4 ms·

advertising would just shift to product placement in the news you get and affiliate links everywhere. not better. people tend to forget that advertising covers

advertising would just shift to product placement in the news you get and affiliate links everywhere. not better. people tend to forget that advertising covers a real need.

dbasedweeb 8y ago
People have shown an impressive ability to figure that kind of advertising out. A lot of native advertising on sites like Reddit is outed almost immediately, and then the discussion turns on the advertiser. We could also add protections as they are in the UK requiring “sponsored content” to display clearly that it’s an advertisement. In short, there’s nothing inevitable about advertising models as they exist today, and people who try to convince of you that they are inevitable are peobsbly trying to sow apathy.
- pixl97 8y ago
  >People have shown an impressive ability to figure that kind of advertising out This is of course selection buas.
voodootrucker 8y ago
I'll take the other side of that argument. Search engines should put the most relevant products at the top of the page because they are the best fit, not because someone paid for them to be there. If all advertising disappeared tomorrow, the world would function better. Consumers would not have advertisers trying to manipulate them, and they would more rationally allocate their resources. Advertising is a tax placed on people who have already bought a product, which made it more expensive, to manipulate other people into also buying that same product. Without it, good products would succeed on merit / independent reviews / word of mouth. * The one exception I can think of is possibly during the scale period of startups, helping them scale faster (artificially) than if they just followed the "be the best and it will catch on" approach.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Companies are already starting to game "independent reviews" through incentivized reviews or downright fake reviews, and word of mouth has been gamed with referral programs. Fact is, when there's money on the line, it's gonna get dirty, PPC and banner ads just happen to be the cheapest option. I'd love to not play the advertising game, but marketing seems to be one of the most important parts of running a business, if not the most important part, and it'll get its grimy hands on anything to acquire users. I'd prefer to avoid the world where they pay people to post rave reviews in HN comments to hype products.
- thomyorkie 8y ago
  Advertising doesn't necessarily make a product more expensive except where something like cost plus pricing is used.
dylan-m 8y ago
On the bright side, I think product placement manipulates people in less problematic ways than companies like Cambridge Analytica have been able to do with precision-targeted advertisements. At least product placement needs to involve actual products, and if you try to go beyond that it'll be pretty obvious. Although I guess there's a cross-section here: one of the really sinister details of Facebook's advertising is it gets presented in the same context as pictures of your friend's puppy, so our filters don't engage like they would looking at something that resembles an ad container.
- TACIXAT 8y ago
  I strongly disagree that Cambridge Analytica has done more damage than advertising. The leading causes of death in the US are preventable. Companies are pumping out disinformation to get people to consume things that are killing them, as well, to spend money on non essential items they can't afford.
megaman22 8y ago
I really don't have any objection to affiliate links. If you're talking about something and link to it on Amazon with your affiliate link, rather than a bare link, what difference does that make to me, as the user? You get paid a smidgeon, on something that I would have either bought or not bought anyway, for the same price to me either way.
- chillacy 8y ago
  I think general affiliate links are pretty safe, maybe they might incentivize content creators to hype up products that are more expensive (so they get a bigger cut) though.
  - bittercynic 8y ago
    Unless handled very carefully, using affiliate links damages my perception of the writer's integrity. When money's on the line, maybe their motivation for writing wasn't to share their experience of finding the best product for the lowest price. In rare cases, like the AppliedScience youtube channel, the quality of content is so high that the affiliate links in descriptions don't tarnish my esteem for the guy.
athenot 8y ago
> people tend to forget that advertising covers a real need I don't buy it. Advertising is not going to provide me with the service that is the most suited to my need, or with the best value. In fact, quite the opposite: the advertisement that's the most likely to reach me comes from the company with the largest budget for advertisement. That budget eats into either the profit of the company or into the quality of service delivered.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Advertising covers a real need for businesses, (you and I aren't the customer, we are the product). The math works out pretty simply: what is the total profit with 0 advertising vs the total profit with advertising? If you had a magical machine where you could insert a dollar and get $1.05 out, you should be putting your money in there as fast as possible.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- thomyorkie 8y ago
  It is short-sited to say advertising eats into the profit of the company. When done successfully, it allows for more goods to be sold which increases profits and in turn allows for more research and development and thus better products.

