5 ms·

Wilson is solving the wrong problem. Incentives matter, and the underlying problem that gives us clickbait headlines (and fake news, and the rest of our curren

Wilson is solving the wrong problem. Incentives matter, and the underlying problem that gives us clickbait headlines (and fake news, and the rest of our current journalistic ills) is that sites are primarily incentivized to maximize the number of people who show up on the site (so that they load ads and/or can be surveilled) -- hence the chase for "clicks at any cost". There are two ways to fix this: 1. Somehow change adtech's incentives from "I get paid in proportion to how many clicks I get" to "I get paid in proportion to some other combination of metrics that's a better proxy for quality content (and quality engagement) than 'someone clicked on this and my ads loaded.'" 2. Break the link between advertising and some worthwhile subset of "content that we want to exist in the world" by coming up with a scheme to entice readers to fund the content directly. I think there's a whole universe of untried startup ideas in both areas. I've been noodling around with an idea for #2 as a side project, and maybe at some point this spring I'll attempt a "Show HN". Anyway, my ultimate point is that attacking this problem at the level of the content itself -- verifying headlines or rating the "fakeness" of news, etc. -- is the wrong approach, and I think most of the smart people who toss these ideas out know on some level that the proposed cure may end up being worse than the disease. The fundamental problem is the busted incentive structure. You have to find ways to incentivize the creation of quality content by either rethinking the relationship between advertising and users, or finding a way to get users to pay. There is no third option that's market-based and sustainable.

erickhill 10y ago
If I'm reading your number one correctly it sounds like a paradox. There has to be a measurement of traffic - that genie escaped the bottle over 20 years ago (unlike radio/TV). I don't think there's any going back.
- jonstokes 10y ago
  That's why I said "some combination of metrics" as an alternative to "clicks". In other words, yes, traffic will always matter, but there has to be better discrimination among kinds of traffic. Traffic that's worthless to advertisers -- i.e. I clicked to your page and bounced immediately without actually engaging or really "seeing" any of the ads that loaded -- should be priced at $0. Traffic that's worthwhile to advertisers -- i.e. I clicked to your page and stayed there for a bit, engrossed in the content and noticing the ads and getting a positive feeling from both -- should be priced somewhere north of $0. I've been in this business on the content and publishing side for almost 20 years now, and I've seen very many attempts to distinguish worthless traffic from worthwhile traffic. As with the fake news/headlines issue, the above problem persists and is not amenable to a quick technical fix because it's ultimately a problem of incentives: publishers and ad agencies are strongly incentivized to maximize the percentage of a publisher's traffic that (by hook or by crook) can be classified as worthwhile to the advertiser, whether it really is or not. Given that the ad agency supposedly represents the advertiser in the negotiation with the publisher over campaign pricing and value but is nonetheless incentivized to collude with the publisher because the agency gets paid based on the size of the ad spend, you can see how the advertiser is left with no one looking out for his/her interests and is at the mercy of an industry that pitches it "metric of the month" as a proxy for value. You can also see why performance advertising platforms that offer advertisers tons of real-world data and transparency, i.e. FB and Google, are eating up the entire ad industry. It's just a better deal for advertisers than the publisher + agency model. At least, we thought it was, but now that FB has admitted to "accidentally" screwing advertisers with bad metrics, who knows... Anyway, yeah, traffic will always matter. My only point is that in a world where revenue scales with any and all forms of traffic, no matter how worthless to the advertiser (and the user, in many cases), is a world where people will pursue traffic by any means. Edit: Ultimately, though, if you're optimizing for "user got some sort of potentially actionable informational value from this" instead of "user got momentary emotional charge (i.e. the classic 'surprise and delight') and the advertiser got positive/useful vibes in the process", the answer has always been user-funded content. This was true in the era of print/TV/radio, and it's true today. Every ad-supported model will always optimize for emotional manipulation over any other form of utility to the consumer. For some types of content (i.e. fiction and pure entertainment) this works out great, and for others (i.e. news, reviews, investigative reporting) it will always eventually lead to disaster.
secstate 10y ago
To point one, a former co-worker of mine cooked up a great algorithm that measured how much time a user spent on your site and how far down they scrolled and then presented that as aggregated data on the different levels of engagement users displayed. It was brilliant work, and exposed deep flaws in many customer's traffic data. But no one cared all that much and it became a buried tool in a much bigger startup idea.
- jonstokes 10y ago
  "[it] exposed deep flaws in many customer's traffic data" -- this probably is why nobody cared that much and it got buried. See my longish reply below. The incentives are such that only metrics that make traffic look more valuable are metrics that publishers and ad agencies have any love for. I'm sure a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- invented because it seems needed, and discarded because it actually worked and holy crap most traffic is garbage.
  - davemel37 10y ago
    >a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- Most advertisers do track and measure actual revenue to them. I think your mistake is assuming junk traffic and bounced eyeballs dont convert or contribute to sales...They do. If you have a decent product with decent margins, each sale can pay for thousands of useless eyeballs. If it didnt work, advertisers would stop.
stevesearer 10y ago
Several years ago I stopped using ad networks entirely and started selling and hosting my own ads. This decision has helped keep the ad quality high, keep more revenue in my pocket, and allows me to have a relationship with the advertiser that isn't solely based on clicks and data. Edit: And this is important because I can have a conversation with them to make sure the traffic they receive is the type of traffic they want and not just immediate bounces. Regarding headlines, my main content consists of office design image tours and my headlines are always basically "Company Name's Offices - Location'. I used to try and post catchy headlines, but after doing it for several years it lost its appeal and ultimately didn't match with the type of website I wanted to create.
roryisok 10y ago
The "how many clicks" metric is a white lie anyway. Just because someone clicks through to a page does not mean they read it. Ad impressions should really take into account how long a reader spends on a page. I would bet click bait has a far higher bounce rate than accurate headlines
- jonstokes 10y ago
  "I would bet click bait has a far higher bounce rate than accurate headlines" -- It does, but it can still be monetized with junk ads that do pay a tiny bit. So you go all-out for volume, and you end up with the situation we're in now.

