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“Your frustration is the product”

daringfireball.net

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Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#161

Post by Terr_ »

dfxm12 wrote: post #116
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So exactly when was this? Even Geocities was full of punch the monkey ads and the web was inundated with X10 pop under ads. Right before the web became a thing, Usenet was starting to become inundated with spam

There are distinctions to be made between rotating/static display ads, spam and everything (i.e., user surveillance) that encompasses digital advertising today. Personally, ads don't bother me. Spam is annoying in terms of UX. But really, user surveillance is what we need to worry about in terms of UX, our privacy, security, etc.

I think there's a worse-step beyond passive surveillance, where ad-networks function as a channel for viruses that seek to change your computer, along with scams and phishing.

Ad-blocking--refusing to run their code--is a simply common sense when the networks are not liable for ensuring that the code they send is not malicious.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#162

Post by egypturnash »

piperswe wrote: post #98
andai wrote: post #89

Does anyone know a form of internet advertising that isn't complete cancer? On the one end we've got Google Ads, which spies on your users everywhere they go. (I think most ad networks are in the same category, unfortunately.) On the other end, you've got "someone emailed me to negotiate a sponsorship / affiliate thing and I added the banner/link manually, with no tracking code." I only really see those two options.…

Project Wonderful took the best of both (automated auction for ads, but there's only one ad active at any given moment for any given ad slot so no targeting) but apparently it wasn't able to keep making enough money to stay around

ComicAd Network exists solely to fill the gap PW left, I really need to get around to setting it up on my current comics project.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#163

Post by PaulHoule »

andrekandre wrote: post #141
PaulHoule wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and many other sins. I go to YouTube and see a lot of things that make me question the narrative that this is an advanced system that elicits user preferences, makes markets clear, allows competitors to enter the market, etc. The first ad I see if is for Chrome. Well I'm already using Chrome because sometimes Youtube punishes me for using Firefox. So the message is "lights are on and nobody is home", I mean, they…

> I know the numbers say Google and Facebook are making money hand over fist but on the ground my perception is that it looks like a Potemkin Village that is trying to fool investors into thinking there is a vibrant "advertising economy" when it is really a vast wasteland like daytime TV where it is all about medicare fraud and personal injury lawyers. by hook or crook, people have things to sell and those platforms…

I'll admit that objects you buy from Temu are often 2-3x larger or (more likely) smaller than than you expect them to be, but often they are OK. Having worked a bit in recommendation engineering I have a lot of respect for what they do.

I've built a number of nice puzzle kits with Chinese themes I bought from Temu but don't actually use any of my kemonomimi supplies I bought from Temu and instead rely on American fashion brands, Etsy or commissions.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#164

Post by grishka »

egypturnash wrote: post #160

> As Bose notes, “A lot of websites actively interfere the reader from accessing them by pestering them with their ‘apps’ these days. I don’t know where this fascination with getting everyone to download your app comes from.” It comes from people who literally do not understand, and do not enjoy, the web, but yet find themselves running large websites. I would presume that this fascination with pushing viewers to the…

Also because they can spam you with notifications through the app and that surely makes some chart go up. As someone with meticulous notification hygiene, it's always surprising to me just how many people allow every app to send notifications when it asks, without thinking about it at all.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#165

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dfxm12 wrote: post #111
mattw2121 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the original vibe of the Internet. There was a time when it was fundamentally a community. People hosted things for the sheer joy of doing it and for the satisfaction of contributing. If I loved King Crimson, I might create a site expressing that love and also host lyrics to their songs. Not to generate ad revenue. Not with any expectation of being reimbursed for hosting costs. I did…

we lost the original vibe of the Internet. The signal (fan sites) to noise (sites focusing on revenue) ratio is way off today. The issues are that ad revenue generating sites are too plentiful, in some cases they are generated by code and they are more highly placed in search engine results. SEO and procedurally created content is where we lost the way (I think the lure of getting rich as a social media influencer or…

Were you using Google to search? Those fan sites don't serve up Google ads, so Google has no incentive to surface them for you.

People keep telling me that Google lost against SEO, but in reality they just realized that SEO was good for their bottom line.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#166

Post by jodrellblank »

alephnerd wrote: post #85
tagami wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-1995

The majority of internet users wouldn't have experienced that supposed world. The median age in the US in 39, which means at least half of all Americans would have been in elementary school or not around during that supposed era of the internet, and the mass adoption of the internet only really began in earnest in the early 2000s.

> "that supposed world ... that supposed era of the internet"

"Supposed: Presumed to be true or real without conclusive evidence". You think there isn't conclusive evidence that the internet existed before 1995? o_O

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#167

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #166
alephnerd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of internet users wouldn't have experienced that supposed world. The median age in the US in 39, which means at least half of all Americans would have been in elementary school or not around during that supposed era of the internet, and the mass adoption of the internet only really began in earnest in the early 2000s.

> " that supposed world ... that supposed era of the internet " "Supposed: Presumed to be true or real without conclusive evidence". You think there isn't conclusive evidence that the internet existed before 1995? o_O

We were all setting up Gopher servers?

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#168

Post by Schiendelman »

PaulHoule wrote: post #75

It was funny but when we switched from my failing Alienware laptop to a new M4 Mac Mini my wife was absolutely furious at the ad saturation until I switched her from Safari to Firefox and installed an ad blocker. I guess I could have installed one in Safari if she registered an Apple account but that's something she'd feel no need for at all. (e.g. as maligned as it is, the Microsoft account really is one account you…

She doesn't use icloud? I'm surprised she'd get no utility...

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#169

Post by notsure357 »

Apple News is a fantastic service for avoiding most of these problems. The BBC put up a paywall on their site for anyone in the US but I can still read every article for free on Apple News. Politico wants me to create an account on my phone to read their articles but I can read them just fine on Apple News. New York Times is one of the few major publications not on Apple News, overall there are enough national news choices that I don't care which ones aren't there.

Re: “Your frustration is the product”

#170

Post by kittikitti »

jes5199 wrote: post #77

I used to work at a startup that was trying to replace ads as the funding source for news (we failed, obviously) but the crazy thing we discovered is that the people who run news websites mostly don’t know where their ads are coming from, have forgotten how the ad system was installed in the first place, and cannot turn them off if they try we actually shipped a server-side ad blocker, for a parter who had so complet…

Thank you for this insight. Even as a developer, I can easily lose track of all the trackers I've included in a webpage. Usually, if I see a tracker in the code, it's already obfuscated and I provide the benefit of the doubt to leave it in.

It's only when I jump back into the ads management page where I'm able to get a better idea. Even then, the specific trackers are hidden behind a variety of menu items that can change every time. This post made me realize that I need a better strategy as things are getting ridiculous with ads.

I used to be someone who didn't use ad blockers because some of them are botnets. It's just not the same anymore, as I would trust the botnets with my data over the advertisers.

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