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Couldn't have happened to a nicer industry. :) Just imagine for a second the total human time lost due to ads and all the productivity that could've been done

Couldn't have happened to a nicer industry. :) Just imagine for a second the total human time lost due to ads and all the productivity that could've been done in that time.

feelin_googley 9y ago
"Just imagine for a second the total time lost due to..." Did this many times over the years with respect to time lost as result of being forced to use a substandard operating system. Because it came preinstalled on PCs like the ones in used offices and there was no 386BSD yet. The www did not come "preinstalled" with ads. But some companies want it to seem that way. False claim: "If no ads, then no www."
bittermang 9y ago
I was some of the human time and productivity lost due to ads. Getting them to admit any wrong, from a technical issue, to anything, is like pulling teeth from a live dinosaur. Good. Hopefully they take their refund and invest it in something useful. But knowing the industry, the refund was in the form of an account credit, and that money is already lost to the system regardless.
- vosper 9y ago
  The account credit probably goes to the agency, and the actual customer is none the wiser. Or it gets credited to some kind of covering-our-asses fund that can be used by the agency to make the click-through cost look a little less bad at the end of the next quarter.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    The former would be theft, and the later would be fraud. So, let's hope not...
    - drewmol 9y ago
      Although I'm not in the industry, I assume that depends on verbose and difficult to understand contact terms...
      - bittermang 9y ago
        Ha ha ha, Which account registered the "fraudulent * " clicks? That account receives $X per click, which we've determined, and no you can't see our math. Proprietary information, don't'cha'kno. *Advertising host admits no wrong-doing, has investigated itself, and found itself not at fault. Offer subject to limitations. See Attorney General for details.
qq66 9y ago
For a different perspective, I had a business software product for a particular targeted use case that could ONLY find customers through targeted ads, particularly on Google. The company could have not existed without Google ads and the customers would have not solved their problem without Google ads.
- nindalf 9y ago
  Nike, P&G and Apple will get by if they can no longer advertise because they're firmly entrenched in people's minds. But if you're starting a competitor, or any new business really, I don't know how you'd find customers without ads. If someone's saying "just use product hunt" or some other website dedicated to new products, they should remember that the vast majority of new businesses are small, local ones - barbershops, florists, massage parlours etc, not tech startups that will eat the world. It doesn't necessarily need to be targeted web ads, I suppose you could use newspaper ads, or TV or physical letters, or spam email. Any of these work, but I think a new business would probably get the most bang for buck by targeting.
  - cobookman 9y ago
    Well that and product Hunt is basically a listing of ads
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Buge 9y ago
But also think of the human benefit gained from ads. Free search, free email, free news articles, free videos. Also consider how Hacker News survives. As soon as you start charging a fee, you eliminate huge swaths of the world population. Ads are an equalizing force.
- drewmol 9y ago
  I agree advertising certainly has a place and tradeoffs. It's seems more like a cost shifting, less direct, obfuscated payment terms model than 'free'. Certainly people being advertised to are paying for it because the ads are successful, just not a direct exchange of money for content/service but instead a payment of time/attention for psychological manipulation/impression which will result in a direct payment sometime in the future(if the advertising party is successful)
  - Buge 9y ago
    Is the economy a zero-sum game? Just because some people are making money doesn't necessarily mean others are losing money. And even if it is a zero-sum game, it would be a form of wealth redistribution from rich consumers to poor consumers. No one wants to advertise to poor people, they only want to advertise to rich people. But making a product ad-supported makes it free for everyone. Rich people's eyeballs are used to subsidize poor people's content.
- bittermang 9y ago
  Human benefit? The trash bags full of money being thrown around the room, while we fight over the scraps? Or we can talk about the purposeful obfuscation of the industry. How you have no way of verifying clicks, or views, or anything. How Cost Per Click is just an arbitrary number you and unknown others compete against, all for the pursuit of fake traffic and the hope of winning the advertising lottery. It is more worth your time to play Three Card Monty on the street corner, because at least all parties agree that game is fixed. When the online advertising bubble pops, it's going to go off like a fucking bomb, and we'll all be lucky to survive it.
  - 9y ago

