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Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

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Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#221

Post by michaelt »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #139
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be simpler, more ethical, and send a stronger message to simply not play the game?

Why would this be more ethical? If I own a network connected device, I am perfectly within ethical grounds to case-by-case block any kind of web request it might make. Whatever web requests happen on my device has absolutely no connection to someone who decided of their own accord to make a game or a music channel or whatever freely available to download / stream / etc. They may prefer that those web requests succeed…

It depends if you think an action that both you and the content producer agree is ethical is relatively more ethical than one that you think is ethical, but the content producer thinks is unethical.

If I was doing business with one of my friends, I'd strive to use their services in ways we agreed were fair, not just ways I thought were fair and they disagreed. My friends are reasonable and honest people, so if we disagreed I could be wrong as easily as they could.

Of course, the ad industry isn't much of an ethical beacon and an industry isn't capable of being anyone's friend, so I run an ad blocker. But the angle other people are coming from is pretty easy to understand.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#222

Post by jacobolus »

lotu wrote: post #199
Waterluvian wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the concern. I'm not going to get into a debate about this, nor do I sense you are trying for one. But my toddler is wildly ahead of his peers in almost every measure (edit: wow this sounds pretentious. Not sure what to say. He spells and assembles words he sees around the house. He just turned 2), so I'll give the facts I observe more weight than the massively simplified single sentence prescription tha…

> I bet shipping your child off to daycare every day hinders them more 90 minutes of tablet time .... household of two full time stay at home parents Wow, no surprise there. I'm sure you recognize how privileged you and your children are to be able to grow up this way. One size fits all advice is necessary because it is not economically feasible to provide individual expert advice to every single person. Many people…

Ideal would be to support dramatically increased paid parental leave and more social support for children and families, so that everyone would have more opportunity to raise their own children, especially kids But yes, you are right that it is a great privilege to have a lot of parent time available.

The sadder one to me is the folks who don’t take advantage of their available time. I know quite a few parents who are either not working or wealthy enough to not work for several years with no significant financial/career impact but who still hire someone else to take care of their kids full time, because they think of childcare as an annoying hassle.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#223

Post by CobrastanJorji »

leggomylibro wrote: post #90
umvi wrote: post #32

I believe it. There are a lot of games that I downloaded from the app store and really liked initially. However, I noticed a pattern. At first, ads seemed to be optional (i.e double your gems by watching an ad!) However, after about 10 minutes of playing, I'd see an ad. No big deal. But then it got more and more aggressive. Pretty soon there was an ad after every single level, (plus the bonus ad if you want to double…

One of my favorite mobile games (an old Popcap title) used to have a version which cost ~$10 and was just a no-frills port of the original. No ads, no permissions beyond file storage, no issues working offline. But you can't buy that anymore; now the only option is a 'free' version which has ads that you cannot pay away. Fortunately I can still download the old version from the app store; now it is called 'zzSUNSET '…

If there's a heaven, and if I get to go there, and if God gives me a phone with all of the mobile games that could have been, I'll want to play the version of Plants vs Zombies 2 that would have existed if EA hadn't bought Popcap.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#224

Post by hopler »

michaelt wrote: post #212
blattimwind wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The former covers most every commercial activity whose objective is orgasm I don't think that's technically true.

Certainly, a farmer manually collecting bull semen isn't engaged in sex work. But I would say at the very least "sex work" covers dominatrices, pre-recorded and live-streaming porn performances, strip club and lap dance performances, as well as escorts. So "sex worker" isn't precisely equal to "prostitute"

The objective of fertility work is sperm/egg/embryo/whatever, not orgasm. If they could efficienctly stick a needle in the gonads and extract the reproductive cells, they would.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#226

Post by kemitche »

ambicapter wrote: post #58
simongr3dal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also lines up pretty well with the fact that a lot of early stage SV-style startups don't monetize before they have a lot of users. You don't want to lose 10% in the early stages of exponential growth. 10% less users later on would not be a big deal however.

I'd assume that the 10% later on is a relatively larger dollar amount in revenue, no?

It depends - if you're going from zero revenue, then, losing 10% of your users to go from zero dollars to N dollars is a great deal.

If you have existing other revenue sources, then you definitely have to factor that into the equation.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#228

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

michaelt wrote: post #221
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this be more ethical? If I own a network connected device, I am perfectly within ethical grounds to case-by-case block any kind of web request it might make. Whatever web requests happen on my device has absolutely no connection to someone who decided of their own accord to make a game or a music channel or whatever freely available to download / stream / etc. They may prefer that those web requests succeed…

It depends if you think an action that both you and the content producer agree is ethical is relatively more ethical than one that you think is ethical, but the content producer thinks is unethical. If I was doing business with one of my friends, I'd strive to use their services in ways we agreed were fair, not just ways I thought were fair and they disagreed. My friends are reasonable and honest people, so if we dis…

> “but the content producer thinks is unethical.”

What? Of what relevance is the random thought of the content producer when it comes to my personal property.

That’s like saying using my leaf blower to blow leaves is unethical because someone somewhere else in the world thinks I should use my leaf blower as a golf club.

Some person made a game or a streaming service or whatever. They hope people will allow ads to be displayed with it on the peoples’ personal property. But that creator person, who has no connection whatsoever to my personal property, does not influence any concept of ethics about the way I use my property.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#229

Post by jacobolus »

Waterluvian wrote: post #148
blotter_paper wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't take the medical establishment as infallible, and I can imagine arguing against these recommendations, but FYI the American Association of Pediatricians recommends against allowing a 20mo the sort of screen time necessary to learn ad-skipping through trial and error[0]: >Among the AAP recommendations: >For children younger than 18 months, avoid use of screen media other than video-chatting. Parents…

I appreciate the concern. I'm not going to get into a debate about this, nor do I sense you are trying for one. But my toddler is wildly ahead of his peers in almost every measure (edit: wow this sounds pretentious. Not sure what to say. He spells and assembles words he sees around the house. He just turned 2), so I'll give the facts I observe more weight than the massively simplified single sentence prescription tha…

What kind of activities do you have your 2-year-old do on the tablet / other screens?

My 2.5 year old doesn’t get too much screen time (occasional movies or Mr Rogers episodes), but more because I haven’t spent any time investigating the possibilities than because we have a strong philosophical objection to it.

Re: Gwern's Law: Ads cost you a tenth of your users

#230

Post by jacobolus »

gpm wrote: post #185
Waterluvian wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the concern. I'm not going to get into a debate about this, nor do I sense you are trying for one. But my toddler is wildly ahead of his peers in almost every measure (edit: wow this sounds pretentious. Not sure what to say. He spells and assembles words he sees around the house. He just turned 2), so I'll give the facts I observe more weight than the massively simplified single sentence prescription tha…

Out of curiosity, do you get the impression other cultures do parenting advice better?

I found this from yesterday interesting, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/6855333...

I’m not too sold on the terrifying stories though.

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