8 ms·

"That means we could still get relevant ads" Ugh, if you're an advocate for privacy, please don't perpetuate the delusion that users actually want "relevant" a

• dbbk 8y ago
  Are you suggesting people would prefer ads that are completely irrelevant to them?
  • kgwxd 8y ago
    I'm suggesting everyone on the planet automatically tunes out ads, what is shown is irrelevant no matter how relevant it is. There is no ad industry on the internet, there is only a tracking industry, the ads are just an excuse. There's no good reason Apple should even provide the id.
    • sanedigital 8y ago
      This is unequivocally false. Ad spend is so high specifically because advertisements work. Advertisers especially love digital because its so easy to attribute revenue back to their ad spend. Google didn't take in $118B for showing ads because "everyone on the planet automatically tunes [them] out."
      • abacadaba 8y ago
        "advertisements work" Everyone always wants to believe they're above this. You're not, ads work.
        • jddj 8y ago
          I held this mindset ("I never click ads, and hide them whenever I see them. The whole industry is a giant bubble") for a long time. Then instagram started showing me ads for small live music events featuring artists I regularly listen to. I thought I was somehow above it all, but they just hadn't targeted me well enough yet.
        • saiya-jin 8y ago
          Not if you do some mental gymnastics and actively ignore the content. I've gone completely ad-free (sounds like some sugar-free diet, only for the mind), and its a luxury and quality of e-life that is very easy to get used to. And then you by accident open web in browser without necessary ad-blockers and want to run away from the horrible pathetic mess a lot of internet became. Its easy - have you ever bought anything via ad? If yes, you support this industry and current state of affairs.
          • manigandham 8y ago
            Ads aren’t only online and you buying directly from a single ad impression is not the only form of conversion. You are definitely influenced by ads.
        • deleted 8y ago
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      • deleted 8y ago
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      • threatofrain 8y ago
        Ads work for whom? This is unequivocal false for whom? I mean we're talking about consumers, right? Do you really have the intuition that the population of ad-block users are generally worse off for it, as ill-performing shoppers? Because if you're not getting an edge on your shopping performance, then who are the ads working for? Coca-Cola? Is it that ads are working -- against you?
    • jjeaff 8y ago
      That's ridiculous. If everyone tuned them out, it wouldn't be a multi billion dollar industry. People pay attention to ads, and they click ads and companies get very rich pushing their products through ads. What exactly do you think all these companies want with all this tracking data if not to sell you products with ads?
      • vmateixeira 8y ago
        People pay attention to ads precisely because they constantly steal your attention.
    • pcr0 8y ago
      Rational companies wouldn't be paying for ads and minting multi-billionaires in the process if the results did not surpass the costs. The dominance of online advertising over print/television/physical is largely due to metrics and ROI visibility provided by tracking.
      • AlexandrB 8y ago
        Companies, like people, aren’t rational.
        • manigandham 8y ago
          And yet companies grow and profit from advertising and it's the default method of monetization on the internet. Sayings it's not rational is not an argument against whether it works.
      • kgwxd 8y ago
        They aren't paying for ads, they're paying for access to the tracking data. There's like 20 primary companies that show up in "targeted" ads, that's not by mistake. They're hip to the what the system actually provides (tracking) and are all in.
    • dwighttk 8y ago
      This is clearly not true. Advertisers are not pouring cash into big piles and setting those piles on fire. If everyone on the planet tuned out ads and what is shown was irrelevant no matter how relevant it is then they would stop advertising in that way. edit: should have just read a few of the replies
      • kgwxd 8y ago
        They're paying for tracking data, advertising is just a bonus.
    • navigatesol 8y ago
      >I'm suggesting everyone on the planet automatically tunes out ads, what is shown is irrelevant no matter how relevant it is Makes you wonder what all the people around here who dreamed of and/or do work for Google/Facebook are doing with their lives. Saving the world, I guess.
  • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    I do, irrelevant ads aren't going to alter my behaviour, relevant ads might well do so.
  • threatofrain 8y ago
    I use ad blockers for anyone I setup a computer for. Are we all becoming less performant shoppers for it? When one views ads, I ask if you're really getting an information edge.
• wodenokoto 8y ago
  People literally pay money to see relevant ads. Fashion magazines are basically vehicles for ads. Even if you exclude sponsored content, a major draw of such magazines are the full page ads. Secondly, Mozilla are not blind to the idea that tracking won't go away completely.
  • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    People buy magazines for the content, the ads are an unfortunate side effect of the low cost.
    • 52-6F-62 8y ago
      Not entirely. A lot of lifestyle magazine articles are essentially targeted ads for vetted products (see wedding or parenting magazines)—something that’s understood on both sides of the communication. It lends to serve the purpose of saving time for the reader in finding what they’re looking for to serve a specific need. The unwanted side effect of that is probably the little greedy voice inside people that causes them to buy even more things they don’t need because all of the dressing up made it sound appealing.
