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> There seems to be this idea that advertising is “shoved down our throats” For me it's not that ads are being "shoved down my throat". Even 'unobtrusive' ads

> There seems to be this idea that advertising is “shoved down our throats” For me it's not that ads are being "shoved down my throat". Even 'unobtrusive' ads are fucking annoying. They are a waste of space and bandwidth. I have never bought anything because of an advert. If I want something, I search for a variety of competing products, compare the prices and features etc. and then choose the one that best suites my needs. Showing me a product that exists, will never make me want to buy it. That information is completely useless to me. If I want something I will go look for it. It mustn't find me, and then assume I want it, because then I will hate it. Please know that the more advertising I see for a product, the less likely I am to ever do business with your company. If you want my business, just provide easily accessible and clear information about all your products/services on _your_ website.

saiya-jin 9y ago
Ah, this so much. I don't care about bandwidth unless on mobile (where all the advertisement makes usual browsing semi-unusable experience even with uBlock origin). But - when I look for something, I go for series of reviews in well-known webs, forums, then amazon reviews, then product tech specs pages from manufacturer till I +-understand the domain. Did you notice anything ad-supported in my list? No, it's not there. In fact, if I see a lot of adverts on the product in that category, it tells me company probably spends tons on marketing, which inevitably means product is subpar than similarly priced, less advertised products. And opinions of many users aggregated mean so much more to me than some more or less intrusive adverts. I went recently through experience of figuring out some used hi-fi components to have some cheapish hi-fi setup (never ever done it before). Luckily this is niche market, so no bad advertising experience (which is a rare experience). Proper companies like B&W or Marantz don't need any advertising, community knows who's who and how good the products are. But this ain't something advertising people want to hear, and maybe it doesn't represent general population's mindset and behavior.
ethbro 9y ago
I understand parent commenter (who I agree with) and I are outliers, but the utility of advertising to me boils down to one comparison. advantage of product discovery << lying and inappropriate product suggestion noise I appreciate the discovery aspect has some value (to customers), but I'd assert that it's always less than the latter two detractors
- clay_the_ripper 9y ago
  Purely anecdotal, but my experience with Instagram ads has actually been useful. I have run as blockers since i learned they existed and the only place I see ads now is Instagram (I don’t use Facebook proper). Adverisisers have figured out that I run a marketing agency, and I have found dozens of helpful and informative ads through Instagram that show me what others are doing in my business, offer free strategies, or provide software that can make my business run more efficiently and provide better results for my clients. Without these ads I never would have found out about these valuable services and products. Of course I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, it’s useful and ads value to my business. On the other hand, I agree that in the main ads are intrusive annoying and slow down pages, serve malware etc etc. Plus the privacy implications. But for Instagram specifically, I find many ads I see useful and they are never intrusive since they are native to the platform. Instagram is a product I enjoy using and it’s free. I don’t see why the company that runs it shouldn’t make money on the product, esp since the ads they serve are (sometimes) relevant and useful and reasonable in number. I will continue to run ad blockers on every other site though because I do not find this to be the case anywhere else besides Instagram.

saiya-jin 9y ago

Ah, this so much. I don't care about bandwidth unless on mobile (where all the advertisement makes usual browsing semi-unusable experience even with uBlock origin). But - when I look for something, I go for series of reviews in well-known webs, forums, then amazon reviews, then product tech specs pages from manufacturer till I +-understand the domain. Did you notice anything ad-supported in my list? No, it's not there. In fact, if I see a lot of adverts on the product in that category, it tells me company probably spends tons on marketing, which inevitably means product is subpar than similarly priced, less advertised products. And opinions of many users aggregated mean so much more to me than some more or less intrusive adverts. I went recently through experience of figuring out some used hi-fi components to have some cheapish hi-fi setup (never ever done it before). Luckily this is niche market, so no bad advertising experience (which is a rare experience). Proper companies like B&W or Marantz don't need any advertising, community knows who's who and how good the products are. But this ain't something advertising people want to hear, and maybe it doesn't represent general population's mindset and behavior.

ethbro 9y ago

I understand parent commenter (who I agree with) and I are outliers, but the utility of advertising to me boils down to one comparison. advantage of product discovery << lying and inappropriate product suggestion noise I appreciate the discovery aspect has some value (to customers), but I'd assert that it's always less than the latter two detractors

clay_the_ripper 9y ago
Purely anecdotal, but my experience with Instagram ads has actually been useful. I have run as blockers since i learned they existed and the only place I see ads now is Instagram (I don’t use Facebook proper). Adverisisers have figured out that I run a marketing agency, and I have found dozens of helpful and informative ads through Instagram that show me what others are doing in my business, offer free strategies, or provide software that can make my business run more efficiently and provide better results for my clients. Without these ads I never would have found out about these valuable services and products. Of course I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, it’s useful and ads value to my business. On the other hand, I agree that in the main ads are intrusive annoying and slow down pages, serve malware etc etc. Plus the privacy implications. But for Instagram specifically, I find many ads I see useful and they are never intrusive since they are native to the platform. Instagram is a product I enjoy using and it’s free. I don’t see why the company that runs it shouldn’t make money on the product, esp since the ads they serve are (sometimes) relevant and useful and reasonable in number. I will continue to run ad blockers on every other site though because I do not find this to be the case anywhere else besides Instagram.