4 ms·

> Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate

> Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that for it to make any sense outside of a high school economics class. Regarding number 1: like what? I’ve never met anyone who looked really happy about seeing an ad for hot singles in their area, that they should feel insecure about how they look in lingerie, that they should go gamble.. would more than 1% of advertising be good? If an extremely large proportion of a thing is bad, then I can agree with someone calling it a scourge. Regarding number 2: okay

roenxi 8y ago
> What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. > Regarding number 1: like what? Literally everything? You've identified 3 product categories for products that border on scams, but literally _every_ product category advertises. I just flicked through my open tabs, and the first ad I see is for forex (www.icmarkets.com). There is no way I'd ever have heard of them without that ad; in fact thanks to this HN thread I know know how easy it is for me to get involved in forex trading :P. The 2nd is for a retail energy supplier offering me new deals. Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. I'd love if you could expand how this applies to advertising. Voters are critical to democracy. Advertising isn't critical to society, it's mostly a way for a lot of people to waste a lot of time, man-hours and natural resources on zero-sum game, while polluting the physical and mental space around us. If it were to suddenly disappear (a wide ban, perhaps), it wouldn't make much difference to anyone except people working in ad/adtech space. Sure, the Internet would get leaner, but I strongly believe that what would disappear is mostly just garbage that's just contributing to information noise. I go further than the OP: to me, advertising is - quite literally - a cancer on society.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > Voters are critical to democracy. Advertising isn't critical to society Advertising is absolutely critical to society. Without advertising we can't figure out what companies are selling, because they can't tell us. That puts a real crimp of having a functioning economy. I don't have statistics handy, but I assure you that if advertising were generally banned there would be a lot less, say, smartphone owners. If you think the average person is capable of figuring out what is available from word of mouth you are grossly overestimating what a normal person is capable of. > Advertising isn't critical to society, it's mostly a way for a lot of people to waste a lot of time, man-hours and natural resources on zero-sum game It isn't a zero sum game. It is value add. People can't exchange money for goods and services they want if they can't find a vendor selling said goods and services.
    - dkersten 8y ago
      > if you weren't allowed to advertise, say, smartphones there would be a lot less smartphone owners. That would certainly be a net benefit to societies mental health.
      - simonh 8y ago
        Not necessarily. Mobile phones are hugely important economic enablers and poverty is bad for every kind of health, not just mental.
        dkersten 8y ago
        Mobile phones, sure. Smartphones? That's a bit more debatable. At the very least, a cheap smartphone is probably fine for most "economic" needs. What we need less of is idle high-noise-low-quality content consumption, which is also the thing that's most supported by advertisement.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Smartphones, cheap or not, are not a problem. The core benefits they bring to poor people are mobile data connection, web browser, phone connection and IMs bundled in a single device. None of that is "supported by ads". The problems of smartphones (that are beyond mobile phones) start with the application ecosystem, completely disfigured by the cancer of advertising.
- dkersten 8y ago
  Oh, ok, so it’s his/her fault for seeing the “wrong” ads? Gotcha.
- chronogram 8y ago
  > Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy. Those are the kinds of things I see mentioned on Twitter. I use iPhone, so I don't see why I would see internet ads myself. Obviously as I am someone who doesn't like ads, I'm one to block them. There's adblocking in mobile Safari since 2015? So there's very few ads that I see since then (the digital ads in the last month I've come across: "powered by x", "powered by y", and "you can subscribe to z at url" - I'm happy with those). Comparing life before mobile adblocking and after, I don't see that since then I've missed out on anything. People, without an interest in the success of ads, who come across an ad on their devices seem to find it irritating; haven't found anyone who didn't seem happy and kept using uBlock after showing how. > The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. Eh.. am I living in some kind of singular utopia then?
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy. This is not true and I'm gonna provide some evidence: I am a conservative christian[0]. I get those ads as well. My browsing habits: - stuff linked from hn - local news - one mainstream newspaper - fringe political papers from the left and right (mostly don't agree with any of them but it makes for interesting reading, a better understanding of why people are mad etc) - christian podcast - technical stuff (both related to work and to my technical hobbies) - repair videos, childrens videos (when they get to borrow one of my devices) And still I get ads for singles in my area. Extremely stupid ads. E.g.: - when I'm at work in the middle of nowhere and I get ads with a picture of someone who is supposedly desperately looking for someone like me, supposedly living in the valley next to nowhere where there are nobody except old farmers. That kind of stupid. For a while I tried to hit that micro x in the corner of those ads and mark them as irrelevant. Only got equally stupid ads for other equally irrelevant sites. I don't want to remove ad income for honest writers but I've given up now and I'm ad blocking like many others here. I've also come to the conclusion that tracking doesn't work, it is just a thing they do to scam marketers. And I've concluded that if I were to place ads for a product I would place them based on the content of the website, -like Google used to do. If anyone wants a proven business opportunity here it is :-] [0]: No, not embarrased by it, but I do not want to discuss that here, this is a technical forum. Just pointing out I don't visit what I consider sketchy web sites at all.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > I get those ads as well. Yeah, everyone does. Are you suggesting you see almost literally 100 such ads for every ad advertising something legit? Because for me they are the 20% dross for 80% potentially useful ads I see. Honestly, the businesses in your region of the woods are truly woeful at advertising, and should probably spend more money on it. Realistically, if what you suggest is true, something has probably gone wrong and your demographic has been caught in a bubble where no-one serious is advertising to you. Because those ads should be in the minority.
    - reitanqild 8y ago