    • dwighttk 8y ago
      Kinda depends on the magazine. Fashion mags it’s hard for me to even tell which is which.
    • cocochanel 8y ago
      The content is essentially an ad.
      • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
        True, and I suspect if most of the consumers understood this they wouldn't pay anything for it.
        • Spivak 8y ago
• vasco 8y ago
  I like relevant ads, click them, and usually get really happy when I find cool stuff with them. I've bought at least a handful of things off of instagram ads that were relevant to my interests. I also discovered a dog carrier backpack I now use to cycle with my dog to the beach every weekend from a Facebook ad that I got while browsing a dog owner Facebook group. I'm just leaving enough data to support my assertion because I'm tired of this meme that "nobody looks at ads" or "all ads are bad". I also deliberately do not use any ad blocking even though I know they exist and would save me bandwidth because I do get value from personalized ads.
  • nothrabannosir 8y ago
    Fair point, although: > a dog carrier backpack ... from a Facebook ad that I got while browsing a dog owner Facebook group That’s not a personalised ad. That’s just an ad. (I.e. it doesn’t need tracking) But the rest of your (masochistic ;P ) point stands.
  • saiya-jin 8y ago
    You are an exception to the rule, if you are actually honest here (and I have some doubts). Nobody I know, IT or not, likes ads anywhere - TV, radio, side road, internet, whatever. They actively decrease the experience of everything one does (block the view around the road, forces loud delays into movies, takes space and are absolute nuisance almost anywhere on the web). I don't hate them, just actively ignore them even if there would be a genuine new porsche being offered for $1. If you want to reach me anyhow, ads are the worst possible way. And I am not alone.
    • cocochanel 8y ago
      Well, Google's balance sheet tells me otherwise.
      • mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        How so? The willingness to pay for digital ads actually has nothing to do with whether ads are effective (the statistical problem of attribution). For example, this was a pretty damning research paper on the topic, - https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=018087083066114098080080104114097102052027021001058001027075086064094094086122078077099118053037011111023120101067023076079110122027038089015091126120124006029096006049011063124020084000126076075000101097007096097114092123019097028095103066019095003078&EXT=pdf https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=0180870830661140...
• contravariant 8y ago
  Well I would actually prefer if ads were relevant. Relevant to whatever it is they're next to though, not necessarily relevant to me (because frankly that's no-ones business). Same with youtube's recommendations. At this point over half the recommendations are almost entirely irrelevant to what I'm watching, and usually only have a vague connection to something I once watched, except for the ones I'd actually already watched.
  • bkor 8y ago
    I don't want do be influenced by advertisements and as such I opt out of any tracking ("relevant ads"). I do want relevant videos. The two are totally separate topics.
    • lohszvu 8y ago
      Turn off your video history.
  • cocochanel 8y ago
    This is an interesting idea. Does anyone know if it has already been A/B tested and shown to generate less profit than say building a recommendation profile for the user? I suspect that in the long term, optimizing ads for user profile would be more profitable, considering that the marketing cycle usually takes time from the initial consideration up to the conversion.
    • snazz 8y ago
      This is what DuckDuckGo does as I understand it. If you have ads enabled they only have to do with the content of the search results.
      • cocochanel 8y ago
        Isn't that what Google Adsense used to do back in the day, i.e. show games in gaming sites for example?
    • 8y ago
• vmateixeira 8y ago
  I agree, I think people should start thinking more often what garbage would they not have bought if they hadn't seen that ad. "Do I really need that dog backpack? How many times will I ever use it? Would I actually have needed it if I didn't know it existed in first place?"
• myko 8y ago
  > please don't perpetuate the delusion that users actually want "relevant" ads This seems really short sighted. Why wouldn't folks prefer relevant ads? I certainly do.
• jpeg_hero 8y ago
  you pay nothing for the vast majority of your web resources you use every day. More relevant ads = more money = better free services for you. Would you rather you be forced to watch C.O.P.D medication pre roll ads and ads for meselthelioma ?
  • max76 8y ago
    I'd rather pay a few dollars a month for the services I need than be targeted by ads that manipulate my emotions to purchase expensive things I don't want. I'm really happy the market has options for people like me.
• manigandham 8y ago
  Personalization of everything (ads, products, content of any kind) is at an all time high and driven completely by demand. Relevance is the most requested feature by every user and the #2 complaint about ads. There is no gain or advantage in irrelevance.
  • cotelletta 8y ago
    Whose demand... advertisers or consumers? I imagine the #1 complaint about ads is the fact that they are there. All ads are irrelevant. If they weren't, they would be part of the content itself. Or the entire content is an ad, and it can be ignored.
    • manigandham 8y ago
      The number 1 complaint is that there are too many ads, a complex combination of lack of other payment models, tragedy of the commons in adtech, and, in a small part, irrelevant targeting. >> All ads are irrelevant. If they weren't, they would be part of the content itself. Relevancy has multiple factors, including contextually relevant to the content you are viewing.