5 ms·

What other bar were you hoping for? It's advertising. The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. FWIW, since we're

What other bar were you hoping for? It's advertising. The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. FWIW, since we're doing anecdata, I just checked my Amazon front page. Many things are irrelevant, a few comical (I recently looked at a 80-book box-set of Penguin classics[1], now it's systematically recommending each individual member of that box-set to me :-/ ) -- and a few are quite relevant and I clicked on them to check it out. 1: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Black-Classics-Box-Penguin/dp/0141398876/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Black-Classics-Box-Penguin/dp...

jacquesm 11y ago
> The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. And that's in a nutshell both the solution and the problem because users have only so much to spend on product. So you end up with an arms race and that's exactly what we are seeing. It's like the joke about two guys in a jungle, one with boots, the other with running shoes. The one with boots asks why are you wearing running shoes. The second one answers: In case we get chased by wild animals. "You won't be able to outrun a wild animal so don't bother, wear boots". To which the guy with the running shoes says: "I only have to outrun you".
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I remember the talk the former Prime Minister of Poland gave to technology students on event I was attending; he retold this joke and wished us to be "the guy with the running shoes" in today's competitive market. I recall feeling pretty disgusted by this remark. I guess I prefer cooperation over competition.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed. So what we have instead is this hybrid: groups of people co-operating in competing with other groups, think team sports, the various tech challenges, companies competing for market share and so on. The only places in which people are really competing directly with each other are in the labor market (which drives the price of labor down) and in professional sports or other one-on-one contests. Almost everywhere else we co-operate before we compete. So far this model is a bit like democracy, it may not be optimal but it seems to be the best we have. If you can improve on that model you'll go places but you're going to be ironically in competition with everybody else!
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I guess it's not proven, though it seems intuitively obvious (which, I admit, is often the sign of pitfalls) ;). I think what hit me during that talk wasn't glorification of competition per se, it was promoting ruthless competition. In the end, team sports and tech challenges are healthy as long as everyone remembers it's just a game and doesn't treat it too seriously. It works in business too, but there people often forget - sometimes because of greed, and sometimes because money is like hit points - losing them hurts; lose enough and you die. Also interesting note: from my experience, most tech companies aren't really competitive. The market is big enough that most successful companies either compete superficially or sometimes outright cooperate, even when working in the same market.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        It's called an eco-system for a reason, the parallels are many and the differences few.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed. It doesn't matter if it's proven or not. We're (hopefully) not automata just doing what's proven to make us excel without consideration for the others.
- mseebach 11y ago
  > And that's in a nutshell both the solution and the problem because users have only so much to spend on product. I don't see the problem? It's probably much more expensive per impression than traditional advertising, but probably much less expensive per sale (which is the metric that matters). This arms race means that if I'm a plumbing supply company, I can now spend my money on displaying ads for specific plumbing goods to people searching for specific plumbing goods, even when that means I'm going to hit some people no longer in the market for these goods -- but even hitting people who are no longer in the market is vastly better then hitting people who were never in the market. This lowers the barrier to entry (less cash required to advertise your products) which means more and better competition which means prices go down.
  - vitd 11y ago
    But that's not at all what happens. First, the plumbing company buys ad space from that morass of companies in the article's diagram. Then the add distribution network decides who sees the ads. And in the specific case we're talking about, users didn't see the relevant ads until after they made a plumbing purchase. So it failed at every level. They don't appear to be targeting people who are in the market for plumbing supplies and hitting a few who already have them, from what we can tell. They appear to not be targeting people who are in the market at all until after they're out of the market.
lmm 11y ago
> The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. But a very low one. Conventional advertising is what, 0.1% effective? I find my Amazon recommendations are often pretty good. And I'm willing to spend time curating them. If advertising on the rest of the web was as relevant as my Amazon recommendations then I'd probably stop blocking it.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> since we're doing anecdata, I just checked my Amazon front page. Many things are irrelevant, a few comical (I recently looked at a 80-book box-set of Penguin classics[1], now it's systematically recommending each individual member of that box-set to me :-/ ) I'll raise you mails that I get from Alibaba - after few months of receiving offers of aerospace-grade struts, I'm now getting mails advertising... stones. (I do know how this happened though; the first is the result of me searching for aerospace-grade struts after CSR-7 launch failure, seeing if I can find the unnamed vendor by looking if someone is dumping cheap struts on Alibaba; the second is the result for me accidentally typing in "Pebble", meaning Pebble Watch).
sharemywin 11y ago
I think if someone already bought a product a better ad would be of similar products other people with said product.

