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Vietnam bans unskippable ads

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Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#261

Post by jason_s »

lloeki wrote: post #208
jason_s wrote: post #42

I just uninstalled a game from my mobile phone this morning that had heavy ad usage. It was interesting to note the different ad display strategies. From least to most annoying: - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display an animated ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear after 20-30 seconds - display an animated a…

You missed one of the worst: mandatory interactive ones. My wife is a sucker for these horribly generic flashy F2P puzzle-ish games. There are these ads that pop up every N action or something; some of these look like a mini-game and are actually an ad for another of those F2P games, and you have to play the mini-game that showcases some dumb simple mechanic of the game it advertises for a little bit before you can d…

whoa -- I've never run into these. I've seen interactive puzzle ads, but the "X" to close always pops up in 20-30 seconds.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#262

Post by TeMPOraL »

bko wrote: post #112
_jab wrote: post #13

I've often wondered whether the world would be better without ads. The incentive to create services (especially in social media) that strive to addict their users feels toxic to society. Often, it feels uncertain whether these services are providing actual value, and I suspect that whether a user would pay for a service in lieu of watching ads is incidentally a good barometer for whether real value is present. Don't…

Better from whom? As a user, maybe. But if you're trying to compete, it's incredibly useful to get exposure. For instance, suppose you run a competitor to Salesforce and you want to buy the Salesforce keyword because you provide a better product. I don't know how you would bootstrap that otherwise. If anything the big businesses use advertising as a protection moat. As a small business, I would def prefer to be in a…

> For instance, suppose you run a competitor to Salesforce and you want to buy the Salesforce keyword because you provide a better product. I don't know how you would bootstrap that otherwise.

Why would you assume I'm providing a better product? Ads are predominantly needed by those providing worse products, because spending money on marketing has much better ROI than actually creating a good product.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#263

Post by wizzwizz4 »

gtowey wrote: post #231
jason_s wrote: post #42

I just uninstalled a game from my mobile phone this morning that had heavy ad usage. It was interesting to note the different ad display strategies. From least to most annoying: - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display an animated ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear after 20-30 seconds - display an animated a…

This is why instead of specific legislation that winds up being a cat-and-mouse game with companies, the practice of creating specialized agencies with a general charter and delegating the specifics to them is often employed. But it's also why this administration is dismantling those agencies as fast as it can -- without them the legislature will always be hopelessly behind on proper regulation.

"This administration" being the US, I assume. Note that the article is about Vietnam.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#264

Post by tensor »

al_borland wrote: post #90
iammjm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would definitely be better without ads. All ads are poisonous. All of them first convince you that you and your life as it is is not good enough, and that in order to be happy again you need to spend money to buy a $product.

As much as I hate ads, I don’t know that it’s so simple. There are products that do solve legitimate problems people have. Maybe there is less of that now, but in this past this was very true, and advertising helped make people aware that solutions to their problems have been developed. The first washing machine, for example. The problem comes when the advertisement manufacturers problems that didn’t previously exist…

The fix is actually fairly simple IMO, though will never be implemented. Make all ads passive, e.g. require people to explicitly ask to see them. For example, when I want to see what new video games are around, I go to review sites and forums. It's opt-in.

Making all ads only legal in bazar-like environments, banning all other forms of "forced" ad viewing, and also banning personalized ads completely, would go a very long way to fixing the issues. Hell, we can start with simply banning personalized ads, that alone would effectively destroy the surveillance economy by making it illegal to use that data for anything other than providing the service the customer purchases.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#266

Post by georgefrowny »

lloeki wrote: post #208
jason_s wrote: post #42

I just uninstalled a game from my mobile phone this morning that had heavy ad usage. It was interesting to note the different ad display strategies. From least to most annoying: - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display an animated ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear after 20-30 seconds - display an animated a…

You missed one of the worst: mandatory interactive ones. My wife is a sucker for these horribly generic flashy F2P puzzle-ish games. There are these ads that pop up every N action or something; some of these look like a mini-game and are actually an ad for another of those F2P games, and you have to play the mini-game that showcases some dumb simple mechanic of the game it advertises for a little bit before you can d…

I don't think I'm especially stupid and I try very hard not to interact with ads more then I have to, but I have often found it impossible to escape those ads without ending up being delivered to the app store page.

