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I am quite privacy conscious. I have deleted my FB account. On principle, I dislike targeted ads, user tracking, etc. BUT, I hate to admit this, the ads I get

I am quite privacy conscious. I have deleted my FB account. On principle, I dislike targeted ads, user tracking, etc. BUT, I hate to admit this, the ads I get in Instagram are the most relevant I have ever gotten. I actually look forward to them, to discover new products. They are perfectly tailored to me. Dammit.

flamtap 8y ago
I was targeted by an ad for those Gravity Blankets (as I'm sure many others were). I bought one as a gift for my SO. The whole time I was looking at the Gravity Blanket website, I was thinking to myself "dammit, they got me." What I was even more impressed by is that after I bought one, I never saw another Gravity Blanket ad again.
- pc86 8y ago
  I've never thought about that last bit until now. Do you think the ad targeting is being updated with actual purchasers on such a regular basis, or is that baked into whatever tracking cookie(s) were used, e.g. the FB pixel?
  - dillondoyle 8y ago
    Both. I would bet they are excluding conversions AND using conversion data to refine/lookalike new targets
  - mateo411 8y ago
    Yes, they measure the conversion rate of the ad campaign. If you bought the Gravity Blanket, then you were part of the cohort that converted.
- hawaiianbrah 8y ago
  How do you like it? I’m really curious about them!
  - flamtap 8y ago
    I don't use it, but I do think it's pretty cool. It's small, as a 6'1 male I would say it's just big enough. My girlfriend uses it when she's having troubles sleeping, she says that it really does put her to sleep quite well. However, she says that there is a bit of adjustment, when you wake in the night or in the morning, there is a slight moment of panic when you don't have your strength back and are in a sleepy haze, because you have a bit of trouble moving around. But you get used to that. When you receive it, you have to tie the weighted insert down with cloth ties inside the washable cover. I wish there were more of these on the inside though, the weighted part of the blanket can get too out-of place for my liking, and I also don't trust the ties to hold up for very long if you're not careful moving it. It definitely takes two hands and a good grip to get the blanket on top of you.
pc86 8y ago
You're going to get ads. To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad. Why would you not want them to be relevant to you? As a consumer, I would much prefer ads that are carefully tailed to my interests - software, fitness, general aviation - than see wildly different ads on the same platform, or the same 2-3 high paying ads for the latest garbage CBS sitcom. As a business owner, I would much rather pay $10-12 per click on one of my ads that is highly targeted to demographics, income, technology use, browsing history (of my sites, re-targeting etc) than pay $0.10 per click on a completely dumb ad with insight into who is actually clicking.
- ralston 8y ago
  > "You're going to get ads. To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad." This idea is complete bologna in my opinion. People aren't trying to fight the existence of ads (e.g., movie trailers, magazines, sports ads on ESPN, maybe even the off native ad) -- people are fighting the invasive, predatory, and downright deceitful nature of the current online advertising model. > "As a consumer, I would much prefer ads that are carefully tailed to my interests" Don't we all want this? But when getting ads tailored to my interest comes with the price tag of having these exchanges/platforms follow me around for the rest of my internet life (or until I delete their cookies) -- the cost doesn't seem to be worth the benefit (to many, but obviously not all) > "As a business owner, I would much rather pay $10-12 per click on one of my ads that is highly targeted to demographics, income," Of course. You've just exposed your vested interest in this topic. So it's not surprising that your personal opinion aligns with your business interests.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    > Don't we all want this? Not me. I’d rather no ads, but if I can’t block them I’d prefer irrelevant ads to targeted ads. They waste my attention equally, but one does not require the collection of my personal data.
- urda 8y ago
  > To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad. Yeah if this doesn't scream "astroturfing for an ad company" I don't know what is anymore. Sorry, I'd rather keep up the good fight of being the owners of my attention. Pushing back against ads isn't "sad" or "quixotic" at all, and in fact should be celebrated.
Findeton 8y ago
Maybe spammy but if you're privacy conscious I recommend you https://lyfepedia.com https://lyfepedia.com
zyxwvu 8y ago
You are now a consumer. Welcome to the machine. Your primary function to society is to consume. Congratulations.
- coldtea 8y ago
  As opposed to smoke a bong and explore the wild outdoors?
  - zyxwvu 8y ago
    Not everything has to be related to marijuana man. Your life also doesn't have to revolve around finding something new to buy/consume.
rsashwin 8y ago
I hate to admit as well, but yes I like ads that get shown in instagram too :(.
- xkjkls 8y ago
  I remember getting an advertisement for a pot shop three blocks away from me two hours before my Thanksgiving dinner. That one felt a little too real.
jmartrican 8y ago
I'll be honest, I like ads that are relevant to the things I am interested in. I am no FB fan boy, but their ads are pretty good... I actually click on them. What's wrong with that?
- quadrangle 8y ago
