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Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

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Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#481

Post by jasode »

dwaltrip wrote: post #479
jasode wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You would have been able to find those same tools and electronics, you may have had to just spend a few minutes browsing some sort of catalog. You may have read the gp's comment too quickly. The context was used tools and electronics from Craigslist ads . The "used" would be pre-owned and less expensive , and "Craigslist" presumably means buying from a local seller. Catalogs for tools and electronics are typically n…

In the new world, you would pay a small fee for a quality catalog. I guarantee you some sort of comparable solution would arise for used goods. Once again, perhaps it is as simple as something like a craigslist requiring a small fee. It could be subscription based, a fee paid by the seller (to place the listing or when the sale is completed), and so on. Aren't there apps already doing this? And of course, there are l…

>, a fee paid by the seller (to place the listing)

Right, and the print version of that in newspapers was actually called "classified ads". The listing is an advertisement from the seller trying to make the public aware of what he's trying to sell. The seller paid a fee to the newspaper to list his item.

>Lastly, we don't have to ban _all_ advertising.

Ok, that comment changes things. I was interpreting your previous claim of "the lack of advertisements" as literal absolutism and it seemed to contradict the concept of "classified ads" which you approved of. I understand you just want less ads.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#482

Post by JohnFen »

chc wrote: post #375
JohnFen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find odd about this is that there does exist at least one perfectly fine micropayment system. It's running in my laundromat (the company is Heartland Micropayments), where I can use my credit/debit or laundry payment card. When I wash and dry three loads of laundry, I don't get 6 charges on my card. I get one. It seems like it wouldn't be a huge amount of work to bring this to the internet, particularly since…

Batching small payments is not the hard part of creating a payment system that can support the entire Web. Harder parts include problems like UX (e.g. balancing the need to make a system people will want to use against the danger of users unknowingly running up a huge bill), getting buy-in from websites (why should they use your service in particular?), and just convincing people to sign up for yet another godforsake…

Yes, I understand. I just find it odd that nobody has done it yet, particularly as the non-web infrastructure and business logic already exists.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#483

Post by JohnFen »

jodrellblank wrote: post #301
JohnFen wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible at all. Math tells me that growth capitalism can't be maintained forever. The only question is when, and under what conditions, it will end.

Why can't it be maintained forever? If a house can be valued at $4,000 one year, and $40,000 a few decades later, and $200,0000 a few decades later, what's the reason that "value" can't keep increasing eternally? There's obviously no real substance to "the value" of a thing, only people's interpretation and desire for it, and there's plenty of "value" where there is no physical substance at all, like exclusivity, or…

That's not growth capitalism. Growth capitalism requires constant growth in both supply and demand. Increasing supply requires increasing the usage of raw materials (not to mention the waste generated through their use). The reality is that we don't have an unlimited supply of any raw materials, so growth cannot be maintained indefinitely.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#484

Post by JohnFen »

Thiez wrote: post #477
JohnFen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. Here's the thing... I'd taken quite a lot of advertising courses during my education, and among the many truly scary things that I learned in them, one stood out above all others: Knowing how advertising manipulates you, and even noticing it in the moment that it's happening, in no way makes it less effective. People who claim that they aren't affected by advertising are incorrec…

Perhaps you cannot resist the advertisements you see, but you can take steps to limit how much advertising you are exposed to. Get Netflix, get an ad blocker.

Indeed, and this is what I do! I don't bother with Netflix or similar (there's no point -- I'm not watching commercial TV anyway), but I do avoid advertising as much as I reasonably can.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#485

Post by JohnFen »

teawrecks wrote: post #249
JohnFen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, an ideal situation for advertising is to read each person's mind, determine exactly what products they are looking for but aren't yet aware of, and make them aware. If marketers had that power, that's not how they'd use it. Instead, what they'd do is deploy a powerful analytic system to determine what your touch points are, in order to learn how to more effectively manipulate you to make you want whateve…

Note: advertising and marketing are not the same thing just like space research and rocket science are not the same thing.

