Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

magiclasso.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–15 of 15 posts

Re: Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

#11

Post by happybuy »

rpastuszak wrote: post #8

I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter ( https://butter.sonnet.io ) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a proof-of-concept of a universal ad blocker™ running on your phone? It uses AI (it's very fancy): - model 1: use screen capture to detect ads - model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's…

Why stop there?

Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.

Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.

Re: Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

#12

Post by rpastuszak »

imperio59 wrote: post #4
rpastuszak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hehe, came here to say something similar, i.e. it would be hard to quantify the amount of resources wasted on convincing people to buy things they don't need.

Define "things you don't need" ? That's a very subjective qualification. Even things which may only bring joy to the end consumer but very little objective value otherwise still have the effect of raising the spirits of said consumer a little (or a lot). Like are Magic the gathering cards "something you need"? No. Do they bring endless joy to people who enjoy playing MTG, do they help build supportive communities, et…

Oh no, I don't mean the things that bring joy, on the contrary -- we need more toys and "useless" things around ourselves!

I write about this extensively on https://sonnet.io/posts/reactive-hole/ or https://untested.sonnet.io and I totally agree with you.

I make toys and useless things in my spare time (e.g. https://untested.sonnet.io/Sit.%2C+(together)+devlog+002+–+S... or https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands) and I used to run an MtG club :)

Example of making people buying things they don't need would include sth like: a person who cannot afford to buy an expensive phone every year, getting one because of peer pressure generated by millions of dollars spent on advertising. I'm not talking about someone who would buy the same phone for their own pleasure, I'm talking about someone who would become socially excluded or mocked by his friends at school.

I'm talking about a generated need and compulsion over pleasure.

Re: Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

#13

Post by rpastuszak »

Swizec wrote: post #7
imperio59 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "things you don't need" ? That's a very subjective qualification. Even things which may only bring joy to the end consumer but very little objective value otherwise still have the effect of raising the spirits of said consumer a little (or a lot). Like are Magic the gathering cards "something you need"? No. Do they bring endless joy to people who enjoy playing MTG, do they help build supportive communities, et…

> Define "things you don't need" ? Things you wouldn't seek out unless you were first shown an ad. MTG is a great example of the opposite. You seek out something fun to do with your friends. You happen to see an ad for MTG as fulfilling that need. Fantastic! Advertising works as it should. But if I buy a print-on-demand mug as a gag for my sister's birthday, do I really need to spend the rest of my life looking at ad…

Precisely: I meant generated need and compulsion over pleasure.

Re: Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

#14

Post by rpastuszak »

happybuy wrote: post #11
rpastuszak wrote: post #8

I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter ( https://butter.sonnet.io ) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a proof-of-concept of a universal ad blocker™ running on your phone? It uses AI (it's very fancy): - model 1: use screen capture to detect ads - model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's…

Why stop there? Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to th…

> Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.

I need to go to bed, but... I used to run an AR startup (pre-pokemon go/AR craze) and I played with an idea like this. What works better: polarised sunglasses and shitty LCD screen ads*!

* you might wanna tilt your head by 90deg from time to time

Re: Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions

#15

Post by rolldat777 »

samatman wrote: post #5

This doesn't pass a cursory sniff test: Web traffic is 17% of Internet traffic, so even if we accept 25% of that is ads (I'm dubious) that would be 4.5% of traffic. That would add up to 0.3% of emissions. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271735/internet-traffic-...

I can't find a monetary breakdown of online vs. other, but by total advertising costs, I see 1.5%. So if online is not dominant I agree that they are high but close, maybe within the order of magnitude.
Post reply on HN