advertising would just shift to product placement in the news you get and affiliate links everywhere. not better. people tend to forget that advertising covers a real need.

dbasedweeb 8y ago

People have shown an impressive ability to figure that kind of advertising out. A lot of native advertising on sites like Reddit is outed almost immediately, and then the discussion turns on the advertiser. We could also add protections as they are in the UK requiring “sponsored content” to display clearly that it’s an advertisement. In short, there’s nothing inevitable about advertising models as they exist today, and people who try to convince of you that they are inevitable are peobsbly trying to sow apathy.

pixl97 8y ago
>People have shown an impressive ability to figure that kind of advertising out This is of course selection buas.

voodootrucker 8y ago

I'll take the other side of that argument. Search engines should put the most relevant products at the top of the page because they are the best fit, not because someone paid for them to be there. If all advertising disappeared tomorrow, the world would function better. Consumers would not have advertisers trying to manipulate them, and they would more rationally allocate their resources. Advertising is a tax placed on people who have already bought a product, which made it more expensive, to manipulate other people into also buying that same product. Without it, good products would succeed on merit / independent reviews / word of mouth. * The one exception I can think of is possibly during the scale period of startups, helping them scale faster (artificially) than if they just followed the "be the best and it will catch on" approach.

chillacy 8y ago
Companies are already starting to game "independent reviews" through incentivized reviews or downright fake reviews, and word of mouth has been gamed with referral programs. Fact is, when there's money on the line, it's gonna get dirty, PPC and banner ads just happen to be the cheapest option. I'd love to not play the advertising game, but marketing seems to be one of the most important parts of running a business, if not the most important part, and it'll get its grimy hands on anything to acquire users. I'd prefer to avoid the world where they pay people to post rave reviews in HN comments to hype products.
thomyorkie 8y ago
Advertising doesn't necessarily make a product more expensive except where something like cost plus pricing is used.

dylan-m 8y ago

On the bright side, I think product placement manipulates people in less problematic ways than companies like Cambridge Analytica have been able to do with precision-targeted advertisements. At least product placement needs to involve actual products, and if you try to go beyond that it'll be pretty obvious. Although I guess there's a cross-section here: one of the really sinister details of Facebook's advertising is it gets presented in the same context as pictures of your friend's puppy, so our filters don't engage like they would looking at something that resembles an ad container.

TACIXAT 8y ago
I strongly disagree that Cambridge Analytica has done more damage than advertising. The leading causes of death in the US are preventable. Companies are pumping out disinformation to get people to consume things that are killing them, as well, to spend money on non essential items they can't afford.

megaman22 8y ago

I really don't have any objection to affiliate links. If you're talking about something and link to it on Amazon with your affiliate link, rather than a bare link, what difference does that make to me, as the user? You get paid a smidgeon, on something that I would have either bought or not bought anyway, for the same price to me either way.

chillacy 8y ago
I think general affiliate links are pretty safe, maybe they might incentivize content creators to hype up products that are more expensive (so they get a bigger cut) though.
- bittercynic 8y ago
  Unless handled very carefully, using affiliate links damages my perception of the writer's integrity. When money's on the line, maybe their motivation for writing wasn't to share their experience of finding the best product for the lowest price. In rare cases, like the AppliedScience youtube channel, the quality of content is so high that the affiliate links in descriptions don't tarnish my esteem for the guy.

athenot 8y ago

> people tend to forget that advertising covers a real need I don't buy it. Advertising is not going to provide me with the service that is the most suited to my need, or with the best value. In fact, quite the opposite: the advertisement that's the most likely to reach me comes from the company with the largest budget for advertisement. That budget eats into either the profit of the company or into the quality of service delivered.

chillacy 8y ago
Advertising covers a real need for businesses, (you and I aren't the customer, we are the product). The math works out pretty simply: what is the total profit with 0 advertising vs the total profit with advertising? If you had a magical machine where you could insert a dollar and get $1.05 out, you should be putting your money in there as fast as possible.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
thomyorkie 8y ago
It is short-sited to say advertising eats into the profit of the company. When done successfully, it allows for more goods to be sold which increases profits and in turn allows for more research and development and thus better products.