Maybe I didn't notice the X in some part of the display or whatever, but even if by making a concerted effort to not do it, you still "convert", their click though stats must be crazy.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#267

Post by wizzwizz4 »

kelnos wrote: post #258
tracker1 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the phone books of old, you had ads as part of the directories... Businesses paid for those listings... Even today's equivalent, yelp, etc. are trying to sell add-on services to the businesses and can harm your businss if you don't pay up for the features.

Right, and in this new ad-free world, those things works not be allowed, and all businesses would be on a level playing field, with none privileged over the others simply because they have a larger advertising budget.

I own ten thousand businesses, all of whom employ me as a contractor. All businesses being on a level playing field puts me at quite an advantage!

If people are using their advertising budget unethically, you should expect them to find new unethical ways to use their advertising budget once you've eliminated the existing ones. Rather than playing whack-a-mole, take a step back, and see if you can fundamentally change the rules of the game. Why is advertising bad? What do you want to happen? Fixing the "how" too firmly, too soon, is an effective way to produce bad policy, no matter how good your intentions.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#268

Post by kelnos »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #253
iammjm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would definitely be better without ads. All ads are poisonous. All of them first convince you that you and your life as it is is not good enough, and that in order to be happy again you need to spend money to buy a $product.

Obviously, if you could just delete the ads without changing anything else the world would be better, but that's not how it works. Lots of businesses sustain themselves on ad revenue - would the world be a better place if we had no ads, but - TV was twice the cost - Google, YouTube, etc. (insert your favorite ad-supported website here) didn't exist or cost a monthly subscription - All news was paywalled - Any ad-supp…

Given that companies often spend a significant fraction of their budgets on advertising, I wonder if some products would be cheaper if advertising was banned. Sure, maybe some ad-supported services would be paywalled, but it might end up being a wash in the end.

At the very very very least, every ad-supported service should be required to offer an option to pay and see no ads. I do pay for services I use regularly when they offer it as an option to avoid ads.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#269

Post by x187463 »

xoxxala wrote: post #72
DrewADesign wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite most annoying ad tactic is the trick slowing down progress bar. It starts off fast making it seem like it’s going to be, say, a ten-second ad so you decide to suffer through it… but progressively slows so you notice at like the 20 second mark you’re only 2/3 of the way through the progress bar, so probably less than halfway done. Murderous rage.

Mr. Beast on youtube is guilty of that. Matt Parker of Standup Maths fame did an in-depth look at how that works. Whoever came up with that type of progress bar must hate people in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc0OU1yJD-c

A fantastic video from Matt, as usual.

Yet another data point on why nobody should be wasting a second watching Mr Beast content. Complete algorithmically optimized garbage.

I recall Mr Beast showing up in a Colin Furze video for a few minutes and Mr Beast was very clearly incapable of being a normal person. He was obviously out of place, being in full makeup and styled, and couldn't seem to be bothered to actually engage or express real interest in the subject. I think the guy has replaced his real persona with some manifestation of the YouTube algorithm. If he's not actively making money, he's just a shell.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#270

Post by drdeca »

wat10000 wrote: post #195
kyralis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the niche, really. I despise ads, but I can also admit to having learned about products from them that I have subsequently purchased and been pleased with. Sometimes the ad lets me know about an entire type of product that I didn't know existed but found very useful, and I probably didn't even by the actual brand that was advertised. If you consider the general concept of "letting people know what products…

Advertising isn't the general concept of letting people know what products are available for purchase. It's more specifically doing this for money and showing it to people who don't want to see it. One might quibble about exactly what the word "advertising" encompasses, but that description covers the bad stuff pretty well, whatever name you want to give it. I'd boil it down to: if you added a "don't show this" optio…

> and showing it to people who don't want to see it.

So, do superbowl ads not count as ads because a non-negligible portion of the viewership wants to see them? Or are you saying that there needs to be a non-negligible fraction of the viewers who don’t want to see it for it to be an ad?

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