Couldn't have happened to a nicer industry. :) Just imagine for a second the total human time lost due to ads and all the productivity that could've been done in that time.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Just imagine for a second the total time lost due to..." Did this many times over the years with respect to time lost as result of being forced to use a substandard operating system. Because it came preinstalled on PCs like the ones in used offices and there was no 386BSD yet. The www did not come "preinstalled" with ads. But some companies want it to seem that way. False claim: "If no ads, then no www."

bittermang 9y ago

I was some of the human time and productivity lost due to ads. Getting them to admit any wrong, from a technical issue, to anything, is like pulling teeth from a live dinosaur. Good. Hopefully they take their refund and invest it in something useful. But knowing the industry, the refund was in the form of an account credit, and that money is already lost to the system regardless.

vosper 9y ago
The account credit probably goes to the agency, and the actual customer is none the wiser. Or it gets credited to some kind of covering-our-asses fund that can be used by the agency to make the click-through cost look a little less bad at the end of the next quarter.
- zaroth 9y ago
  The former would be theft, and the later would be fraud. So, let's hope not...
  - drewmol 9y ago
    Although I'm not in the industry, I assume that depends on verbose and difficult to understand contact terms...
    - bittermang 9y ago
      Ha ha ha, Which account registered the "fraudulent * " clicks? That account receives $X per click, which we've determined, and no you can't see our math. Proprietary information, don't'cha'kno. *Advertising host admits no wrong-doing, has investigated itself, and found itself not at fault. Offer subject to limitations. See Attorney General for details.

qq66 9y ago

For a different perspective, I had a business software product for a particular targeted use case that could ONLY find customers through targeted ads, particularly on Google. The company could have not existed without Google ads and the customers would have not solved their problem without Google ads.

nindalf 9y ago
Nike, P&G and Apple will get by if they can no longer advertise because they're firmly entrenched in people's minds. But if you're starting a competitor, or any new business really, I don't know how you'd find customers without ads. If someone's saying "just use product hunt" or some other website dedicated to new products, they should remember that the vast majority of new businesses are small, local ones - barbershops, florists, massage parlours etc, not tech startups that will eat the world. It doesn't necessarily need to be targeted web ads, I suppose you could use newspaper ads, or TV or physical letters, or spam email. Any of these work, but I think a new business would probably get the most bang for buck by targeting.
- cobookman 9y ago
  Well that and product Hunt is basically a listing of ads
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Buge 9y ago

But also think of the human benefit gained from ads. Free search, free email, free news articles, free videos. Also consider how Hacker News survives. As soon as you start charging a fee, you eliminate huge swaths of the world population. Ads are an equalizing force.

drewmol 9y ago
I agree advertising certainly has a place and tradeoffs. It's seems more like a cost shifting, less direct, obfuscated payment terms model than 'free'. Certainly people being advertised to are paying for it because the ads are successful, just not a direct exchange of money for content/service but instead a payment of time/attention for psychological manipulation/impression which will result in a direct payment sometime in the future(if the advertising party is successful)
- Buge 9y ago
  Is the economy a zero-sum game? Just because some people are making money doesn't necessarily mean others are losing money. And even if it is a zero-sum game, it would be a form of wealth redistribution from rich consumers to poor consumers. No one wants to advertise to poor people, they only want to advertise to rich people. But making a product ad-supported makes it free for everyone. Rich people's eyeballs are used to subsidize poor people's content.
bittermang 9y ago
Human benefit? The trash bags full of money being thrown around the room, while we fight over the scraps? Or we can talk about the purposeful obfuscation of the industry. How you have no way of verifying clicks, or views, or anything. How Cost Per Click is just an arbitrary number you and unknown others compete against, all for the pursuit of fake traffic and the hope of winning the advertising lottery. It is more worth your time to play Three Card Monty on the street corner, because at least all parties agree that game is fixed. When the online advertising bubble pops, it's going to go off like a fucking bomb, and we'll all be lucky to survive it.
- 9y ago