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Yeah I get that it is unfortunate to say the least that people need/want these loans. However, what is the right thing to do about the loans? If they are predat
by ajmurmann 10y ago
Yeah I get that it is unfortunate to say the least that people need/want these loans. However, what is the right thing to do about the loans? If they are predatory, maybe they should be illegal. But who am I to tell people what they can and cannot do with their money? That would be rather patronizing. If we assume that people getting these loans are grown adults why shouldn't we allow people offering them to advertise to the people most interested in them? Is it ethically "better" if even wealthy women from the Marina see the ads despite everyone knowing they don't care about pay day loans for purposes other than discussing then on HN? I think it's honestly a really hard ethical question that I don't see a obvious answer to.
- pvg 10y agoIf you're an advertising platform, you can choose what sort of products are advertised on it. All of them do. You can, quite reasonably, decline to advertise things that are unethical. For instance, predatory loans. You are choosing not to profit off the misery of others. This is not nearly as complicated as you make it out to be.
- prostoalex 10y agoWill the target demographics universally and unequivocally benefit when online access to such loans is cut off? Other choices might include an even more predatory local check-cashing place and a guy named Vinnie who seems to own a lot of baseball bats for someone that never plays baseball.
- pvg 10y agoThis doesn't 'cut off access'. Last year Google stopped advertising predatory lenders entirely. Targeting ads for predatory lenders at potentially vulnerable people is even worse. Again, this is a pretty straightforward thing, not a complex logic puzzle that requires careful derivation from fundamental axioms.