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30 minutes with a stranger

pudding.cool

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Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#201

Post by koliber »

Ukv wrote: post #144
koliber wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that this is the sole purpose of ads. I can see how people arrive at that opinion, but I feel it is narrow and incomplete. With a little restrospection and introspection, anyone can see examples in their own life where marketing had another purpose. Marketing can take many forms. Many people narrowly define it as "spam emails" or "unsolicited phone calls." Those are also marketing, but there is so much mor…

> first and foremost informs I'd claim any extent to which ads inform the viewer is downstream of the ultimate goal of having people spend money on the product. The company behind the ad does not inherently care about you being informed, just that informing people (in very selective ways) sometimes happens to be an effective way to increase sales. Where it better serves their purpose to mis inform, that's what they d…

Companies exist to make money. They use marketing as part of that process. However, we can not forget that consumers derive value from the things that companies sell. If we only focus on the big bad companies, then it is not possible to see how marketing could also serve the consumer.

Believe it or not, some people do enjoy a sugary drink from time to time. While I don't drink soft drinks regularly, I recently discovered skyr protein yogurts through advertising. That's a product that caters to a desire that I have. Never heard of skyr before!

> I don't think it really helps defend meaningfulness of the job in question ("techy, working on serving ads") to expand the scope to considering other things (writing package documentation, reviewing tourist destinations, ...)

There was a blanket statement that all ads are negative and people making them are useless -- exaggeration and gross simplification is mine. I offered some counterpoints for more balanced thinking. There is plenty of advertising that delivers positive value, hence some advertising jobs are useful.

One problem is that people sometimes think of ads as only web display ads. They are not aware that there are many other kinds of ads. Independent review sites, travel blogs, and posts on HN about an interesting software package are also ads. When truly independent, it's called word-of-mouth advertising.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#202

Post by igtztorrero »

In my family we usually travel to many parts of the world, and we have been compiling a series of anecdotes, when we take a taxi or an Uber, we ask the taxi driver different aspects of the city then always asking him some anecdote, funny or strange, that he has had in his life as a taxi driver.

And we have collected a large number of funny stories that we constantly bring up when we are at a party.

For example, the story of the Argentine taxi driver who, when he received some Danish tourists, they realized that they had forgotten a suitcase at the airport, but since they had an Apple tracker, they started looking for the suitcase with the help of the police and it turned out that the suitcase was in the trunk of a car belonging to another police officer, unbelievable right?

Or the story of the London taxi driver who, being tired after a long shift, picked up an old lady for the last trip and the old woman lay in the back seat and fell completely asleep, when the taxi driver turned to his rearview mirror and no longer saw anyone behind he thought: "What am I doing ? I'm driving alone, I am too tired." so he decided to go home. When he got home the old lady woke up and thought that the taxi driver was kidnapping her, and called the police.

Incredible stories and anecdotes are collected when you start talking to strangers and they feel confident expressing their ideas.

It's part of living, talking to strangers is very satisfying.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#203

Post by jibal »

steezeburger wrote: post #167
StilesCrisis wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accidentally ended up at a job in the ad-serving business for two years and this is so accurate. (Who knew "analytics" really meant "ad conversions"?) If there are entire product lines dedicated to blocking the thing you do, it's very demoralizing.

It's demoralizing because people block you?! That's why you found it demoralizing?! Not for commodifying people's attention?

No, it's very demoralizing to find that what you are doing for a living (that isn't what you expected to be doing) is so disgusting to other people that there are commercial tools devoted to blocking you.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#204

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

pjc50 wrote: post #197
sentinelsignal wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dehumanisation of online dialogue is interesting. Is it because of 'anonymity' or is there more at play?

I think it's an exaggeration of the "city effect": the denser an environment is, the more likely it is that people who see you out to talk to you are going to have a negative agenda, because everyone else is trying to keep their head down. If you meet a stranger at the North Pole, where you're the only two humans around, you're going to talk to them. If you meet a stranger in a remote village, you're probably going t…

> where it can be amplified over and over

Especially if a corporation that controls the venue, deliberately amplifies the rancor.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#206

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

subscribed wrote: post #194
sentinelsignal wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dehumanisation of online dialogue is interesting. Is it because of 'anonymity' or is there more at play?

No, I don't think it's anonymity. You can see absolutely rabid, hateful, unhinged things people post under their real names on Facebook, LinkedIn, nextdoor.

I agree. I think that it's the removal of an emotional connection, and that happens naturally, after a certain pause (an interesting study, would be to find out how long, and I'll bet there are people who can explicitly prevent the analytical part of their mind from taking the wheel).

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#207

Post by dfxm12 »

RataNova wrote: post #127
lordnacho wrote: post #115

It's the internet. When you talk to people online, it often descends into pettiness. When you talk to people in the real world, that rarely happens. But it's much easier to talk online, so people get the wrong impression. You should talk to strangers. It's never gone wrong for me. Most people have a warmth and agreeableness that comes out when you are there with them, talking about stuff. There's also the interesting…

Online, it feels like we're all half-performing for an invisible audience, so the incentives skew toward snark or point-scoring. In person, there's no scoreboard, just two humans trying to get through the moment together

The snark is not Internet specific. It comes from the top down, whether it's the talking heads on Fox News, your favorite podcast/streamer or popular Twitter posters. A few decades ago, it might have been popular opinion writers or radio personalities. This is how we learn to discuss things.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#208

Post by rkomorn »

999900000999 wrote: post #177
StilesCrisis wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently some of the very best-converting ads are repeat sales. Of course it helps if the product is obviously consumable, but I'm told that this counterintuitive strategy actually works well. Maybe it's because they can track conversions but not product returns, so maybe you're searching for a better one after returning the first purchase.

Watch people buy watches. Camera people buy cameras. Particularly if your talking about lenses, I might buy 3 in a month.

Toilet seat people buy toilet seats too, I guess.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#209

Post by notahacker »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #156
lordnacho wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was an intern in a small town, I took a trip to London. On my way back, I caught a cab from the provincial station to my house. The cabbie seemed fun. We were talking about football. Just ordinary banter with a cab driver. Out of the blue, he asks me "hey mate, just for fun, what would you do if you'd murdered someone and had a dead body to dispose of?" I was a bit surprised, but it's not that odd a thing to t…

Still a better conversion than the typical Reform party bollocks I get from the cabbies at the airport. EDIT: if I had to dispose of a body I’d find a farmer willing to lend-out his pigs with no questions asked.

A Russian backpacker once told me about a conversation with an Afghan cab driver on a trip to the US. Apparently it was quite friendly for a conversation that started "I used to kill people like you".

Think I'd take the Reform bollocks to that opening line though

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#210

Post by loudmax »

lordnacho wrote: post #140
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually met a serial killer who did this, heh Would love to hear the story behind this one.

When I was an intern in a small town, I took a trip to London. On my way back, I caught a cab from the provincial station to my house. The cabbie seemed fun. We were talking about football. Just ordinary banter with a cab driver. Out of the blue, he asks me "hey mate, just for fun, what would you do if you'd murdered someone and had a dead body to dispose of?" I was a bit surprised, but it's not that odd a thing to t…

That is an interesting story, thanks for sharing. However, the prospect of speaking to a serial killer does not make me more likely to want to strike up conversations with strangers.
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