erickhill 10y ago

If I'm reading your number one correctly it sounds like a paradox. There has to be a measurement of traffic - that genie escaped the bottle over 20 years ago (unlike radio/TV). I don't think there's any going back.

jonstokes 10y ago
That's why I said "some combination of metrics" as an alternative to "clicks". In other words, yes, traffic will always matter, but there has to be better discrimination among kinds of traffic. Traffic that's worthless to advertisers -- i.e. I clicked to your page and bounced immediately without actually engaging or really "seeing" any of the ads that loaded -- should be priced at $0. Traffic that's worthwhile to advertisers -- i.e. I clicked to your page and stayed there for a bit, engrossed in the content and noticing the ads and getting a positive feeling from both -- should be priced somewhere north of $0. I've been in this business on the content and publishing side for almost 20 years now, and I've seen very many attempts to distinguish worthless traffic from worthwhile traffic. As with the fake news/headlines issue, the above problem persists and is not amenable to a quick technical fix because it's ultimately a problem of incentives: publishers and ad agencies are strongly incentivized to maximize the percentage of a publisher's traffic that (by hook or by crook) can be classified as worthwhile to the advertiser, whether it really is or not. Given that the ad agency supposedly represents the advertiser in the negotiation with the publisher over campaign pricing and value but is nonetheless incentivized to collude with the publisher because the agency gets paid based on the size of the ad spend, you can see how the advertiser is left with no one looking out for his/her interests and is at the mercy of an industry that pitches it "metric of the month" as a proxy for value. You can also see why performance advertising platforms that offer advertisers tons of real-world data and transparency, i.e. FB and Google, are eating up the entire ad industry. It's just a better deal for advertisers than the publisher + agency model. At least, we thought it was, but now that FB has admitted to "accidentally" screwing advertisers with bad metrics, who knows... Anyway, yeah, traffic will always matter. My only point is that in a world where revenue scales with any and all forms of traffic, no matter how worthless to the advertiser (and the user, in many cases), is a world where people will pursue traffic by any means. Edit: Ultimately, though, if you're optimizing for "user got some sort of potentially actionable informational value from this" instead of "user got momentary emotional charge (i.e. the classic 'surprise and delight') and the advertiser got positive/useful vibes in the process", the answer has always been user-funded content. This was true in the era of print/TV/radio, and it's true today. Every ad-supported model will always optimize for emotional manipulation over any other form of utility to the consumer. For some types of content (i.e. fiction and pure entertainment) this works out great, and for others (i.e. news, reviews, investigative reporting) it will always eventually lead to disaster.

secstate 10y ago

To point one, a former co-worker of mine cooked up a great algorithm that measured how much time a user spent on your site and how far down they scrolled and then presented that as aggregated data on the different levels of engagement users displayed. It was brilliant work, and exposed deep flaws in many customer's traffic data. But no one cared all that much and it became a buried tool in a much bigger startup idea.

jonstokes 10y ago
"[it] exposed deep flaws in many customer's traffic data" -- this probably is why nobody cared that much and it got buried. See my longish reply below. The incentives are such that only metrics that make traffic look more valuable are metrics that publishers and ad agencies have any love for. I'm sure a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- invented because it seems needed, and discarded because it actually worked and holy crap most traffic is garbage.
- davemel37 10y ago
  >a truly great way of measuring a user session's real value to the advertiser has been invented and discarded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades -- Most advertisers do track and measure actual revenue to them. I think your mistake is assuming junk traffic and bounced eyeballs dont convert or contribute to sales...They do. If you have a decent product with decent margins, each sale can pay for thousands of useless eyeballs. If it didnt work, advertisers would stop.

stevesearer 10y ago

Several years ago I stopped using ad networks entirely and started selling and hosting my own ads. This decision has helped keep the ad quality high, keep more revenue in my pocket, and allows me to have a relationship with the advertiser that isn't solely based on clicks and data. Edit: And this is important because I can have a conversation with them to make sure the traffic they receive is the type of traffic they want and not just immediate bounces. Regarding headlines, my main content consists of office design image tours and my headlines are always basically "Company Name's Offices - Location'. I used to try and post catchy headlines, but after doing it for several years it lost its appeal and ultimately didn't match with the type of website I wanted to create.

roryisok 10y ago

The "how many clicks" metric is a white lie anyway. Just because someone clicks through to a page does not mean they read it. Ad impressions should really take into account how long a reader spends on a page. I would bet click bait has a far higher bounce rate than accurate headlines

jonstokes 10y ago
"I would bet click bait has a far higher bounce rate than accurate headlines" -- It does, but it can still be monetized with junk ads that do pay a tiny bit. So you go all-out for volume, and you end up with the situation we're in now.