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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

#291

Post by bluGill »

captainbland wrote: post #283
bluGill wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most web ads are designed to be clicked, but I firmly believe this is the wrong model. Ads should be designed not to get you to click/buy now. Ads should be designed to make you think about buying it latter. You see/hear a car ad, and next time you drive you think wouldn't it be nice if my car did X.

I think they do partly still retain that effect, but internet advertisers don't rate it so highly because it's hard to measure the effectiveness of.

You can't measure it for any other ad at all yet TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, and other ads are all common because they work.

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

#292

Post by jacobsenscott »

stickfigure wrote: post #245
jacobsenscott wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organized crime has been really successful in spreading the "two willing consenting parties" myth. Trust me - there is only ever one willing consenting party. No woman on earth wants to @%$! a constant parade of scumbags.

I suggest you go out and talk to some actual sex workers, with an open mind. I know (socially) a few former sex workers, and they would vehemently disagree with your characterization. The world is way, waaaay more complicated than you seem to think.

Which characterization? I made two. I disagree with your characterization that "sex work" is "waaay complicated". Putting together a lego set is more complicated.

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

#293

Post by MivLives »

radium3d wrote: post #70

I believe it. I've stopped playing games with ads altogether. I'd rather pay $40-60 for a game that keeps me in the story. I don't have time for ads. Apparently 90% of users do though, so they'll continue to fill up the "top games" lists and make it impossible for us to find good ad-free games in the app stores. Even worse now that google removed the "contains ads" tag from the play store top game lists. sigh

I will even pay for mobile games. Because I do enjoy them, and sometimes you don't want something so complex. It's just feels impossible to find them because they don't get millions of downloads.

Honestly the thing that kills mobile games for me more then ads is waiting. I like tycoon style games, a genre destroyed on mobile by timers.

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

#295

Post by JohnFen »

rjf72 wrote: post #281
drngdds wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your best option by far for mobile gaming (if you're on Android) is to install an emulator for an old console/handheld and download/rip some games. It's unfortunate how bad the state of mobile gaming is, considering how powerful today's phones are.

" > It's unfortunate how bad the state of mobile gaming is, considering how powerful today's phones are. " Pretty simple reason. There's enough games that charge $0 up front that products asking for even $1 up front, get negligible downloads. Consequently, everybody has to charge $0 up front which immediately constrains you to advertising or mostly coercive business models. And this business model then ends up meshin…

> Increasingly often now a days you're not buying a game for $60, you're buying a starter pack which is then filled out a la carte with DLC and various microtransactions.

Not just with consoles. This sort of thing is what made me stop buying AAA games altogether, and largely to stop gaming generally. Now when I occasionally want to play a game, I pretty much stick with the ones I bought a decade or more ago, or ones that I find on GOG.

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

#296

Post by JohnFen »

blattimwind wrote: post #210
LorenPechtel wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sex worker" is a broader term than "prostitute". The former covers most every commercial activity whose objective is orgasm, the latter covers only those whose normal job is orgasm via insertion (although they may do it by other means at a client's request.)

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

Strippers are sex workers, but most of them aren't trying to make their customers orgasm. At least, not in the moment.

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

#297

Post by JohnFen »

johnfn wrote: post #142
gpm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unethical in the least. I don't play many phone games but DNS66 has completely removed every ad from my phone with no hassle (no root required), assuming it reliably works on games it sound simpler than having to approve individual requests.

It is absolutely unethical. If you don’t want ads, don’t install a game with ads. No one is requiring you to play the specific games that have ads. Choose from the many games that don’t have ads.

I disagree. There is nothing unethical about maintaining and enforcing control over what happens on my machines.

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

#298

Post by JohnFen »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #69
HenryBemis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not ethical.. but here is a work-around. On Android devices, install the (free-and no ads) 'NoRoot Firewall'. Then it takes some minutes to get used to it, but you ONLY 'Allow' connections that the game needs to operate (e.g. everything that goes to port 443 is an indicator, or everything to/from Akamai, AWS, Azure, Cloudfront), and 'Block' everything that goes to port 80 (which usually is AdJust, doubleclick…

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

It is simpler and more effective, but not more ethical.

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

#299

Post by JohnFen »

roel_v wrote: post #215
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…

I want to buy these apps. I want to buy them for my children. I spend time every couple of weeks looking for one-time-pay, no ads, no tracking, no 'optional' micropayment ads. I can find them only very rarely (Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend). If there was a well-curated newsletter that had a weekly review of new apps (mostly games, but maybe also other ca…

> Stardew Valley was released for Android yesterday - $8 purchase, best money you'll ever spend

I agree. Stardew Valley is one of the rare modern games that is actually wonderful and a joy in pretty much every respect.

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

#300

Post by JohnFen »

eridius wrote: post #44

If a game doesn't offer any way to pay to remove ads, it's an instant uninstall for me. If a game does offer it, but doesn't let me play for long enough to decide whether I like the game before it starts serving up unskippable ads, I uninstall it. Most games simply don't give enough time to decide if you even like it before they start throwing ads at you. That seems like a terrible policy in general, regardless of wh…

> If a game doesn't offer any way to pay to remove ads, it's an instant uninstall for me

You're more lenient than I am. I uninstall any application the instant I see an ad.

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