How ChatGPT serves ads • Hacker News Board

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#381

Post by TZubiri » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 11:51 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #380

TZubiri wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily mutually exclusive no, mathematically I'd say they are inversely proportional, hard to disagree with that no?

I think you're overestimating the marginal cost of doing one of them after you've already done the other. If a company has a bunch of ad-buying customers and a bunch of transparent ads, putting together some work to make a bunch of opaque ones for the exact same customers is not necessarily going to be that hard. I don't see how you can claim that it's mathematically guaranteed that the number of customers who decide…

You are right on two counts.

First that i should have said correlated rather than proportional.

Second that even if there's an inverse influence, there's also a positive influence between both forms of advertisement.

But in terms of proportion I still maintain that if you eliminate one type of advertisement the ratio will become 100% of the other, which is as undeniable as it is tautological.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#382

Post by TZubiri » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 11:54 PM UTC

pbasista wrote: post #257

TZubiri wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking transparent ads is not a good idea. The consequence is that you will be fed opaque ads.

Your implication that "you will be fed" other ads if you block the main ones is unsubstantiated. But even if it was true, it does not matter. Because the so-called "opaque" ads can and in my opinion should be blocked as well. I think that in general blocking all ads is always a good idea. The reason is that there is no negative consequence in doing so. A person has absolutely no obligation, not even an implied one, t…

>Because the so-called "opaque" ads can and in my opinion should be blocked as well

You can't, that's one of the main purposes. Instead of having ads marked and delimited, the are woven into the content, even if you could detect them (as a plugin or gratis moderator), removing them would potentially corrupt the product. It may be a part of a joke or the plot itself.

Re: How ChatGPT serves ads

#383

Post by TZubiri » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 11:59 PM UTC

WD-42 wrote: post #375

TZubiri wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and you are not obligated to use ChatGPT either. And ChatGPT is not obligated to serve you if you bypass their ToS. Works out for everyone, no?

Totally. I’ll get by fine without ChatGPT, and I guarantee I can go without whatever crappy products the ad network you shill for partner with. In the meantime I’ll keep blocking evey ad I can. In fact I’d be better off. It’s interesting that the most ad laden products are often the worst for you: YouTube, social media. Whereas the good uses of time: books, art, are ad free.

I'm a shill, not of any ad network, but of the idea of respecting contracts and law, even those we don't read and click on an "I agree" box.

Consider that stallman didn't encourage followers to pirate microsoft, he encouraged boycotting and made his own alternative software and contracts.

Sounds like a better way to go about it no? Why would you want to be a part of a club that doesn't want you as a member, and to the extent it does, it develops unmarked unskippable ads mixed with content so as to keep monetizing from adblocking users.

So yeah, I'm anti adblock but not pro ads, I don't do freemium or ads myself when selling, i do use free dependencies but donor based . I guess I'd be lawful neutral?who would have thunk there's more than 2 alignments!