  You're feeding the adtech privacy-invading world which has tons of negatives for society. As an analogy: "I shop at Walmart and find products I actually appreciate. What's wrong with that?" The answer isn't simple, and shaming individual consumers isn't a solution anyway. Among the biggest problems with ads are that when they are the primary economic model for these services, they will tweak everything to favor paid ads as much as they can get away with. That means everything from conflicts-of-interest around serving the needs of the biggest advertisers to undermining organic (non-paid-ads) discovery of products and services…
  - soared 8y ago
    > tons of negatives for society Can you expand on this? I also can't really parse what your second paragraph is trying to say. How do businesses that rely on ads undermine organic product discovery, and what conflict of interests could they have?
    - DogOnTheWeb 8y ago
      In brief: 1. Products reliant on advertising for revenue are incentivized to increase the amount of ads shown (per user and in total). This leads to product strategy which prioritizes growth and engagement above all. The line between "highly engaging" and "addictive" products becomes very thin, arguably disappearing entirely. 2. In order to provide highly targeted ads, companies must necessarily collect, store and organize a tremendous amount of data on their users. We have seen over and over again that this data can then be requested, stolen or tapped by governments, hostile actors and other powerful organizations for nefarious purposes without the consent of the user.
      - 8y ago
cm2012 8y ago
It's because of the amazing data Facebook and Instagram have to create anonymous targeting audiences with. Source: I spend millions on FB and IG ads per month.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Is your product that bad that you have to spend millions on ads just to get people interested in it? If I had to pay millions to shove my product in people’a faces because that’s the only way to get them to use it, I would reconsider whether my product should even exist.
  - pentae 8y ago
    Nice ideology. I guess you'll need to stop using all your favourite products - wouldn't want to be a hypocrite, right?
  - cm2012 8y ago
    Very few companies can get away with not having paid advertising. Likely, some of your favorite tech (and non-tech) products do a lot of it.
  - xkjkls 8y ago
    Does Coca-Cola suck? They spend billions a year on advertising. Demand for different products is generated very differently depending on the product. Some things travel by word of mouth, some things don't.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      Billions a year is their entire advertising budget, and a lot of it is print & TV advertising which is orders of magnitude more expensive than web. Not saying I agree with that either (I wish all advertising would just die in a fire), but it’s not as bad as the above. The comment I was criticising claimed they were spending millions a month on FB & Insta only, which seems astronomical and raises some concerns about whether the product provides any value at all.
eric_h 8y ago
I've developed an unconscious habit of just scrolling faster past the ads. As my subconscious detects an add coming up next on the feed I just naturally twitch a little faster to skip past it. I never developed this intentionally, it just sort of developed. My point is, I suppose, that I've no idea how good the advertising is on my instagram account because I really don't see the ads.
criddell 8y ago
I haven't received any relevant ads yet but I have noticed that more and more ads are being shoved into my feed. It feels like there's an ad every 5 or 6 posts, it's a bit annoying, and I find myself checking into Instagram less often. I wish I could pay a fee to get rid of ads and get a reverse chronological feed.
- pc86 8y ago
  I do wish Twitter, FB, IG etc offered a no-ad subscription to users. Charge folks 3-4x the expected per-person revenue and it's a win-win, right? The only thing I can think of that would make them not do this is that maybe the folks most likely to pay $15/mo not to see advertisements are the same folks advertisers most want to get in front of. Expendable income and willing to pay money for convenience and personal taste.
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    Yeah your second paragraph is the problem. Though more importantly, most people who can pay won’t be paying $10-20 a month for a service that is otherwise free. And now the service has to provide this paid tier to a tiny portion of their user base.
humbleMouse 8y ago
Instagram listens to what you say around your phone to serve you ads. It's kind of fucked up. I would get rid of instagram on my phone if it wasn't for all the quality memes. To all the downvoters - are you saying instagram doesn't use your phone microphone to serve you ads? It definately does. It's happened to me countless times.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
prawn 8y ago
They've taken a long time to dial in for me. Initially, I received none, then ads that assumed I was female (I had my gender unset, but generally followed/liked fairly male things; yet received ads for menstruation underwear!), then ads that assumed I was Russian (I'm nowhere near Russia and can't speak/read any Russian; I follow one person who has a Russian background, but never interact with them). I've been on there for years and speak pretty openly about the things I like (travel, cooking, etc) - surprised it took so long to give me relevant ads!
tdj 8y ago
After interacting with a post about yachting, the ad engine behind Instagram suddenty thought I am a multi-millionaire and I got a ton of ads on fancy watches, McLarens, Bentleys, and of course boats. Felt good for a while.

