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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

#621

Post by sydthrowaway »

lwb wrote: post #332
cm2012 wrote: post #116

I own an advertising agency. I've tracked ios impressions % over time on all of our remarketing campaigns (as a proxy), its down about 30% from peak and stabilized. Not a huge deal. LOL at this below: "Seufert estimated that in the first full quarter users see the prompt, the iOS changes could cut Facebook’s revenue by 7% if roughly 20% of users agree to be tracked. If just 10% of users grant Facebook tracking permis…

> FB revenue is going to be up in Q3, not down, would bet $10k on that. Why?

Instagram is AWS of FB at this point. It's a money printing machine.

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

#622

Post by sturza »

svachalek wrote: post #413
sturza wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you sell bras for women over 50?

When the user indicates they are looking to buy bras for women over 50.

so you would keep user input forever without any personalised prediction forever?

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

#623

Post by chillacy »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #587
chillacy wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common view is that both sides in an economic transaction gain some sort of benefit. Nonetheless sentiments like "all labor is exploitation" are fairly common, so I can see why that view exists, given the power disparity.

I believe your first point and disbelieve the second. That doesn't get away from the basic fact that all advertising is an attempt at manipulation. The advertiser is trying to encourage a transaction when there wouldn't otherwise have been one. It would be pointless if this wasn't the case. If you don't want to be manipulated at all (my preference) then it's better not to see targeted adverts.

Hmm, if manipulation means intending a change in behavior in the recipient then this is true. But by that definition many things are manipulative, like regulation / tax codes (which create behavior changes). So I'm not sure if I quite understand this idea of seeking a change in behavior being distasteful.

Maybe it's that some advertisers create the problem they're solving (e.g. body image issues, etc)? Or that it's used for commercial ends? Or that the best product recommendations typically come from friends and family so why bother having ads anyways?

Having bought some products I discovered from ads myself, I can't help but think that I have benefited from the arrangement in a similar way that both parties benefit in economic exchanges. Obviously I'd rather have had my friend tell me but that might have taken... who knows how long.

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

#624

Post by phreeza »

JohnFen wrote: post #612
phreeza wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it different from your browser history being stored locally?

Because the issue isn't where the data is stored, the issue is what the data is used for. In this case, it would be used in a way that still reveals personal information about me -- for instance, in a FLoC-type setup, it's still being revealed which cohorts I'm a part of. Having the data stored locally is certainly better than having it stored in someone else's database. No argument there, that's an improvement. But…

So is the argument that personalized ads are inherently bad?

Arguments against tracking/personalization I have heard in the past, which make sense to me, are that having all the data stored remotely gives a lot of power to an evil engineer or government to exploit your data. With a 100% local approach, based on data that is stored anyway, that aspect would go away.

I don't see how in that world personalized ads are worse than unpersonalized ads. Ads in general can be argued to have negative externalities (though I am not 100% convinced of that), but if we take their existence as a given, and the choice is between personalized and unpersonalized, I think I would prefer personalized.

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

#625

Post by lkrubner »

aviraldg wrote: post #94
_zzaw wrote: 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.

"Users who are opted-in to tracking are subsidising those who aren't"

Which gives them leverage. If they were better organized, they could make demands based on that leverage.

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

#626

Post by _carbyau_ »

fuzxi wrote: post #568
_carbyau_ wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Damn. That is pretty close isn't it!

I'd like it without a Corporation-In-The-Middle between me and the recipients but I will have to check this out.

Thanks!

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

#627

Post by account42 »

sleavey wrote: post #393
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…

I'm in the same boat as you and I don't have a solution but I would say that I'd be fine if the web were far, far smaller. Most content on the web is trash. The information density of most YouTube videos is so low that it would be quicker to read a concise text article on the topic if such a thing existed (it usually doesn't). Gone are the days (perhaps before 2007 or so) when most blogs were labours of love; now the…

> it would be quicker to read a concise text article on the topic if such a thing existed (it usually doesn't)

Often it does, but Google pushes youtube videos to the top of the search results. The same Google that earns money from ads shown along those videos of course.

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

#628

Post by account42 »

afavour wrote: post #381
continuational wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd simply prefer if all services became paid.

It’s undeniable, though, that such a limitation would shut off access for people who can’t afford it. You see it today with newspaper paywalls and the like. I suspect the vast majority of us in HN would have no problem paying for most of these services but I’m not sure how I feel about us making those choices on behalf of those that can’t.

If you wan't social support nets, get your government to create social support nets. Using "but think of the poor" as an excuse for an industry that is designed to get you to part with as much of your money as they can is absurd.

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

#629

Post by account42 »

srg0 wrote: post #597
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? I think most HN users will agree that the good stuff costs money. So the question is really who pays, and how. For me the ideal end-game is ability to get what I want through a direct pay-as-you-go transaction. In the ideal world this transaction is explicit, instant, anonymous, nearly zero overhead and non-recurring. Explicit, because as a consumer I want to be able to say no, an…

> I think most HN users will agree that the good stuff costs money. So the question is really who pays, and how.

Advertisement does not pay for the vast majority of content created. The creators pay by spending their free time making it.

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

#630

Post by ElFitz »

no_time wrote: post #617
ElFitz wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People apparently mostly rely on PiHole & other similar options for that.

Blocking outright is probably an edge case these devices will detect and handle differently in the following years as more and more people will be aware of the option. That's why I think experimenting with more advanced sabotage will pay off in the long run.

Well, we always could simply open them up and remove the WiFi antenna. Unless it’s deeply integrated in some chip or another.
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