jacquesm 11y ago

> The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. And that's in a nutshell both the solution and the problem because users have only so much to spend on product. So you end up with an arms race and that's exactly what we are seeing. It's like the joke about two guys in a jungle, one with boots, the other with running shoes. The one with boots asks why are you wearing running shoes. The second one answers: In case we get chased by wild animals. "You won't be able to outrun a wild animal so don't bother, wear boots". To which the guy with the running shoes says: "I only have to outrun you".

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I remember the talk the former Prime Minister of Poland gave to technology students on event I was attending; he retold this joke and wished us to be "the guy with the running shoes" in today's competitive market. I recall feeling pretty disgusted by this remark. I guess I prefer cooperation over competition.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed. So what we have instead is this hybrid: groups of people co-operating in competing with other groups, think team sports, the various tech challenges, companies competing for market share and so on. The only places in which people are really competing directly with each other are in the labor market (which drives the price of labor down) and in professional sports or other one-on-one contests. Almost everywhere else we co-operate before we compete. So far this model is a bit like democracy, it may not be optimal but it seems to be the best we have. If you can improve on that model you'll go places but you're going to be ironically in competition with everybody else!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I guess it's not proven, though it seems intuitively obvious (which, I admit, is often the sign of pitfalls) ;). I think what hit me during that talk wasn't glorification of competition per se, it was promoting ruthless competition. In the end, team sports and tech challenges are healthy as long as everyone remembers it's just a game and doesn't treat it too seriously. It works in business too, but there people often forget - sometimes because of greed, and sometimes because money is like hit points - losing them hurts; lose enough and you die. Also interesting note: from my experience, most tech companies aren't really competitive. The market is big enough that most successful companies either compete superficially or sometimes outright cooperate, even when working in the same market.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      It's called an eco-system for a reason, the parallels are many and the differences few.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed. It doesn't matter if it's proven or not. We're (hopefully) not automata just doing what's proven to make us excel without consideration for the others.
mseebach 11y ago
> And that's in a nutshell both the solution and the problem because users have only so much to spend on product. I don't see the problem? It's probably much more expensive per impression than traditional advertising, but probably much less expensive per sale (which is the metric that matters). This arms race means that if I'm a plumbing supply company, I can now spend my money on displaying ads for specific plumbing goods to people searching for specific plumbing goods, even when that means I'm going to hit some people no longer in the market for these goods -- but even hitting people who are no longer in the market is vastly better then hitting people who were never in the market. This lowers the barrier to entry (less cash required to advertise your products) which means more and better competition which means prices go down.
- vitd 11y ago
  But that's not at all what happens. First, the plumbing company buys ad space from that morass of companies in the article's diagram. Then the add distribution network decides who sees the ads. And in the specific case we're talking about, users didn't see the relevant ads until after they made a plumbing purchase. So it failed at every level. They don't appear to be targeting people who are in the market for plumbing supplies and hitting a few who already have them, from what we can tell. They appear to not be targeting people who are in the market at all until after they're out of the market.

lmm 11y ago

> The fact that it works better than other kinds of advertising is a pretty relevant bar. But a very low one. Conventional advertising is what, 0.1% effective? I find my Amazon recommendations are often pretty good. And I'm willing to spend time curating them. If advertising on the rest of the web was as relevant as my Amazon recommendations then I'd probably stop blocking it.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> since we're doing anecdata, I just checked my Amazon front page. Many things are irrelevant, a few comical (I recently looked at a 80-book box-set of Penguin classics[1], now it's systematically recommending each individual member of that box-set to me :-/ ) I'll raise you mails that I get from Alibaba - after few months of receiving offers of aerospace-grade struts, I'm now getting mails advertising... stones. (I do know how this happened though; the first is the result of me searching for aerospace-grade struts after CSR-7 launch failure, seeing if I can find the unnamed vendor by looking if someone is dumping cheap struts on Alibaba; the second is the result for me accidentally typing in "Pebble", meaning Pebble Watch).

sharemywin 11y ago

I think if someone already bought a product a better ad would be of similar products other people with said product.