6 ms·

> In the current situation, it seems that at the very least we are going to see an increased use of ad blockers, resulting in further damage to internet adverti

> In the current situation, it seems that at the very least we are going to see an increased use of ad blockers, resulting in further damage to internet advertising and national economies This is absurd. Destroying my focus so you can sell your product does not "damage the national economy".

roymurdock 11y ago
In a weird, perverse way, blocking ads really does damage the economy. Think about what subsidized newspapers, televisions, what drives google, facebook, and youtube - what galvanizes consumption, the great engine of any economy. While ads are annoying, intrusive, and even dangerous at this point, they play a huge role in "subsidizing" important goods and getting people off their couches and into stores, increasing the velocity of money and putting cash back into corporations where it can be pooled and turned into new products.
- Trombone12 11y ago
  How does internet ads subsidise goods? They can subsidise internet connected services (by serving ads to the users), but physical goods? Do you mean like facebook getting cheaper servers by serving some ads for intel? I have a hard time seeing any reason for the ads on twitch for a free app to subsidize my next graphics card though. There is also the fact that most consumption is driven by individual need, and ads only serve to steer the person towards one or another or another provider leaving the total economy largely the same.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Advertising is a form of persuasion, which - if you think about it - is a form of behaviour modification. The traditional ad industry has understood how to modify behaviour since before the days of Bernays. So have politicians, lawyers, religious leaders, and demagogues. Online ads are probably the least effective of the behaviour mod techniques, because they mostly just annoy people. The online ad industry has always been less interested in a measurable ROI - i.e. increased product spend - than the trad ad industry. It preys on ad buyers almost as much as it preys on ad viewers, and I'm not convinced that it isn't a net loss for them. Even so, let's not forget that ultimately the business is all about conditioning people to take action they wouldn't otherwise do so they can "be monetised." I wonder if it's possible to have a win-win online ad industry that treats customers as adult equals instead of prey by giving them something back in return for their attention. The ads on specialist blogs, which are usually sold direct, tend to be far more interesting and clickable than generic banners because they're closer to the ideal trade-off of something-for-something. Most ads just want something-for-nothing, which isn't a great basis for a customer relationship.
    - Retra 11y ago
      Advertising isn't supposed to be a form of behavior modification. It's supposed to be a means of informing consumers so that they can make good purchasing decisions which will drive a free market in such a way that the _objectively_best_ products get the biggest reward. Any form of manipulation or dishonesty in ads contradicts this, and help undermine the idea that good decisions will be made in a free market. I think many advertisers have gotten too comfortable under the belief that what they do is legal -- because it need not be. The ability to serve ads is a privilege that society gives companies in exchange for the promise of valuable information, competition, and innovation.
      - Intermernet 11y ago
        > Advertising isn't supposed to be a form of behavior modification. It's supposed to be a means of informing consumers so that they can make good purchasing decisions which will drive a free market in such a way that the _objectively_best_ products get the biggest reward. That's very idealistic, and not very realistic. That role is filled by genuinely unbiased product reviews and recommendations from trusted friends and families. Lots of companies who know they don't make the "objectively best products" still try to manipulate people into purchasing their products. Advertisers very rarely provide value to consumers as they are designed to favor, and generate profit for the seller.
        Retra 11y ago
        >That role is filled by genuinely unbiased product reviews and recommendations from trusted friends and families. This is exactly what you would be left with if advertising weren't legal. And in fact, the only good justification for allowing it to be legal is this idealistic view. But yes, I know what the status quo currently is. I'm saying that it is on shaky moral footing. That it ought not be this way, because it offers no justifiable benefit to society for it to remain as such.
