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You Are the Product (2017)

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Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#11

Post by BiteCode_dev »

reader_mode wrote: post #6
dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

You can pay for YouTube premium and get rid of ads. If you spend a non trivial amount of time on YouTube it's well worth it, especially the family account. Don't want to be the product ? Pay for your services then - the money has to come from somewhere.

Oh, but I'm OK with paying.

I paid for netflix, lastpass and zoom. I still pay for dynalist, audible or for having my own email address.

However, I'm not OK with having a logged in google account that accumulates everything I do into their DB and AI while I use their services.

Even when you pay, they still milk your private life.

And they have proved time after time they cannot be trusted with it.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#12

Post by 4cao »

You are not even the product, you are a resource that is being harvested, processed, and packaged as a product.

Another way to think about it, a product is an output from the system, and you are just one of the inputs.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#13

Post by kmnc »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #9
reader_mode wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay for YouTube premium and get rid of ads. If you spend a non trivial amount of time on YouTube it's well worth it, especially the family account. Don't want to be the product ? Pay for your services then - the money has to come from somewhere.

Word. People won't pay so ads happen.

Bullshit. I pay to go to the movies, I am advertised to. Why do you think online services will maintain this “pay is for ad fee”?

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#14

Post by [deleted] »

dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

[deleted]

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#15

Post by an_opabinia »

dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

> When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch.

In a world where Facebook just makes up video impressions and neither they nor Google let you really audit their inventory, it is basically impossible to tell the difference between (1) seasonal effects, (2) data-enabled ad targeting, and (3) income-related effects. In other words, if you show an ad at the right time to a rich person, say by only targeting iPad users shortly after a new Apple product release, which is known from the user agent and does not require behavioral tracking at all, your ad will perform as well as a typical interest-targeted ad but with lower cost.

Which is to say, your data is valuable in the marketing sense that it gets people to spend more on targeted ads, but not necessarily in some secular sense that it actually increases returns. After fundamentals (like what you are selling) and the creative, most of the evidence points to trends in how rich (and poor) people use technology, like iPad users versus entry-level Android users, as being the greatest predictor of an ad's returns.

Ads customers don't really know if user profile information like their browsing behavior improves ROI because it is secularly important for the ad or because it is also correlated with greater income. It is unmeasurable for ad customers, so people claiming that they know are just lying.

At least among the ad tech companies I know, I'm told the user profile data gathering story is very valuable for ad buyers and investors, but fundamentally they do not use any behavioral data in ad targeting because they did not observe an increase in clicks - for their guaranteeably low income user channels.

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#17

Post by reader_mode »

kmnc wrote: post #10
reader_mode wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay for YouTube premium and get rid of ads. If you spend a non trivial amount of time on YouTube it's well worth it, especially the family account. Don't want to be the product ? Pay for your services then - the money has to come from somewhere.

So the content producers just advertise to you directly, why wouldn’t they? The bigger they get, the more premium viewers, the more sponsors they receive. Eventually YouTube won’t like being cut out gain and boom to YouTube premium now has ads.

You mean sponsored videos ? I don't follow channels that push those. If YouTube starts adding ads to premium why would I keep paying ?

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#18

Post by travisporter »

dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

I agree. I used to watch CGP Greys videos, until he had a podcast lamenting ublock and how even though it’s open source, should be blocked. I get it, it’s how you make your crust but there are other revenue sources when you make it big. Nebula seems promising for the science-y youtubers

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#19

Post by bobthepanda »

an_opabinia wrote: post #15
dghughes wrote: post #5

It's tiring having a finger waved at you for blocking advertisements. When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. The Internet has become an ad machine that throws a tantrum if anyone dares to block advertising or tracking (of yourself). YouTube was meant for sharing videos but now "influencers", many channel owners, and YouTube itself balk at an…

> When we all know that our data of who we are and our actions is just as valuable as the ads we are forced to watch. In a world where Facebook just makes up video impressions and neither they nor Google let you really audit their inventory, it is basically impossible to tell the difference between (1) seasonal effects, (2) data-enabled ad targeting, and (3) income-related effects. In other words, if you show an ad a…

IIRC isn’t a very standard way of measuring campaign success just using some type of discount code (e.g. use X at mywebsite.com for 10pc off)

Re: You Are the Product (2017)

#20

Post by cromwellian »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #11
reader_mode wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay for YouTube premium and get rid of ads. If you spend a non trivial amount of time on YouTube it's well worth it, especially the family account. Don't want to be the product ? Pay for your services then - the money has to come from somewhere.

Oh, but I'm OK with paying. I paid for netflix, lastpass and zoom. I still pay for dynalist, audible or for having my own email address. However, I'm not OK with having a logged in google account that accumulates everything I do into their DB and AI while I use their services. Even when you pay, they still milk your private life. And they have proved time after time they cannot be trusted with it.

Netflix also accumulates all of your watching habits and feeds it into AI while using their services.
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