Why I Work on Ads
jefftk.com
Why I Work on Ads
1–10 of 882 posts
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#2Very interesting point of view. My main takeaway from this is "Better ads than paywalls" which entails that the only alternative to ads is a paywall which I don't agree with. I think that there is a middleground with freemium, free trial model.
Also there was a comment somewhere I can't find right now "There are 2 ways to make money in the internet - bundling and unbundling" with this I think there is value of a paywall that bundles, see Apple News. In the end I don't like the way AdTech works right now, I am not sure about what's next. I don't think explicit regulation is the way, especially since Internet is international and law is as a rule local. But either we will sell our data to monopolies or we will die in bills for selfhosting everything and even though involuntarily our internet histories will be sold.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#3Because of the salary?
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#4Biggest issue with this argument - advertising supported businesses are fine, contextual advertising is fine, targeted cross site advertising is a pointless red queen race that is undermining our society in multiple ways.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#5This article is really attacking a straw man. I don't know many people who think advertising per se is morally objectionable (annoying, yes).
What many people find reprehensible is all the invasive spyware and tracking that comes with modern ad tech (largely pioneered by Google).
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#6Because of the salary?
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Re: Why I Work on Ads
#7Very interesting point of view. My main takeaway from this is "Better ads than paywalls" which entails that the only alternative to ads is a paywall which I don't agree with. I think that there is a middleground with freemium, free trial model. Also there was a comment somewhere I can't find right now "There are 2 ways to make money in the internet - bundling and unbundling" with this I think there is value of a payw…
There is third way - crypto mining on user computers. I would prefer to mine some crypto for someone instead of seeing ads. Biggest problem: mobile users would be much less "valuable".
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#8That sure sounds like appeasing guilt with charity donations.
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#9Biggest issue with this argument - advertising supported businesses are fine, contextual advertising is fine, targeted cross site advertising is a pointless red queen race that is undermining our society in multiple ways.
Can you say more what you mean by "pointless red queen race"?
Let's say someone wants to sell fishing equipment. The traditional way of doing this is to buy ads on fishing sites. So now my fishing equipment purchases make there be more writing about fishing; yay!
Then one of the fishing websites decides to put a tracking pixel on their site to drop "fishing website visitor" cookies (or, in a future without third-party cookies, a turtledove interest group). They make a deal with a third party provider and get paid a small amount per visitor. Then fishing retailers have a new choice: instead of buying ads on fishing sites they can instead buy ads on any site for users who have one of the "fishing website visitor" cookies. If there were a monopoly fishing site, then this would increase their earnings: while the ad space on their site isn't as valuable, they will set the pixel price high enough that they come out ahead. It's not a monopoly, though, so the price of the pixel gets driven down through competition, and money that would go to fishing sites instead goes to the publishers that people who spend money on fishing equipment visit.
In this case I see how it's worse for fishing sites, but not how it's bad for consumers: their willingness to buy fishing equipment translates into support for all the sites they visit, and not just the fishing sites.
But there are also many niches that don't have economic tie-ins, or have ones that are far weaker than "writing about fishing" and "buying fishing equipment". In a world with targeted advertising, these niches do better, because of overlap between audiences. A "let's have better housing policy" blog can show ads for fishing equipment, vacations, HVAC supplies, or whatever else visitors have shown interest in on other sites.
Additionally, targeted advertising increases the total amount of funding available for online content, because people with niche interests are available to be advertised to in more places. Seeing ten fishing ads once a week when you visit a fishing site vs seeing twenty fishing ads spread over the course of the week, etc.
So while niche publishers in lucrative niches would likely make more money if we only had context-based advertising, I don't think niche publishers overall, publishers overall, or consumers would be better off.
(This is modified from a comment I originally posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620763)
Re: Why I Work on Ads
#10[deleted]