171–180 of 611 posts
Look, I'm not an ad aficionado either, but if it weren't for ads, the lifestyle of a lot of people on HN would be dramatically different — particularly for those doling out unsolicited advice to publishers on running a sustainable media business in 2024.
You say that as if that's a bad thing
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Following this argument all political propaganda is OK too? And I can distract you when you are working? And I can pollute your view? Or track you around the internet?
If you show me an office full of distractions and say, "would you like to work here? It comes with distractions" then of course that's fine (I would say no). But in fact most people prefer the tradeoffs that come with the distractions
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They absolutely don't though. They skew the playing field to whoever has the most access to ad publishing (most money usually). I'd bet that a significant proportion of all the VC money raised over the last 25 years was funneled straight to Google AdSense.
Advertising is fundamentally corrosive to society and should be outlawed with few and carefully tailored exceptions. Any business models that consequently fail, fail because their externalities to collective society are now priced in.
> Advertising is fundamentally corrosive to society Interesting, why?
This is a bad take. Ads are not the problem. Behavioural ads with suriveillance and data economy is. Static ads or contextual ads are the answer. Some of the best examples I can think of on the top of my head is duckduckgo.com and https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ Paywall doesn't stop data surveillance. All the news sites have become paywalled because ads revenue dried up because people installing ad blocker…
I'll quote you "this is a bad take". What's bad is asking me to pay money and then serving me premium ads because you now know i'm someone with disposable income and i'm willing to give it to a premium publication.
> Ads are a good way to make revenue when it is done right.
In an ideal world, yes. That ideal world is long gone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are ads and in many jurisdictions Also treated like ads. Weird that This is not the case in the US?
They aren't all ads, because the situation gets really muddy. If a website talks about an upcoming movie is that an ad? What if they were shown the movie before its release?
It's an issue but I'd be happy with a 90% solution over a 0% solution.
Blame consumers for this. If a company sells a service for $10/mo ad-free and $9/mo completely loaded with ads, most people will pick the latter plan. Why won't they offer it then?
I don't because in this case that's not an option. Is either free with shitty ads or paid with "better" ads.
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Yes, please!
Once a while I turn off ad-blocker to remind myself how bad it got. And OMG! It is bad, Bad, BAD! Unusable. Sometimes is less more.
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They level the playing field and provide economic opportunity to hard working entrepreneurs everywhere. They absolutely don't though. They skew the playing field to whoever has the most access to ad publishing (most money usually). I'd bet that a significant proportion of all the VC money raised over the last 25 years was funneled straight to Google AdSense.
What you're describing is leveling the playing field. Without Ads you'd have 10 entrepreneurs. With it you have 10000
Don't work in ads, never did, don't make money from them. I don't mind ads one bit, except video unskipable ones. I find stuff to buy there all the time, or discover new tools, sometimes I'll buy an equivalent thing years later that I remember I found first in an ad. If I want to research competitors to something, I just google the something and click the ads. And I also like that I like something that makes so many…
I needed a washing machine - so I went online and purchased one from a large retailer. For the next month all I got was ads for washing machines - many from the retailer I purchased from.
It has made me want to not reset my browser so frequently.