        aninhumer 11y ago
        >And in fact, the only good justification for allowing it to be legal is this idealistic view. Well that, and the first amendment. I tend to agree that advertising is a bad value proposition, for both producers and consumers, but I'm not sure how much the government can do about it without restricting speech. I can however imagine a cultural shift, such that the majority of people so actively avoid advertising, that the market for it is vastly reduced.
- Terr_ 11y ago
  >In a weird, perverse way, blocking ads really does damage the economy. Sort of like how healthier individuals "damage the economy" by consuming fewer treatments and pills.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Also known as the broken window fallacy.
    - edanm 11y ago
      I don't think that's an example of the "broken window fallacy", actually. It is generally true that people who consume less, are putting less money into the economy, making aggregate demand lower, making the economy overall smaller. This might not necessarily be bad, but it's not the same line of thinking as saying that e.g. "breaking a window" will cause economic improvement.
      - cronjobber 11y ago
        The analogy is accurate. Breaking windows creates artificial demand, just like advertising. Advertising wants to break your contentment with the status quo, to make you "realize" that you need product X before you can be fully happy again.
        XorNot 11y ago
        This is one-sided. A lot of modern consumer advertising and especially web advertising works this way, but there is also the goal of simply letting someone know a service or product exists (and might fill a need they presently have). The problem is this is a lot like search on the internet - if Google were "perfect", advertising wouldn't work, because it would always find exactly what you were looking for exactly when you needed it.
        sirclueless 11y ago
        > ... if Google were "perfect", advertising wouldn't work, because it would always find exactly what you were looking for exactly when you needed it. Advertising will always work so long as there is producer surplus[1] in the economy. If firm A and firm B both earn $10 of economic surplus on the purchase of some product, then either supplier will be willing to spend up to $10 to convince a customer to switch from their competitor to their product. If a customer considers the two firms' products to be substitute goods[2], then both products may be "perfect" search results, because the customer doesn't have a preference between them and considers them both to be equivalently useful, which is why Google can extract money from advertisers to show their product first without significantly harming their user experience. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good
- beedogs 11y ago
  I want no part of this Faustian bargain. As far as I'm concerned, if content providers and media outlets can't find a way of raising revenue that doesn't involve scraping as much personal information as they can from me, as well as possibly infecting my devices with malware, then they can simply cease to exist.
- ISL 11y ago
  That's why I fund Google Contributor. It's not perfect, but I'm ultimately giving money to the people who create content I like and helping to outbid the lowest-cost ad networks.
- dbpokorny 11y ago
  I can see why you think that, but I think you're wrong. Blocking ads just means that advertisers will have to get better at providing their audience with quality content. It's the invisible hand of the free market at work. I'm not going to block content I want to consume! Just make content I want to consume.
mikkokotila 11y ago
yes, the society we have at the moment is absurd to say the least. Because roughly 2/3 of all economic activity is consumer spending, and advertising is in some categories the single biggest driver for that spending, advertising effectiveness is intimately connected with national economy. For example, if country A has significantly higher return on advertisement investment than country B, country A will have an advantage when the economies of those two countries are compared. I don't see anything good in the fact that it is so, but that's where we are now. I don't spend much myself, and I'm not advocate for more spending. But the commentary is about ad blocking, and it would be foolish to discuss it without discussing the aspect of economic impact. My hope is that such commentaries stimulate the advertising industry to re-think advertising to the extent that it makes (much) more sense than it does currently.

