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Vietnam bans unskippable ads

saigoneer.com

121–130 of 835 posts

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#121

Not a great regulatory move, in my opinion. But I really wish ad companies would implement this rule across the board. If you can't sell me on your ad in 5 seconds, it's unlikely you can sell me on your product in 15 or 30 seconds. And if your product is of any interest to me whatsoever, I'm happy to continue watching the ad. I sit through movie trailers and tech ads all the time, even with an option to skip. But I h…

> But I really wish ad companies would implement this rule across the board. If you can't sell me on your ad in 5 seconds, it's unlikely you can sell me on your product in 15 or 30 seconds. When talking about how ads "don't work on you"; it's very important to remember that just like every single other human you're not immune to propaganda.

I did not claim, nor imply, that ads do not work on me. In fact, I alluded to the opposite in my closing line: " In five seconds, you can remind me that dawn exists, fulfilling the main purpose of the ad[...]"

> the main purpose of the ad

I recognize that showing me the name of the product is the most valuable part of an ad, by far. It's entirely about repetition which breeds enough familiarity for trial, and enough personal affirmation if the trial is a positive one.

But, that aside, if I'm looking for a skip button before the 5 seconds is up, I either do not purchase the product (I'm not sold: I don't buy), or I'm already a purchaser of the product and I'm either a fan (Your ad didn't sell me: I was sold, beforehand) or I'm not (I'm not sold: I don't buy it anymore). It wasn't a statement about ads not working on me, it's a statement about a personal, practical response to ads that I am conciously aware of because I'm already looking for a skip button.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#122
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, if you don’t make yourself known to potential customers you’re very screwed

Most of the YT ads are AI rubbish. I can't imagine those fake "realistic puppy" ads generate any sales whatsoever. Same for the monocular that can zoom into a book title from a mountain range away. And nearly all the other YT and news feed ads one typically sees.

Frankly, they should be illegal. If a physical store did that in Canada, it certainly would be. I'm surprised Canada hasn't reacted to these overabundant fake-product ads.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#123
post #87
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…

The problem isn't fundamentally advertising - it's stuff like toxic and anti-user advertisements, and the ad industry not knowing what the word "privacy" means.

I would disagree on this. The reason is that the main point of most ads is to induce artificial demand. When successful this is essentially making people think their lives are missing something, repeatedly. I think it is fairly self evident that at scale this simply leads to social discontent, materialism, and the overall degradation of a society.

There are endless studies, such as this [1] demonstrating a significant inverse relationship between ads and happiness. The more ads, the less happy people are. And I think it's very easy to see the causal relationship there. And this would apply even if the ad industry wasn't so scummy.

[1] - https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but on the otherside, ads make available a huge amount of media and services to people who would otherwise be unable to afford it. Like, I suspect a non-trivial percentage of people wouldn't have email if it weren't for gmail and other free w/ads services.

Most internet services are very low cost to offer for any company that has some infrastructure setup already. So for instance 'back in the day', before Google hoovered up everybody's email, what would typically happen is you would get an email address with your ISP.

But that also bound you to your ISP in a way, because switching ISPs meant switching emails. It is better to have then separated.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#127
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would have been a better world without ads. There would be more competition which would improve products and thus outcome for customers. Also most of the demand of goods is artificially created by ads, so there would be less production of crap and thus less resources wasted. It would also mean a whole industry of people would do something else that is potentially not as detrimental to society. The money sp…

While I agree that the world would be better without ads in their current form, we should think why are ads required and what are the benefits. The main issue is how you discover a new product. The main benefit to society is/could be faster progress. The main downside to society could be unhappy people that consume crap. I think smart people should think about alternative solutions, not just think "ads are the proble…

> My personal preference would be a network recommendation system. I would like to know what people I know (and in my extended network) are using and like - being it restaurants, clothes or open source software. I have 90% of friends (or friends of friends) satisfied with something - maybe I should try. Of course it is not a perfect system, but seems much better than what we currently have...

I can think of a hacky solution where your friends can share their (trustpilot?) or alternative accounts username and then you can review what they are reviewing/what they are using etc.

The problem to me feels like nobody I know writes a trustpilot review unless its really bad or really good (I dont know too much about reviewing business)

I feel like someone must have built this though

Another part is how would you get your friends list? If its an open protocol like fediverse, this might have genuine value but you would still need to bootstrap your friends connecting you in fediverse and the whole process.

And oh, insta and other large big tech where your friends already are wont do this because they precisely make money from selling you to ads. It would be harmful to their literal core.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a hip-shot, not a considered position. When I hear "regulation", I think "threat". Either of violence (any physical touch), or financial garnishment. So, to me, ads that last longer than five seconds do not rise to the level of threatening anyone. But assuming that they did, the situation seems like one where there could be any number or ways of following the letter or the law, while flouting the spirit of it. I…

I personally like descriptive regulation over prescriptive regulation. Instead of prescribing exactly what you should do, describe the outcomes you want, and let case law fill in the rest of the owl. That's the only way to prevent violations like this. To be fair, the main disadvantage of this approach is that law is much harder to understand. You can't just read the law as it is written, you also have to familiarize…

Vietnam does not follow common law (i.e. case law) , it follows civil law (same as other Europe and Asia countries)

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#129
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.

And the worst part is, from a societal point of view - it doesnt matter if $companyA wins over $companyB, if the reason they won is that there was more Geico ads than Liberty ads etc. We allow every space to be overrun with these things, wasting our time and infecting our brains and in the end its zero-sum for the companies and negative-sum for us. No value anywhere is created.

The bigger problem is those fake "realistic robot dog" ads, and all the other ai-faked products.

Why YT and Google in general would want to be associated with such scammery, I do not know.

Re: Vietnam bans unskippable ads

#130
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…

I have fallen asleep watching youtube many times. I swear i have woken up in the middle of 20+ minute ads. I thought it was a news article about china when it was an ad. Who knows when the skip button appeared. The few times i have seen these, it has always been a literal fake news show about china.

They also do this with kid’s content on YT but they make it look like a show basically. Might not happen on YT Kids, I basically never use either, but the few times we pulled up YT proper I’ve seen it happen. Get a few videos deep and they slip them in
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