Please Stop Working on Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#71

Post by stan_rogers » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 3:17 AM UTC

adgar wrote: post #64

stan_rogers wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I wanted the bottle of water to make my morning a little easier. No, you merely wanted water . It could have as easily been a pitcher and glass and would have satisfied the want.

> It could have as easily been a pitcher and glass and would have satisfied the want. Actually, no it wouldn't. If you read closely, my want was not water . I'd say my want was closer to convenience . I explicitly did not want to pour a glass of water, my other (free) option. I wanted to chug down 16 ounces of clean H2O and roll over. Which I did. And it was awesome. Well worth the 2 bucks the hotel is going to charg…

And unscrewing a cap (and breaking the seal in your ever-so-weakened and pathetic state) is more convenient? You're deluding yourself in order to make an argument you can't actually substantiate.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#72

Post by adgar » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 3:44 AM UTC

stan_rogers wrote: post #71

adgar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could have as easily been a pitcher and glass and would have satisfied the want. Actually, no it wouldn't. If you read closely, my want was not water . I'd say my want was closer to convenience . I explicitly did not want to pour a glass of water, my other (free) option. I wanted to chug down 16 ounces of clean H2O and roll over. Which I did. And it was awesome. Well worth the 2 bucks the hotel is going to charg…

And unscrewing a cap (and breaking the seal in your ever-so-weakened and pathetic state) is more convenient? You're deluding yourself in order to make an argument you can't actually substantiate.

Unscrewing the cap is a tenth of a second I don't think about. Pouring a glass of water in bed and trying not to spill it on the table and floor, then drinking that glass, then re-pouring more water and drinking more, all while worrying about spilling it all over my pathetic self in bed, sounds a lot less convenient. If I spill it on myself, I have to get out of bed. I'm not going to sit there in a pool of water. These are things that have happened to me that I'd like to avoid.

Since the $2 isn't much at all to me, that's all the more reason to treat myself to the bottle of water. I don't call that delusion, I call it not sweating the small stuff and living in the moment. Feel free to call it conspicuous consumption, but I'm not sure who you think I'm trying to impress with this story. I'm not sure such a person exists.

You're the one who thinks that my blowing a couple bucks for a nice moment in the morning is evidence of some kind of bane on society. Justify that, why don't you? I've given you my entire thought process.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#73

Post by prodigal_erik » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 4:51 AM UTC

jaredsohn wrote: post #63

diego wrote: post #14

For those who criticize the lack of "anything new" in my post: What motivated me to write it is that in the past few weeks I've met SEVERAL entrepreneurs who are starting businesses that would have no choice but to depend on ads. I'm almost at the point where I want to start a campaign to convince people that this is a bad idea, given how many other important problems are not receiving enough attention. I'm not sayin…

>given how many other important problems are not receiving enough attention This would be a good place to mention some of them.

And some justification as to why they should be expected to be profitable, as opposed to all the problems society pays lip service to but doesn't care much about in practice.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#74

Post by dspeyer » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 6:50 AM UTC

stan_rogers wrote: post #71

adgar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could have as easily been a pitcher and glass and would have satisfied the want. Actually, no it wouldn't. If you read closely, my want was not water . I'd say my want was closer to convenience . I explicitly did not want to pour a glass of water, my other (free) option. I wanted to chug down 16 ounces of clean H2O and roll over. Which I did. And it was awesome. Well worth the 2 bucks the hotel is going to charg…

And unscrewing a cap (and breaking the seal in your ever-so-weakened and pathetic state) is more convenient? You're deluding yourself in order to make an argument you can't actually substantiate.

I always have water next to my bed when I sleep. Usually tap water, but in a bottle with a screw cap. I can open and close it without opening my eyes, and it won't spill.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#75

Post by IsaacL » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

I can't understand this snobbishness about ads. Advertising has made a lot of web companies a lot of money.

Yes, it's the uncreative default revenue stream. Unsure how to make money? Ads! But that's also a good thing - there's a default internet revenue model that works.

If you can make money via freemium/premium/whatever, bully for you. But don't knock ads just because you think the smartest minds "should be curing cancer, not optimising CTRs". Ads have helped support many world-changing web services. It is not a coincidence that 8 of the top 10 websites are funded primarily by advertising.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#76

Post by eevilspock » Sun, Sep 02, 2012, 3:41 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #12

This wasn't quite the diatribe I was expecting. I basically agree that what Amazon (and Google for that matter; disclaimer: I work for Google on display ads) is intent and intent is huge. Much as Facebook would like to become the de facto Internet, I don't see it ever capturing that intent (let alone Twitter). That being said, I think people discount what an inordinate amount of good advertising has done and just foc…

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Advertising simply shifts the cost of the lunch to the price of the advertised products, and then adds additional costs.

Using Google for example, in addition to the natural cost of its services, we one way or another pay the following additional costs:

• Cost of building and operating Google's ad infrastructure and business. Huge.

• Cost of ad production, ad agency, and other overhead. Huge.

• Cost incurred by the advertiser's competitors who don't need to advertise, but are forced to do so to not lose customers to the other. Expensive advertising arms race ensues. Huge.

• Social cost. I'd argue this is the largest. The health of society, democracy and the free market rests on the populace being well informed, not misinformed, not manipulated. The rare cases where advertising is honestly informative are far outweighed by dishonest or manipulative advertising. If you don't see this, I won't try and convince you right here, right now. There are better ways to inform the public about good products, for example something like Yelp but without Yelp's conflict of interest which stems from, yes you guessed it, advertising!

Who do you think ultimately pays these new costs (in addition to the original costs)?

As to your point about the developing world, or the poor for that matter: I think you are trying very hard to feel better about your job. I understand. I had to work on an advertising system for a few years. But advertising often targets the least informed and the least educated in society, and when it does, it wreaks its greatest social cost.