flamtap 8y ago

I was targeted by an ad for those Gravity Blankets (as I'm sure many others were). I bought one as a gift for my SO. The whole time I was looking at the Gravity Blanket website, I was thinking to myself "dammit, they got me." What I was even more impressed by is that after I bought one, I never saw another Gravity Blanket ad again.

pc86 8y ago
I've never thought about that last bit until now. Do you think the ad targeting is being updated with actual purchasers on such a regular basis, or is that baked into whatever tracking cookie(s) were used, e.g. the FB pixel?
- dillondoyle 8y ago
  Both. I would bet they are excluding conversions AND using conversion data to refine/lookalike new targets
- mateo411 8y ago
  Yes, they measure the conversion rate of the ad campaign. If you bought the Gravity Blanket, then you were part of the cohort that converted.
hawaiianbrah 8y ago
How do you like it? I’m really curious about them!
- flamtap 8y ago
  I don't use it, but I do think it's pretty cool. It's small, as a 6'1 male I would say it's just big enough. My girlfriend uses it when she's having troubles sleeping, she says that it really does put her to sleep quite well. However, she says that there is a bit of adjustment, when you wake in the night or in the morning, there is a slight moment of panic when you don't have your strength back and are in a sleepy haze, because you have a bit of trouble moving around. But you get used to that. When you receive it, you have to tie the weighted insert down with cloth ties inside the washable cover. I wish there were more of these on the inside though, the weighted part of the blanket can get too out-of place for my liking, and I also don't trust the ties to hold up for very long if you're not careful moving it. It definitely takes two hands and a good grip to get the blanket on top of you.

pc86 8y ago

You're going to get ads. To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad. Why would you not want them to be relevant to you? As a consumer, I would much prefer ads that are carefully tailed to my interests - software, fitness, general aviation - than see wildly different ads on the same platform, or the same 2-3 high paying ads for the latest garbage CBS sitcom. As a business owner, I would much rather pay $10-12 per click on one of my ads that is highly targeted to demographics, income, technology use, browsing history (of my sites, re-targeting etc) than pay $0.10 per click on a completely dumb ad with insight into who is actually clicking.

ralston 8y ago
> "You're going to get ads. To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad." This idea is complete bologna in my opinion. People aren't trying to fight the existence of ads (e.g., movie trailers, magazines, sports ads on ESPN, maybe even the off native ad) -- people are fighting the invasive, predatory, and downright deceitful nature of the current online advertising model. > "As a consumer, I would much prefer ads that are carefully tailed to my interests" Don't we all want this? But when getting ads tailored to my interest comes with the price tag of having these exchanges/platforms follow me around for the rest of my internet life (or until I delete their cookies) -- the cost doesn't seem to be worth the benefit (to many, but obviously not all) > "As a business owner, I would much rather pay $10-12 per click on one of my ads that is highly targeted to demographics, income," Of course. You've just exposed your vested interest in this topic. So it's not surprising that your personal opinion aligns with your business interests.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  > Don't we all want this? Not me. I’d rather no ads, but if I can’t block them I’d prefer irrelevant ads to targeted ads. They waste my attention equally, but one does not require the collection of my personal data.
urda 8y ago
> To try to fight against the very existence of advertising is quixotic to the point of being sad. Yeah if this doesn't scream "astroturfing for an ad company" I don't know what is anymore. Sorry, I'd rather keep up the good fight of being the owners of my attention. Pushing back against ads isn't "sad" or "quixotic" at all, and in fact should be celebrated.

Findeton 8y ago

Maybe spammy but if you're privacy conscious I recommend you https://lyfepedia.com https://lyfepedia.com

zyxwvu 8y ago

You are now a consumer. Welcome to the machine. Your primary function to society is to consume. Congratulations.

coldtea 8y ago
As opposed to smoke a bong and explore the wild outdoors?
- zyxwvu 8y ago
  Not everything has to be related to marijuana man. Your life also doesn't have to revolve around finding something new to buy/consume.

rsashwin 8y ago

I hate to admit as well, but yes I like ads that get shown in instagram too :(.

xkjkls 8y ago
I remember getting an advertisement for a pot shop three blocks away from me two hours before my Thanksgiving dinner. That one felt a little too real.

jmartrican 8y ago

I'll be honest, I like ads that are relevant to the things I am interested in. I am no FB fan boy, but their ads are pretty good... I actually click on them. What's wrong with that?

