleiber »

kwanbix wrote: post #586
Smoosh wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that in the early days of internet advertising casino/poker/porn was much more common because they were the ones willing to take a risk on advertising in the new media. Over time other more mainstream industries joined in. I don't agree about the good intentions. The tracking is a means to an end. People are tracked to measure engagement and to target ads, both of which have the purpose of increasing the va…

Of course is about money. The world is based on money. Advertising has existed for years, but it is only now being able to target with more precision. I know this might be an unpopular opinion here in HN, but I really don't see the problem with target advertising.

For me, I don't seem to care much if it's a company trying to sell me a refrigerator, but when a company/org is trying to sell me an idea that a group of people is evil and out to get me and all my problems will be fixed if I vote for X or distance myself from my "evil" friends and family, etc., then I start to worry more.

The challenge with having access to that much information is that it can be very powerful and a very lopsided/asymmetric power. I remember when Facebook had Open Graph Search-when any user on the platform could perform complex searches of their friends, friends of friends, and more. It was so powerful at times it freaked me out how powerful it was. I could search for friends of friends who are women who live in San Francisco who speak Spanish who are single and who like Dave Matthews and it would give me a list. Facebook shut it down a few years ago, but I imagine something similar still exists on the advertising side of things (side note, there was someone a few years ago that used the advertiser tools to send ads specifically to his one friend as a prank). So for me, why should some groups have access to this information and others not? Who gets to control who has so much info?

Again, the info itself is not necessarily the problem I see, it's the asymmetry and how those people use the asymmetric info they have on me, which can be to powerfully help me or hurt me or maybe even ignore me.

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

#604

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#605

Post by FalconSensei »

ElFitz wrote: post #589
FalconSensei wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived Brazil, they used to do like 1 ad (plus trailers), so it was pretty quick, and because everywhere (where I lived) had numbered seats, you could just be 5 min 'late'. Now when I moved to Canada: no numbered seats, and 20 (yeah, TWENTY) minutes of ads + trailers. WTF is wrong with you people? I just don't go anymore

Absolutely! It’s the same in France. Either you get a random seat, perhaps apart from your party, perhaps miss a bit of the movie (although unlikely), and get not to watch ads. Or you arrive on time, perhaps slightly early, get to pick where you sit, together, and get a shit ton of ads shoved down your eyes and ears for nearly half an tour, in full IMAX & DolbyVision 20.8. Edit: Oh, and you don’t know at what time th…

I just straight up refuse to pay for no numbered seats, specially if it's not only me and my wife. I want to go to the theatre for the experience, and having to stress if we are going to sit together/in a good spot is not what I have in mind for that

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

#606

Post by ElFitz »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #514
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.

Y'all should really start naming manufacturers and models so I can avoid them.

Here

LG ads: https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/10/22323790/lg-oled-tv-...

Samsung connecting to open WiFi: https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/if-you-choose-to-not-c...

Samsung TV ads (you’ll find more sources, but adweek seemed a pretty ironic choice): https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/samsung-ads-debuts-thre...

Samsung, LG, Sony & others spying on what you watch: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/smarter-living/how-to-sto...

Quite a lot to avoid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#607

Post by yarcob »

aerosmile wrote: post #596
yarcob wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess we have to define effective. Is it effective from the consumer point of view? That might be a long discussion, and we might assume that a world without advertising might be the most effective way to live your life, etc. But is it effective from the advertisers' point of view? Unless you want to call 5+ million marketing teams around the world total idiots, you have to assume that they are meeting or exceeding…

If that's your takeaway, then I think you need to read this thread again.

1) Nobody is saying that ads aren't profitable or that marketers are throwing money out the window because they are stupid. The discussion is about whether invasive user tracking is effective. Ads can be profitable even though user tracking is ineffective.

2) This thread also is mostly about your very weak argument. You wrote:

> Facebook has created the most sophisticated ad targeting engine the world has ever seen. You want proof? Look at their financial statements.

That's just not a good argument. Who knows, maybe Facebooks tracking really is the best thing in the world, but the fact that Facebook is raking in loads of cash on its own tells us very little about how effective their user tracking is.

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

#608

Post by leokennis »

snappyTertle wrote: post #594
leokennis wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: blocking ads guilt free: Not that long ago someone posted this beautiful Banksy quote about it on HN: > “People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They ar…

You're coming from privilege. Just because you can afford it doesn't mean everyone else has money to spend on entertainment.

So just because someone’s poor it’s ok that Facebook treats them like a chump (invade their privacy and show them dumb ads), because they offer their product for free?

Facebook doesn’t give a rats ass about equity. If they did they’d copy a model like Apple’s App Store: as developer you pick a price tier for your app or subscription. That same tier translates into for example €2,99 per month in Europe, but the equivalent of €0,25 in less privileged markets. So the luckier people of the world subsidize the less fortunate, as it should be.

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

#609

Post by leokennis »

awillen wrote: post #591
no_time wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

To channel my money towards anything I have to make money. To make money I have to sell things to customers. The world prior to 20 years ago was a very different one in terms of the scale and reach companies could achieve. Pretending as though the situation now is comparable is just naive on your part. And honestly, the drama of calling it a cancer is just silly and dramatic. If you think this is all so terrible, go…

It’s nice that Facebooks enables you to reach customers and make your businesses viable and profitable.

Doesn’t mean that Facebook isn’t a cancer on society, enabling a skyrocketing in polarization, setting groups up against each other against their best interests, giving megaphones to the most vile humans turds imaginable etc.

The nice and civil “Mount Pleasant baseball league” Facebook page that your ads run on and that make your business profitable are at best an unintended side effect of that.

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

#610

Post by aerosmile »

yarcob wrote: post #607
aerosmile wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we have to define effective. Is it effective from the consumer point of view? That might be a long discussion, and we might assume that a world without advertising might be the most effective way to live your life, etc. But is it effective from the advertisers' point of view? Unless you want to call 5+ million marketing teams around the world total idiots, you have to assume that they are meeting or exceeding…

If that's your takeaway, then I think you need to read this thread again. 1) Nobody is saying that ads aren't profitable or that marketers are throwing money out the window because they are stupid. The discussion is about whether invasive user tracking is effective. Ads can be profitable even though user tracking is ineffective. 2) This thread also is mostly about your very weak argument. You wrote: > Facebook has cr…

You're just confused about how marketing works. The fact that you're dissociating tracking sophistication from performance tells me all I need to know. To learn more, dig a bit into the iOS14 impact on the Facebook performance results.
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