roymurdock 11y ago

In a weird, perverse way, blocking ads really does damage the economy. Think about what subsidized newspapers, televisions, what drives google, facebook, and youtube - what galvanizes consumption, the great engine of any economy. While ads are annoying, intrusive, and even dangerous at this point, they play a huge role in "subsidizing" important goods and getting people off their couches and into stores, increasing the velocity of money and putting cash back into corporations where it can be pooled and turned into new products.

Trombone12 11y ago
How does internet ads subsidise goods? They can subsidise internet connected services (by serving ads to the users), but physical goods? Do you mean like facebook getting cheaper servers by serving some ads for intel? I have a hard time seeing any reason for the ads on twitch for a free app to subsidize my next graphics card though. There is also the fact that most consumption is driven by individual need, and ads only serve to steer the person towards one or another or another provider leaving the total economy largely the same.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Advertising is a form of persuasion, which - if you think about it - is a form of behaviour modification. The traditional ad industry has understood how to modify behaviour since before the days of Bernays. So have politicians, lawyers, religious leaders, and demagogues. Online ads are probably the least effective of the behaviour mod techniques, because they mostly just annoy people. The online ad industry has always been less interested in a measurable ROI - i.e. increased product spend - than the trad ad industry. It preys on ad buyers almost as much as it preys on ad viewers, and I'm not convinced that it isn't a net loss for them. Even so, let's not forget that ultimately the business is all about conditioning people to take action they wouldn't otherwise do so they can "be monetised." I wonder if it's possible to have a win-win online ad industry that treats customers as adult equals instead of prey by giving them something back in return for their attention. The ads on specialist blogs, which are usually sold direct, tend to be far more interesting and clickable than generic banners because they're closer to the ideal trade-off of something-for-something. Most ads just want something-for-nothing, which isn't a great basis for a customer relationship.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Advertising isn't supposed to be a form of behavior modification. It's supposed to be a means of informing consumers so that they can make good purchasing decisions which will drive a free market in such a way that the _objectively_best_ products get the biggest reward. Any form of manipulation or dishonesty in ads contradicts this, and help undermine the idea that good decisions will be made in a free market. I think many advertisers have gotten too comfortable under the belief that what they do is legal -- because it need not be. The ability to serve ads is a privilege that society gives companies in exchange for the promise of valuable information, competition, and innovation.
    - Intermernet 11y ago
      > Advertising isn't supposed to be a form of behavior modification. It's supposed to be a means of informing consumers so that they can make good purchasing decisions which will drive a free market in such a way that the _objectively_best_ products get the biggest reward. That's very idealistic, and not very realistic. That role is filled by genuinely unbiased product reviews and recommendations from trusted friends and families. Lots of companies who know they don't make the "objectively best products" still try to manipulate people into purchasing their products. Advertisers very rarely provide value to consumers as they are designed to favor, and generate profit for the seller.
      - Retra 11y ago
        >That role is filled by genuinely unbiased product reviews and recommendations from trusted friends and families. This is exactly what you would be left with if advertising weren't legal. And in fact, the only good justification for allowing it to be legal is this idealistic view. But yes, I know what the status quo currently is. I'm saying that it is on shaky moral footing. That it ought not be this way, because it offers no justifiable benefit to society for it to remain as such.
        aninhumer 11y ago
        >And in fact, the only good justification for allowing it to be legal is this idealistic view. Well that, and the first amendment. I tend to agree that advertising is a bad value proposition, for both producers and consumers, but I'm not sure how much the government can do about it without restricting speech. I can however imagine a cultural shift, such that the majority of people so actively avoid advertising, that the market for it is vastly reduced.
Terr_ 11y ago
>In a weird, perverse way, blocking ads really does damage the economy. Sort of like how healthier individuals "damage the economy" by consuming fewer treatments and pills.
- Retra 11y ago
  Also known as the broken window fallacy.
  - edanm 11y ago
    I don't think that's an example of the "broken window fallacy", actually. It is generally true that people who consume less, are putting less money into the economy, making aggregate demand lower, making the economy overall smaller. This might not necessarily be bad, but it's not the same line of thinking as saying that e.g. "breaking a window" will cause economic improvement.
    - cronjobber 11y ago
      The analogy is accurate. Breaking windows creates artificial demand, just like advertising. Advertising wants to break your contentment with the status quo, to make you "realize" that you need product X before you can be fully happy again.
      - XorNot 11y ago
        This is one-sided. A lot of modern consumer advertising and especially web advertising works this way, but there is also the goal of simply letting someone know a service or product exists (and might fill a need they presently have). The problem is this is a lot like search on the internet - if Google were "perfect", advertising wouldn't work, because it would always find exactly what you were looking for exactly when you needed it.
        sirclueless 11y ago
        > ... if Google were "perfect", advertising wouldn't work, because it would always find exactly what you were looking for exactly when you needed it. Advertising will always work so long as there is producer surplus[1] in the economy. If firm A and firm B both earn $10 of economic surplus on the purchase of some product, then either supplier will be willing to spend up to $10 to convince a customer to switch from their competitor to their product. If a customer considers the two firms' products to be substitute goods[2], then both products may be "perfect" search results, because the customer doesn't have a preference between them and considers them both to be equivalently useful, which is why Google can extract money from advertisers to show their product first without significantly harming their user experience. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good
beedogs 11y ago
I want no part of this Faustian bargain. As far as I'm concerned, if content providers and media outlets can't find a way of raising revenue that doesn't involve scraping as much personal information as they can from me, as well as possibly infecting my devices with malware, then they can simply cease to exist.
ISL 11y ago
That's why I fund Google Contributor. It's not perfect, but I'm ultimately giving money to the people who create content I like and helping to outbid the lowest-cost ad networks.
dbpokorny 11y ago
I can see why you think that, but I think you're wrong. Blocking ads just means that advertisers will have to get better at providing their audience with quality content. It's the invisible hand of the free market at work. I'm not going to block content I want to consume! Just make content I want to consume.

mikkokotila 11y ago

yes, the society we have at the moment is absurd to say the least. Because roughly 2/3 of all economic activity is consumer spending, and advertising is in some categories the single biggest driver for that spending, advertising effectiveness is intimately connected with national economy. For example, if country A has significantly higher return on advertisement investment than country B, country A will have an advantage when the economies of those two countries are compared. I don't see anything good in the fact that it is so, but that's where we are now. I don't spend much myself, and I'm not advocate for more spending. But the commentary is about ad blocking, and it would be foolish to discuss it without discussing the aspect of economic impact. My hope is that such commentaries stimulate the advertising industry to re-think advertising to the extent that it makes (much) more sense than it does currently.