Seriously? Ads? • Hacker News Board

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#141

Post by kreilly » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #128

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

> Fraud. Paypal and others use complex algorithms, special teams and God knows what. But Facebook has an unique and unparalleled data base of a user’s history, friends, activities and what not. The author seems to confuse credit risk and fraud risk. Credit risk pertains to the probability of you being unable or unwilling to honour your commitments. Fraud, within this context, pertains to the unauthorised use of funds…

It's the opposite: Facebook data can mostly help out with fraud (identifying, authenticating users) and is nearly useless for assessing credit risk.

Facebook data is not useless for assessing credit risk. People with high credit scores are likely to be connected to each other via social networks. The converse is likely also true.

Although it is controversial, banks seem to be starting to look at this.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#142

Post by pwny » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #99

jiggy2011 wrote: post #21

Are online payments such a big unsolved problem? It takes me all of 10 seconds to type my CC number and associated security codes. Sites that I use a lot tend to allow subsequent purchases without re-entering them anyway. If everyone's facebook account has CC details attached and a 1 click "pay now" button you are only 1 XSS vulnerability from fraud on an unprecedented scale.

It takes me at least 5 minute just finding my cc.

You don't remember your CC details and have to actually get it out? Wow!

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#143

Post by nachopg » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

jurre wrote: post #27

mtts wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Wallet is actually fairly useless. To load it up you need a credit card. If you have a credit card, you could just as well, uhm, use a credit card.

I think your parent was being sarcastic. We need a sarcasm tag in HTML.

I think your parent was being meta-sarcastic. You have to keep up with the new forms in the internet.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#144

Post by batista » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #105

batista wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been on FB since the beginning. And I've never clicked on an ad. What makes you think I will to actually buy something? FB has several billions of revenue from ads. What makes you think you are not an insignificant outlier and that this move or any other doesn't concern you? Just think people, if everybody did what I do on FB, would FB still exist? If the answer is no, then what you might or might not do, does…

Despite the fact that FB makes money off of ads, do you think people would prefer to have ads on Facebook, or to not have ads? I think the answer is obvious: people prefer no ads. "Advertisement" is a dirty word. People want a free, ad-less product, despite the fact that it's economically unfeasible. That's a problem. What happens when it becomes more widespread or easier to install things like adblock? What happens…

>I think the answer is obvious: people prefer no ads. "Advertisement" is a dirty word. People want a free, ad-less product, despite the fact that it's economically unfeasible.

Well, the answer might be obvious but might not mean much. For example a similar question would be "people prefer to pay for things, or get them for free?". I think the answer would be obvious here too.

>That's a problem. What happens when it becomes more widespread or easier to install things like adblock? What happens if a browser comes along that blocks Facebook cookies and ads by default, but still allows the basic functionality of FB? Don't say it can't happen.

Then the Ad industry will turn RIAA on the users, and will lobby the government for the disallowance of things like AdBlock ("our content is a package deal, you cannot see it, and thus benefit from it, without also seeing our ads").

And it might be successful too, because they will have the support of ALL other industries -- as ads are a crucial element of over-consumption on which they thrive. By leaving it to our "needs" and "wants" only, consumption would drop very low (IIRC, they have studied the effects of a prolonged (a week?) mass media strike during the seventies, and that was the result. That was short term though, long-term should be even worse).

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#145

Post by jiggy2011 » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

pwny wrote: post #142

olalonde wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes me at least 5 minute just finding my cc.

You don't remember your CC details and have to actually get it out? Wow!

It may be different for people who have to remember many credit card numbers. For example I know my personal CC number off my head but not any of the cards I use for business.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#146

Post by kevinrpope » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

diminish wrote: post #84

roguecoder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google failed at implementing Facebook too.

Why not "Coca Cola Buy" NFC payment chip in every bottle too to be used in restaurants/bars? My mother knows the brand Coca Cola, and if Coca Cola hires 1000 engineers to provide an NFC chip in every bottle; they may get 1% from global.....

Wouldn't this get a bit crowded? For example Coke buy, Pepsi buy, McDonalds buy, etc.

I personally wouldn't want to use a system for payment that would only work for one brand.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#147

Post by freehunter » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:19 PM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #119

startupfounder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Economist recently put the fraud loss rate at approximately 0.35% of transactions and up to 1.8% for online payments" For the ~$2 trillion[1] going through online payments, bringing down the online fraud loss by every 0.1% is equal to $2B, if over time Facebook can reduce that online fraud rate by 0.5% or more there is your $10B. Using your real identity to make online payments could reduce that to real world le…

Using your real identity to make online payments could reduce that to real world levels How many of your friends have had their facebook accounts stolen? For me, it's a few percent. "Oh look, another random acquaintance is stuck in Abu Dhabi and needs me to wire them some money" Facebook security isn't nearly good enough to be handed my wallet. Actually it's not my wallet that's the problem, it's the wallet of everyb…

The stricter PCI requirements that would come into play should mitigate some of these "hacks".

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#148

Post by Splines » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:20 PM UTC

digitalsushi wrote: post #125

snowwrestler wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micropayments haven't taken off because people don't want to pay 3 to 5 cents for anything. The perception of value is so low that even a one-button form is too much friction in the user experience. If your article is only worth 3 cents, just show it to me for free and put an ad on the page.

If the transaction processing costs were 0, do you suppose this payment system would still continue to not exist?

There are very few things that are worth 5 cents that you'd get me to pay for that I couldn't just do without.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#149

Post by icebraining » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

iamgilesbowkett wrote: post #116

mtts wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was aware of that. But parent did raise an interesting point. Google Wallet isn't doing too great. Why?

the sheer number of possible answers is overwhelming, but pretty much everything Google does fails, except for search and email. (I can't be the only one who's afraid to find out what their cars are like.) so I'm going to say the reason Google Wallet failed is because it was neither search nor email. I guess you could say Android is only half a failure, because the constant catch-up game they're playing with Apple is…

pretty much everything Google does fails, except for search and email.

AdSense? Youtube?

Also, Google Reader is the leader in its (admittedly small) space. And I'm pretty sure so is Google News. Oh, and Google Maps.

Re: Seriously? Ads?

#150

Post by larrys » Wed, May 30, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #129

SonicSoul wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards suck for many reasons other than just convenience of use. Credit card companies are big cartels with hefty fees to retailers, slow and unpredictable turnaround between when a payment is made, and when it gets to retailers bank, and infrastructure that's not well suited for micro payments, or peer to peer payments. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_futureofmoney/all/1

>Credit card companies are big cartels with hefty fees to retailers, slow and unpredictable turnaround between when a payment is made, and when it gets to retailers bank, and infrastructure that's not well suited for micro payments, or peer to peer payments. The consumer doesn't give two flying fucks about any of this. This is a very important point.

And as a someone selling something by credit card all over the world (stopped counting at 50 countries about 12 years ago) I also don't give two ff's about any of this.

Sure occasionally we get hit with a chargeback ($30 plus the charge amount) and sure we are powerless and they just added some arbitrary $7 month fee. But without this entire system I wouldn't be in business. I also operated a retail business years ago and accepted credit cards. It was a tremendous improvement over having to extend credit to a business owner and then collecting. The fees were well worth the trouble saved.