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

The Ad Blocking Wars

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 236 posts

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#221

Post by dwild »

kazinator wrote: post #50

Supposedly blocking ads is immoral because ads provide funding for the so called valuable content. Here is the thing though: most pages do not have any such content. One reason I don't want to see the ads because I didn't want to see the page in the first place. I only landed on the page because it's stuffed with keywords that duped the search engine indexer. The ads are part of the delay and bandwidth waste which st…

> Here is the thing though: most pages do not have any such content.

Why are you there then? The fact that you spend your time there, that you spend both your bandwidth, your cpu time, etc.. and theirs, means there's something "valuable", it's probably way less than a cent, but it's value.

That's the beauty of ads, even though the value isn't much, it's still enough. I don't want to pay 0.1 cent, but that ads does it for me.

> But every visitor wishes for that outcome.

That's freak, stop going there if you wish for their death!

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#222

Post by aninhumer »

punee wrote: post #211
aninhumer wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the answer to the latter depends on the answer to the former. For example, if people tend to rely on review sites to make their choices, you should make sure your product compares favourably to the competition, and then solicit reviews for it. (And if you can't do that, maybe your product isn't worth buying.)

People tend to rely on watching television commercials to learn about new products. So you should buy more TV advertising. Correct?

The question was in a hypothetical context of a world without advertising. My point is that you can't talk about what a business should do in that situation without first clarifying what the alternative to advertising is in this world.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#223

Post by aninhumer »

punee wrote: post #214
aninhumer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists (e.g. Which? in the UK), it's just undervalued because advertising already provides a low quality but free source of information.

That doesn't seem very logical. First, I think you mean "less valued". That's generally what happens when there's little demand for something, or when there's a good substitute at a cheaper price. Second, if all the free, evil ad-sponsored content on the internet is of such "low quality", it certainly would make such services more valuable, as it would offer something scarce. Their conspicuous absence seems to indica…

>Their conspicuous absence seems to indicate something is amiss with this analysis.

As I said, these services exist, they're just not very prominent.

That doesn't mean they're not valuable, it just means people don't think they're valuable, and I'm not certain that's a rational decision.

I think if you asked people whether they'd pay say £10 extra on a £300 appliance to be reasonably sure it doesn't have a hugely annoying design flaw, a lot of people would pay.

But if you ask them to pay £10/month for access to a website that gives them that kind of information (even if they can cancel it after one month), they feel like it's a waste of money.

>if all the free, evil ad-sponsored content on the internet is of such "low quality"

I'm not saying the content is low quality, I'm saying the advertising itself is a low quality form of product information.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#224

Post by Hoasi »

kasey_junk wrote: post #155
dredmorbius wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and the branding power of advertising is significant. It's been argued (persuasively IMO) that targeted advertising is counterproductive in this regard. Much as I find the practice annoying, a large stadium or other facility endorsement programme has a sticking power for brand awareness which a microtargeted, microsecond-auction online placement doesn't. Much the same as investing in streetfront retail space s…

I think one of the arguments for the more specific form of targeted advertising is for the measurement of impact, not that it is in some way more impactful. Assumedly that measurement can lead to more impactful ads, but we are awfully new to programmatic advertising for that to be proveable. I do know that advertisers believe targeting is valuable.

The thing is, marketers are still ”experimenting" for the most part. Just as traditional advertising was sold to clients for years even when its efficiency could not be measured. Right now, it can be measured better through tracking, direct mail, “CRM” and the likes, but it doesn't mean it translates into sales—far from it. Digital agencies are surfing on the hype and cashing in as fast as they can before clients cut their advertising budgets again, just as it happened with other channels, like TV ads for instance.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#225

Post by m52go »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #220
punee wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite telling, but by no means surprising on Hacker News, that you completely failed to address the question. The question wasn't "What would you do if you were looking for something to buy". The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?"

>The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?" Make a high quality product.

I'm sure the failed entrepreneurs in this crowd (I'm one of them) here will find it easy to refute that point.

High-quality product is nothing without leads (i.e, potential users, buyers, downloaders, etc), and one way to get consistent, reliable way to get leads is through promotion.