Yes, I understand they aren't identical (I consider advertisers to be less problematic than marketers), but they both are working toward the same goal.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#486

Post by dwaltrip »

jasode wrote: post #481
dwaltrip wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the new world, you would pay a small fee for a quality catalog. I guarantee you some sort of comparable solution would arise for used goods. Once again, perhaps it is as simple as something like a craigslist requiring a small fee. It could be subscription based, a fee paid by the seller (to place the listing or when the sale is completed), and so on. Aren't there apps already doing this? And of course, there are l…

>, a fee paid by the seller (to place the listing) Right, and the print version of that in newspapers was actually called "classified ads" . The listing is an advertisement from the seller trying to make the public aware of what he's trying to sell. The seller paid a fee to the newspaper to list his item. >Lastly, we don't have to ban _all_ advertising. Ok, that comment changes things. I was interpreting your previou…

They are called classified ads if they are placed in the newspaper, as the primary purpose of the newspaper is to deliver the news, not sell things.

They wouldn't be considered ads if it was a dedicated medium intended primarily to facilitate the exchange of used goods (or whatever product). This is what I was referring to.

But even still, classified ads are an interesting case. They feel closer to a catalog than your standard advertisement.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#487

Post by ericdykstra »

nihalot wrote: post #465
ericdykstra wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take a little bit of issue with Truth is less important than shock value , which implies that news media is selling out their content for profit. The vast majority of news outlets don't make enough in ad revenue to stay afloat, and rely on outside funding. The news itself is the propaganda. Carlos Slim didn't put $250 million into the New York Times out of charity, he did it to buy influence.

So hasn't NYT sold out for profit?

The common conception is, like the person I responded to originally, that news outlets optimize for clicks and eyeballs in order to sell the most advertising. Many will cite "if it bleeds, it leads" as a mantra for news corporations that will do anything to get viewers.

That's just not how it works now, though. The narratives of the stories are what they're selling to you, and the advertising is secondary. It's something you can't unsee when you start noticing.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#488

Post by raxxorrax »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #464
raxxorrax wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that for reach and penetration and whom to target? Wouldn't know how I would apply that to ads.

I fail to grasp what you mean. Reach, penetration and target audiences is like 95% of what modern advertising does. Modern advertising works on simple statistics rules like "people who drink Pepsi might need heartburn medicine" or "people who recently bought home appliances might want to buy another one". These things are simple applications of the CLT. No psychology or manipulation is needed or wanted.

Oh, I just wondered if it is indeed used for that purpose and didn't make the jump to questions like that.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#489

Post by challenger22 »

beecat wrote: post #428
enlyth wrote: post #15

To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit. We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.

I can't second this strongly enough. Why are we utilizing such vast amounts of our limited resources to persuade people to make certain decisions? In my humble opinion it's usually because the decisions the people who employ advertising tactics want the people they are advertising to, to make, are suboptimal, if not downright bad, and people wouldn't make those decisions, but as a by-product of having been advertised…

Exploiting people's psychology to consolidate their resources for yourself is not tantamount to theft.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#490

Post by jasode »

dwaltrip wrote: post #486
jasode wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, a fee paid by the seller (to place the listing) Right, and the print version of that in newspapers was actually called "classified ads" . The listing is an advertisement from the seller trying to make the public aware of what he's trying to sell. The seller paid a fee to the newspaper to list his item. >Lastly, we don't have to ban _all_ advertising. Ok, that comment changes things. I was interpreting your previou…

They are called classified ads if they are placed in the newspaper, as the primary purpose of the newspaper is to deliver the news, not sell things. They wouldn't be considered ads if it was a dedicated medium intended primarily to facilitate the exchange of used goods (or whatever product). This is what I was referring to. But even still, classified ads are an interesting case. They feel closer to a catalog than you…

>They wouldn't be considered ads if it was a dedicated medium intended primarily to facilitate the exchange of used goods (or whatever product). This is what I was referring to.

Then I admit I don't follow what your reply[0] was about to jimktrains2 comment "I've bought from ads on Craigslist."

With my straight reading of your subsequent replies, it seems like your suggestion of "a dedicated medium intended primarily to facilitate the exchange of used goods" -- is exactly what Craigslist already _is_ -- and you had originally dismissed Craigslist ads in your reply to jimktrains2.

Perhaps the conversation seems nonsensical to me because you were unaware of what Craigslist actually _is_? From the wiki[1]: "Craigslist is an American classified advertisements website"

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20040659

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist

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