roenxi 8y ago

> What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. > Regarding number 1: like what? Literally everything? You've identified 3 product categories for products that border on scams, but literally _every_ product category advertises. I just flicked through my open tabs, and the first ad I see is for forex (www.icmarkets.com). There is no way I'd ever have heard of them without that ad; in fact thanks to this HN thread I know know how easy it is for me to get involved in forex trading :P. The 2nd is for a retail energy supplier offering me new deals. Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. I'd love if you could expand how this applies to advertising. Voters are critical to democracy. Advertising isn't critical to society, it's mostly a way for a lot of people to waste a lot of time, man-hours and natural resources on zero-sum game, while polluting the physical and mental space around us. If it were to suddenly disappear (a wide ban, perhaps), it wouldn't make much difference to anyone except people working in ad/adtech space. Sure, the Internet would get leaner, but I strongly believe that what would disappear is mostly just garbage that's just contributing to information noise. I go further than the OP: to me, advertising is - quite literally - a cancer on society.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > Voters are critical to democracy. Advertising isn't critical to society Advertising is absolutely critical to society. Without advertising we can't figure out what companies are selling, because they can't tell us. That puts a real crimp of having a functioning economy. I don't have statistics handy, but I assure you that if advertising were generally banned there would be a lot less, say, smartphone owners. If you think the average person is capable of figuring out what is available from word of mouth you are grossly overestimating what a normal person is capable of. > Advertising isn't critical to society, it's mostly a way for a lot of people to waste a lot of time, man-hours and natural resources on zero-sum game It isn't a zero sum game. It is value add. People can't exchange money for goods and services they want if they can't find a vendor selling said goods and services.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    > if you weren't allowed to advertise, say, smartphones there would be a lot less smartphone owners. That would certainly be a net benefit to societies mental health.
    - simonh 8y ago
      Not necessarily. Mobile phones are hugely important economic enablers and poverty is bad for every kind of health, not just mental.
      - dkersten 8y ago
        Mobile phones, sure. Smartphones? That's a bit more debatable. At the very least, a cheap smartphone is probably fine for most "economic" needs. What we need less of is idle high-noise-low-quality content consumption, which is also the thing that's most supported by advertisement.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Smartphones, cheap or not, are not a problem. The core benefits they bring to poor people are mobile data connection, web browser, phone connection and IMs bundled in a single device. None of that is "supported by ads". The problems of smartphones (that are beyond mobile phones) start with the application ecosystem, completely disfigured by the cancer of advertising.
dkersten 8y ago
Oh, ok, so it’s his/her fault for seeing the “wrong” ads? Gotcha.
chronogram 8y ago
> Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy. Those are the kinds of things I see mentioned on Twitter. I use iPhone, so I don't see why I would see internet ads myself. Obviously as I am someone who doesn't like ads, I'm one to block them. There's adblocking in mobile Safari since 2015? So there's very few ads that I see since then (the digital ads in the last month I've come across: "powered by x", "powered by y", and "you can subscribe to z at url" - I'm happy with those). Comparing life before mobile adblocking and after, I don't see that since then I've missed out on anything. People, without an interest in the success of ads, who come across an ad on their devices seem to find it irritating; haven't found anyone who didn't seem happy and kept using uBlock after showing how. > The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them. Eh.. am I living in some kind of singular utopia then?
reitanqild 8y ago
> Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy. This is not true and I'm gonna provide some evidence: I am a conservative christian[0]. I get those ads as well. My browsing habits: - stuff linked from hn - local news - one mainstream newspaper - fringe political papers from the left and right (mostly don't agree with any of them but it makes for interesting reading, a better understanding of why people are mad etc) - christian podcast - technical stuff (both related to work and to my technical hobbies) - repair videos, childrens videos (when they get to borrow one of my devices) And still I get ads for singles in my area. Extremely stupid ads. E.g.: - when I'm at work in the middle of nowhere and I get ads with a picture of someone who is supposedly desperately looking for someone like me, supposedly living in the valley next to nowhere where there are nobody except old farmers. That kind of stupid. For a while I tried to hit that micro x in the corner of those ads and mark them as irrelevant. Only got equally stupid ads for other equally irrelevant sites. I don't want to remove ad income for honest writers but I've given up now and I'm ad blocking like many others here. I've also come to the conclusion that tracking doesn't work, it is just a thing they do to scam marketers. And I've concluded that if I were to place ads for a product I would place them based on the content of the website, -like Google used to do. If anyone wants a proven business opportunity here it is :-] [0]: No, not embarrased by it, but I do not want to discuss that here, this is a technical forum. Just pointing out I don't visit what I consider sketchy web sites at all.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > I get those ads as well. Yeah, everyone does. Are you suggesting you see almost literally 100 such ads for every ad advertising something legit? Because for me they are the 20% dross for 80% potentially useful ads I see. Honestly, the businesses in your region of the woods are truly woeful at advertising, and should probably spend more money on it. Realistically, if what you suggest is true, something has probably gone wrong and your demographic has been caught in a bubble where no-one serious is advertising to you. Because those ads should be in the minority.
  - reitanqild 8y ago