Then there's branding and awareness, which is probably what most ads these days are meant for.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#226

Post by brathouz »

blhack wrote: post #166

I don't understand where the disconnect for ads is. 1) I have money. I got the money specifically so that I could use it to buy things. 2) Give me options of things to buy, and I will buy them. 3) Show me things that are relevant to my interests, and I will probably buy those things. Advertisers seem to be failing (badly) at 3. Ads that I see are not only intrusive (full page CSS popovers have gotten to the point whe…

To help with #3, Google lets you help them fine-tune the ads they show you:

https://www.google.com/settings/ads

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#227

Post by abrookewood »

Mimu wrote: post #194
abrookewood wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my kids simply don't watch commercial TV. Everything used to be DVD based and now its all streamed, so they never see ads. I remember the first time they actually saw and advertisement - my son screamed! "Where did my show go??" "It's OK .. it's just an ad". A few seconds of silence passed and then he asked:"What's an ad?"

Your kids and yourself see ads all the time, just not on TV. There is no way to avoid ads, all ads are not evil either. Even if we talk only on TV, there are probably plenty in the shows / movies you watch.

They see ads on the web, but not on TV. Everything I stream is ad free.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#228

Post by dredmorbius »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #220
punee wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite telling, but by no means surprising on Hacker News, that you completely failed to address the question. The question wasn't "What would you do if you were looking for something to buy". The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?"

>The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?" Make a high quality product.

Useful but not sufficient on its own. Gresham's Law, in various incarnations, including Akerlof's "The Market for Lemons" suggests limitations.

A trusted third-party reviewer (Consumer's Union, CarFAX, Kelly Blue Book) helps.

Anecdote: the last really big-ticket item I bought (automobile), I'd had positive experiences with two manufacturer's products previously, but really didn't care for their current offerings within the product class / price range I was seeking. The vehicle I did buy was one I considered based on its Edmunds review -- best in class, multiple years running. Some years on, I've been happy with the purchase (though of course, post hoc rationalisation is a common fallacy).

For other products, other signifiers matter.

On G+ I detailed frustrations looking for a decent LED cabinet-lighting system. I'd exhausted local, online (Amazon and major hardware/lighting store) sources. A recommendation from my G+ contacts was for Ikea. The specific product didn't work, but Ikea had another set of lighting components (separate cord, transformer, remote switch, and lighting elements) which has worked excellently. Took a few weeks longer than intended to find what I was looking for.

Otherwise, I rely strongly on what local retailers will carry and stand behind. Ikea, for some products, turns out to be a good source. Factors depend heavily on what it is I'm purchasing and just how it will have to function.

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#229

Post by kyrra »

cbhl wrote: post #150
colmvp wrote: post #14

Arguments seem to glaze over the ethics of advertising and imply that it's a benign, acceptable practice. Yet the more I read psychology, the more I am aware of ways advertising can manipulate the thoughts we have towards brands when we're not aware of it. So to protect myself, I try to avoid ads in any circumstances (ublock, minimal usage of ad-supported apps). Quite frankly I'd rather have more subscriptions. I pay…

Subscriptions lock out people without credit cards (children, less affluent) from the Internet. This makes me sad.

In the US, sure. But there are lots and lots of various forms of payment to handle things like subscriptions. See Boletos[0] in Brazil for example. Many other countries around the world have ways of paying for things online without credit cards.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boleto

Re: The Ad Blocking Wars

#230

Post by vog »

olegj wrote: post #195
vog wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of argument is heavily flawed, due to wildly mixing the parent's specific term "manipulating" with the broader term "changing".

If it is you didn't explain why, you merely restated the core issue JacobJans has with fighting advertising. Where exactly is the line between "manipulating" and "changing view"? There are many associations and causalities studied with regards to human mind, should I be guilty of manipulation if I create a promotional poster using colours which are associated with some particular emotional response? In the end this i…

There may be a grey area between "manipulating" and "changing view", but in the case of advertisement this this clearly on the "manipulation" side, almost by definition.

Ads are fully paid by the seller, and exist by definition to serve solely the seller's purpose. In addition, ads are expected to "look and feel" like they were in the customer's interest, which makes it even more clear that this is all about manipulation.

Post reply on HN