quadrangle 8y ago
You're feeding the adtech privacy-invading world which has tons of negatives for society. As an analogy: "I shop at Walmart and find products I actually appreciate. What's wrong with that?" The answer isn't simple, and shaming individual consumers isn't a solution anyway. Among the biggest problems with ads are that when they are the primary economic model for these services, they will tweak everything to favor paid ads as much as they can get away with. That means everything from conflicts-of-interest around serving the needs of the biggest advertisers to undermining organic (non-paid-ads) discovery of products and services…
- soared 8y ago
  > tons of negatives for society Can you expand on this? I also can't really parse what your second paragraph is trying to say. How do businesses that rely on ads undermine organic product discovery, and what conflict of interests could they have?
  - DogOnTheWeb 8y ago
    In brief: 1. Products reliant on advertising for revenue are incentivized to increase the amount of ads shown (per user and in total). This leads to product strategy which prioritizes growth and engagement above all. The line between "highly engaging" and "addictive" products becomes very thin, arguably disappearing entirely. 2. In order to provide highly targeted ads, companies must necessarily collect, store and organize a tremendous amount of data on their users. We have seen over and over again that this data can then be requested, stolen or tapped by governments, hostile actors and other powerful organizations for nefarious purposes without the consent of the user.
    - 8y ago

cm2012 8y ago

It's because of the amazing data Facebook and Instagram have to create anonymous targeting audiences with. Source: I spend millions on FB and IG ads per month.

Rjevski 8y ago
Is your product that bad that you have to spend millions on ads just to get people interested in it? If I had to pay millions to shove my product in people’a faces because that’s the only way to get them to use it, I would reconsider whether my product should even exist.
- pentae 8y ago
  Nice ideology. I guess you'll need to stop using all your favourite products - wouldn't want to be a hypocrite, right?
- cm2012 8y ago
  Very few companies can get away with not having paid advertising. Likely, some of your favorite tech (and non-tech) products do a lot of it.
- xkjkls 8y ago
  Does Coca-Cola suck? They spend billions a year on advertising. Demand for different products is generated very differently depending on the product. Some things travel by word of mouth, some things don't.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Billions a year is their entire advertising budget, and a lot of it is print & TV advertising which is orders of magnitude more expensive than web. Not saying I agree with that either (I wish all advertising would just die in a fire), but it’s not as bad as the above. The comment I was criticising claimed they were spending millions a month on FB & Insta only, which seems astronomical and raises some concerns about whether the product provides any value at all.

eric_h 8y ago

I've developed an unconscious habit of just scrolling faster past the ads. As my subconscious detects an add coming up next on the feed I just naturally twitch a little faster to skip past it. I never developed this intentionally, it just sort of developed. My point is, I suppose, that I've no idea how good the advertising is on my instagram account because I really don't see the ads.

criddell 8y ago

I haven't received any relevant ads yet but I have noticed that more and more ads are being shoved into my feed. It feels like there's an ad every 5 or 6 posts, it's a bit annoying, and I find myself checking into Instagram less often. I wish I could pay a fee to get rid of ads and get a reverse chronological feed.

pc86 8y ago
I do wish Twitter, FB, IG etc offered a no-ad subscription to users. Charge folks 3-4x the expected per-person revenue and it's a win-win, right? The only thing I can think of that would make them not do this is that maybe the folks most likely to pay $15/mo not to see advertisements are the same folks advertisers most want to get in front of. Expendable income and willing to pay money for convenience and personal taste.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Yeah your second paragraph is the problem. Though more importantly, most people who can pay won’t be paying $10-20 a month for a service that is otherwise free. And now the service has to provide this paid tier to a tiny portion of their user base.

humbleMouse 8y ago

Instagram listens to what you say around your phone to serve you ads. It's kind of fucked up. I would get rid of instagram on my phone if it wasn't for all the quality memes. To all the downvoters - are you saying instagram doesn't use your phone microphone to serve you ads? It definately does. It's happened to me countless times.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

prawn 8y ago

They've taken a long time to dial in for me. Initially, I received none, then ads that assumed I was female (I had my gender unset, but generally followed/liked fairly male things; yet received ads for menstruation underwear!), then ads that assumed I was Russian (I'm nowhere near Russia and can't speak/read any Russian; I follow one person who has a Russian background, but never interact with them). I've been on there for years and speak pretty openly about the things I like (travel, cooking, etc) - surprised it took so long to give me relevant ads!

tdj 8y ago

After interacting with a post about yachting, the ad engine behind Instagram suddenty thought I am a multi-millionaire and I got a ton of ads on fancy watches, McLarens, Bentleys, and of course boats. Felt good for a while.